| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 31 May 1894 |
ENGELS TO BORIS KRICHEVSKY
IN WEGGIS
[Draft]
London, 31 May 1894 Dr B. Krichevsky, Weggis[1]
You have my permission to sell off the copies already in print of your Russian edition of Wage Labour and Capital along with my introduction, and I note with satisfaction that you will refrain from publishing my other works. 368
Apart from that, I thank you for your letter of the 25th which I look upon as a most valuable contribution to the characterisation of certain trends amongst the Russian émigrés. Any inclination I might have to discuss its contents is tempered by the consideration that you yourself probably do not expect to impress anybody with these time-worn catchphrases à la Nechayev, since you yourself are doubtless aware how ludicrous it is to seek to act the Social Democrat while behaving like an anarchist.
But when you say 'that we could have had no inkling that you had already made over the translation rights to someone else', you might really have spared yourself that downright falsehood. You knew long before you wrote your letter of the 10th of May that V. Zasulich and Plekhanov were preparing a Russian translation of 'On Social Relations in Russia'. In view of the character of these people and the friendly relationship I have enjoyed with them for many years, it goes without saying that they would not have done so without my consent, and of this you quite definitely had more than an 'inkling'.