{London,] 12 February 1870 

Dear Frep, 

Allen visited me yesterday. Nothing but a simple chill. He 
advised me, however, to continue my house arrest until the 
Russian wind ‘which BLOWS NO GOOD To ANYBODY’ Ceases. 

Your introduction* is very good. I know of nothing that should 
be altered or added. I agree verbotenus’ with your treatment of 
1866. The double thrust at Wilhelm‘ of the People’s Party** and 
Schweitzer, with his bodyguard of ruffians, is very pretty. 

Regarding the excuses made by Wilhelm,” one never knows 
whether he is lying intentionally, or whether everything is 
revolving in confusion like a mill-wheel in his head. The Fact is 
that I wrote to Meissner from Hanover that he should send copies 
to Wilhelm, Zukunft and Schweitzer, and the latter immediately 
published a detailed announcement. Additionally: Wilhelm’s 
friends—-Bonhorst and Bracke—saw the new edition when they 
visited Hanover,! and told me that they had reached agreement with 
Meissner on the publication of a cheaper, popular edition. Meissner 
wrote to me about it. I agreed this edition should consist of 2,000 
copies, of which 1,000 should be supplied to Bonhorst, etc., at cost 
price. They pledged themselves to see to the placing of this 1,000. 
I’ve heard nothing about the matter since. We should now put 
Wilhelm to the test. Write to him that he should write to Meissner, 
asking how it is that he has not advertised the 18th Brumaire either in 
Volksstaat or in Zukunft, and ditto, despite my instructions from 
Hanover, why he has sent neither him nor Weiss of Zukunft coptss? 
The reply from Meissner would, at the same time, give me an 
opportunity to have a serious word with the latter about his 
sloppiness. 

I agree entirely with your marginal notes on the FRencu rapicat 

a F, Engels, Preface to the Second Edition of ‘The Peasant War in Germany’. - > word for 
word - ¢ Wilhelm Liebknecht - ¢ of the second edition of K. Marx, The Eighteenth 
Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte - © [The announcement of the publication of the second 
edition of K. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte] Der Social-Demokrat, 
No. 117, 6 October 1869 (the ‘Literarisches’ column). - f See this volume, p. 358. 

press." Not for nothing was Proudhon the socialist of the Imperial 
period. I am firmly convinced that, although the first blow will 
come from France, Germany is far riper for a social movement, 
and will grow far over the heads of the French. It is a great error 
and self-deception on their part that they still regard themselves as 
the ‘chosen people’. 

Apropos. Jennychen heard whispers yesterday at Monroe’s that 
Mr John Bull Bright is not in the country as the papers report, but 
in town in the care of a mad-doctor. Softening of the brain Has again 
set In. On the occasion of Castlereagh’s suicide, Cobbett noted, 
that England oburinc ONE OF ITS MOST CRITICAL EPOCHS, WAS GOVERNED 
By A madman.” And the same again today, during the Irish 
crisis. 

It’s extremely amusing that Bouverie, THIS INCARNATION OF PURE 
Whiggism, should find the proceedings guoad© O’Donovan to be 
illegal.°° Bouverie is furious that he was given the coip sHoutper in 
the distribution of offices. 

The title of the book by H. nepoecnii: 

‘TTloaoncenie pabouaeo xnacca eo Pocciu’, C.-Ilemepbypes. H3danie 
H. TT. TWoaaxoea. 1869. 

One of the things that amuses me very much in Flerovsky is his 
polemic against the peasants’ direct dues. It is a complete 
reproduction of Marshal Vauban and Boisguillebert." He also feels 
that the situation of the country people has its analogy in the 
period of the old French monarchy (since Louis XIV). Like 
Monteil,© he has a great feeling for national characteristics —‘the 
straightforward Kalmyck’, ‘the Mordvinian, poetic despite his dirt’ 
(whom he compares to the Irishman), the ‘agile, epicurean, lively 
Tartar’, the ‘talented Little Russian’, etc. Like a good Russian, he 
tells his fellow-countrymen what they should do to turn the hatred 
all these races feel for them into the opposite. As an example of 
the hatred, he cites, for instance, a genuinely Russian colony from 
Poland which moved to Siberia. These people know only Russian, 
not a word of Polish, but they regard themselves as Poles, and 
foster a Polish hatred of the Russians, etc. 

His book shows incontestably that the present conditions in 
Russia are no longer tenable, that the emancipation of the serfs or 

4 See this volume, p. 427. - > W. Cobbett, “To the Boroughmongers’, Cobbett’s Weekly 
Register, Vol. 43, No. 8, 24 August 1822. - © concerning - ¢ An allusion to S$. Vau- 
ban, Projet d’une dime royale and [P.] Boisguillebert, Dissertation sur la nature des richesses, 
de Vargent et des tributs.... In: Economistes financiers du XVIIIe-e siécle. - © See 
A. A. Monteil, Histoire des francais des divers états aux cing derniers siécles. 

course only hastened the process of disintegration, and that fearful 
social revolution is at the door. Here, too, you see the real roots of 
the schoolboy nihilism that is now the fashion among Russian 
students, etc. In Geneva, sy THE By, a new colony of exiled Russian 
students has grown up with a programme proclaiming opposition 
to pan-Slavism, which should be replaced by the ‘Interna- 
tional’. 

In a special section, Flerovsky demonstrates that the ‘Russifica- 
tion’ of alien races is a sheer optimistic delusion, even in the East. 

You don’t need to send me Lilienfeld.* Gaudissart has it in 
Russian and German. He announced his return to me the day 
before yesterday. According to an earlier communication from his 
wife to mine, he had found a new post. But it surprises me that he 
doesn’t mention this in his latest epistle. 

Enclosed, it must be returned, a copy of the letter from Hins to 
Stepney In my reply‘ I gave the fellow a thorough dressing down. 
The exact manner in which he informs himself is shown by the 
following points, amongst others. He says that, in our Report on the 
Basle Congress,” we suppressed the discussion on the right of 
inheritance. Bakunin probably palmed this off on him, and he 
believes it, although he has our Report in his hands and knows 
enough English to read it! He speaks of ‘my’ letter to Geneva, 
though I have not addressed a line there! My expostulation about 
Bakunin’s goings-on is in my letter to Brussels, in which—apart 
from communicating the missive of the General Counc to Ge- 
neva'—I had to give a general report and communicate the 
appointment of a new secretary for Belgium (Serraillier, ouvrier 
bottier from Marseilles). He accuses us of having provoked the 
crisis in Geneva which —as Egalité shows— ended more than a week 
before our missive arrived there, etc. The Belgian Conseil Général" 
has, despite Hins, declared its full agreement with us. 

Curious that orp Becker’ announced his withdrawal from the 
editorial committee of Egalité*”’ together with the other Bakunin- 

a In the original: Lilienthal (see also this volume, p. 426). - > Sigismund 
Borkheim - ¢ See this volume, pp. 411-15. - 4 The reference is to Marx’s letter to De 
Paepe of 24 January 1870 (see this volume, pp. 411-15). - © Report of the Fourth 
Annual Congress of the International Working Men’s Association, held at Basle, in 
Switzerland. - £ K. Marx, The General Council to the Federal Council of Romance 
Switzerland. - 8 shoemaker -» The Belgian Federal Council -i Johann Philipp 
Becker 

ists. At the same time, he publishes in his Vorbote the exact 

opposite of what Bakunin did in Egalité> The old confusionist! 
Salut. 
Your 
K. M.