Letter to Friedrich Engels, January 31, 1860

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Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 31 January 1860


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41
Keywords : Letter, Friedrich Engels


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 31 January 1860

Dear Engels,

Your article[1] received. Very good. Herewith a letter from Lassalle which arrived yesterday and to which I replied immediately, if briefly.[2] Only a pamphlet written by us jointly will get us out of this business. I have also written secretly to Fischel in Berlin, asking whether it is feasible to bring a libel suit against the National-Zeitung.[3] Vogt's piece[4] (not to be had at any booksellers in London; he has sent it neither to Freiligrath nor to Kinkel, nor to any of his other acquaintances over here. Obviously he wished to steal a march on us. I have thus had to order it) is, so far as we are concerned, clearly a de la Hodde-Chenusian concoction.[5] I have read the second article in

the Nat.-Z. from which I see inter alia that Lupus (described as Casemate Wolff, Parliamentary Wolff) is alleged to have sent a circular to a reactionary Hanoverian paper in 1850.[6] It gives a réchauffé of all the foul refugee gossip of 1850-52. The jubilation of the bourgeois press is, of course, unbounded, and the tone of Lassalle's letter—kindly show it to Lupus and then file it—clearly betrays the impression it has made on the public.

Yesterday I saw Freiligrath for a moment. I approached him very ceremoniously (i-f he has the slightest sense of honour he must make an anti-Vogt statement), and all our entreview[7]

amounted to was the following: 'I: I've come to ask you to lend me the pamphlet on the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung lawsuit which I've been seeking in vain at all the booksellers and must certainly have been sent you by your friend Vogt. F. (very melodramatically): Vogt is not my friend. /: Lassalle has written to me that I must reply at once. You haven't got the pamphlet, then? F. No. /: Good evening.' (He held out his honest right hand and shook mine Westphalian-fashion.) Voilà tout.[8]

I was assured by Juch (owner and present editor of the Hermann, whose acquaintance I made in connection with the Stieber affair and Eichhoff's trial[9] in Berlin), that Kinkel hadn't yet had a copy from Vogt either. This same Juch had, however, been sent numerous Vogtian tirades against us which he did not print. This chap—who is, incidentally, quite honest in his own way—has got to be kept mellow for the time being. Since only the Hermann is now appearing in London, it would have been dreadful to have to confront Vogt's gang unarmed, here on our own ground.

Apropos! As a result of my first meeting with Juch,[10] on my advice, Eichhoff cited friend Hirsch, who is doing time in Hamburg for forgery, as a witness for the defence. Consequently, the trial, due to begin on 26 January (I read about this in the Publicist), was again adjourned after a heated argument. Stieber has now done with Hirsch.

Salut. Y o u l

K. M. Imandt has just told me that Heise is dead.

  1. ↑ 'Savoy and Nice'
  2. ↑ See this volume, pp. 11 12.
  3. ↑ See this volume, p. 9.
  4. ↑ Mein Prozess gegen die Allgemeine Zeitung, Geneva, 1859.
  5. ↑ Adolphe Chenu and Lucien de la Hodde were police spies and agents provocateurs, the former the author of the libellous concoction Les Con spirateurs. Les sociétés secrètes. La préfecture de police sous Caussidiere. Les corps-francs, the latter the author of the equally libellous La naissance de la République en février 1848, both published in Paris in 1850. Marx and Engels discussed the two books in a joint review in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue, No. 4, 1850 (see present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 311- 25).
  6. ↑ 'Wie man radikale Flugblätter macht', National Zeitung, No. 41, 25 January 1860.
  7. ↑ Thus in the original.
  8. ↑ That's all.
  9. ↑ In late 1859, the German socialist Eichhoff was brought to trial by the Prussian authorities for publishing in the London weekly Hermann a series of articles exposing the part played by Wilhelm Stieber, chief of the Prussian political police, in organising the trial of the Communist League members in Cologne in 1852.
    In December 1859, Hermann Juch, the editor of the weekly, asked Marx for information on the Cologne trial, which he needed for Eichhoff's defence (see Marx's letter TO ENGELS of 13 December 1859, present edition,Vol. 40 and also pp. 80-81 of this volume). In May 1860 a Berlin court sentenced Eichhoff to 14 months imprisonment.
  10. ↑ in December 1859, after the 13th
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