Letter to Friedrich Engels, March 5, 1852

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Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 5 March 1852


First published slightly abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, Berlin, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39
Keywords : Letter, Joseph Weydemeyer, Class struggle, Parliament, Bourgeoisie, Economics, Marxism

MARX TO JOSEPH WEYDEMEYER[1]

IN NEW YORK

London, 5 March 1852 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Weywy,

I am afraid there has been a bit of a muddle because, HAVING MISUNDERSTOOD THY LAST LETTER, I addressed the last 2 packages to: Office of the Revolution, 7 Chambers' Street, Box 1817. What caused the confusion was that damned 'Box 1817', since you had written telling me to append this to the 'old address' without drawing any distinction between the first address and the second. But I hope the matter will have resolved itself before this letter arrives, the more so since last Friday's letter[2] contained the very detailed fifth instalment of my article. This week I was prevented from finishing the sixth, which is also the last one.[3] If your paper is appearing again, this delay will not prove an obstacle since you have an ample supply of material.

Your article against Heinzen, unfortunately sent to me too late by Engels, is very good, at once coarse and fine, and this is the right combination for any polemic worthy of the name. I have shown this article to Ernest Jones and enclosed you will find a letter from him addressed to you, intended for publication.[4] Since Jones writes very illegibly and with abbreviations, and since I assume that you are not yet an OUT-AND-OUT Englishman, I am sending you, along with the original, a copy made by my wife, together with the German translation; you should print them both, the original and the translation, side by side. Below Jones' letter you might add the following comment: As to George Julian Harney, likewise one of Mr Heinzen's authorities, he published our Communist Manifesto in English in his Red Republican with a marginal note describing it as 'THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY DOCUMENT EVER GIVEN TO THE WORLD',[5] and in his Democratic Review he translated the

  1. ↑ An abridged translation of this letter was first published in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895. A Selection with Commentary and Notes, Martin Lawrence Ltd., London, 1934
  2. ↑ Jenny Marx's letter to Joseph Weydemeyer of 27 February 1852. See this volume, pp. 572-73.
  3. ↑ Apparently, while writing the concluding part of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx somewhat changed his plan: the work includes not six, but seven chapters, the last of which he sent to New York on 25 March 1852 (see this volume, p. 70)
  4. ↑ Jones' letter to Weydemeyer of 3 March 1852 was intended for Die Revolution. It described the condition of various classes of English society and analysed the development of class struggle in England. Judging by Weydemeyer's letter to Marx of 24 May 1853, the letter was published in the American democratic papers at the end of 1852 or beginning of 1853
  5. ↑ The Communist Manifesto was published in English in The Red Republican, Nos. 21, 22, 23, 24 of 9, 16, 23 and 30 November 1850. It was on this occasion that Marx and Engels were first named as its authors. In this letter Marx gives the quotations in English followed by the German translation.
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