Letter to Karl Marx, January 4, 1866

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 January 1866


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
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 4 January 1866[1]

Dear Moor,

£10 encl. in 2 Bank-of-England notes. How stands it with bill of exchange for LANDLORD? Tell me how much and date when due, so that I may make my dispositions.

That malicious compilation of Social-Demokrat garbage in the Schulze-Delitzschite pamphlet[2] had already been sent me anonym- ously from Berlin; it is always a good thing to have such a résumé with extracts. Schulze-Delitzsch has also announced that in the next few days he is to publish a reply to Lassalle, in which he is going to demolish him. 72

You will already know as well that Racowija died of consump- tion, so presumably Mamsell Dönniges is once more IN THE MARKET, IF

EVER SHE WAS FAIRLY OUT OF IT.

Mr Held's speech has also been sent me from Berlin. He's a real Berlin scoundrel.

Monsieur Bonaparte's progress is most decidedly that of the crab. The trouble in the army over Mexico[3] is very serious, and so is the student trouble in Paris.[4] It is very important that the Paris students should take the side of the proletariat, confused though their ideas on the subject may be. The École polytechnique will follow soon enough. It would be so splendid if the rascal lived to see his own DOWNFALL, and it now almost appears that he might. It is getting more and more rotten for Bismarck every day, too, and, if those scoundrels in Cologne had not got him out of the soup, it would probably already have been all up with him now.[5]

I am agog for the next parliament, the disintegration of the old parties must surely proceed apace now. JOHN BRIGHT IS EVIDENTLY BIDDING FOR OFFICE—it is true, I have not yet read the speech he gave yesterday.[6]

Have you read Tyndall's 'HEAT CONSIDERED AS A MODE OF MOTION'? If not, you should d o so. A great deal of work has been done in this field, and the matter appears to be assuming a rational shape; the atom theory is being taken to such extremes that it must soon fall apart.

Please don't forget to send me The Workman's Advocate and The Free Press.

Regards and best wishes to your family for the New Year.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ The original has: 1865.
  2. ↑ [E. Richter,] Die Geschichte der social demokratischen Partei in Deutschland seit dem Tode Ferdinand Lassalle's.
  3. ↑ In December 1861 France started an armed intervention in Mexico, joindy with Britain and Spain, to overthrow the progressive government of Benito Juarez and turn the Mexican republic into a colony of European powers. The invaders also intended to use Mexican territory as a spring-board for intervening in the US Civil War on the side of the slaveholding Southern States. In the summer of 1863 the French occupied the city of Mexico (Britain and Spain recalled their troops in April 1862 because of contradictions with France) and declared Mexico an empire with Napoleon Ill's henchman, the Archduke of Austria Maximilian, at its head. However, the Mexican people put up a stubborn resistance to the French colonialists and inflicted a heavy defeat on them. In March 1867 they were compelled to withdraw.
  4. ↑ In December 1865 and January 1866 France was the scene of student disorders. They were caused by the decision of the Paris Academy Council to expel students who took part in the International Students' Congress held in Liège (Belgium) at the end of October 1865. The congress was attended by students from many European countries, the most numerous delegation being from France (Paul Lafargue, Charles Longuet, Charles Victor Jaclard, and others). Most speakers at the congress expressed the revolutionary students' protest against the regime of the Second Empire.
  5. ↑ On 18 July 1865 an agreement was concluded between the Bismarck government and the Board of the Cologne-Minden Railway Joint-Stock Company. It granted the Company's Board the right to buy up its shares which until then belonged to the government alone. This deal placed a considerable sum of money at the disposal of the Bismarck government. The agreement was to be ratified by the Prussian Provincial Diet, but on 28 August the shareholders' general meeting unanimously approved it without the Diet's ratification.
  6. ↑ Engels is referring to J. Bright's speech on the Parliamentary Reform delivered at the meeting in Rochdale on 3 January 1866, The Times, No. 25386, 4 January 1866.