| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 30 March 1852 |
MARX TO ENGELS IN MANCHESTER
London, 30 March 1852 28 Dean Street, Soho
Dear Frederic,
Just received your article.[1] Enclosed you will find a whole bundle of new stuff from America which would have reached you sooner, had it not been necessary to make copies of some of it for communication to League[2] members.
All sorts of things have been happening here. Gottfried Christ Kinkel is dispatching, or rather has dispatched, the student Schurz and Schimmelpfennig to drum together people from Switzerland, Paris, Germany and Belgium for a congress to be held in London in mid-April, the purpose being to guarantee the revolutionary loan[3] and to lay down definitive regulations for the administra- tion of this exchequer and of the democratic government in partibus. But you must let me have the trash back by Saturday.
Kossuth, exposed in America by Szemere[4] and completely at odds with the committee he left behind him in London,[5] will be surprised to learn by what schisms the democratic clerics has meanwhile been rent.
For Mr Mazzini, who for the past 2 years has been pope of the democratic church in partibus, thought the time at last ripe to discharge his venom in the French tongue against socialism and France, to wit in the Brussels Nation which, with Ledru's connivance, he had acquired for 10,000 fr. drawn from the Italian fund. In it he blamed the socialists for the 2nd December, the capture of Rome,[6] in short for the counter-revolution generally and, in his high-flown Dominican style, thundered against heretics, sects, materialism, scepticism, the Romance Babylon, with the same single-mindedness he displays when licking the arse of the English liberal bourgeoisie. France, he said, had lost the revolutionary initiative. The peuple-roi[7] no longer existed. Now it was the turn of other nations, etc. In short a veritable bull of excommunication which was done the honour of being taken up by the Patrie and the Constitutionnel. This was altogether too much for the French. Little L. Blanc, who further saw in it an opportunity to rehabilitate himself and thrust himself to the fore, drummed up Cabet, Pierre Leroux, Bianchi, Nadaud and Vasbenter (Proudhonian). In The Morning Advertiser they attacked Mr Mazzini in crudest fashion. The theoretical part of their retort is almost as weak as Mazzini's attack. The personal part, for which Massol gave Leroux the material, annihilates the arrogant theopompos.[8]
Ledru, for his part, felt it incumbent upon him to resign from the European Central Committee in order not to lose all influence. He too has replied in the Nation to the attacks on France. Pitiful. An article with neither head nor tail. Upholds 'France's revolution- ary initiative', but in what fashion! C'est pour faire pitié![9] Ledru, it is said, now intends to go to the United States.
Thus, on the one hand, the idiot Ruge forfeits his European Central Committee. On the other, Kinkel—who, in America, fawned like a dog on his rival Kossuth—sees the general 'confusion', i.e. fusion of all democratic pretenders under the banner of the now stale catchwords of 1848, e.g. 'democratic republic', 'universal franchise', etc., dissipating. Thus the worthy Willich is drawn into the conflict as a 'communist'.
Meanwhile each week the English government is shipping the French émigré mob in crowds out to America at public expense. The wretched LITTLE Blanc proposes to exploit a quite fortuitous general demonstration against Mazzini to set himself up as the visible head of the ecclesia pressa.[10] In order to thwart his little intrigues, I shall get Massol to egg on Pierre Leroux. Finally, to complete the confusion, Proudhon is coming here.
How low the official bigwigs sink, you may see from the fact that the delectable Félix Pyat, cet homme artiste[11] —an expression used by the French to gloss over an individual's every weakness, his lack of character and intelligence—has written a melodrama on the December days. He has found an English impresario and together they will put on the trash in New York, etc., the murder scenes, expulsions, deportations, etc., etc. Could anyone seek to profit by the misfortunes of his country in a more despicable manner? And the jackass regards this prostitution of France's misfortune as a patriotic act.
Tripotage[12] is the secret key to the historical drama staged by émigré politicians here; thus Siegwart[13] -Kinkel has acted as procurer between the student Schurz and Mrs Ronge's sister, who is said to be rich.
The only misfortune is that by their boastful intrigues these jackasses provide the police with a continuous supply of fresh material and make things worse for our friends in Germany.
Your
K. M.