Letter to Friedrich Engels, February 14, 1858

Author(s)	Karl Marx
Written	14 February 1858

First published slightly abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40

MARX TO ENGELS^[1]

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 14 February 1858

Dear Engels,

You had promised to send me the Guardian. I was therefore expecting to get it today since France is now the only possible topic for reports and the fellows prefer a few gossipy anecdotes to ANY AMOUNT OF IDEAS. I assume the numbers you promised me will arrive tomorrow but would most urgently beg that in future you always let me have the things for Thursday or for Friday at the latest. After the appointed day they are, OF COURSE, no longer of any use to me for my reports.

For 3 days I shall now be on tenterhooks until I know whether or not my bill, which does not appear to have been despatched from here until several weeks AFTER ITS DRAWING, has been honoured. At very best I shan't be able to draw anything more on the Tribune against the articles I have sent in until the matter with Appleton is SETTLED.^[2] My estimate of the value of the last goods despatched to him was badly out. Moreover, a longish article on 'Bolivar* elicited objections from Dana because, he said, it is written IN A PARTISAN STYLE and he asked me to cite my AUTHORITIES. This I can, of course, do, although it's a singular demand. As regards the PARTISAN STYLE, it is true that I departed somewhat from the tone of a cyclopaedia. T o see the most dastardly, most miserable and meanest of blackguards described as Napoleon I was altogether too much. Bolivar is a veritable Soulouque.^[3]

I CONGRATULATE you UPON YOUR EQUESTRIAN PERFORMANCES. Only don't take too many breakneck jumps, as there will soon be more important occasion for risking your neck. You seem TO RIDE SOMEWHAT HARD THIS HOBBYHORSE. In any case I don't believe that the CAVALRY is the speciality in which you will be of the greatest service to Germany. I would venture another little objection, viz. whether OVEREXERTION IN ANY LINE is compatible with your health. Aurea mediocritas^[4] in all types of exertion, or so at least a doctor assures me, should remain the norm for you for some time yet.

T h e Bonaparte affair^[5] had indeed put a sorry end to the proposed Prussian amnesty.^[6] Louis, by the way, is merely aping his putative uncle.^[7] H e is, in fact, not only Napoleon le Petit (in Victor Hugo's sense^[8] as opposed to Napoléon le Grand) but he PERSONATES IN A MOST ADMIRABLE WAY THE LITTLENESS o f t h e g r e a t N a p o l e o n. I have looked u p Cobbett for 1802-03 where I discover that the 'DEN OF ASSASSINS' AND ALL THAT LITERALLY appeared in the Moniteur of that time.^[9] Inter alia, the Moniteur of 9 August 1802 declares word for word:

•'Either the English government authorises and tolerates these public and private crimes, in which case it cannot be said that such conduct is consistent with British generosity, civilisation, and honour; or it cannot prevent them, in which case it does not deserve the name of government; above all, if it does not possess the means of repressing assassination and calumny and protecting social order.'^[10]

Salut.

Your

K. M.

If you haven't yet sent off the back numbers of the Guardian, try and let me have them by Monday, and the next ones by Friday.

↑ This letter was first published in an abridged English translation in The Letters of Karl Marx, selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliff, New Jersey, 1979.—12, 30, 45, 54, 61, 67, 70, 93, 110, 128, 132, 224, 227, 254, 265, 319, 333, 359, 407, 430, 448, 459, 461, 518, 524
↑ See this volume, pp. 567 69.
↑ When Marx wrote the article 'Bolivar y Ponte', the history of the Latin American countries' war for independence (1810-26) had not yet been adequately studied. Books and memoirs by European adventurers who had taken part in the war out of mercenary motives were widely read at the time (among them Ducoudray Holstein, a Frenchman who had become Bolivar's personal enemy, and the Englishman G. Hippisley). The authors of these books attributed numerous vices to Bolivar (perfidity, arrogance, cowardice) and presented his struggle against federalist and separatist elements for the unification of the Latin American republics as a striving for dictatorship. In reality, Simon Bolivar played an outstanding role in the struggle of several Latin American countries for liberation from the Spanish yoke, the establish ment of republican forms of government and for progressive bourgeois reforms. Marx had only the above-mentioned biassed sources at his disposal. Hence his inevitably one-sided view of Bolivar's personality in his article, in this letter and in Herr Vogt written later (see present edition, Vol. 17); His attitude to Bolivar was to a certain extent determined by the fact that the sources he used exaggerated Bolivar's striving for personal power, and over-emphasised the Bonapartist features against which Marx and Engels were then waging a relendess struggle. Nevertheless, Marx pointed out the progressive aspects of Bolivar's activity, such as his emancipation of Negro slaves, and on the whole appreciated the revolutionary anti-colonial struggle for national liberation in Latin America.—266
↑ The golden mean
↑ Marx refers to an attempt on the life of Napoleon III by the Italian revolutionary Felice Orsini on 14 January 1858. Orsini hoped thus to give an impetus to revolutionary actions in Europe and activate the struggle for Italy's unification. The attempt failed and Orsini was executed on 13 March of that year.—251, 255, 256, 257, 266, 271, 289
↑ The amnesty of political emigrants who had taken part in the 1848-49 revolution in Germany was not proclaimed by the Prussian government until early 1861.—255, 266
↑ Marx alludes to the rumours about the illegitimate birth of Napoleon III, whose official father was Napoleon I's brother Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland in 1806-10.—266
↑ V. Hugo, Napoleon le petit (Hugo first used the phrase in a speech in the Legislative Assembly in 1851).
↑ Marx refers to an article in Cobbett's Annual Register. From July to December, 1802 (Vol. II, London, 1810, columns 128-33) on the aggravation of Anglo-French relations during Napoleon's consulate because of the anti-Napoleonic statements in the press by French political refugees in England. Later Marx used this article and passages quoted in it from Le Moniteur universel, No. 320, 9 August 1802, for his article 'The French Trials in London' published in the New- York Daily Tribune on 27 April 1858 (see present edition, Vol. 15).— 266
↑ This passage from an article in Le Moniteur universel, No. 320, 9 August 1802 (datelined 'Paris, le 19 thermidor') is quoted by Marx in English according to Cobbett's Annual Register. From July to December, 1802, Vol. II.

[1] This letter was first published in an abridged English translation in The Letters of Karl Marx, selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliff, New Jersey, 1979.—12, 30, 45, 54, 61, 67, 70, 93, 110, 128, 132, 224, 227, 254, 265, 319, 333, 359, 407, 430, 448, 459, 461, 518, 524

[2] See this volume, pp. 567 69.

[3] When Marx wrote the article 'Bolivar y Ponte', the history of the Latin American countries' war for independence (1810-26) had not yet been adequately studied. Books and memoirs by European adventurers who had taken part in the war out of mercenary motives were widely read at the time (among them Ducoudray Holstein, a Frenchman who had become Bolivar's personal enemy, and the Englishman G. Hippisley). The authors of these books attributed numerous vices to Bolivar (perfidity, arrogance, cowardice) and presented his struggle against federalist and separatist elements for the unification of the Latin American republics as a striving for dictatorship. In reality, Simon Bolivar played an outstanding role in the struggle of several Latin American countries for liberation from the Spanish yoke, the establish ment of republican forms of government and for progressive bourgeois reforms. Marx had only the above-mentioned biassed sources at his disposal. Hence his inevitably one-sided view of Bolivar's personality in his article, in this letter and in Herr Vogt written later (see present edition, Vol. 17); His attitude to Bolivar was to a certain extent determined by the fact that the sources he used exaggerated Bolivar's striving for personal power, and over-emphasised the Bonapartist features against which Marx and Engels were then waging a relendess struggle. Nevertheless, Marx pointed out the progressive aspects of Bolivar's activity, such as his emancipation of Negro slaves, and on the whole appreciated the revolutionary anti-colonial struggle for national liberation in Latin America.—266

[4] The golden mean

[5] Marx refers to an attempt on the life of Napoleon III by the Italian revolutionary Felice Orsini on 14 January 1858. Orsini hoped thus to give an impetus to revolutionary actions in Europe and activate the struggle for Italy's unification. The attempt failed and Orsini was executed on 13 March of that year.—251, 255, 256, 257, 266, 271, 289

[6] The amnesty of political emigrants who had taken part in the 1848-49 revolution in Germany was not proclaimed by the Prussian government until early 1861.—255, 266

[7] Marx alludes to the rumours about the illegitimate birth of Napoleon III, whose official father was Napoleon I's brother Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland in 1806-10.—266

[8] V. Hugo, Napoleon le petit (Hugo first used the phrase in a speech in the Legislative Assembly in 1851).

[9] Marx refers to an article in Cobbett's Annual Register. From July to December, 1802 (Vol. II, London, 1810, columns 128-33) on the aggravation of Anglo-French relations during Napoleon's consulate because of the anti-Napoleonic statements in the press by French political refugees in England. Later Marx used this article and passages quoted in it from Le Moniteur universel, No. 320, 9 August 1802, for his article 'The French Trials in London' published in the New- York Daily Tribune on 27 April 1858 (see present edition, Vol. 15).— 266

[10] This passage from an article in Le Moniteur universel, No. 320, 9 August 1802 (datelined 'Paris, le 19 thermidor') is quoted by Marx in English according to Cobbett's Annual Register. From July to December, 1802, Vol. II.

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