Letter to Karl Marx, March 18, 1869

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 18 March 1869


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


ENGELS TO MARX[1]

IN LONDON

Manchester, 18 March 1869

Dear Moor,

I am writing to Meissner about the Peasant War.[2]

Even according to Social-Demokrat (which I'll send you back in a couple of days), Wilhelm[3] appears to have kept ahead in Saxony.[4] On the other hand, you have to grant the Lassalleans that they are developing quite a different sort of activity and know how to make ten times more out of the limited means than the People's Party does.[5] Even when Schweitzer was imprisoned, the Social-Demokrat did not publish such idiocies as Wilhelm does.

I wonder what Wilhelm will say about the fact that, in Celle the Hanoverian particularists, defeated in the first round of polling, voted in the second round for Planck, the National-Liberal Bismarckian, and thus got him into the Reichstag instead OF Yorck, the worker. But that does not matter to Wilhelm.

Huxley's famous article in the Fortnightly[6] in fact contains almost nothing except the joke about Comtism. The Comtists are said to be very furious about this, and intend to publish a thunderous reply, as a geological friend[7] in London writes to Moore.

What do you think of my suggestion about printing the articles from the Neue Rheinische Zeitung[8] before Bonaparte?[9] And about the French version?[10]

Many thanks for the Castille.[11] Only yesterday was I able to start reading it. Clearly a crypto-Bonapartist factional publication. However, it is enormous progress that the June insurrection is now generally seen for what it was.[12]

Tony Moilin[13] is really charming. This homme des 1869, who cheerfully declares that nobody should earn less than 2,400 fr.! I laughed myself half sick over this naïve doctor with extraordinary pretensions. If Lafargue were still to think anything of him, his wife would laugh at him.

I wanted to write to you about quite a long story, but can't recollect it at the moment. I have to go home now to hear what Gumpert has said about Lizzie, who has been in bed since Sunday.[14]

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ An excerpt from this letter was published in English for the first time in: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Selected Letters. The Personal Correspondence, 1844-1877, Ed. by F. J. Raddatz, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Toronto, 1981.
  2. ↑ F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany (see also this volume, p. 238).
  3. ↑ Wilhelm Liebknecht
  4. ↑ 'Zur Agitation in Sachsen', Social Demokrat, Nos. 21, 22, 24, 25 and 30 32; 17, 19, 24 and 26 February, 10, 12 and 14 March 1869.
  5. ↑ The German People's Party (Deutsche Volkspartei) was set up in 1865 and encompassed the democratic elements of the petty bourgeoisie and part of the bigger bourgeoisie, chiefly from South and Central German states. As distinct from the National-Liberals, it opposed Prussia's supremacy and advocated the plan for the establishment of the so-called Great Germany incorporating both Prussia and Austria. While pursuing an anti-Prussian policy, the People's Party voiced the particularist aspirations of some German states. It was against Germany's unification as a single centralised democratic republic, advocating the idea of a federative German state.
    In 1866, the German People's Party was joined by the Saxon People's Party, whose nucleus consisted of workers. This left wing of the German People's Party had, in effect, nothing in common with it except anti-Prussian sentiments and the wish jointly to solve the problems of national unification in a democratic way. Subsequently, it developed along socialist lines. The main section of the Party broke away from the petty-bourgeois democrats and took part in founding the Social-Democratic Workers' Party in August 1869.
  6. ↑ The events in the Charleroi coalfields occurred in the spring of 1868. In response to the mine-owners' decision to reduce production to four days a week and lower the wages by ten per cent, the workers declared a strike. On 26 March, violent clashes took place between the workers and the police. Twenty-two people were arrested and put on trial. The Belgian Section of the International launched a wide campaign to support the strikers both in Belgium and abroad. It organised protest meetings and gave wide coverage of the events in La Tribune du Peuple, La Liberté and other papers. On 12 April it issued a manifesto to the workers of Belgium and other countries (see La Tribune du Peuple, No. 4, 19 April 1868). The Section maintained regular contacts with the General Council. The Charleroi events were discussed at the Council meetings of 21 April, 12 May and 2 June 1868 (see The General Council of the First International. 1866-1868. Minutes). The Brussels Section set up a special committee to brief lawyers for the defence of the detainees. The lawyers managed to swing public opinion in favour of the defendants and on 15 August all of them were acquitted by the jury. This led to a rise in the membership of the International in Belgium.
    For the Geneva strike of building workers see Note 16.
    From 14 to 17 April 1868 a general strike took place in Bologna. The workers demanded that the income tax be cut down and distributed more fairly. A number of meetings and a demonstration were held. Troops were summoned to disperse the demonstration and numerous arrests were made.
  7. ↑ apparently Dakyns
  8. ↑ A reference to three articles by Marx, 'The Defeat of June 1848', 'June 13, 1849' and 'Consequences of June 13, 1849' published in 1850 in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue, nos l, 2 and 3, which later formed the principal part of the book The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 (see present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 45-131).
    In 1895, Engels reprinted the articles from the Revue in German with his introduction (see present edition, Vol. 27).
  9. ↑ K. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
  10. ↑ See the previous letter.
  11. ↑ H. Castille, Les massacres de juin 1848
  12. ↑ An allusion to the June 1848 uprising of Paris workers which ended in the defeat of the insurgents, and at the coup d'état accomplished in France on 2 December 1851, which established the military bourgeois dictatorship of Louis Napoleon. On 2 December 1852, the Empire was proclaimed, and Louis Bonaparte became Emperor Napoleon III.
  13. ↑ T. Moilin, La liquidation sociale.
  14. ↑ A reference to Engels' intention to write a review of Volume One of Marx's Capital for The Fortnightly Review to which Professor Beesly was a contributor, (see Marx's letter to Engels of 8 January 1868, present edition, Vol. 42). While working on the review, Engels wrote out excerpts from Capital, which later made up a synopsis (see Note 26). The review was written around 20 May-1 June 1868, but rejected by the editorial board (see present edition, Vol. 20).