Letter to Karl Marx, about August 1, 1851

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 1 August 1851


First published slightly abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, 1929
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38, pp. 399-401


TO MARX IN LONDON

[Manchester, about 1 August 1851]

Dear Marx,

Enclosed the 2nd half of the 5 pound note.

I didn't know that Schramm had gone off to Paris.[1] You had told me nothing about it. Hence it was with the utmost astonishment that I read in the Kölnische Zeitung that he had been drowned—it can't, alas, be true. The cur is very obtrusive—we have allowed him to become too familiar—and he's a complete blackguard. However, you're perfectly right in saying that protests and recriminations are useless; we must just leave the fellow to go his own way until we have him in our power. As I said, it would have been quite a good thing if he really had been drowned in the Channel; but as likely as not he spread the rumour himself—c'est une manière comme une autre de faire parler de soi.[2]

So Weydemeyer's going to America to see whether he can take over the New York Arbeiterzeitung presently being run by Fenner von Fenneberg. If he can stay in New York he will be more useful to us there than in London, where the embarras[3] would only be made worse. A reliable chap like him is just what we've been wanting in New York and after all, New York isn't the back of beyond and with Weydemeyer one can be sure that, le cas échéant[4] he would immediately be to hand.

The lithographic correspondence[5] scheme is quite a good one. Only you must keep it completely under your hat. Should little Bamberger[6] and others ever get hold of the idea, they would immediately steal a march on you. As soon as the initial arrangements have been made I should, if I were you, advertise in the German-American papers and, indeed, sign the thing myself, as director, to give it appeal. If it can be done on your responsibility and you think it might help in some way to name me as collaborator, you are, of course, entirely at liberty to do so. If, however, you want to keep your name out of the affair, although I see absolutely no need for this, car enfin,[7] why shouldn't you, too, be entitled to set up an industrial firm and carry on the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in lithograph—the man to set up the firm is Lupus. In this connection Weydemeyer could be of great service to you in New York, especially as regards the collection of money, which is the main thing. I'm convinced the thing will have enormous appeal and that the many American correspondents in London, etc., will soon become aware of it.

If you name yourself as a director there can be no question but that the thing will attract more custom, and this right from the outset; if you choose to name only Lupus, there's no longer any moral responsibility, and his Silesian tirades à la Luther, which are very well suited to the German Americans,—better than your style, which compels them to think—can be given free rein.[8] In any case you must make a point of writing as badly and as décousu[9] as possible, otherwise you'd soon be in hot water with your readers.

What's this new thing of Proudhon's you mention?[10]

I shall write a signed article for Jones[11] ; I only wish that he would send me as complete a run as possible of his Notes,[12] which isn't to be had here. What is his address? I've forgotten it.

From America, too, reports on the cotton goods trade sound bad. The markets are OVERSTOCKED, and the YANKEES themselves are producing too much, given the present state of the market.

Write again soon, I am bored to death here.

Your

F. E.


N.B. Always keep your papers well away from home; for some time now I've been under very close observation here and can't move a step without having 2-3 INFORMERS at my heels. Mr Bunsen will not have missed the opportunity of providing the British government with new and important disclosures about how dangerous we are.[13]

  1. ↑ Reference to Conrad Schramm (see this volume, p. 397).
  2. ↑ it's as good a way as any other of getting oneself talked about
  3. ↑ confusion
  4. ↑ should the occasion arise
  5. ↑ See this volume, pp. 373, 489-90.
  6. ↑ Louis Bamberger
  7. ↑ for after all
  8. ↑ An allusion to Wilhelm Wolff's articles and statements of the 1848-49 revolution period in which he castigated the enemies of the revolution, and also to the series of articles Die Schlesische Milliarde, published in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung from 22 March to 25 April 1849, in which he exposed the plundering of the peasants by the Junkers in his native Silesia, which he represented at the Frankfurt National Assembly. Marx and Engels did not carry out their plan to put out lithographed bulletins.
  9. ↑ disjointedly
  10. ↑ See this volume, pp. 409-16.
  11. ↑ Engels could prepare an article for Ernest Jones only in the beginning of 1852. His article 'Real Causes Why the French Proletarians Remained Comparatively Inactive in December Last' was published in Notes to the People, Nos. 43, 48 and 50 of 21 February, 27 March and 10 April 1852 (see present edition, Vol. 11, pp. 212-22).
  12. ↑ Notes to the People
  13. ↑ In May and June 1850 the Prussian Government tried through Baron Bunsen, its envoy in London, to get the British Government to deport Marx, Engels and other emigrants it considered hostile to its interests. For this purpose Prussian police agents organised the shadowing of emigrants (see K. Marx and F. Engels, 'The Prussian Refugees', 'Prussian Spies in London', present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 378-79, 381-84). In 1851 the Prussian Government again tried to get the Hauptrevolutionäre ('chief revolutionaries') deported from Britain to the colonies. In March 1851, at the request of the Minister of the Interior—Ferdinand von Westphalen, Jenny Marx's stepbrother—the Prussian Prime Minister, Otto Manteuffel, inquired of Bunsen whether the British Government would consent to such a deportation. Bunsen replied that, fearing public opinion, the English authorities hesitated to take such measures. Nevertheless, Ferdinand von Westphalen did not abandon his intention to persuade the British Government to deport the emigrants, in the first place Prussians, and continued using police agents to collect material compromising them.