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Special pages :
Letter to Karl Marx, May 31, 1860
| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 31 May 1860 |
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Manchester, 31 May 1860
Dear Moor,
I return Ephraim Artful[1] herewith. His proposal re yourself is truly crazy.[2] After all, there's nothing you could say, either, about what happened in Cologne. However, Ephraim might be of some use in the matter. At least he has more PLUCK than the old women actually involved at Cologne, who always prefer to endure everything patiently. But it might also be worthwhile trying to see if there's anything to be done from Cologne.
Ad vocem[3] Fischel, perhaps we'd better tell the fool the more or less unvarnished truth and give him a bit of a lesson about the extent to which the word 'reactionary' has come to be [just] an empty phrase in his mouth. You might also take the opportunity of getting him to explain just why He, Ephraim the Profound, agrees in effect with our own and Fischel's 'anti-Palmerstonianism'. An enigma—at least so far. A private set-to between L. and F. in Berlin can't possibly concern us, and F. has behaved too well for us to drop him on some pretext or other just to please L. The only thing to do, presumably, is to give the Dark Heraclitus'[4] a mysterious intimation or two to the effect that 'reactionary' cuts no ice in foreign policy, in which field much greater 'jackasses' than Fischel are of service, provided they know all the ropes. How horrorstruck our far-sighted revolutionary thinker and pragmatic Royal Prussian court democrat would be, if he heard that Urquhart proposes to extend the power of the Crown. So nice a speculative distinction may be drawn, by the way, between this separate field of FOREIGN POLICY, on the one hand, and internal policy, on the other, that you'll certainly enjoy pointing out to him how, in foreign policy, the subjectively reactionary is, for the nonce, objectively revolutionary, thereby putting the man's mind at rest. Just help the man make the transition and he'll be satisfied theoretically, however much our connection with Fischel may rile him in practice, and rile him the more for the knowledge that it was Fischel who saw to my pamphlet.[5]
You might also observe for his benefit how revolutionary a mode of action it is, first to deprive the Germans, or get others to deprive them, of their best territory and the very basis of their national existence on the pretext that the present rulers of that territory are reactionaries, and then to expect revolution. And it mightn't be a bad idea to say something about superstitious belief in the revolutionary initiative of the crapauds![6] The whole to be presented in the usual allusive manner so that he'll have to chew it over for the space of four weeks and then wipe the slate clean by writing you a four-page letter to which you won't reply.
My coming up here on Saturday[7] was most useful. By Sunday I had already found out a great deal that is important to negotiations, and now have the draft contract to study.
Best regards to your wife and children. Siebel wants to leave.
Your
F. E.