Letter to Friedrich Engels, May 16, 1861

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 16 May 1861


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 16 May 1861

DEAR Frederick,

I missed Gumpert. First, I went to Euston Square 3 0 5 at 5 in the afternoon and waited there till 6. Later on, at ABOUT 8 OCLOCK, I went to London Bridge Station. In neither case did I catch him.

Perhaps you would be so kind as to write and tell us when you are coming.[1]

As regards your own relations with Prussia,[2] let me begin by giving you the opinion of the leading jurists with whom I spoke in Berlin. Everything depends upon whether or not you were conscripted. If not, your CASE as a Landwehr[3] man is one for the ordinary civil courts. It would seem, by the by, that the Prussians are officially concerned only with your Elberfeld affair, not the one in Baden.[4]

I don't know if you have read the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung of 19 April last. T h e final news item from Paris[5] reads (I quote):

'By way of a warning to booksellers, Herr Vogt by Karl Marx has been placed on the list of proscribed books, thus frustrating the appearance of a much abridged French version, which is now in press.'

I had intended to give you a further account of my journey today, but Mr Bühring has just come to see me, so I must get this note off.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 279, 291.
  2. ↑ ibid., p. 15.
  3. ↑ The Landwehr was part of Prussia's armed forces and consisted of men who had done their term of active service and service in the reserve. Under Prussia's laws, it was only raised in the event of war or the threat of war. The Prussian government's order to call up the Landwehr in the Rhine Province, issued at the beginning of May 1849, precipitated a popular uprising in Rhenish Prussia. In Elberfeld, Iserlohn, Solingen and a number of other cities, the Landwehr joined the movement in support of the Imperial Constitution. After the defeat of the uprising, many of the insurgents were forced to emigrate. Landwehr members guiltv of breaches of army discipline were subject to the jurisdiction of courts-martial. This applied also to ex-members of the Landwehr returning to Prussia from exile.
  4. ↑ -p Elberfeld uprising of workers and petty bourgeoisie broke out on 8 May 1849 and served as a signal for armed struggle in a number of cities in the Rhine Province in defence of the Imperial Constitution. The immediate occasion of the uprising was the attempt of the Prussian government to suppress the revolutionary movement on the Rhine by armed force, destroy the democratic organisations and the press, and disarm the army units which disobeyed its orders and supported the Imperial Constitution. Engels played an active part in the uprising. At a trial held in April and May 1850, most of the participants in the Elberfeld uprising were found guilty and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. See Engels' article 'Elberfeld', (present edition, Vol. 9). In June and July 1849, Engels was fighting in the ranks of the Baden-Palatinate insurgent army (see Note 212).
  5. ↑ 'Paris, 17. April', Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 109, 19 April 1861.