Letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht, June 5-6, 1872

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 5 June 1872


First published, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1932. Printed according to the original. Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT

IN LEIPZIG

London, 5[-6] June 1872

Dear Liebknecht,

My condolences on confirmation [of your sentence].[1] So much is certain: in no other country are our party comrades subject to such persecution as in the glorious Empire of Bismarck-Stieber, scarcely excepting even Austria. However, if there is any certainty in anything, it is that this sentence will never be carried out to the end. In France and Spain, persecution of the International (apart from reprisals against the COMMUNARDS) exists up to now only on paper, and in Italy it rarely involves more than 3 months, the rest being commuted to a fine, which admittedly often works out at a rate of 3 frs per day.

Marx had taken Wuttke's book[2] himself and kept it despite much pestering. Finally, I myself forgot to keep reminding him of it. Now I have got it from him, I read it through in a day and then sent it on to Borkheim with the request to look around for a publisher. Your memory is playing tricks on you if you believe that you wrote to me earlier on, asking me to look into it. I know only that you asked me for my opinion and that I wrote to you saying it would be extremely difficult to find a publisher here who would pay, since Wuttke is completely unknown here. I would otherwise have added that neither Marx nor I have those sorts of contacts here, otherwise we would long since have discovered one for Capital

I can now add only this:

1. Because of its many technical expressions, the book is very difficult to translate, almost impossible for anyone who is not in daily contact with English people.

2. The book would have to be significantly adapted for local consumption. All the waffle in the introduction and the excessively long chapter on Chinese literature would have to go and the arcane style would have to be transformed into PLAIN ENGLISH.

I think then that Borkheim is the right man to discover a publisher, if this is at all possible. A businessman who seems totally unconnected with literature often has the best chance of succeeding with these things. It was Strohn after all who put us in touch with Meissner in Hamburg. At all events, do not count too much on Borkheim succeeding and do not waste time translating until he comes up with someone.

6 June. Wroblewski interrupted me yesterday and stayed the whole evening, so I can now answer your letter of the 4th as well, which I received this morning. I am sorry that you have to go inside so soon, but I hope you will not be in there for long.

The proofs of the Manifesto together with a short preface[3] will go off as soon as possible, tomorrow, I hope.1

Best thanks for the information about individuals,[4] but there is still no answer to my question about how your Party intends to put its relations with the General Council on a clear footing, without which it will be absolutely impossible for it to be represented at the Congress.[5]

Your

F. E.

Nothing can be done in the matter of the inheritance, if the people are reluctant to risk money. These things have to be looked at by lawyers, and they do nothing ON SPECULATION. Anyway, the best the heirs could hope for would be the satisfaction of knowing that they had been swindled. They cannot reckon on salvaging any money after all these years—it is 100:1 AGAINST.

  1. ↑ In late May 1872 the Supreme Court of Appeal in Dresden confirmed the verdict reached by the Leipzig court in March 1872 at the trial of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht (see Note 274).
  2. ↑ H. Wuttke, Geschichte der Schrift und des Schrifttums...
  3. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, 'Preface to the 1872 German edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party'.' See this volume, p. 376.
  4. ↑ A reference to the list of members of the German Social-Democratic Workers' Party who were to liaise with the General Council of the International during Bebel's and Liebknecht's imprisonment. The list was cited by Liebknecht in his letter to Engels of 4 June 1872.
  5. ↑ In his letter of 18 July 1870, Eugen Oswald, a German refugee, asked Marx to sign an Address on the Franco-Prussian War drawn up by a group of French and German democratic refugees. The Address was published as a leaflet on 31 July 1870; the editions that followed were signed by Marx, Engels, Liebknecht, Bebel and other members of the International. Marx and his associates agreed to sign it on conditions outlined by Marx in his letter to Oswald of 3 August 1870 (see this volume, p. 34).
    Oswald enclosed with his letter an excerpt from Louis Blanc's letter in which he called for the Address on the Franco-Prussian War to be signed by as many people as possible.