Letter to Walery Wróblewski, December 4, 1875

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 December 1875


First published in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Moscow, 1935
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


ENGELS TO WALERY WRÖBLEWSKI[1]

IN LONDON

[London,] 4 December 1875, midday
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.

My dear Wroblewski,

This morning I awoke with so violent a cold in the head that it almost prevents me from talking. Hence, to my great regret, it will not be possible for me to attend your Polish meeting tonight, the more so since the evening promises to be one which will combine all the advantages of the Polish climate with the pleasures of an English fog.

My feelings for the cause of the Polish people, feelings to which I am sorry not to be able to give expression tonight, will always remain the same; I shall always regard the liberation of Poland as being one of the foundation stones of the ultimate liberation of the European proletariat and, in particular, of the liberation of the other Slav nationalities. So long as the division and the subjection of the Polish people continues, so, too, will endure and reproduce itself with fatal inevitability the Holy Alliance between those who partitioned Poland, an alliance which signifies nothing but bondage for the Russian, Hungarian and German peoples, just as it does for the Polish people. Long Live Poland!

Yours ever,

F. Engels

  1. ↑ An extract from this letter pertaining to the liberation of Poland was read by Walery Wröblewski at a meeting held in London on 4 December 1875 to mark the anniversary of the Polish uprising of 1830 and published on 31 December 1875 by the newspaper Vperyod! (Forward!), No. 24, as part of the article 'Anniversary of the 1830 Polish Uprising'.