Letter to Karl Marx, October 16, 1862

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 16 October 1862


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1930
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41


ENGELS TO MARX[1]

IN LONDON

Manchester, 16 October 1862

Dear Moor,

Every single day throughout the whole of last week and this, I was all-set to write to you, but was prevented from doing so by the confounded COTTON business. Ces messieurs[2] had, of course, done as little work as possible while I was away,[3] so that my hands have been completely full.

Lupus asked me to tell you that he got the things all right.[4] The case is a most amusing one. Those poor, mendacious Prussians! They invariably make fools of themselves the moment they commit something to paper!

I presume you got the £10 note I sent you on the day of my departure? Again I got stuck in Barmen and Engelskirchen for too long, having spent a whole fortnight sauntering along the Moselle, the Rhine, and in Thuringia. I went straight to Trier via Brussels and Luxemburg, and then on foot to Kochern, etc., giving Cologne a complete miss.

Bismarck's appointment was hailed by the bourgeois with peals of laughter.4M The chaps were altogether amazingly confident and in a somewhat daredevil mood. They have at last hooked the worthy William with a financial question and know he's bound to give way to them in the long run; but they take a remarkably idyllic view of the course of events and imagine that, provided they just keep the fellow dangling for a while, he'll come to them of his own accord. They're in for a surprise. At all events, things are bound to come to a head some time in the spring. It's killing, by the by, to see what an inspiring effect a financial question of this kind has on the philistines. Schulze-Delitzsch and co. become positively witty, the only man to remain 'sherioush'[5] being Virchow; but nay, he is not alone—Heinrich Bürgers, too, conducts himself with fitting dignity in Weimar, where he sounds the trumpet on behalf of the Imperial Constitution of the year dot.[6] I must say that Schulze-Delitzsch, the little provident society man who has never been, nor asked to be, more than a wretched philistine, seems to me positively respectable by comparison with scoundrels such as Bürgers and the great Miquel, who are saving the fatherland in Weimar through Prussian supremacy.[7]

I now understand about Kinkel, too. He's a complete caricature of a certain upholsterer in Coblenz who is, in his own way, a unique example of a Rhinelander, with all the prejudices and narrow-mindedness of a race that curses the Prussians, loathes the French, sympathises with Austria, is Catholic and democratic in one and the same breath, but excels at putting its best foot forward. I know because we marched over the Kochemer Berg together. If Kinkel were to see this lad, whom his physical appearance apes in every particular, the shock would knock him over backwards.

What do you make of America? The financial CRASH, inevitable in view of these stupid paper money measures, would seem to be imminent.[8] Militarily speaking, the North may now perhaps begin to recover a bit.

What is little Jenny doing? Many regards to your wife and the girls.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ An extract from this letter was first published in English in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Civil War in the United States, New York, 1937
  2. ↑ These gentlemen
  3. ↑ Engels travelled in Germany from 12 to 29 September 1862. After a journey along the Mosel and Rhine and a trip to Thuringia, he stayed with his relatives in Barmen and Engelskirchen.
  4. ↑ A reference to Marx's article 'A Note on the Amnesty', see this volume, p. 417.
  5. ↑ In the original ' "ernscht" ischt der Mann' (instead of 'ernst ist, etc.').
  6. ↑ This refers to the Constitution adopted by the Frankfurt National Assembly on 28 March 1849 (it was rejected by the King of Prussia and other German monarchs). On 28 September 1862, about 200 deputies to the diets of various German states, meeting in Weimar, urged the convocation of an all-German Parliament with a view to establishing, in keeping with that Constitution, a united federal all-German state, its members enjoying autonomy in internal affairs.
  7. ↑ On 21 March 1848, King Frederick William IV of Prussia declared that he was ready, for the salvation of Germany, to 'assume the leadership of the whole nation'. Hence the phrase 'Prussian leadership', which won currency as a euphemism for Prussia's striving to unite the country under its supremacy.
  8. ↑ In 1862 large amounts of paper money ('greenbacks') were issued in the USA to cover the costs of the Civil War. This gradually led to inflation.