Letter to Karl Marx, March 3, 1869

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 3 March 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
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 3 March 1869

Dear Moor,

You see how right I was to dissuade you from taking a trip to Paris under any circumstances. It would be madness to put oneself in the hands of those scoundrels, particularly since nobody[1] enquires about you and the lois de sûreté[2] are still in force. Let Lafargue go to Strasbourg as soon as possible and take his examinations; once that is over, he will be able to take some liberties. The fact that he has emancipated himself from Moilin is of enormous value; this Jesuit would certainly have got him into trouble. What Lafargue writes about Blanqui is very nice.[3]

Moore tells me that Beesly has written an article on the social question in the new Fortnightly which reaches the maximum confusion.[4]

The only thing linguistically new for me in the old Scottish passage[5] was the participium praesentis havand, having,—showing that this form still existed in Scotland at the beginning of the 16th[6] century, when it had long disappeared in England.

I really did make the blunder in Russian. I have pretty well forgotten the Russian declensions.[7]

The Lugau material[8] will be returned today by BOOK POST. Since I no longer know which passages I quoted, I cannot indicate them for you; however, I made a sort of index to the pamphlets, which is attached, and you may be able to see from this where the passages might be.

What is the pamphlet against the LIFE ASSURANCE Co., called?[9] We really must get hold of it.

So Wilhelmchen appealed to you against Schweitzer.[10] This will make a fine story, since Schweitzer cannot be caught so easily. The row is going to be fun; don't you get the Social-Demokrat any more? Just now, Eichhoff should keep us properly au courant.[11] In the next few days I shall send you some articles that he (certainly nobody else) wrote in the Zukunft.[12] In the meantime, in Essen the Social-Democrat Hasenclever, also supported by Liebknecht, has been elected with a majority of 960 votes over what the Landrat[13] and the National-Liberal candidate received together, and in Hanover (I believe Celle) there are also prospects for getting someone in.[14]

Incidentally, Wilhelm appears to be bestirring himself more and to be having some success in Saxony. If the jackass would only abandon his stupid South-German-federalist and his Guelphic concerns, he could accomplish something despite his thick-headedness, in view of the mistrust of Schweitzer that rules amongst the leaders of the Lassalleans; for Schweitzer's bad conscience disarms him too, when things come to a climax. But with his People's Party[15] and his mania for restoring thrones, he'll have no success in dangling carrots before north German workers.

The odd thing is that he suddenly wants to go to Berlin, that is to say, admits that he can, without danger.

Incidentally, I cannot see how you, as the GENERAL COUNCIL, could declare yourselves competent on this question—even if both parties agreed—unless they both also declared themselves willing to subject themselves to the arbitration verdict against the organisation and management of the TRADES UNIONS, etc.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ simply
  2. ↑ A reference to La loi relatif à des mesures de sûreté générale (Law on Public Security Measures) known as La loi des suspects (Suspects Law) adopted by the Corps législatif on 19 February and promulgated on 28 February 1858. It gave the Emperor and his government unlimited power to exile to different parts of France or Algeria or to banish altogether from French territory any person suspected of hostility to the Second Empire.
  3. ↑ See this volume, p. 225.
  4. ↑ E. S. Beesly, 'The Social Future of the Working Class', The Fortnightly Review, Vol. V, No. XXVII, 1 March 1869
  5. ↑ Marx quotes a translation into Scots made by John Bellenden of a Scottish 16th century chronicle originally written by Hector Boece, a poet and chronicler. The translation was published in Edinburgh in 1536 under the title The History and Chronicles of Scotland and reprinted in 1821. The original, written in Latin, first appeared in Paris in 1527 under the title Scotorum Historiae a prima gentis origine cum aliarum et rerum et gentium illustratione non vulgari and reprinted, with supplements, in 1574.
  6. ↑ The original mistakenly has '15th'.
  7. ↑ See this volume, p. 224.
  8. ↑ 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.
  9. ↑ Ibid., p. 227.
  10. ↑ A reference to Liebknecht's statement of 18 February published by the Demokratisches Wochenblatt, No. 8, 20 February 1869. In that statement, Liebknecht proposed to appoint the General Council the arbiter in the conflict between Schweitzer and his General Association of German Workers on the one hand, and Bebel, Liebknecht and the workers' unions they headed, on the other. The note that Schweitzer had refused to recognise the General Council as arbiter appeared in Der Social-Demokrat, No. 24, 24 February 1869.
  11. ↑ informed
  12. ↑ 'Die Gewerksgenossenschaften', Die Zukunft, Nos. 32, 35, 37, 40 and 47; 7, 11, 13, 17 and 25 February 1869 (see also this volume, p. 239).
  13. ↑ Keßler and Dr. Hammacher. See this volume, p. 141.
  14. ↑ Wilhelm Hasenclever was elected to the North German Reichstag at the by-elections of 25 January 1869 not in Essen but in the Duisburg constituency. He received 6,792 votes while Dr. Hammacher, a National-Liberal, and Landrat Keßler polled 2,665 and 2,142 votes respectively (4,807 in all). As the source of the information about the outcome of the elections Engels used Der Social-Demokrat, 28 February 1869, which mistakenly stated that Hasenclever's superiority amounted to 992 votes.
  15. ↑ The German People's Party (Deutsche Volkspartei) was set up in 1865 and encompassed the democratic elements of the petty bourgeoisie and part of the bigger bourgeoisie, chiefly from South and Central German states. As distinct from the National-Liberals, it opposed Prussia's supremacy and advocated the plan for the establishment of the so-called Great Germany incorporating both Prussia and Austria. While pursuing an anti-Prussian policy, the People's Party voiced the particularist aspirations of some German states. It was against Germany's unification as a single centralised democratic republic, advocating the idea of a federative German state. In 1866, the German People's Party was joined by the Saxon People's Party, whose nucleus consisted of workers. This left wing of the German People's Party had, in effect, nothing in common with it except anti-Prussian sentiments and the wish jointly to solve the problems of national unification in a democratic way. Subsequently, it developed along socialist lines. The main section of the Party broke away from the petty-bourgeois democrats and took part in founding the Social-Democratic Workers' Party in August 1869.