Marx-Engels Correspondence 1856
Source: MECW Volume 40, p. 3;
First Published: First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913. Printed according to the original.
Translated by: Peter and Betty Ross
Dear Frederic,
Today I emptied the 6th and last medicine-bottle. Pretty well again on the whole, save for persistent and highly perfidious piles.
I haven’t touched on Cobden’s pamphlet[2] in my articles, because I have devoted many tedious columns exclusively to the history of the Danubian provinces and Sweden.[3] I should be very glad if you would take on Cobden.
I shall add a short piece to your article [F. Engels, 'The European War'] as soon as I have seen the 2nd edition of The Times. Its announcement yesterday as to the 'unconditional acceptance'[4] was a sheer Stock Exchange swindle which brought it in a great deal of money. As early as 1772, at the Congress of Focşani,[5] Catherine II had already proposed to the Turks ‘the independence of the principalities under the common protection of the principal powers of Europe’. At the Library [of the British Museum] I discovered a work of Herrmann’s which appeared in Germany in 1841. [E. Herrmann, Beiträge zur Geschichte des russischen Reiches, Leipzig, 1843 (wrong date in the original).] He got hold of a manuscript of Field Marshal Münnich’s on the Crimean campaign under Anna[6] in one of the German libraries and published it with a foreword. I shall make excerpts from it for you if you are interested.
You may, perhaps, have seen in the Augsburger the high praise Fallmerayer accords to Muralt for his history of Byzantium from the 6th to the 16th century, which won a Petersburg Academy prize. [E. de Muralt, Essai de Chronographie Byzantine pour servir à l'examen des annales du Bas-Empire et particulièrement des chronographes slavons de 395 à 1057. Fallmerayer's review of this book was published in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung, Nos. 11 and 12 (supplement), 11 and 12 January 1856.]
Have seen Bruno [Bruno Bauer] again on various occasions. Romanticism increasingly turns out to be a ‘prerequisite’ for the critical criticism. In economics expresses enthusiasm for the Physiocrats, whom he misconstrues, and believes in the specifically beneficial effects of landed property. Moreover he rates very high the economic fantasies of Adam Müller, the German romantic.[7] In military science his summus princeps [great exemplar] is the ‘genius’ Bülow. I told him that these latest disclosures of his had fully enlightened me regarding his arduous work of ratiocination. As to Russia he says that the old state of affairs in the West must be swept away and that this could only be done from the East, since the Easterner alone feels real hatred — for the Westerner, that is — and Russia is the only close-knit power in the East, besides being the only country in Europe where there is still ‘cohesion’. As to our illusions about internal class struggles, he maintains that 1. the workers feel no ‘hatred’; 2. if they did feel hatred, they would never have achieved anything by it; 3. they are a ‘rabble’ (who have no interest in the Synoptics [8]) and ought to be curbed and directed solely by force and cunning; 4. with them one silver groschen rise in pay is enough to settle ‘the whole caboodle’. In any case, no one who was not a ‘descendant of the conquerors’ could play an historical role, except in the field of theory. And there something had doubtless been done during the past 16 years, though only in Germany and, indeed, by Bruno alone. It was thanks to him that ‘scientific’ theology had ceased to exist in Germany, the only place where it had existed, and that ‘Tholuck was writing no longer’. Voilà un résultat immense. [That's tremendous result.] In other respects, a pleasant old gentleman. Proposes to stay a year in England. I believe he is planning to introduce into England the ‘scientific theology’ which has ceased to exist in Germany. He declares Humboldt to be a complete ass because he has fraudulently arrogated to himself abroad the fame due to Bruno.
You should write to old Harvey about your ears. He is also treating Lina [Caroline Schöler] from afar and, having heard that she is merely a governess in spe [prospective] has not even charged her a centime. Herewith Lina’s first report, which you should return.
I am sending you a scrawl of Urquhart’s [The Chartist Correspondence', The Free Press, No. 15, 19 January 1856.] which they sent me before the paper came out.[9] The ‘revelations’ about the history of Chartism [are] indeed highly naive, since Urquhart turns out to be an English police spy while deluding himself that he played Cicero to Catiline. I see in the Berlin National-Zeitung that Bucher, Prussian minister in spe, has even adopted Urquhart’s ‘philosophy’ which he repeats parrot-fashion. That’s très fort [very good] for a German.
Salut.
Your
K. M.