Letter to Ferdinand Freiligrath, November 23, 1859

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 23 November 1859


First published in Die Neue Zeit, Ergänzungshefte, No. 12, 1911-1912
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO FERDINAND FREILIGRATH

IN LONDON

[London,] 23 November 1859

Dear Freiligrath,

I have just received a copy of your letter to Liebknecht[1] in which the following passage occurs:

'I possess only one letter from Vogt, dated 1 April 1859. This letter, as Marx conceded only last Saturday, does not contain a single syllable that might be used to substantiate a charge against Vogt.'

Since accuracy is desirable in matters of this kind, I must register a formal protest in regard to this passage.

Firstly, I conceded nothing. To concede (conce'dere) presupposes a debate in which one of the assertions originally put forward is withdrawn and the opposing view accepted. Nothing of the kind happened between us. The initiative was mine. I told you something; I conceded nothing. The facts were as follows:

I recalled that you yourself had asked Mr Blind whether he was the author of the anonymous pamphlet,[2] since both the tone and the content of his verbal account tallied entirely with the pamphlet.[3] I stressed that, before encountering Mr Blind at Urquhart's meeting of 9 May,[4] I knew nothing of Vogt's participation in the Italian imbroglio, save only for his letter to you. I reminded you that, on the evening you showed me that letter, it never remotely occurred to me to infer therefrom that Vogt had been bribed, or anything of the kind. All I found in the letter was the same old, all too familiar, superficially liberal

pot-house politics of his. If I laid any emphasis on all this, it was—à tout seigneur tout honneur—so as not to detract in any way from Mr Blind's merit in uncovering Vogt's high treason.

Secondly, however, it never occurred to me to say that 'Vogt's letter did not contain a single syllable that might be used to substantiate a charge against Vogt'. All I said was that, having read the letter, it would not occur to me to draw such a conclusion. But the immediate subjective impression made upon me by the letter is very far removed from an objective judgment on the content of the letter, or even on conjectures which might be made about it. I never had either the occasion or the opportunity to subject the letter to the critical examination necessary for such an objective judgment. That Mr Blind put a different construction on, for instance, the letters Vogt addressed to you, him, etc., is and was known to you. E.g. in his article in The Free Press (27 May)[5] these letters are expressly mentioned as corpora delicti, even though no names are given. This is again the case in his statement in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung.[6]

From Mr Vogt I now come to Mr Beta, whose No. 43 I bought after getting your letter.[7] Having perused the opus, I decided to do exactly what I have been doing for the past 10 years, namely ignore such stuff. But I have today heard from two very close friends (not in London) urging me to make a statement in the interests of the party. I shall first deliberate the pros and cons for twice 24 hours. If, after mature deliberation, I should decide to speak, my statement would contain essentially the following:

1. If an attempt were made wrongly to attribute to me any influence over you, this could at most apply to the brief life-span of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, at which time you were writing what was truly splendid and indisputably your most popular poetry.

2. A biographical sketch in a few sentences of Mr Betziege alias Hans Beta, starting from the time when he wrote for a blackmailing theatrical rag in Berlin, going on through his editorship of the How do you do? under Louis Drucker, vintner and clown (including my visit to the How do you dds lair 509) and his

subsequent activities in Leipzig, when he simultaneously libelled me in the Gartenlaube, i.e. reproduced the tripe from the How do you do? and appropriated my anti-Palmerston pamphlets, and ending up with his present occupation of factotum to Gottfried Kinkel. It might, perhaps, do some good if the German public were to be shown what a scoundrelly bunch of lumpenproletarians it is that is croaking loudest in the foul swamp of current German literature.

3. Two letters from Heine to myself which will enable the public to decide between the authority of Heine and the authority of Beta.

4. Finally, a couple of letters written to me by Johann Kinkel[8]

and Johanna Kinkel at the time of the N. Rh. Z. I would use these to unseat the melodramatic parson from the high horse upon which this Father Brey[9] (it is in that sense that your version of Goethe should be amended) is charging me in what is for him the typical arena of a Gartenlaube.

I am telling you all this so that, as is fitting between friends, you will have been informed in advance should I decide to make a statement.[10]

As for Liebknecht, Kolb is clearly seeking to justify himself in Cotta's eyes by using your letter to sacrifice Liebknecht as a scapegoat, for his own, not Liebknecht's quid pro quo. Peccant reges, plectuntur Achivi[11] still holds good.

To obviate all misunderstanding I have, at the same time as this letter to you, sent Liebknecht a copy of the passages in it relating to the Vogt affair.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ Freiligrath's letter to Liebknecht of 21 November 1859.
  2. ↑ Zur Warnung
  3. ↑ About the middle of July 1859 Marx talked with Blind, Liebknecht and Hollinger, the owner of the print-shop in which Das Volk was printed, about the anti-Vogt anonymous pamphlet Zur Warnung (A Warning) which had been reprinted in Das Volk, No. 7, 18 June and the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 173, 22 June. The pamphlet exposed Vogt as a bribed Bonapartist agent. During the conversation, Marx gave it as his opinion that the pamphlet had been written by Blind as it contained facts which the latter had related to him at a public meeting on 9 May 1859 (see Note 420); Marx also pointed out that the proofs of the pamphlet, discovered by Liebknecht in Hollinger's print-shop in mid-June and sent by him to the Allgemeine Zeitung contained corrections in Blind's handwriting. However, Blind, unwilling openly to attack Vogt, denied his authorship. His attitude was later condemned by Marx in his polemi cal work Herr Vogt (present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 122-32).—479, 486, 498. 503, 539
  4. ↑ On 9 May 1859 Marx, while attending a public meeting organised by Urquhart in connection with the Italian war, was told by the German democrat Karl Blind that Vogt was in receipt of subsidies from the French government for Bonapartist propaganda and had offered bribes to some writers to induce them to come out in support of Napoleon III (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 116-17).—434, 436, 460, 468, 533, 539, 543
  5. ↑ [K. Blind,] 'The Grand Duke Constantine to Be King of Hungary', The Free Press, No. 5, 27 May 1859.
  6. ↑ K. Blind, 'Erklärung', Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 313, 9 November 1859.
  7. ↑ [H.] B[eta,] 'Ferdinand Freiligrath', Die Gartenlaube, No. 43, 1859.
  8. ↑ after his wife, Johanna Kinkel.
  9. ↑ A character from Goethe's Ein Fastnachtsspiel auch wohl zu tragieren Ostern, vom Pater Brey, dem falschen Propheten.
  10. ↑ Marx decided against making his statement (see this volume, p. 535).—541
  11. ↑ The chiefs sin, the Aacheans suffer. Paraphrase of Quidquid délirant reges plectuntur Achivi (whatever madness possesses the chiefs, it is the Aacheans who suffer), Horace, Epistle, I, ii, 14.