Letter to Friedrich Engels, April 15, 1851

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 15 April 1851


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, 1929. Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38


TO ENGELS IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 15 April 1851

Dear Engels,

You have not had a letter and are getting no more than these few lines now, because FROM DAY TO DAY I have been awaiting your letter—the one you promised. Enclosed a letter from Lupus. I wrote to him 4 days ago, but didn't answer the questions addressed to you.[1]

A letter from a Fischer in America whom I don't know. In the meantime I have asked Liebknecht to write to him.

I shall send you a letter from Rothacker in my next. That jackass, too, is an editor in America. From his letter it transpires that, from the extreme FAR WEST to the east we are being loudly inveighed against, both in speech and in print. In his rag Weitling published an article said to be from Paris but in fact by Willich, attacking me and you.[2] Schnauffer, on the other hand, has attacked the great Willich.

As for Struve, no sooner had he made himself answerable for the 10 millions, than he distributed a leaflet in the City begging for money to help him emigrate to America, together with Amalia.[3] In this he was successful. Last Friday he pushed off, still with Amalia.

Willich, with Göhringer for mentor, is said to have become very devoted to the TRICKER. Incidentally, for a fortnight after receiving the latest reply from pseudo-Becker, enclosing the toast, he suffered from a bilious fever. For 2 weeks never left the chapel, i.e. the barracks. And on his return to the Windmill,[4] he brought up for discussion the question of the toast and the introductory comment,[5] presumably so as to equip himself with a testimonium paupertatis.[6]

Schapper has framed a constitution for England since, after mature consideration and lengthy discussion in that same Windmill, they decided that England had no written constitution and must therefore be given one. And Schapper-Gebert will provide her with this constitution. It's already written.

Schimmelpfennig has been travelling round Germany and has everywhere been busily engaged in intrigues against us, in the common interest of Willich-Schapper, Ruge-Kinkel, Becker[7] -Sigel. Especially at the seats of Kinkel-mania, and more particularly in Westphalia, Osnabrück, Bielefeld, etc., where they've never been well-disposed towards us, there is no end to the tittle-tattle.

Your K. M.

  1. ↑ Marx's letter to Wilhelm Wolff of 11 April 1851 has not been found.
  2. ↑ 'Paris, 2. Januar 1851', Die Republik der Arbeiter, No. 2, February 1851.
  3. ↑ Amalie Struve
  4. ↑ The London German Workers' Educational Society (see Note 52) had its premises in Great Windmill Street.
  5. ↑ See K. Marx and F. Engels, 'Introduction to the Leaflet of L. A. Blanqui's Toast Sent to the Refugee Committee'.
  6. ↑ certificate of poverty
  7. ↑ Johann Philipp Becker