Letter to Friedrich Engels, November 27, 1867

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 27 November 1867


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 27 November 1867

Dear Engels,

With regard to my private business (I intended writing to you on Saturday[1] but was prevented on that and on the following days by people consulting me from every side about the FENIAN AFFAIRS,[2] etc., in short, they were confiscating my time), Mr Borkheim— despite the best of intentions, I am sure—has throughout this month kept me suspended between frying pan and fire. You will see from his latest letter, of yesterday, that we are again faced with a new, indefinite delay. The worst part of it all is that he had positively promised me he would pay out the whole sum on the[3] 10th of this month (at the latest), and I had made my dispositions with the creditors accordingly. The amount he has actually paid since he returned is £5. So, you will realise what TROUBLE I find myself in. The state of my health has greatly worsened, and there has been virtually no question of working. I am furthermore expecting summonses any day, and we no longer know which way to turn from one day to the next.

With regard to Meissner, my view is that we should let him have a free hand with his notice, as everything else would mean further delay. Thimm told Borkheim that Meissner had requested all the booksellers to send any still unsold copies[4] back to him (or to his agent in Leipzig). I have also heard from York, the Workers' Society[5] bookseller, that it is at the moment very difficult to obtain copies from Meissner. To me this indicates no more than 1. that the STOCK in Meissner's hands is very small, 2. that he wants to know how much of the STOCK not in his hands is really sold, 3. he wants to force his business 'friends' to hold as much as possible at their own expense. I shall write to Meissner that should he need notices or reviews for certain newspapers or journals (and he must tell me which), he can obtain them from friends such as yourself, etc. Must keep me informed.

Dr Contzen, private lecturer in political economy at Leipzig, PARTISAN and pupil of Roscher and friend of Liebknecht, has asked me through the latter for a copy with the promise of a detailed review. You will see that this has already been attended to through Meissner. Contzen is a good opening.

Liebknecht has sent me 50 of his PAMPHLETS[6] (of which I am sending you one today) for sale here, 3d. each. Lessner is seeing what can be done in the Workers' Society.

The extract from Liebknecht's SPEECH at the Berlin Workers' Society on the deferment of the 'social question' which he has published as an appendix admittedly gives some grounds for Kugelmann's censure.[7] As Liebknecht is asking you, among other things, to contribute to the little paper he is planning,[8] you can give him a few hints privatim about how to combine political opposition with social agitation.

Letters from Liebknecht and Kugelmann enclosed.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

What is the position regarding Mr Schorlemmer's Chemistry which I was to receive?

  1. ↑ 25 November
  2. ↑ On 18 September 1867 in Manchester there was an armed assault on a police van in order to free Thomas Kelly and Michael Deasy, two Fenian leaders (see Note 257) who had been arrested after the suppression of the armed uprising of February and March 1867 organised by Fenians. Kelly and Deasy managed to escape but during a clash a police officer was killed and mass arrests followed. From 1 to 23 November a trial of the arrested Fenians was held in Manchester in the course of which false evidence and other disgraceful methods were used by the prosecution. In spite of all the efforts by the counsels for the defence, primarily by Ernest Jones, five Fenians were sentenced to death. One of them (Thomas Maguire) was subsequently pardoned; the death sentence of another (Condon), an American citizen, was commuted to life imprisonment; the other three (Michael Larkin, William Allen and Michael O'Brien) were hanged on 23 November.
    During the investigation of the case and the trial, the General Council of the International organised, on Marx's initiative, a broad campaign of the English workers in support of the Irish national liberation movement (see this volume, pp. 460, 464).
  3. ↑ See this volume, p. 474.
  4. ↑ of the first volume of Capital
  5. ↑ German Workers' Educational Society in London
  6. ↑ W. Liebknecht, Was ich im Berliner Reichstag sagte.
  7. ↑ Appended to the pamphlet containing Wilhelm Liebknecht's speech in the North German Reichstag on 30 September 1867 (see Note 486) was a report of his speeches before workers in Berlin on 14 and 15 October which had been published in Die Zukunft, No. 242 (Supplement) of 16 October 1867. In these speeches Liebknecht said that to put forward the social question in the given situation was inexpedient because premature attempts to solve it could, in his opinion, only serve to strengthen the absolute monarchy and delay the victory of socialist principles.
    In his letter to Marx of 23 November 1867, Ludwig Kugelmann criticised Liebknecht's point of view, emphasising that in practice this would give such people as the Lassallean Schweitzer and the conservative Wagener complete control over the social issue and the possibility of using it for demagogical aims.
  8. ↑ A reference to the German workers' newspaper Demokratisches Wochenblatt which appeared in Leipzig from January 1868 and was edited by Liebknecht. Initially the newspaper was to some extent influenced by the petty-bourgeois People's Party; however, thanks to the assistance given it by Marx and Engels it soon came to play an active part in the development of the proletarian movement in Germany, spreading the ideas of the International and promoting the preparations for forming the Social-Democratic Workers' Party.