Letter to Karl Marx, March 13, 1868

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 13 March 1868


First published abridged in Der Briefwech- sel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931
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, 13 March 1868

Dear Moor,

For Meissner I still lack the letter from von Eynern. I wanted to prepare an advertisement[1] today but was disturbed.

Enclosed from Vienna.[2] Have written to Wilhelmchen[3] for information. I think I shall accept in general, but say that the matter must remain secret 'in order not to disturb my other connections in the Viennese press'.

I also sent Wilhelm two articles about your book, completely popular for workers (so that even Wilhelm will understand them).[4]

At the same time, I have coached him in his role in order to work over in the Reichstag the new code for crafts and manufactures (which also includes factory legislation).[5] This opportunity is very good in order to ADVERTISE the book, and I am convinced that this will also have a considerable effect, since even the official economists have to draw on it.

Since yesterday I have been fit for work again—on the one hand, I get back earlier in the evening, and, on the other, I have discovered that for 14 days I had been drinking beer poisoned probably with cocculus indicus,[6] which totally narcotised me in the evening. I CHANGED THE TAP YESTERDAY—by chance—noted the differ- ence, and discovered the cause, which I had ascribed to digestive troubles.

H o w ABOUT CARBUNCLES?

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 534, 540.
  2. ↑ Engels sent Marx a letter from an Austrian journalist, W. Angerstein, dated 9 March 1868, in which he invited Engels to become a correspondent of a new workers' newspaper. On 11 March 1868, Angerstein sent a similar letter TO MARX whom he invited to contribute to the Viennese newspapers Telegraph and Arbeiter-Zeitung.
  3. ↑ Wilhelm Liebknecht
  4. ↑ F. Engels, 'Review of Volume One of Capital for the Demokratisches Wochenblatt.
  5. ↑ Engels' letter to Liebknecht has not been found. From Liebknecht's reply of 29 March 1868 it follows that his friends and he readily took Engels' advice to use Capital as a basis for the proletarian stance vis-à-vis a new crafts and manufactures code that was being prepared (the same was recommended in his review of Volume One of Capital for the Demokratisches Wochenblatt). When, in the spring of 1869, the North German Reichstag began to discuss the code bill, August Bebel and other working-class deputies, following Engels' advice, resolutely criticised the bill and demanded that several amendments should be introduced into it that would meet the interests of the working class such as a ten-hour working day, the abolition of work on Sundays, the introduction of a factory inspectorate and the workers' right to coalitions. Although all these amendments were rejected by the bourgeois and Junker majority of the Reichstag, the speeches of the working-class deputies on this issue played an important part to unite the revolutionary efforts of the German proletariat.
  6. ↑ Indian berries