Letter to Nikolai Danielson, August 8, 1885

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 8 August 1885


First published, in Russian, in Minuvshiye gody, No. 2, St Petersburg, 1908
Reproduced from the original
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO NIKOLAI DANIELSON

IN ST PETERSBURG

London, 8 August 1885

Dear Sir,

I have considered your proposal to write a special preface for the Russian edition, but I do not see how I could do so in a satisfactory way.[1]

If you consider that it will be better not to refer to Rodbertus at all, then I would propose that you leave out the whole of the second part of the preface. As an exposition of the author's[2] place in the history of economical science, it is far too incomplete, unless justified by the special circumstances under which it was written, viz. the attacks of the Rodbertus clique. This clique is extremely influential in Germany, makes a deal of noise, and will no doubt soon also be heard of in Russia. It is such a very cheap and convenient way of settling the whole question, to say that our author merely copied Rodbertus, that it is sure to be repeated everywhere where our author is read and discussed. But of all these matters you are the best judge, and so I leave the matter entirely in your own hands, the more so as I have not the remotest idea what your censorship would allow to pass and what not.

There are some favourable rumours spread here about our mutual friend[3] ; can you give me any news?

Yours faithfully,

F. Engels

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 320 and 330.
  2. ↑ Engels is referring to the accusation made by Rodbertus-Jagetzow that in Capital Marx plagiarised his work Zur Erkenntniss unsrer staatswirtschaftlichen Zustände, Neubrandenburg and Friedland, 1842 (see also Note 187 and Engels' Preface to Volume II of Capital, present edition, Vol. 36).
  3. ↑ The Italian translation of Engels' work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State was done by Pasquale Martignetti and edited by Engels himself (see this volume, p. 215). The Polish edition appeared in Paris in 1885, and the Russian translation was published in St Petersburg in 1894.