Letter to Friedrich Engels, November 25, 1864

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 25 November 1864


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 25 November [1864]

DEAR FREDERICK! Weydemeyer's letter returned enclosed (how odd it should come at the same time as the one from the countess[1] )[2] with Schweitzer's letter[3] which I forgot to enclose yesterday.

I still need to hold on to the 'clipping'.[4]

The position is now as follows:

1. It was not until after I wrote to you that I saw that Blind has sent an answer to the Swabian Beobachter via Dr Bronner (unsigned, of course, but dated Bradford; letter, naturally, written by Blind himself, in which he firstly proves that by his influence over '7' million Germans he in fact shaped American politics; secondly, he has the impudence to say that the Vogt affair has been disposed of by statements from all sides.[5] So, I have grounds here for replying and referring to the 'AFFIDAVITS',[6] and, at the same time, an extract from Weydemeyer's letter would kill two birds with one stone, firstly exposing Blind's influence on America and secondly giving the old countess some kind of satisfaction as far as Lassalle is concerned.

2. These 'Republican Protests', which Blind has sent with the same date to St Louis, Frankfurt am Main and the London Hermann, are only identical in their general drift. In the shit in the Hermann and the Frankfurter Journal[7] which I shall try to send you later today, this Baden publican has simply put together the passages which were most damaging to ourselves, whilst across the ocean he is more insolent and resorts to bare-faced lies.

But the real 'POINT' is this, a 'POINT' typical of the way he manufactures his pamphlets: in the European edition he says that the protest comes from American and European republicans, whilst in the American edition he calls upon the American government to protest. Here we have caught the dog in flagranti.[8]

3. Since Lassalle is dead and can do no more harm, we must of course—as far as possible, i.e. without compromising ourselves— defend him against these petty-bourgeois scoundrels.

My plan is therefore this: to reply (briefly) in the Swabian Beobachter; 1. putting the record straight about the statements from all sides in the Vogt affair; 2. giving an extract from Weydemeyer's letter about Blind's influence in America; 3. exposing the fellow afresh by comparing the European and American editions of his 'Republican Protest'; finally 4. concluding that it is NOT WORTH WHILE defending Lassalle against such a comical character.

If this seems all right to you, send me a wire and I will tie the whole business up tomorrow, amongst other things in order to have some peace with the 'old girl'. I said in my letter to her, by the way, that Lassalle only has himself to blame for being kicked by that jackass, because, although I strongly and repeatedly urged him to do so, he did not give all possible publicity in Germany to my denunciation of Blind in Herr Vogt. Salut.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ Sophie von Hatzfeldt
  2. ↑ Engels' correspondence with Joseph Weydemeyer was interrupted by the Civil War in America, in which Weydemeyer fought on the side of the North. In a letter written at the end of October 1864, Weydemeyer told Engels about Karl Blind's attacks on Lassalle in the American press and sent him a cutting from Die Westliche Post with Blind's article 'Ein Republikanischer Protest'. Engels forwarded Weydemeyer's letter to Marx who quoted it in his statement 'To the Editor of the Stuttgart Beobachter' (see present edition, Vol. 20, p. 23).
  3. ↑ See this volume, p. 29.
  4. ↑ from Die Westliche Post with Blind's article 'Ein republikanischer Protest'
  5. ↑ Der Beobachter, No. 268, 17 November 1864 carried an anonymous report from Bradford, which was a reply to the criticism of Blind in the newspaper's leading article 'Bescheidenheit—ein Ehrenkleid' published on 21 October 1864 (see Note 38). The anonymous writer exaggerated Blind's role in the political life of the USA. He also attempted to dispute the reference of the leader's author to the description of Blind by Marx in his Herr Vogt, and to refute the pamphlet's revelations concerning Blind's cowardly attitude towards Vogt's slanderous campaign against proletarian revolutionaries (see Note 48). All this prompted Marx to write a letter to the editor of Der Beobachter on 28 November 1864 (see present edition, Vol. 20, pp. 23-25). At the request of Sophie von Hatzfeldt, a friend of Ferdinand Lassalle, Marx also came out in this letter against Blind's attacks on Lassalle.
  6. ↑ Marx is referring to the affidavits made by two London compositors, Wiehe and Vögele, on Blind's authorship of the flysheet Zur Warnung (see Note 48), which exposed Karl Vogt as a Bonapartist agent. Blind cravenly denied his participation in composing the flysheet, thus making Marx's campaign against Vogt's lies more difficult. Marx described Blind's cowardly behaviour both in Herr Vogt (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 128-31 and 318-20) and the statement 'To the Editor of the Stuttgart Beobachter' (Vol. 20).
  7. ↑ Neue Frankfurter Zeitung
  8. ↑ red handed