ENGELS TO HERMANN SCHLÜTER[1]
IN HOTTINGEN-ZURICH
London, 10 January 1888
Dear Mr Schlüter,
I have no objection to Ede's printing the final part of the introduction to the Blood-and-Thunder Patriots.[2]
Kindly tell me when, approximately, you will be able to start printing the Theory of Force. For I am working on a fourth chapter to it in which I examine Bismarck's use of force and the reasons for its momentary success. I am writing it now, but shall have to revise it immediately before printing and make additions in accordance with the latest facts. Naturally I shall be happy to place this chapter too at Ede's disposal, once everything has got to that stage.[3]
I shall shortly be putting my books in order and it may be that another copy of the Holy Family will turn up; if so, the archives[4] shall have it. Meanwhile please continue to keep an eye open for the Revue der Neue Rheinischen Zeitung—isolated articles would be of use only in cases of direct necessity.[5]
Bruhn's distorted account is mentioned in Herr Vogt, p. 124. Note— Bangya, having represented himself as the agent of a chap called Eisenmann, or some such name, who was supposedly setting up as a bookseller in Berlin, had promised that the latter would print the ms.[6]
This was by Marx and myself and the original is here in my house. However, the actual purchaser of the copy was Stieber, who was silly enough to imagine that the Prussian police would find in a ms. intended by us for publication secret revelations and not merely a derisive portrayal of the great men of the emigration, for there was, of course, nothing more to it than that. We were done out of its publication, but the people who were really done were the Prussian police, who no doubt also took care never to boast about it and, along with them, Mr Kossuth who, until this episode, had been unaware of the unsavoury nature of his protégé, though subsequently he still sought to support him.
Your kind wishes for the New Year are heartily reciprocated.
Ever yours,
F. E.
- ↑ An excerpt from this letter was first published in the preface to Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe. Dritte Abteilung, Bd. 1, 1929.
- ↑ On 30 December 1887, Hermann Schluter told Engels about Eduard Bernstein's request to allow Der Sozialdemokrat to publish the final part of the Engels-written introduction to S. Berkheim's pamphlet Zur Erinnerung fur die deutschen Mordspatrioten 1806-1807 pending the publication of the pamphlet itself. On 15 January 1888, Der Sozialdemokrat carried the second part of the Engels introduction under the title Was Europa bevorsteht. The booklet was printed in June 1888.
- ↑ Engels replies to F. Schluter's suggestion to revise three chapters from the second part of Anti-Duhring and have them published as a separate pamphlet. These chapters, under the single title The Theory of Force contained an explanation of materialist views on economics and politics. Engels subsequently changed his plan and decided also to add a fourth chapter on Germany history from 1848 to 1888 and a critique of Bismarck. The proposed title of the pamphlet was The Role of Force in History. Engels wrote this (fourth) chapter somewhat later, at the close of 1887 and in thirst three months of 1888. Having interrupted his work in March 1888, Engels must have never resumed it. This unfinished work of his, an outline of the preface to the pamphlet, the plan of the fourth chapter, as well as the plan of the concluding part of this chapter (this plan delineated the contents of the unfinished part of the work) are published in the present edition, Vol. 26.
- ↑ The German Social Democratic archives were set up at the Zurich Conference of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany held on 19-21 August 1882. Their purpose was to preserve the manuscripts of prominent figures in the German labour movement (including the works of Marx and Engels), and documents pertaining to the history of Germany and the international working-class movement, and the labour press. The initial site of the archives was Zurich. The first materials were collected by Eduard Bernstein. From April 1883 the archives were in the custody of Hermann Schluter. In June 1888, following the expulsion of some members of the Sozialdemokrat editorial staff and co-workers from Switzerland (see note 81), the archives were moved to London and, after the abrogation of the Anti-Socialist law (see note 52), to Berlin.
- ↑ In his letter of 30 December 1887, Schluter wrote to Engels that the book dealers had cut the journal Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-dkonomische Revue into separate pieces and sold these articles separately as independent works. Meanwhile, longer works of Marx and Engels were printed in instalments in different numbers of the journal.
- ↑ The reference is to the manuscript of The Great Men of the Exile written by Marx and Engels (see present edition, Vol. 11, pp227-326). At the end of June 1852, Marx passed on the manuscript to the Hungarian emigre, Kossuth's emissary abroad Janos Bangya, who offered to have it publishen Germany. Later, it turned out that Bangya was a police spy who had handed over the manuscript to the Prussian police. The actions of Bangya, who managed to win Marx's confidence for a time, were unmasked by Marx in his article 'Hirsch's Confessions' written in April 1853 and published in American newspapers (see present edition, Vol. 12, pp40-43). The reference is to the following part of the pamphlet Herr Vogt (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp219-20): Karl Bruhn made slanderous accusations against Marx and Engels by claiming they had allegedly sold the MS of the pamphlet to the Prussian police (see present edition, Vol. 42, ppi 17-118).