[London,] 6 April 1871 

Dear Liebknecht, 

The news that you and Bebel as well as the Brunswick people 
were released?” was received here in the Central? Council with 
great rejoicing. 

a F, Engels, ‘On the Cigar-Workers’ Strike in Antwerp’. - > General 

6* 

It seems the Parisians are succumbing. It is their own fault but a 
fault which really was due to their too great honnéteté“ The Central 
Committee and later the Commune gave that miscuizvous avorton,” 
Thiers, time to consolidate hostile forces, in the first place by their 
folly of not wanting to start a civil war—as if Thiers had not already 
started it by his attempt at forcibly disarming Paris, as if the National 
Assembly, summoned merely to decide the question of war or peace 
with the Prussians, had not immediately declared war on_ the 
Republic! Secondly, in order that the appearance of having usurped 
power should not attach to them, they lost precious moments (they 
should immediately have advanced on Versailles after the defeat 
(Place Vendéme) of the réactionnaires in Paris'”*) by the election 
of the Commune, the organisation of which, etc., cost yet 
more time. 

You must not believe a word of all the stuff you get to see in the 
papers about the internal events in Paris. It is all lies and 
deception. Never has the vileness of the reptile bourgeois 
newspaper hacks displayed itself more splendidly. 

It is highly characteristic that the German Unity-Emperor,‘ 
Unity-Empire, and Unity-Parliament in Berlin appear not to exist at 
all for the outside world. Every breath of wind that stirs in Paris 
excites more interest. 

You should follow developments in the Danube Principalities 
with some care. If the revolution in France is defeated for the 
time being—the movement there can only be suppressed for a 
short time— Europe will have to face a new threat of war from the 
East, and Romania will be the first to present the orthodox Tsar 
with a pretext. So keep an eye on events there. 

One of the most comical phenomena in London is undoubtedly 
that ex-student Karl Blind. The self-important fellow eagerly 
seized on the recent war to show off his pan-Germanic allegiance. 
He was the first to start screaming for Alsace-Lorraine. He even 
had the impudence to deny the great revolutionary activities of the 
French people in the past. The scoundrel even ventured to warn 
the local workers not to incur the hostility of workers in Germany by 
their sympathy for France against Prussia! Each week this 
gentleman composes a report describing the activities of Karl 
Blind and sends it to all the London papers, two or three of which 
are actually so foolish as to print these bulletins of, about and for 
Karl Blind. If this system is applied consistently, one cannot fail to 
force oneself on the public in the end. In this manner this weighty 

a decency - » degenerate - © William I - 4 Alexander II] 

personage has managed to delude a section of local public opinion 
into believing that he plays the same sort of role in Germany as 
Mazzini used to in Italy. In his bulletins he recounts what Karl 
Blind had announced in the Viennese Freie Presse, and how the 
whole of Germany looked forward to his oracular utterances with 
bated breath and anxiously awaited for Karl Blind to deliver 
himself of the watchword for the week. Now it would be extremely 
desirable—since this individual, this puffed-up frog, does make us 
Germans here ridiculous—if you people in the Volksstaat could 
publish a few home truths about the fellow and his ‘complete 
unimportance’.'*? We would ensure that a translation appeared in 
The Eastern Post (a London workers’ paper). It is quite simple. 
Karl Blind does not exist in the eyes of the German working class, 
and a republican German middle class, whose mouthpiece he pretends 
to be, does not exist anywhere and hence cannot exist for Karl 
Blind either. HE 1s NowHEere. While such figures should not be taken 
seriously, it is no less true that they should not be allowed to 
delude the public on Fase PRETENCES. 

Laura had already arrived in Bordeaux some days before the 
siege of Paris began. 

Our children—Tussy and Jennychen (the latter suffering from 
pleurisy)—are also going to Bordeaux shortly. 

Bebel would oblige me greatly if he could arrange for me to be 
sent regularly the stenographic reports of the Berlin Unity- 
Reichstag. 

A visit from you here would be very welcome. 

The Volksstaat must be preserved at all costs now. I have some 
prospects of being able to raise money for it. 

My warmest greetings to your dear wife." 

Your 
K. M. 

Could you not let me have a reliable address in Leipzig? 
Apropos. I enclose a charming notice about Stieber from the Petit 
Journal (which appears in Paris) in its issue of 5 April.