Letter to Karl Marx, February 2, 1868

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 2 February 1868


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 2 February 1868

Dear Moor,

The reason for my silence was that I wanted to inform you, together with the letter, of the dispatch of the wine. However, the fellow who packs wine for me had an accident, and will be lying sick for at least 14 days, and so I have not been able to manage it yet; possibly I shall pack it myself tomorrow. You will receive very good 1863 claret and 1857 Rhine wine; I only have a few bottles of Moselle left, and they are in Mornington Street, where I cannot have them packed.

Then I was also chasing after The Saturday Review and have with great trouble got hold of the notice. If you have not seen it, I can send you a copy—not much in it, but nevertheless a good sign.[1]

At the moment, in addition to the tremendous amount of work connected with the annual accounts and that resulting from the revival in business, I must also rush around like mad as chairman of the Schiller Institute,[2] since the affair of the building fund must be decided within 14 days, and until then all the work falls on me myself. However, I shall start with the piece for the Fortnightly.[3] Important and interesting as the question of money is for England as well, I still think it appropriate to allow it to retreat into the background this time; it would distract attention from the main theme and demand a long explanation so that the English might understand that the subject is simply money as such, which he is accustomed to think of only in its entanglement with credit money, etc. What do you think?

Kertbény's idea of having your portrait in the Leipzig Illustrirte is quite splendid.[4] This sort of advertisement penetrates right into the depths of the philistine's heart. Give him everything he needs for this. The fellow can be used for other things too, is very willing, and has the need to intervene busily everywhere and in everything. Vain, but not stupid for a Hungarian. His assessment of the German-Austrians at that time was very correct.

Card, the Pole, has sent me an insoluble puzzle with his signature. Cwi...chiewicz, neither my knowledge of handwriting nor my philology suffices for the solution of it. OF COURSE, HE WOULD NEVER DO AS A TRANSLATOR, and what Schily writes[5] is very fishy. If Reclus alone wants 3,000-4,000 francs, and Moses[6] who wants to do the main work, also his share, and you should be paid the droits d'auteur,[7] where should the publisher come from? And these people should be left to do the job of 'condensing' and 'Frenching' it? Moses, who would rather be capable of watering down into 20 volumes the chapter about absolute surplus value[8] than condensing a page of it by one line? It is really your fault; if you write strictly dialectically for German science, then afterwards, when it comes to the translations, particularly the French, you fall into evil hands.

The Frankfurter Börsenzeitung[9] like all the rest I have sent to Meissner, from whom I have heard nothing since.[10] I wrote to him that he should make up an advertisement from the various articles.[11]

Liebknecht's rag[12] displeases me to the highest degree. Nothing but concealed South German federalism. The article on Swiss and Prussian military history has been worked up on the basis of Grün (K.) in Les Etats-Unis d'Europe,[13] almost every word is wrong. Furthermore there is nothing in the rag, and though he is as thick as thieves with Hanoverian particularists and South German louts, he attacks the Berlin Zukunft people who, the devil take it, are at least as good as that rabble. Incidentally I have only received 3 numbers.

What little trust the Prussians have in the internal peace in the new provinces[14] is shown by the new stationing and organisation of the army. For instance, 3 Hanoverian infantry and 2 cavalry regiments are stationed in Westphalia or rather Wesel, while in Hanover there are only 2 Hanoverian infantry and 3 cavalry regiments but, besides, in Westphalia 4 infantry and 2 cavalry regiments. It is true that in Schleswig-Holstein home regiments are stationed with one exception, but 2 infantry and 2 cavalry regiments from the old provinces as well. In Hesse there are indeed nominally 3 Hessian regiments of infantry, but of these the 82nd (2nd Hessian) consists of Westphalians! And the Nassauers have been sent to Hesse, the Hessians to Nassau, and parts of both with old Prussian regiments sent to Mainz. Finally Frankfurt is kept in order by Pomeranian infantry and Rhineland cavalry.

The great Borchardt seems to be approaching the target of his career. You know that for years he has transferred his priestly leanings from the beautiful Mrs Steinthal to the even more beautiful Mrs Schwabe, and that every year he has taken her to Germany to a spa because of her weakened health, and brought her back again, while her husband has to stay at home out of respect for his wife's health. So, Borchardt even took her, as Schwabe told Knowles and me one day, 'to Königsberg for the coronation'—whereupon I naturally asked: 'Whose coronation?' Although I made fun of the cuckolded jackass for a whole half hour over the coronation, and fat Knowles was laughing aloud, the oaf noticed nothing. But now, after the priestly doctor had kept the husband apart from his sick wife for years, it suddenly emerges that the sick wife is pregnant and expects her accouchement about April. Remarkably, the high priest must have been guilty of some carelessness or foolishness sufficiently for the cuckolded jackass to suddenly see the light; he leaves his house here and moves to Berlin, sells his HUNTERS although he will still be here for the whole hunting season, resigns his club membership, and is so hostile to the high priest that when the latter manages to launch a collection for the East Prussians here and sends £700 to the Zukunft, the cuckolded jackass throws himself into the arms of the Prussian consul and together with him collects about £350 for the official committee. Now there is a lot of talk about this amongst the philistines, and although the story above is only whispered about in the dark, the position of the high priest has been badly shattered, and many people dare to speak of him with disrespect. He no longer looks so jovial and elegant. I wonder how things will proceed. (Nota bene. The names in this story are between you and me.)

Best greetings to the ladies and Lafargue.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ A reference to the notice on the first volume of Capital published in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, 18 January 1868.
  2. ↑ The Schiller Institute, founded in Manchester in November 1859 in connection with the centenary of Friedrich Schiller's birth, strove to be a German emigre cultural and social centre. Engels was critical of the Institute, noted for its tendency to formalism and pedantry, and he initially kept aloof from it. But when certain changes were introduced into its Rules, he became a member of its Directorate in 1864. Later, as the President of the Institute, Engels devoted much time to it and exercised a considerable influence on its activities. In September 1868, while Engels was away from Manchester, the Institute invited Karl Vogt, who was connected with the Bonapartists and was slandering the proletarian revolutionaries, to deliver a lecture. Engels felt that his political reputation would be compromised if he remained President and so he left the Directorate. In April 1870 he was again elected a member of the Directorate of the Schiller Institute, but did not take an active part in it.
  3. ↑ Engels wrote the review of Volume One of Marx's Capital for The Fortnightly Review much later, in May and June 1868. As can be seen from their subsequent correspondence, Marx and Engels exchanged opinions several times on the content and form of the article. In spite of Professor Beesly's request, the review was rejected by the editorial board and has only been preserved in manuscript form (see present edition, Vol. 20).
  4. ↑ A reference to the letter from Kugelmann TO MARX of 17-18 January 1868 with which a letter was enclosed TO MARX from a Hungarian writer, Kâroly Marie Kertbény. In his letter Kugelmann said that Kertbény had seen him in Hanover and showed an interest in the members of the revolutionary movement. Kugelmann asked Marx to tell him what he thought of Kertbény and also to receive a young banker from Hanover, Karl Coppel, who was going to London. Judging by the letter from Kertbény TO MARX of 17 January 1868, he wanted to publish in the Leipzig Illustrierte Zeitung a short biographical note about Marx and a portrait of him on the occasion of the release of Volume One of Capital. Kertbény discovered this portrait by chance in the studio of a photographer in Hanover and asked Marx to send biographical details. Kertbény's project was not fulfilled.
  5. ↑ See this volume, p. 52.
  6. ↑ Moses Hess
  7. ↑ author's rights
  8. ↑ A reference to Chapter III ('The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value') of the first German edition of Volume One of Capital. It is given as Part III in the second and subsequent German editions of Volume One and in the English edition of 1887 (see present edition, Vol. 35).
  9. ↑ Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt
  10. ↑ Engels' review of Volume One of Capital which was written for the Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt has not been found. The review for the Düsseldorfer Zeitung, was published unsigned, with Carl Siebel's assistance, in No. 316 of 16 November 1867 (see present edition, Vol. 20).
  11. ↑ This letter by Engels has not been found.
  12. ↑ Demokratisches Wochenblatt
  13. ↑ A reference to the article 'Das Preußische und das Schweizer Heersystem' published in the Demokratisches Wochenblatt, No. 2 of 11 January 1868. It was based on a series of articles by Karl Grün, 'Armées permanentes ou milices', that had been printed in Les États-Unis d'Europe at the beginning of 1868; the fourth article of the series (published in No. 7 of 16 February) dealt with the South German military system.
  14. ↑ A reference to the territories annexed by Prussia as a result of its victory in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 (see Note 365).