Letter to Friedrich Engels, December 20, 1859

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 20 December 1859


First published 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

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 20 December 1859

Dear Engels,

You do not appear to have read both Freiligrath's and Blind's statements in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung (supplement, of presumably 8, 9, 10 or 11 December).[1] This shows that the rumour that 'Freiligrath has broken with Marx' could have got about without Kinkel's help.

I have had a meeting with Juch about the Stieber proceedings in Berlin[2] (the charge against Eichhoff concerns only his comments about the communist trial—the case comes up on the 22nd—so that the whole of that trial will be re-enacted before the public in Berlin. I've sent Eichhoff my pamphlet.[3] If Schneider, Bürgers, etc., weren't so spineless, they could now take a lovely revenge); he also asked me about the Blind-Freiligrath alliance, of which I was then not yet aware. Unfortunately I am compelled for the time being (on material and 'possibly' political grounds) to show some égards[4] for the chap.

In the last issue of the Hermann, student Blind got 'Borkheim'[5] to describe him (Blind) as the Kinkel of South Germany.[6]

I must now do' my article. Don't know what about. Salut.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 345 (supplement), 11 December 1859.
  2. ↑ The note mentioned is a letter to Marx from A. Peza, a London bookseller, of 11 December 1859, communicating Hermann Juch's request to appoint the place and time for a meeting. Juch, the proprietor of the London weekly Hermann, wished to see Marx in order to get information on the Cologne Communist trial (see Note 71) which he needed because Wilhelm Stieber, the chief of the Prussian political police and the central figure in that trial, had lodged a complaint in a Berlin court against Karl Eichhoff, the Berlin correspondent of the Hermann, who had denounced Stieber on its pages (see this volume, p. 536). In May 1860 Eichhoff was sentenced to 14 months' imprisonment.—552, 554
  3. ↑ Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne
  4. ↑ consideration
  5. ↑ S. L. Borkheim, 'An die Redaction des Hermann', Hermann, No 50, 17 December 1859.
  6. ↑ In a letter published in the Hermann on 17 December, Borkheim maintained that Blind enjoyed the same prestige in Baden and Württemberg as Kinkel in Prussia.—555