Letter to Heymann Steinthal, January 25, 1869

Author(s) Arnold Ruge
Written 25 January 1869


First published in Die Neue Zeit, Bd. 2, Nr. 12, Stuttgart, 1901-1902
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


ARNOLD RUGE TO STEINTHAL[1]

IN MANCHESTER

Brighton, 25 January 1869
7 Park Crescent

Dear Mr Steinthal,

At the same time as this letter, I am sending you Marx on capital by book-post.

Many thanks! This book has given me constant food for thought, though I had to work on all sorts of other things at the same time.

It is an epoch-making work and throws a shining and often scorching light on the development of the social periods, with the declines, the birth-pains, and the frightful days of agony.

The proofs of surplus value through unpaid labour, of the expropriation of the workers who had worked for themselves, and of the coming expropriation of the expropriators, are classical.

On the latter, p. 745[2] : 'The capitalist mode of production and appropriation, hence capitalist property, is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labour of the proprietor. The negation of this negation therefore again gives the producer individual property, but based on the acquisitions of the capitalist era: i.e., on the co-operation of free labourers and their possession in common of the land and of the means of production produced by labour itself

Marx is a man of broad erudition and with a brilliant dialectical talent. His book is above the level of many people and newspaper writers; but it will quite certainly make its way, and exercise a powerful influence, despite its broad scope; yes, precisely because of this.

With regard to religion, the author states very accurately: 608: 'As, in religion, man is governed by the products of his own brain, so in capitalistic production, he is governed by the products of his own hand.'

And to liberate him, it by no means suffices to shine a light in the owl's eye; in fact, whenever he loses his master, like the Frenchman or the Spaniard, then he himself installs one over himself again.

But still all the best for 1869! May it stand the test like its predecessor! My best
greetings
to
Mrs Steinthal
and
Mr Heydemann.

Yours sincerely

Dr A. Ruge

  1. ↑ Ruge's letter to Steinthal of 25 January 1869 was forwarded to Marx on 4 February by W. Strohn with whom Steinthal was friendly. Marx let Engels, Borkheim and Kugelmann read it. He sent it to the latter on 11 February (see this volume, p. 213).
  2. ↑ The following quotation, slightly modified by Marx, is from Capital, Vol. I (1867), pp. 744 45.