London, 6 March 1884 
122 Regent’s Park Road, N. W. 

Dear Citizen, 

For me, as also for Marx’s daughters, it will be a great day when 
the Russian translation of The Poverty of Philosophy appears. I need 
hardly say that I shall be glad to place at your disposal any material 
that might be useful to you. This is what I propose to do. 

In addition to the German translation, a new French edition is at 
present being printed in Paris.! For these two editions I am prepar- 
ing a few explanatory notes, the text of which I shall send you. 

For the preface there is in existence an article by Marx on Proud- 
hon in the Berlin Social-Demokrat (1865), which contains virtually all 
that is necessary. It will be printed at the beginning of the two new 
French and German editions. The only copy in existence is in our 
party archives at Zurich '**; ifa second one doesn’t turn up amongst 
my own or Marx’s papers (I shall know about this in a few weeks), 
you will easily be able to get hold of a copy of it through Bernstein. 

For the German edition I shall have to do a separate preface* re- 
butting the absurd contention by reactionary socialists that in Ca- 
pital Marx plagiarised Rodbertus, and proving that, on the con- 
trary, Marx had produced his critique of Rodbertus in the Poverty be- 
fore Rodbertus wrote his Social Letters.'°? To my mind this is of no 
interest to a Russian public as yet unpenetrated by our pseudo- 
socialists. But you are the best judge; the thing is at your disposal 
should you think it suitable. 

What you tell me about the increase in the study of books on social- 
ist theory in Russia gives me much pleasure. The theoretical and crit- 
ical spirit, which has virtually disappeared from our German schools, 
would indeed appear to have taken refuge in Russia. You ask me to 
suggest some books for translation. But you have already translated, 
or promised to translate, almost all of Marx’s works and you have 
taken the best of mine. The remainder of our German books are ei- 

2 F. Engels, ‘Marx and Rodbertus’; see also this volume, pp. 101-02. 

ther weak on theory or concerned with matters more or less restricted 
to Germany. The French have latterly produced some pretty good 
stuff, but this is still in its infancy. Deville’s summary of Capital! is 
good as regards the theoretical part, but the descriptive part was 
done in too great haste and is virtually unintelligible to anyone not 
familiar with the original; moreover it is too long for a summary. 
However I believe something worthwhile might be made of it if it 
were rewritten, and a summary of Capital would always be of use in 
a country where the book itself can only be obtained with difficulty. 

It is true that, when I spoke of the situation in Russia,* I was also 
thinking, inter alia, specifically of her finances — but not exclusively. 
For a government at bay, like the one in Petersburg, and a captive 
Tsar, like the hermit of Gatchina, the situation cannot continue 
without becoming ever more tense. Nobility and peasantry both 
ruined, the army ruffled in its chauvinism and shocked by the daily 
‘spectacle of a rocyazapp° who hides himself away; the necessity for an ex- 
ternal war as a safety-valve for ‘evil passions’ and for general discon- 
tent —at the same time the impossibility of embarking upon one for 
lack of money and of favourable political conjunctures;:a powerful 
national intelligentsia impatient to break the fetters that bind it and, 
on top of all this, a total absence of money and an authority with the 
knives of the anatean at its throat —it seems to me that with 
every month the situation must become more impossible and that, 
were a bold and constitutionally minded grand duke to turn up, Rus- 
sian ‘society’ itself must see that a palace coup would be the best way 
out of this impasse. Will Bismarck and Bleichroder now come to the 
rescue of their new friends?? I doubt it. Rather, I wonder which of 
the two contracting parties will be cheated by the other. 

Enclosed a manuscript of Marx’s (copy) for you to use as you think 
fit. I no longer know whether it was in Czoeo° or in Omeuecmeennoia 
zanucku' that he found the article ‘Karl Marx Before the Tribunal of 
Mr Zhukovsky’. This is the reply he wrote; it bears the stamp of 
a piece done for publication in Russia, but he never sent it to Peters- 

 See this volume, p. 65.-> Alexander JII-° (Russ.) tsar-4 (Russ.)  acti- 
vists-° (Russ.) Slovo (The Word), a journal.-' (Russ.) Otechestvenniya zapiski (Fa- 
therland’s Notes), a journal.- N. [K.] M[ikhailovsky]. ‘Kapas Mapxcp nepeap 
cyaom r. IO. Kyxoscxaro’, Omeuecmeennma sanucxu, No. 10, October 1877. 

burg for fear that the mere mention of his name might compromise 
the existence of the review which published his reply.!°° 

Yours very sincerely, 
F. Engels 

Your translation of my pamphlet* strikes me as excellent— what 
a beautiful language Russian is. All the advantages of German but 
without its ghastly coarseness.