Letter to Friedrich Engels, August 31, 1851

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[London,] 31 August 1851

28 Dean Street, Soho

One always miscalculates badly if one reckons on a definitive crisis among the democratic heroes. A row like the one a fortnight ago demands a recuperation of several weeks for these PERFORMERS. Hence nothing of any moment happened the day before yesterday, Friday the 29th.

D'abord, on Monday, 25 August, as I have already told you, Willich and Schapper threatened to resign from the Great Windmill refugee committee. The following Tuesday they did in fact resign during an official sitting, and all in all the committee came to a satisfactory end. Harsh words were exchanged on this occasion. Willich moralised and pontificated, whereupon he was confronted with his iniquities. The main charge against him was that on this, as on an earlier occasion, when account had to be given of the twenty or so pounds invested in the brush-making business, matters had been so arranged that Mr Lüssel, the manager responsible for same, had absconded.

On Friday General Sigel had attended the general meeting of the agreement-seekers. He had counted on the appearance of the 'inferior emigres', on whose behalf he broke a few mighty lances with Willich, who gave free rein to his indignation over the herd of immoral louts he had once apotheosised vis-a-vis ourselves. Conspicuous by their absence, however, were the lumpenproletariat. Those who had presented themselves before the gates of the Areopagus were too few in number to be able to count on success, and therefore withdrew. You know that they are cowardly rascals, and that every one of the rapscallions has too bad a conscience to appear before a gathering of any size and take the floor as public prosecutor.

A few Rugians such as Range, 4 in number, had been elected to the refugee committee of the 'united democrats'. These men announced their resignation. So the committee was dissolved. A new, provisional, one was elected, consisting of Mr Kinkel, Count Reichenbach, Mr Bucher and Mr Semper from Saxony.

From this you will see that they have entered a new phase. They have thrown themselves into the arms of the respectable hommes d'état since the former leaders are now compromised as being bourgeois scum. The hommes d'état—their nucleus—are the 'doughty men of the people' Bucher (Berlin agreer), Count Reichenbach (Knight of the Spirit and compromised deputy to the Frankfurt Assembly, not the Berlin beard of the party) and that eminent stutterer Rudolf Schramm (connu).

Because of his long-standing friendship with Countess Reichenbach and her brother—also now in this country—Lupus now and again frequents the Reichenbach's house, and yesterday found there Mr Techow, whom he had known in Switzerland. Not long afterwards Willich himself appeared, in company with the melancholy Eduard Meyen. Lupus left when these two great ones took their seats.

Voilà tout ce que j'ai à rapporter pour le moment. With the help of the 160 pounds from America, Kinkel has clearly succeeded—partly himself and partly through his followers—in inducing in the 'respectables' and hommes d'état a tremendous opinion of his power and connections. But with the dissolution of the Windmill committee, the precious Willich has broken the stoutest link that bound him to the 'rascals'.

Maintenant, as to yourself, there is no doubt whatever that Fischer expressly named you as one of the godfathers of the £160. General Sigel and Goegg told their friend Schabelitz about this, ostensibly au secret, but in fact, I believe, in order that it should come to your ears. In my opinion, all you should do is write to Mr Kinkel saying you have heard from New Orleans about the remittance and your role as co-advisor as to its disposal. You simplement ask him what has happened to the money, or what it is intended to do with it. Kinkel's address is: Dr. phil. (that's how he describes himself on his visiting cards) Kinkel, 1, Henstridge Villas, St. Johns Wood. Some time, just for fun, I'll send you one of these visiting cards, in form and content exactly like a London advertisement for corn cures AND so FORTH.

Lest I forget the big event. In the issue of 13 August, the unfortunate Heinzen announces that Otto has withdrawn his capital, thus leaving him on his own with his mental capital which will not, in industrial America, keep a newspaper going. Hence he writes an elegy on the premature fall of Hector. And in the same issue Hoff and Kapp invite readers to subscribe for shares in a newspaper which is to take the place of the Schnellpost. And, fate having strange quirks, the Staatszeitung has at the same time begun proceedings against the precious Heinzen—incidentally disclosing many of his financial villainies—for libel, proceedings which, he anticipates, will land him up in a 'house of correction'. Le pauvre Heinzen! Moreover this great man is now morally outraged at America and the 'unemotional Yankees' and at the German Americans who take after them, instead of working for the 'humanisation of society' and going into raptures over A. Ruge's politico-social revelations.

In the said issue we read, for example:

'That free German spirit, which is to fill the world ... that spring which, for almost two millennia now, and in ever richer spiritual measure, has been flowing over the continents of the earth.'

'For what purpose, then, are there Germans in the world—for what purpose a German heart, for what purpose the German tongue? To what purpose, e.g., this instrument, invented by the German Gutenberg, for the education and enlightenment of the mind? All this exists, and so does the very soil on which it is coming or should come to pass, this America, discovered by A German.

'The free communities, lusty German philosophy, magnificent German literature, transposed and brought into intellectual interaction with everything excellent and enduring that the country and its inhabitants possess,—from factors such as these there must arise an American-ness [Amerikanertum] of world-historical importance, an all-powerfully humane, spiritual and moral greatness, whose heart is activated by a never-ceasing influx of Teuton-ness [Teutschtum], its head by a refined Yankee-ness [Yankeetum] and its arm by both combined.'

'Indeed, I maintain that the German people are more ripe for a democratic republic than the American.... Verily, were Germany to be freed of her fetters and bloodsuckers, she would be better equipped to "fix", as the Americans say, a purely democratic republic and to bring it about more successfully than the Yankees, for in as much as even the politically most educated section of the Americans is still so much a prey to superstition, so unfree intellectually, and so remote from any humane education, how can the final goal of democracy, true humanity, the harmonious development of mankind, be realised politically, socially and morally or spiritually?'

Thus writes the German buffoon; or gets someone to write, at the very time when the Americans have successfully made their way across the isthmus. In the same issue the hooligan has himself addressed as follows:

'So aptly do you castigate American conditions, notably the German Americans, that any discriminating and unbiassed person must agree with you. You would be doing really praiseworthy work were you, through your paper, to help assure the refinement and education of Germans in America, and even if your voice should elude the untutored masses, enough would be achieved if you freed the individual German of the simian and pernicious urge to ape the Americans.'

And then, with all stops pulled out, the churl proceeds to vent the foul, morning-after-the-night-before pecuniary jeremiads.

You'll have undoubtedly long since learnt from the papers that Girardin has allied himself with Ledru-Rollin. He was already convinced he was the future Great Mogul of France. But now a Lamennais-Michel (de Bourges)-Schoelcher rival committee has been set up in Paris whose intention is to bring into being the 'United States of Europe' with the help of the Romance peoples—French, Spanish and Italians—round whom the Germans, etc., will then crystallise. So the Spanish! are to civilise us! Mon Dieu, that even outdoes K. Heinzen, who wants to introduce Feuerbach and A. Ruge among the Yankees in order to 'humanise' them. Ledru's Proscrit bitterly attacked the rival committee. They replied in the same coin. But what was still more bitter for the Great Mogul in partibus was this: a conclave of the entire press was held in Paris. The Proscrit, too, was represented by a delegate. Purpose: to agree on a common President. The rejection of all the Proscrits proposals was followed by the unequivocal declaration that, let the gentlemen in London chatter as they would, what was necessary for France must emanate from France herself; Ledru was very much mistaken if he regarded himself as 'the important personage' Mazzini made him out to be.

For the rest, the conclave broke up amidst much uproar without having achieved anything. Unity-seeking democrats are everywhere as like as two peas.

Adieu.

Your

K. M.