Letter to Friedrich Engels, January 26, 1870

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 27 January 1870


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


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 27 January 1870

DEAR FRED,

I am still UNDER TREATMENT and confined to my room. The business was complicated to some degree by small carbuncles near the abscess, nearly the size of an egg. But IN A FEW DAYS ALL WILL BE QUITE RIGHT.

It is curious how doctors have differing opinions. Dr Maddison, who was employed in Edinburgh in a hospital for skin diseases, and still works in this branch, in addition to his practice in a London hospital, states that in both hospitals they are completely against arsenic for carbuncles, though use arsenic for rashes. As long as I am in his care, which comes to an end this week, I naturally take his medicine. As soon as this finishes, I shall take arsenic regularly for 3 months for il faut en finir[1]

Enclosed—the announced note from Wilhelm.[2] If you write to him, do inform him, in passing (referring to the screed he sent you for me) that 1. if all newspapers write as much about the 18th Brumaire as his,[3] that is to say, not at all, it is not surprising that nobody hears of it; and 2. that if this material cannot be obtained in Leipzig (which I regard as humbug), he should not write to me, but to Meissner direct.

Enclosed—letter from Dr J. Jacoby to Kugelmann, and note from Kugelmann. The matter is as follows: Kugelmann saw in supplement No. 18 of Zukunft (22 January) a SPEECH by Jacoby, in which the latter avows socialism and, in the main part of the same issue, the story of the meeting at which this happened, when Schweitzer seized the presidency with the help of his bullyboys and, after the end of Jacoby's speech, accused him, inter alia, of borrowing arguments from me. Kugelmann wrote with his usual fervour to Jacoby on this, congratulating him and, at the same time, dressing him down for quoting all sorts of people, but precisely not me, who had supplied him with his real matter. HENCE JACOBY'S REPLY.[4] The odd thing is only that Jacoby—during the meeting, in answer to Schweitzer—said that I myself 'utilise in my works the labours of my predecessors on countless occasions'. Since I conscientiously cite everybody who contributed as much as a comma to the exposition, this means that Jacoby can take the substance of his new beliefs from me, without citing me. In addition, I am not a predecessor of 70-year-old Jacoby. A mere populariser and superficialiser has no 'predecessors'. Yet despite all this, it is very fine that Jacoby, like Arnold Ruge, has been converted to communism. 'Liberty' no longer suffices!

I am sending you the latest issue of the Democratic News. The sheet is no good, but it is in the hands of our own chaps, and could be made into a counterbalance to the Bee-Hive, particularly since it only costs 1 HALFPENNY. You and Moore should both subscribe to 12 COPIES, since a similar subscription has also been imposed upon members of the General Council. In addition, one or the other of you could send me quite short reports about Lancashire etc., weekly or bi-weekly, for the sheet.

Salut

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ it must be ended
  2. ↑ In a letter of 20 December 1869, Liebknecht asked Engels for permission to reprint his work The Peasant War in Germany (see present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 397-482) in Der Volksstaat, and subsequently as a separate pamphlet. He also asked for a short preface to the work. Liebknecht's letter of 8 February 1870 shows that Engels had given his consent. The preface (see present edition, Vol. 21, p. 93) and five chapters appeared in Der Volksstaat between 2 April and 25 June 1870; in October 1870 the work was published as a pamphlet.
  3. ↑ Der Volksstaat
  4. ↑ See this volume, pp. 542-43.