ENGELS TO VLADIMIR SHMUILOV ”’ 

[Copy] 
London, 7 February 1893 
122 Regent’s Park Road, N. W. Dear Comrade, 

My best thanks for your kind hope that I should attain my nineties. If I 
remained as I am now, I should have no objection but were I, like so many, 
to degenerate physically and mentally as well, I would really rather not. 
Were that the case, I should prefer to be counted out. 

As to your requests regarding Marx’s biography, '“° I am afraid that there 
is little I can do to meet them. Moreover I lack the time, being engaged on 
the 3" volume of Capital and unable to take time off from it. 

Ad’ I. There is nothing I can recommend over and above the biographical 
material already in your possession. Nothing reliable, at any rate. 

Ad II . Marx’s practical activities between 1844 and 1849 were in part 
devoted to the working men’s associations, especially the Brussels associa- 
tion between 1846 and 1848, and to the League. '’ It is only on these last that 
you will find anything in print, namely in our prefaces to the Manifesto 
(LATEST Berlin edition, 1892) and in the Revelations Concerning the 
Communist Trial along with my introduction’ thereto, Zurich edition, 

“as to 

1885.—As regards the International, Eichhoff ALONE is reliable,” for he 
worked from Marx’s notes; all the rest from Fribourg,° to Laveleye and 
Zacher,° are a source of nothing but LIES AND MYTHS. Here it would be more a 
case of writing a fat book to set matters right than of sending material for a 
third party to work on. I can, however, send you two publications issued by 
the General Council (Prétendues Scissions and L’Alliance de la Démocratie 
Socialiste)' for the decisive struggle with Bakunin.—Héritier’s offering in the 
Berliner Volks- Tribüne on the subject of the Jura Federation and M. 
Bakunin * betrays unexampled naiveté in its blind faith in the anarchists’ 
inventions and, from what Heéritier writes and tells me, his translator has 
vitiated it still further in the anarchist sense. (In which case, by the way, the 
Russian censor will, with his excisions, guard you against a good many 
mistakes. ) 

Ad II. You will have to get hold of The Holy Family by fair means or 
foul. In no circumstances will I let my own copy out of my hands and to 
supply particulars of the contents is an impossible task. Nor would it do any 
good to write out for you the main passages. You must be familiar with the 
whole. It surely ought to be possible to pick one up in Berlin. 

As to the genesis of historical materialism, you will, in my opinion, find 
everything you want in my Feuerbach (Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of 
Classical German Philosophy)—the appendix by Marx is, of course, itself the 
genesis! Also in the prefaces to the Manifesto (new Berlin edition, 1892) and 
to the Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial. 

Marx quietly elaborated the theory of surplus value in the fifties, all on his 
own, and resolutely refused to publish anything on the subject until he was in 
absolutely no doubt about each of his conclusions. Hence the non- 
appearance of the 2" and subsequent instalments of A Contribution to the 
Critique of Political Economy. '“” 

I am sending you the Splits and Alliance by post and hope these will 
suffice. Unfortunately that is all I can do for you. 

Kindest regards to Gnardnauer and all the comrades over there. 

*“ F, Engels, On the History of the Communist League. — ° W. Eichhoff, Die Internationale 
Arbeiterassociation. Ihre Gründung, Organization, politisch-sociale Thdtigkeit und Aus 
breitung. — E. E. Fribourg, LAssociation internationale des travailleurs. —“ E. de Laveleye, Le 
Socialisme contemporain. - ° [J.] Zacher, Die Rothe Internationale. - ' K. Marx and F. Engels, 
Fictitious Splits in the International’and The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the 
International Working Men’s Association. 

Ever yours, 
F. Engels