Letter to François Pardigon, May 6, 1850

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Karl Marx
Written 6 May 1850


First published: in Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, 1934
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38, p. 235

TO FRANÇOIS PARDIGON IN LONDON

[Rough copy]

London, 6 May 1850

Dear Pardigon,

We have just this minute heard that it is intended to submit your programme on behalf of your society to the German Society in Greek Street and to ask them whether or not they will give it their support.[1]

After our conversation on Saturday,[2] we don't believe it; but if you or your society were to denounce an individual or a number of different individuals to us as a mere bad lot, we should simply show them the door without asking whether they were willing to adhere to our programme.

We have denounced the ringleaders of this society to you as charlatans and swindlers. Swindlers and charlatans will sign anything. They would probably have signed our manifesto had we been prepared to accept their repeated proposals of union and concord. It will be clear to you that, were a similar proposal to be adopted by your society, we should be honour bound to sever forthwith all connections with the members of Rathbone Place.

Greeting and Fraternity
F. Engels
K. Marx

  1. ↑ The society referred to is that of the French Blanquist refugees in London (Société des proscrits démocrates socialistes) with whom Marx and Engels, and also representatives of the revolutionary wing of the Chartists, concluded an agreement in mid-April 1850 (see present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 614-15) to set up a Universal Society of Revolutionary Communists (Société universelle des communistes révolutionnaires). However, the Blanquists soon violated the agreement by contacting the emigrant 'Society in Greek Street'—the petty-bourgeois Democratic Association (on this see Note 292). Subsequently, the leaders of the Blanquist refugees took an openly hostile stand towards Marx and Engels and their supporters by making a bloc with a sectarian faction within the Communist League. In these circumstances Marx and Engels considered it appropriate to cancel their agreement with the Blanquists early in October 1850 (see present edition, Vol. 10, p. 484).
  2. ↑ 1 May 1850