Letter to Joseph Weydemeyer, December 19, 1851

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 19 December 1851


First published abridged in Die Neue Zeit, Bd. 2, No. 29, 1906-07 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, Moscow, 1934
An excerpt from this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895, New York, 1953
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38


To Joseph Weydemeyer in New York

[London,] 19 December 1851

28 Dean Street, Soho

DEAR Weydemeyer,

The day before yesterday I received your letter, sent on to me by Engels.

First, my best New Year wishes to your wife[1] and yourself. Ditto from my wife.

I am at this moment sitting here working on an article for you. Your commission arrived too late for me to be able to carry it out today. On Tuesday (23 December) the following will go off to you

1. Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte by K. Marx. 2. Der Staatsstreich in Frankreich by F. Wolff. 3. Nemesis by Wilhelm Wolff. Engels will send you his article—on Prussia, I believe—possibly even by today's mail. Freiligrath has nothing ready but authorises you to name him as one of your collaborators. We are negotiating with Weerth. Likewise with Eccarius.

You can now settle down in the United States for du moins[2] a year. It is not going to begin on 2 May 1852.

I suppose that you will hold back your first number[3] until the above articles arrive. After all, it will only make a difference of 5 days. For the following numbers you can announce a serialised work of mine, to appear article by article, namely, Neueste Offenbarungen des Sozialismus, oder 'Idée générale de la Révolution au XIXe siècle' par J. P. Proudhon.—Kritik von K.M.

Write forthwith to 'Adolf Cluss, U.S. Navy Yard, Washington D.C.' We've already told him you are coming.[4] He is one of our best and most talented men and could be of the greatest use to you both generally and for the preparation and founding of your paper in particular.

Don't forget the following:

Go and see Dana; ask him to give you the numbers of the Tribune in which my articles appeared,[5] and send them to me forthwith. Hearing nothing from him, I had stopped writing, and there's been such a long interval that I must see the paper itself in order to write the sequel, which I must do, if only for pecuniary reasons.

As soon as your paper appears you must not only send it to us regularly, but let us have a sufficient number of copies so that we can send them out as samples.

Tout a toi[6]

K. Marx


Unless you are contractually committed, don't buy the Arbeiterrepublik[7] from the wretched Weitling. While you might gain 200 Straubingers,[8] you would lose a wider readership. Write only under the old name. Règle générale.[9]

  1. ↑ Louise
  2. ↑ at least
  3. ↑ This refers to Joseph Weydemeyer's intention to publish a communist weekly Die Revolution in New York. Marx and Engels agreed to contribute regularly and intended to get some of their party friends to work for it. Weydemeyer managed to produce only two issues in January 1852, following which publication ceased for lack of funds. In May and June 1852 with the help of Adolph Cluss, Weydemeyer published two more issues of the 'non-periodic journal' Die Revolution; the first issue carried K. Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, the second Freiligrath's poems against Kinkel.
  4. ↑ See this volume, p. 496.
  5. ↑ first articles from Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany by Engels
  6. ↑ All yours
  7. ↑ Die Republik der Arbeiter
  8. ↑ Straubingers—travelling journeymen in Germany. Marx and Engels used this term for German artisans, including some participants in the working-class movement of that time, who were still largely swayed by guild prejudices and cherished the petty-bourgeois illusion that it was possible to return from capitalist large-scale industry to petty handicraft production.
  9. ↑ General rule