Letter to Karl Marx, February 17, 1869

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 17 February 1869


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 43


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

[Manchester,] 17 February 1869

Dear Moor,

I shall have the report[1] READY for you by next Tuesday,[2] though I don't know what interests you mainly. Enclosed is a letter from Lugau.[3]

Best thanks for the Westbury story.[4] I return, enclosed, the letter to Borkheim.[5] I shall ask my SHAREBROKER about it.

Enclosed is the extract made by the illustrious Gaudissart8 about Bakunin,[6] together with annotations. You see that the main strong passages, which he quoted to us in Russian, only exist in his imagination. Still, the Pan-Slavism is really spread rather too thickly, in particular the threats against the Poles are significant. And the dissolution of the Russian Empire is qualified by the fact that Great Russia should still become the centre of the Slav confederation.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Engels wrote the 'Report on the Miners' Guilds in the Coalfields of Saxony' (see present edition, Vol. 21) at Marx's request on the basis of material sent in by the Saxon miners from Lugau, Nieder-Würschnitz and Oelsnitz, who informed the General Council and Marx personally of their wish to join the International (see Note 241). The report, which Engels had written in English, was read at the General Council meeting of 23 February 1869. An abridged version appeared in The Bee-Hive, No. 385, 27 February 1869. Other English newspapers, including The Times, The Daily News and The Morning Advertiser, refused to carry the report. In early March 1869 Marx himself translated it into German, and it was published in Der Social-Demokrat, No. 33, 17 March, Demokratisches Wochenblatt, No. 12 (supplement), 20 March, and Die Zukunft, nos. 67 and 68, 20 and 21 March 1869.
  2. ↑ 23 February
  3. ↑ Marx refers to Gustav Adolf Bachmann's letter of 31 January 1869 with the request of the Lugau workers to be affiliated with the International Working Men's Association. See Die I. Internationale in Deutschland, Berlin, 1964, S. 295.
  4. ↑ See this volume, p. 215.
  5. ↑ Sigismund Borkheim
  6. ↑ A reference to the preparatory materials for Borkheim's articles 'Michael Bakunin' (VIII-X) in the Russische Briefe series (see Note 274), brought out by Die Zukunft on 21 July, 13 and 15 August and 2 November 1869. Among the materials used by Borkheim was Bakunin's 'Address to the Russian, Polish and All Slavic Friends' (printed in the Kolohol, No. 123-124, supplement, 15 Feb ruary 1862).