Letter to Ferdinand Lassalle, February 20, 1860

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 20 February 1860


First published in: F. Lassalle. Nachgelassene Briefe und Schriften, Bd. III, Stuttgart-Berlin, 1922
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41


ENGELS TO FERDINAND LASSALLE

IN BERLIN

Manchester, 20 February 1860
6 Thorncliffe Grove, Oxford Road

Dear Lassalle,

Many thanks for sending me Vogt's concoction.[1] More about this below.

As Duncker has doubtless told you, I have offered him a sort of sequel to Po and Rhine[2] which he accepts subject to the proviso 'considerations of principle'.[3] Even though I find it somewhat surprising that the publisher and not the author should be responsible for the principles advanced in a work, I have, nevertheless, tried in vain to discover what can be meant by this. Surely D. isn't claiming that his publishing house is simply an extension of the Volks-Zeitung, which, by the way, I never see up here. Finally, it occurred to me that D. may have got wind of the fact that my views on the Italian question are different from yours and made this proviso out of excessive concern for your pamphlet[4] . I'm convinced that, should this be the case, I would only have to draw your attention to it, for you to reassure D. on this score. In view of your objectivity, you would, I know, consider it an insult, were anyone to suppose you capable of even remotely desiring the suppression of a work because it was opposed to your own views on a question of this kind. In fact, I had to spend a long time thinking things over before I could make up my mind to raise this point with you, being afraid you might be offended with me for assuming such imputations to be possible, even at third hand. But since there seems no other explanation for D.'s 'considerations', I have no choice.

Settling Vogt's hash will be mere child's play. We dealt with this ancient, warmed-up drivel as much as eight years ago[5] (though the little Genevan philistine in his secluded corner doesn't know it) and we'll jolly well demolish it so that nothing's left but the stench, peculiar to Vogt, which he has injected into it. Incidentally, the statements of Blind,[6] Biscamp[7] and, in particular, Lupus[8] have compromised the fellow to such an extent that, if things go on like this, there'll be literally nothing left to do. And now we have Schaible's statement about the provenance of the pamphlet Zur Warnung,[9] which completely nullifies the legal proceedings in Augsburg[10] and will ultimately compel Vogt, should he wish to demonstrate the contrary, to do so in London. All this has, of course, meant our rummaging through the whole of our archives, in which we have the life histories of the entire democratic gang; we can do for every one of them. This ignoramus Vogt, with his letter from Techow[11] (which Vogt stole, to boot) and his paltry, parochial Genevan gossip, imagines that we others are just as ignorant, just as low and just as cowardly as he. He is in for a surprise.

Most cordially,

Yours,

Engels

  1. ↑ C. Vogt, Mein Prozess gegen die Allgemeine Zeitung, Geneva, 1859.
  2. ↑ F. Engels, Savoy, Nice and the Rhine.
  3. ↑ See this volume, p. 50.
  4. ↑ [F. Lassalle,] Der italienische Krieg und die Aufgabe Preussens, Eine Stimme aus der Demokratie, Berlin, 1859.
  5. ↑ This refers to the refutation by Marx and Engels of the slanderous accusations levelled at the Communist League during the trial of communists in Cologne in 1852. See Marx's Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne, Engels' 'The Late Trial at Cologne' (present edition, Vol. 11), and Marx's The Knight of the Noble Consciousness (Vol. 12).
  6. ↑ K. Blind, 'Gegen Karl Vogt', Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 44 (supplement), 13 February 1860.
  7. ↑ [E. Biskamp,] 'Erklärung', Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 46 (supplement), 15 February 1860.
  8. ↑ W. Wolff, 'Erklärung', Die Reform, No. 18, 11 February 1860, Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 44 (supplement), 13 February 1860, and Volks-Zeitung, No. 47, 24 February 1860.
  9. ↑ See this volume, p. 49.
  10. ↑ Engels means Vogt's lawsuit against the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung (see Note 22).
  11. ↑ This refers to Techow's letter to Schimmelpfennig of 26 August 1850, in which Techow gave a distorted rendering of a conversation he had had with Marx (see Marx's Herr Vogt, present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 75-99).