Letter to Karl Marx, November 10, 1867

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 10 November 1867


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels and K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1930
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 10 November 1867

Dear Moor,

What touching gaucheness in dear old Kugelmann's letter! And what discernment of character in respect of that Warnebold! The fellow extracts all his secrets from him, and all the while he is a Prussian spy! You must tell Kugelmann the truth about that cur—at least sufficiently to stop the Prussians learning every detail of our activities.[1] The cur is abusing your confidences, which absolves you from any obligation toward him.

I saw Siebel yesterday in Liverpool. I fear the poor devil's days are numbered. Since I last saw him, his desease has advanced considerably, his health broke down in Barmen, he has had 3 successive attacks of pleurisy and is coughing very violently (he calls them coughing-spasms, and they recur periodically), however he has lately regained some of his health and strength at Honnef on the Rhine. Unfortunately, I could only speak to him alone for a short while, there were always several relatives there apart from his wife. Despite that, we settled the most important things.

D'abord[2] : Siebel has up to the present moment neither received a copy[3] nor even seen one, although he wrote to Meissner asking to be sent one by post immediately on publication. Mr Rittershaus, however, who has not lifted a finger, has received one, and Siebel thought you had not sent him one at all, but had done so to Rittershaus, which may have piqued him. I naturally explained the true position to him, but a few lines from you to him, which you can enclose in a letter to me, really are called for. But you must now take Meissner to task forthwith for this negligence. This affair has cost us 20 short notices which Siebel would immediately have had in all the papers, but could not because he did not have the book. Furthermore, I must have a copy here by 22 November at the latest to send to Siebel in Madeira, where he will make up for lost time as far as he can. But really what can one say to such a slapdash approach? And these are the Germans who are demanding self-government and CANNOT LOOK AFTER THEIR OWN BUSINESS!

Of the 3 articles I took with me, we sent off 2 to the Frankfurter Börsenzeitung[4] and to the Düsseldorfer Zeitung[5] forthwith—the latter will do Mr Heinrich Bürgers good, with his circumspect scruples: my article[6] —a very simple report, which makes no judgments and was composed for a national-liberal newspaper—is too dubious for that brute![7] Siebel took the 3rd with him, it will probably go to the Barmer Zeitung.[8] Notices will also appear in all kinds of illustrated and other papers, as soon as Siebel himself has the book. Furthermore, the Weser-Zeitung will receive an article a tempo[9] from him for its literary section, and one on the book, and will be faced only with the choice of taking both or neither. (Siebel is using the literary section articles as a bait for editors, they are desperate for them, and he often lets them pocket the fee themselves.) Other ideas will occur to him as soon as he has the book.

Ad vocem[10] Freiligrath: that worthy's debts amounted to approx. £6,000, £4,000 with the Swiss Bank advanced for shares in the Mansfield Co. which are now worthless, and the rest debts of honour. The Comité[11] has settled these debts at 5% dividend, a few of them at 10%. Freiligrath has thus gone bankrupt in optima forma.[12] The collection will amount to approx. 30,000 talers.

Freiligrath is said to have lied to the Comité through and through, concealed his debts and pretended his wife knew nothing of it and must not be allowed to know anything of it either, so that eventually they were very rude to him; even on the day when he knew that a letter was to arrive from London to say that the debts of honour totalled £2,000, he was still saying they were only £1,500, etc. In short, his conduct has been disgraceful and cowardly. I said I was quite convinced that dear old Ida[13] knew all about it, to which he replied: how was it then possible for her to give fêtes[14] last summer in Barmen? Just imagine, Ida goes a-begging and at the same time holds fêtes for the people she is begging from with the money that has not yet been given!

I am surprised Tussy[15] has not yet sent me a receipt for my contribution to the Freiligrath funeral-fund. THAT IS NOT BUSINESSLIKE.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ In looking for ways to publish reviews of Volume One of Marx's Capital, Ludwig Kugelmann applied for help to the lawyer Ernst Warnebold who, as it turned out later, was one of Bismarck's informers, and the National-Liberal Johannes Miquel; both of them were prejudiced against proletarian revolutionaries.
  2. ↑ Firstly
  3. ↑ of the first volume of Capital
  4. ↑ Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt
  5. ↑ Engels' review of Volume One of Capital which was written for the Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt has not been found. The review for the Düsseldorfer Zeitung, was published unsigned, with Carl Siebel's assistance, in No. 316 of 16 November 1867 (see present edition, Vol. 20).
  6. ↑ F. Engels, 'Review of Volume One of Capital for the Rheinische Zeitung'.
  7. ↑ It is obvious from Kugelmann's correspondence as well as from Engels' letters TO MARX of 10 November and 12 December (see this volume, pp. 470, 498) that Kugelmann sent this second review of Volume One of Capital to Heinrich Bürgers, a former member of the Communist League and an editor of the Rheinische Zeitung. Bürgers refused to publish it saying in his reply to Kugelmann of 4 November 1867 that, in his opinion, this work was purely academic and unfit for practical purposes of agitation. Bürgers believed that the level of the workers' consciousness was quite low and that therefore they were unable to understand Capital; he also disputed the idea expressed in the review by Engels that Capital would become the 'theoretical Bible' of the Social-Democratic Party.
  8. ↑ A reference to the sections of the first German edition of Volume One of Capital. They are given as chapters VIII, XI, XII, XIII and XXIV in the second and subsequent German editions of this volume, and as chapters X, XIII, XIV, XV and XXVI in the English edition of 1887 (see present edition, Vol. 35).
  9. ↑ in time
  10. ↑ Regarding
  11. ↑ A reference to the subscription for Ferdinand Freiligrath that was started in the spring of 1867. The poet's admirers wanted to present him with a 'people's donation' since he had lost his post of manager in the English branch of the Bank of Switzerland after the latter's bankruptcy. With this aim in view, committees were organised in Britain, Germany and the United States through which funds were gathered. Reports about the subscription were regularly published in the London newspaper Hermann.
  12. ↑ in the best of form
  13. ↑ Ida Freiligrath
  14. ↑ parties
  15. ↑ Eleanor Marx