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Letter to Friedrich Engels, December 15, 1868
First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Stuttgart, 1913.
To Engels in Manchester
London, 15 December 1868 Evening, after midnight[edit source]
Dear Fred,
Would you please study the enclosed document... seriously, despite its fadaise. [absurdity] Your marginal notes should be written for me in French, and the stuff itself returned to me at the latest by Saturday next.
Mr Bakunin — in the background of this business — is condescending enough to wish to take the workers’ movement under Russian leadership.
This shit has been in existence for 2 months. Only this evening did Old Becker inform the General Council about it in writing. This time Nincompoop is right. As Old Becker writes, this association should make up for the deficient ‘idealism’ of our Association. L'idéalisme Russe!
There was great anger about the document this evening at the meeting of our Conseil Général, particularly among the French. I had known about the shit for a long time. I regarded it as stillborn, and out of consideration for Old Becker, wanted to let it die a quiet death.
But the business has become more serious than I expected. And consideration for Old Becker is no longer admissible. This evening the Council decided to repudiate this interloping society publicly — in Paris, New York, Germany and Switzerland. I have been commissioned with drafting the decree of repudiation (for next Tuesday). I regret the whole thing, because of Old Becker. Mais our Association cannot commit suicide because of Old Becker.
Your
K. M.
Strohn writes to me from Düsseldorf that his brother Eugen has died suddenly in Hamburg.
About the cotton bankruptcies in Manchester, etc., can you send me The Guardian?