Letter to Karl Marx, November 28, 1867

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 28 November 1867


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


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 28 November 1867

Dear Moor,

Enclosed for your immediate relief £30 in 3 notes à 10, O/U 56068 to 70, Manchester, 9 January 1867. The letter from Borkheim was not enclosed. I have also received a letter from Kugelmann[1] which I enclose and wish to have returned, I have to answer him.

Liebknecht would have done better to leave his pamphlet unprinted.[2] His speeches appear better in the Kölnische Zeitung than in this form, and the stuff at the end indeed shows just how pig-headedly he is stuck in his errors.[3] It is true I have already told him a thing or two by letter, but now that he is starting up another little paper, he must be told some more home truths[4] ;

[5]

we could do Bismarck no greater favour than to let ourselves be lumped together with the Austrians and South German Federal- ists, Ultramontanes and dispossessed princes. I am awaiting a letter from him daily and will then write to him about that, too. How goes it with your health?

Your

F. E.

More tomorrow. The Englishman in Kugelmann's letter is Moore, who has greatly improved his German and is now sweating away assiduous- ly at Capital. Schorlemmer's book[6] is still not out yet!!

  1. ↑ of 25 November 1867
  2. ↑ W. Liebknecht, Was ich im Berliner 'Reichstag sagte.
  3. ↑ 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.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ a F. von Gentz, Vertrauliche Bemerkungen über den Stand und die nächste Zukunft der russisch türkischen Angelegenheiten.
  6. ↑ H. E. Roscoe, Kurzes Lehrbuch der Chemie... Deutsche Ausgabe, unter Mitwirkung des Verfassers bearbeitet von Carl Schorlemmer.