Letter to Friedrich Engels, March 17, 1851

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 17 March 1851


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38

TO ENGELS IN MANCHESTER

London, 17 March 1851

Dear Engels,

I haven't written for a week. For one thing, I too had influenza, out of elective affinity. For another, was criblé de petites misères,[1] all of which came to a head this fateful week.

Enclosed you will find the Chevalier de Willich's hilarious letters.[2]

Heinzen's disgusting rag[3] contains what purports to be a letter from Paris, concocted here in London, in which, I need hardly say, we two are attacked first, and then Rudolf Schramm, the deputy, because 'he did not scruple to fritter away his wife's money', and then the 'half-men Tausenau, Julius and Bücher'; finally, and with much bitterness, the great Kinkel. Heinzen will never, ever, forgive him for competing with him in the begging business. Praise is meted out only to the great Ruge and Struve. In this letter from Paris, Ruge lets it be said that he made a one-day excursion from Brighton to London. This scandal-mongering article derived from gossip in a private letter from Ruge and a private letter from Bamberger, i.e. two diametrically opposed accusations, thrown together and edited by Heinzen.

The great banquet, where Ruge performed the part of the 'Infinite Dullard'—Wolff[4] and Liebknecht heard him with their own ears—was not attended by deputies from either Berlin or Frankfurt.[5] They don't want a Ruge-Struve hegemony.[6] The R. Schramm, Count Reichenbach (the Frankfurt Reichenbach, not the party's beard),[7] and Oppenheim, Bucher clique and, finally, Julius off his own bat, have all resumed their intrigues against the deities of dullness. Of course for noble reasons. Je vous dis, de la merde, la merde tout pure, toute cette canaille-là.[8]

At the banquet Kinkel, who is publishing the scandalous allegations about us, adopted his best red morocco manner, to speak wistfully of conciliation, 'from the simple champion of the Constitution even unto the red republican.'

All the jackasses, while sighing for a republic, and Kinkel even on occasion for a red republic, paid the most abject homage to the English Constitution, a contradiction to which even the innocent Morning Chronicle deigned to draw their attention as being short on logic.

Nothing further about Landolphe. As befits an homme d'honneur,[9] he goes his way unruffled by the knowledge of being a Grech[10] unmasked.

The Blanqui comedy was not yet over. Vidil, the ancien capitaine[11] sent the Patrie[12] a statement in which he declared that his sense of honour and feeling for truth compelled him to make a statement to the effect that, in the original statement, L. Blanc, and all the others including himself, had been lying. The committee had consisted of 13 persons, not 6. All of them had been shown Blanqui's toast and all of them had discussed it. He had been among the 6. A few days later the noble Barthélémy, without having seen this letter, also sent a statement to the Patrie[13] saying that he had received the toast but had not informed the others; he thus reveals himself to be a threefold liar. Beneath this letter, the Patrie appended the remark that it would accept nothing more from these jackasses. Its introductory comment was as follows:

'Nous nous sommes demandés souvent—et la question est difficile à résoudre—qui l'emportait chez les démagogues, de la vantardise ou de la stupidité? Une quatrième lettre de Londres augmente encore notre perplexité à cet égard. Ils sont là nous ne savons combien de pauvres diables, tourmentés à tel point de la rage d'écrire et de voir leurs noms cités dans les journaux réactionnaires, qu'ils ne reculent pas même devant la perspective d'une confusion et d'une dépréciation sans borne. Peu leur importe la risée et l'indignation publiques: le 'Journal des Débats', 'l'Assemblée nationale' et la 'Patrie', inséreront leur prose; pour obtenir ce bonheur, rien ne coûte à la Démocratie cosmopolite etc. Nous accueillons donc au nom de la commisération littéraire, la lettre suivante du citoyen Barthélémy... C'est une nouvelle, et nous l'espérons bien, une dernière preuve à l'appui du trop célèbre toast Blanqui, qu'ils ont tous nié d'abord, et pour l'affirmation duquel ils se prennent maintenant aux cheveux.'[14]

Is that not SUPERB?

I received your POST OFFICE ORDER. If you pay such rates of interest in your business, either your profits or your losses must be vast.

Don't forget to write to Dronke. Galeer is dead. Hence enclosed to be sent to Th. Schuster in Frankfurt.

Your

K. Marx

  1. ↑ riddled with minor ailments
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 314.
  3. ↑ Deutsche Schnellpost
  4. ↑ Ferdinand Wolff
  5. ↑ i.e. deputies of the Prussian National Assembly of 1848 and the All-German National Assembly of 1848-49 in Frankfurt am Main
  6. ↑ This refers to the banquet organised in London on 13 March 1851 by a group of emigrants to mark the anniversary of the March revolution in Vienna. Marx and Engels gave their assessment of the banquet in The Great Men of the Exile (see present edition, Vol. 11, p. 297).—317
  7. ↑ i.e. Oskar Reichenbach, not Eduard Reichenbach
  8. ↑ Shits, I tell you, shits pure and simple, all this canaille.
  9. ↑ man of honour
  10. ↑ Greek (here: cheat)
  11. ↑ former captain
  12. ↑ La Patrie, No. 69, 10 March 1851.
  13. ↑ La Patrie, No. 71, 12 March 1851. On the statement of Blanqui and others see this volume, p. 313.
  14. ↑ 'We have often asked ourselves, and it is a difficult question to answer, whether the demagogues are notable more for their beastfulness or their stupidity. A fourth letter from London has increased our perplexity. There they are, we do not know how many poor wretches, who are so tormented by the longing to write and to see their names published in the reactionary press that they are undeterred even by the prospect of infinite humiliation and mortification. What do they care for the laughter and the indignation of the public—the Journal des Débats, the Assemblée nationale and the Patrie will publish their stylistic exercises; to achieve this no cost to the cause of cosmopolitan democracy can be too high.... In the name of literary commiseration we therefore include the following letter from "citizen" Barthélémy—it is a novel, and, we hope, the last proof of the authenticity of Blanqui's famous toast whose existence they first all denied and now fight among themselves for the right to acknowledge.' P. Mayer, [Comments on Barthélemy's letter,] La Patrie, No. 71, 12 March 1851.