Letter to Friedrich Engels, August 6, 1852

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MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 6 August 1852 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Engels,

To begin with then, the incident with Johann Gottfried Kinkel.

You will see from one of the enclosed letters from Cluss that Mr Kinkel stated in a BOURGEOIS CIRCLE in Cincinnati: 'Marx and Engels are no revolutionaries, they're a couple of blackguards who have been thrown out of public houses by the workers in London'.

Knowing my Gottfried, I began by sending him the following note in which I pretended to be not quite sure of the facts, thereby giving him fresh occasion for ambiguities:

'5 Sutton Street, Soho, Office of The People's Paper,

'22 July 1852 'To Dr Johann Gottfried Kinkel

'You are alleged, or so I am informed, to have ventured the following statement before Anneke or other Germans at Cincinnati (the passage follows). I await your explanation by return of post. Silence will be regarded as an admission.

Dr K. Marx'

Kinkel sent the following note by return:

'To Dr Karl Marx

Since the article about me was published under your auspices during my imprisonment, I have wanted to have nothing more to do with you. If you believe that you can, through the testimony of Anneke or other honourable men, rather than through anonymous insinuations, provide proof that I untruthfully said or published anything detrimental to your own or Mr Engels' honour, I must point out to you, as I would to anyone with whom I have neither personal nor political contacts, the usual way which, under the law, is open to everyone who feels himself insulted or libelled. Except in this way, I shall have no further dealings with you.

Gottfried Kinkel

Since it was evident from this scrawl that Mr Gottfried would neither accept letters bearing a SOHO POSTMARK nor admit messengers, I got Lupus to post a note to him from Windsor on paper of the kind used for a billet-doux, bearing a posy of roses and forget-me-nots printed in colour, and having the following content:

'To Dr Johann etc. Kinkel

'In juxtaposition with a written statement, now before me, by your guarantor Huzel whom you cravenly required at Cincinnati to give his word of honour to keep silent about your mendacious gossip there, a promise which, however, was given only conditionally by Huzel;

'with a letter, likewise before me, written some time earlier by Dr Gottfried Kinkel in his own hand to his ex-guarantor Cluss, in which the same Kinkel boasts of his intention to enter into political relations with me:

'your letter—and this is precisely why it was provoked — provides a new and striking proof that the said Kinkel is a cleric whose baseness is only equalled by his cowardice.

Dr Karl Marx'

This last was swallowed in silence by Mr Johann etc. who, since then, has carefully avoided letting us hear anything more from him.

Kossuth's secret circular, which Cluss speaks of in his last letter, you will find in English in tomorrow's issue of Jones' PAPER. Hence I am not enclosing it.

The meeting of Kinkel's guarantors took place on Tuesday 3 August. The chief item was the following: Reichenbach is guarding the exchequer like a Cerberus. The £200 so far spent by Kinkel and Willich was received from Gerstenberg, etc., against the revolutionary deposits. Statutorily, they may dispose of these only after at least 3 people have been nominated by the guarantors. And Reichenbach insists on observance of this formality. To remedy the inconvenience, Kinkel and Willich had decided to have Techow as the third nominee. True, Techow is sailing for Australia in 3 weeks' time. But, under the statutes of the loan, once the committee had its full complement of 3 members, it could on its own authority propose two more. Hence, the sole purpose of Techow's nomination was 1. to make Reichenbach hand over the exchequer, 2. to enable them later on to bring in 2 men of straw in Techow's place. However, the meeting immediately decided against Techow on the grounds that he was only being used as a cover and was leaving for Australia. Kinkel and Willich were told that their conduct of affairs was unsatisfactory, that they inspired no confidence and that they must submit a detailed account concerning the expenditure of the £200 before it could be ratified. This last and other decisions are to be SETTLED today, Friday the 6th, at a further guarantors' meeting.

At the sitting on the 3rd, Reichenbach proposed that the £1,000 be deposited in the Bank of England and left untouched until the outbreak of the revolution. Löwe (in alliance with Ruge) proposed that the money be handed over to the Revolutionary League in America.

And although Kinkel himself stated, in the enclosed note to Huzel, that Ruge falsely suspected him of being an agent of the Prince of Prussia, and although he, upon the strength of that, pledged his word at the guarantors' meeting last May that he would never sit on the same committee as Ruge, our Gottfried now declares himself ready, for the sake of the cause, to act in concert with Goegg, Ruge, etc. and to administer the money in concert with them, in order to get a hand in the administration at all. Willich, however, now convinced that the £1,000 will not, like the 200 already spent, produce any further windfalls for him is said to have decided to emigrate to America, whither he has already been preceded by the trusty Gebert and Dietz.

Last week Papa Goegg again convened his Agitation Club. An exact count revealed that it consisted of exactly 8 people, the place of Sigel and Fickler, who had disappeared, being taken by the newly-joined Oswald and Dralle. In addition it was found that, though Goegg had in the meantime acquired great fame as Kossuth's servant and has rendered 'sterling service' as an agitator for the Revolutionary League, he had otherwise not brought back even enough cash to cover the debts 'incurred to defray travelling expenses'. In these doubtful circumstances the agitators felt compelled to attempt an alliance with Kinkel, in order that they might with decorum get at the £1,000. Kinkel likewise sees therein the last chance of avoiding an irreversible divorce from the £1,000. With the secret purpose of furthering this design, Goegg has convened a general meeting of refugees for tomorrow, the 7th, at Schärttner's. Ostensibly to report on his great works! In fact, to be swept by general acclaim into an alliance with Kinkel and the £1,000. This may now not be accomplished.

But a third complication arises now, whose immediate effect is to debar both sides, Kinkel and Goegg, from the 'exchequer'. To be precise, on the one hand, our Eduard Meyen is agitating for the money to be used to launch a big LONDON WEEKLY PAPER. And, on the other, the 'critical' Edgar Bauer, who had barely heard of the predicament in which the £1,000 found itself, before he too crept forth and, taking up position behind Schily, Imandt, Schimmelpfennig, etc., also solicited a newspaper for himself. Imandt, etc., see this as the only means of rescuing the money from Kinkel and Goegg. Edgar Bauer adopts towards these people the appearance of a 'harmless humorist'.

I shall obtain an exact account of today's sitting since Imandt is now an L.M. To revert to the one of the 3rd, I would mention the following: After questions of high policy had been dealt with, the chivalrous Schimmelpfennig arose; certain persons had, he said, put it about that the Brüningk woman was a spy and he now declared them to be vile calumniators. Kinkel denied that he for his part had ever made any such assertion. (He had in fact made it to the whoreson Kamm of Bonn when the latter passed this way.) Willich, on whom all eyes were turned, sat tight and said nothing. Techow declared that it was even more vile when such suspicions were bandied about by persons who, for a whole year, had enjoyed the Brüningk woman's hospitality. It was their duty rather to refute such a talk whenever they got wind of it.

All eyes were turned on Willich. Willich did not stir, but throughout the whole of this sitting, which saw the fading of so many 'golden' dreams, is said to have been the very personification of 'unhappy consciousness'.

Well, enough of that crap for today! I have just received the enclosed letter from Freiligrath, from which it appears that cur Johnson remains adamant. Hence I am utterly at a loss what to do and my position is becoming abominable.

So honest Goegg has sent Freiligrath an invitation! He's one they can still never do without, but in the end they will have to.

My regards to the mandrake.

Your

K. M.

It seems unlikely that your letter will arrive today, it being already 2 in the afternoon. Enclosed letters from Cluss:

1. 20 June.

2. 4 July.

3. 8 July, with Kinkel's circular.

4. Kinkel's circular of 2 August.

5. Cincinnati, 6 February, letter from Kinkel to Huzel.

6. Letter from Hillgärtner to Huzel.

7. Letter from Cluss of 22 July.