Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, December 12, 1867

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 12 December 1867


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, Moscow, 1934
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42

TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN IN HANOVER

Manchester, 12 December 1867

Dear Kugelmann,

Your zeal truly deserves my gratitude, but it appears greatly to overestimate my free time. I received your letter of 30 November on 2 December, held counsel with Marx, as there were several things in it to be considered, and would already have sent you various articles, if on Sunday I had not been visited by a toothache-influenza-sore throat with inevitable fever, which prostrated me on the sofa. Fortunately, that kind of thing takes an acute course with me, and so I am fit for work again today and will be setting my nose to the grindstone at once. But you must not imagine that one can just toss off a dozen reviews of one and the same book[1] and not merely say something different in each one but also so compose them that one cannot tell they are all by one author. One often has to pause for thought.[2]

I would advise against writing directly to Miquel. There are some things which can be achieved verbally with such people and which are scarcely to be risked in writing. He will surely be coming over to Hanover sometime.

The United States of Europe[3] was stillborn. And with Vogt's brother[4] and minion as editor—pshaw!

The Englishman who called on Brandes was our friend Moore from here, who spent 7 weeks in Eisenach for German-learning purposes; I had no idea he would be passing by, or I should have written him a few lines to give to you. He might perhaps have called on you anyway, except that he had curiously got it fixed in his head that you lived in Hamburg. He will probably undertake the English translation of Marx' book.[5]

Concerning Liebknecht's South German outburst, I have written to him that nothing is achieved by it.[6] He would have done better not to publish his speeches,[7] in extenso[8] their effect is lost, the nonsense in them obtrudes too much. I also wrote to him about his curious theory on the postponement of the social question.[9] You will recall, incidentally, that I was already telling you last autumn that he had become too much of an Austrian owing to his hatred of the Prussians.

This brief epistle just to keep you informed. The articles will follow in a few days time, and you can then at all events tell the Lieutenant-Colonel[10] that there will be a few more, and there will then be something for him to do.

In friendship

Yours

F. E.

  1. ↑ the first volume of Capital
  2. ↑ In his letter to Engels of 30 November 1867, Kugelmann asked him to write several reviews of Volume One of'' Capital'' by Marx. Kugelmann was going to arrange for their publication with the help of Lieutenant-Colonel Seubert, a writer and an official of the Württemberg War Ministry, to whose daughter he was giving treatment. Seubert promised his assistance in getting the reviews published in such newspapers as'' Der Beobachter, Staats-Anzeiger für Württemberg '' and'' Schwäbischer Merkur.'' For the first two Engels wrote reviews.
  3. ↑ Les Etats-Unis d'Europe
  4. ↑ Gustav Vogt
  5. ↑ The English translation of Volume One of'' Capital'' by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, edited by Engels, was published after Marx's death, in 1887. Eleanor Marx-Aveling took an active part in preparing this edition.
  6. ↑ Engels' letter to Liebknecht mentioned here has not been found. In his reply to this letter of 11 December 1867, Liebknecht said that he agreed with Engels' remarks on the policy pursued by the working-class representatives in Germany but that he had a different opinion on individual practical questions of agitation. In particular, he explained the reason for the address that he and Bebel had sent to the Vienna City Council by their confidence that Austria was on the eve of a revolution ('She has to experience her own 1789'), which was to have an impact on the whole of Germany.
  7. ↑ W. Liebknecht, Was ich im Berliner 'Reichstag' sagte
  8. ↑ literally: at full length; figuratively: in print.
  9. ↑ 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.<br>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.
  10. ↑ Adolf Friedrich Seubert