Letter to Friedrich Engels, December 2, 1853

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 2 December 1853


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, Berlin, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

London, 2 December 1853 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Frederic,

Mes remerciements pour le[1] BEAUTIFUL ARTICLE.[2] In America Mr Dana will be making himself a name as a field marshal.

That you should be coming here[3] mainly to frequent the philistines again, pleases me not at all.

Mr Dronke is behaving like a wretched little mischief-monger. He tells Strohn he has sent you his statement and the newspaper,[4] and gives you to understand that both have gone to me—have had neither. See to it that the LITTLE MAN returns you the newspapers, at all events. I have a copy of my own here, but none is required in Bradford. Not having received the trash from Dronke, I was rummaging by chance amongst some old letters when I lit upon the corpus delicti with the incriminating passage which I quote verbatim. The letter was addressed to you. 453 Now, should Mr Dronke use adjectival caustic to obliterate factual accuracy, he'll have only himself to blame if / send his letter to New York as proof that I, du moins,[5] am accurate. It contains some strange passages which would now undoubtedly embarrass him, e.g. concerning that 'fanatical lout Imandt', maintenant[6] an intimate friend to whom he writes twice weekly. Everyone knows how addicted the little man is to mischief-mongering while our backs are turned.

On Tuesday[7] I sent off my rejoinder, The Knight of the Noble Consciousness. He's[8] in for a surprise. Your letter[9] and others from Steffen, Miskowsky (together with Kossuth's testimony),[10] etc., all of them, of course, with your signatures, were included as integral parts of the whole.

Write soon. Jones is under attack from The Economist[11] and is acquiring fame.

Apropos. Last Tuesday a Polish meeting.[12] Mazzini and Kossuth didn't come. Inane blather from Worcell. Ruge and Ledru showed themselves worthy of the company. My wife was there[13] Also at Monday's meeting held by Poles of the democratic variety. It was announced that Harney was to be in the chair. Fearsome revolt by the 50 or 60 English working men present. Hisses, TRAITOR-, •DRYBONES' (as he called the Chartists), RENEGADE. A fearsome set-to. Harney did not dare take the CHAIR, was terribly mauled, buffeted, abused and, despite half a dozen attempts, never managed to speak. Needless to say, the stupid Waschlapskis[14] couldn't understand what was going on and interpreted the whole thing as 'reaction'. This spells Nemesis for Father George Julian Harney.

Your

K. M.

From the enclosed letter[15] you will see that Cluss has unfortunately already answered.[16] But since my thing was ready,[17] it had to go off. One should not work for Willich for nothing.

  1. ↑ Thanks for the
  2. ↑ F. Engels, 'The War on the Danube'.
  3. ↑ Engels arrived in London at the end of December 1853
  4. ↑ Belletristisches Journal und New-Yorker Criminal-Zeitung containing Willich's article 'Doctor Karl Marx und seine "Enthüllungen"'.
  5. ↑ at least
  6. ↑ now
  7. ↑ 29 November
  8. ↑ Willich
  9. ↑ On 23 November 1853 Engels wrote a special letter—a statement against Willich, which Marx included in The Knight of the Noble Consciousness (see present edition, Vol. 12, pp. 489-93)
  10. ↑ Steffen's letter of 22 November 1853, Miskowsky's letter of 24 November 1853, and Kossuth's certificate of 12 November 1853 concerning Miskowsky were included in Marx's The Knight of the Noble Consciousness (see present edition, Vol. 12, pp. 504-05 and 494-95)
  11. ↑ 'The Labour Parliament', The Economist, No. 535, 26 November 1853.
  12. ↑ Polish refugees in London on Monday and Tuesday, 28 and 29 November 1853, to mark the anniversary of the Polish insurrection of 1830-31
  13. ↑ See this volume, p. 587.
  14. ↑ Marx calls the petty bourgeois émigrés who attended the Polish meeting of 29 November 1853 'Waschlapskis' (Dishcloths) after a personage in Heine's satirical poem 'Zwei Ritter'.
  15. ↑ Cluss to Marx, 13 November 1853.
  16. ↑ J. Weydemeyer, A. Cluss, A. Jacobi, 'An die Redaktion der New-Yorker Criminal-Zeitung', Belletristisches Journal und New-Yorker Criminal-Zeitung, No. 37, 25 November 1853.
  17. ↑ K. Marx, 'The Knight of the Noble Consciousness'.