London, 17 September 1859 

Dear Liebknecht, 

I should ere now have returned Blind’s letter of 8th Sep- 
tember,*** which you passed on to me, had not various passages 
therein made it necessary for me to take further steps to ascertain 
the facts of the case. 

In this letter Blind maintains that he had had ‘nothing whatever to 
do with the problem in question’ (i.e. with the public denunciation of 
Vogt). He further maintains that ‘the remarks’ he made ‘in the 
course of a private conversation...’ **' (implying that he’s only spoken 
about Vogt ‘in private’) ‘were completely misinterpreted’. The words 

‘completely misinterpreted’ are used with reference to myself. It 
was I who ‘completely misinterpreted’ Blind’s ‘remarks made in the 
course of a private conversation’ and hence ‘completely misrepresented’ 
them to you and Biskamp. The misrepresentation in question is 
not witting, deliberate misrepresentation, but misrepresentation due 
either to the inherent difficulty of Blind’s account, or to the 
feebleness and natural perversity of my powers of comprehension. 

As to which I would observe: 

1. Vogt was a tool used by Bonaparte to corrupt liberals in 
Germany and German revolutionaries abroad. Vogt further 
offered 30,000 gulden to a certain liberal writer in Germany in 
order to win him over in the interests of Bonapartist propagan- 
da.— These two on-dit* were imparted to me IN THE MOST SERIOUS 
MANNER by Blind on 9 May, the day of Urquhart’s first meeting. He 
imparted them to Freiligrath. He imparted them to others. He 
repeated, or rather reaffirmed, them in your presence, in Holling- 
er’s presence, in my presence, on the day we all three of us had an 
INTERVIEW with him. In regard to these two points, therefore, there 
can be no question of any interpretation, false or otherwise. They 
have been admitted. They can be proved by evidence. They are 
Facts in so far as we consider Blind’s statements as Facts. 

2. Now as to Blind’s ‘interpretation’—minus the name Vogt qua 
agent of Bonapartist corruption, and minus the affair of the 
30,000 gulden—it is to be found in an article in the London Free 
Press dated 27 May with the heading: “The Grand Duke 
Constantine to be King of Hungary’. Blind is the author of this 
article in which he says that *he ‘knows the name of a Swiss 
Senator to whom he (Prince Jerome Napoleon) broached the 
subject’*, and even knows what Plon-Plon pip broach To THE Swiss 
Senator; in which he further * knows of ‘the attempts made ... to 
win over to the Russo-Napoleonic scheme some of the exiled 
German Democrats, as well as some influential Liberals in 
Germany’*; in which he further xnows that *‘large pecuniary 
advantages were held out to them as a bribe’*; and in which, 
finally, he is *‘glad that these offers were rejected with indigna- 
tion’*. This ‘interpretation’ is printed and did not therefore occur 
‘in the course of a private conversation’. Again, it would seem from 
this that Blind, far from having had nothing to do with ‘the 
problem’, played the part of initiator. 

3. Add together 1. the facts related, and admitted to have been 
related, by Blind and 2. the ‘interpretation’ which Blind had 

* rumours 

printed and which is legally verifiable as such, and what do you 
get? 

The anonymous pamphlet Zur Warnung minus a few irrelevant 
phrases. Whether or not Blind composed this pamphlet is 
therefore completely immaterial. He is responsible for publishing the 
elements which go to make it up. 

He mentioned the name Vogt and the affair of the 30,000 
gulden ‘in the course of a private conversation’. Not only with me 
but with Freiligrath and others. And not as a private and 
‘confidential’ matter but as political denunciation. He himself had 
the ‘interpretation’ relating to these two ports printed. 

It is quite immaterial, therefore, whether or not the pamphlet 
which subsequently came out was composed by him! All it contains 
is the sum total of verbal Blind and printed Blind. It is Blind 
added together. Hence it was not only I who regarded him as its 
author. Freiligrath did too. He even questioned him about it. 

Author or otherwise, it in no way alters the case. He is still the 
instigator responsible. 

You will recall that at the above-mentioned meeting he stated on 
his word of honour that he had not composed the pamphlet. 
Composing and writing are in effect two separate things. I now 
have documentary, legally valid evidence (which is at your disposal) to 
the effect that the pamphlet was printed by F. Hollinger, was 
handed to him by Blind, was written in Blind’s hand, and was 
regarded by F. Hollinger as Blind’s product.*” 

What remains, then, is my interpretation, described not merely 
as a ‘misinterpretation’ but a ‘complete misinterpretation’. 

As regards the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung, the relationship 
between myself and that paper has always been one of outright 
hostility. What is at issue in the law-suit that is to be heard in open 
court at Augsburg on the 28th of October*” is not a QUARREL 
between the A. A. Z. and Vogt but a legal ruling on the 
relationship between the German ex-imperial regent Vogt and 
the French Emperor Louis Bonaparte. In my view, then, what is at 
issue for every German revolutionary, even if not a member of a 
‘Fatherland Association’,*”! is not, in this instance, ‘the affairs of a 
newspaper with which he had nothing whatever to do’; rather it is 
his own affair. That, however, is a matter of taste. De gustibus, etc.* 

Salut. 

Your 
K. M.