Karl Marx 
To the Editor of the "People's Paper" 

The People's Paper. 
Nr. 71,10. September 1853 

(To the Editor of "The People's Paper. ") 

Dear Sir—The "Morning Advertiser," of the 3rd inst, published the sub- 
joined article, "How to write History—By a Foreign Correspondent," while 
he refused to insert my answer to the "Foreign Correspondent." You will 
oblige me by inserting into the "People's Paper" both, the Russian letter and 
my reply to it. 
Yours truly, 
Dr. Karl Marx. 

London, September 7th. 

How to Write History.— 

By a Foreign Correspondent. 

"Bakunin is a Russian agent—Bakunin is not a Russian agent. Bakunin died 
in the prison of Schliisselburg after having endured much ill-treatment— 
Bakunin is not dead: he still Uves. He is made a soldier and sent to the 
Kaukasus—no he is not made a soldier: he remains detained in the Citadel 
of St. Peter and St. Paul. Such are the contradictory news which the press 
has given us in turn concerning Michael Bakunin. 

In these days of extensive publicity, we only arrive at the true by affirming 
the false, but, has it at least been proved that Bakunin has not been in the 
military pay of Russia? 

There are people who do not know that humanity makes men mutually 
responsible—that in extricating Germany from the influence which Russia 
exercises on it, we react upon the latter country, and plunge it anew into 
its despotism, until it becomes vulnerable to revolution. Such people it would 
be idle to attempt to persuade that Bakunin is one of the purest and most 
generous representatives of progressive cosmopoütism. 

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Karl Marx 

‘Calumniate, calumniate,' says a French proverb, "something will always 
remain.' The calumny against Bakunin, countenanced in 1848 by one of his 
friends, has been reproduced in 1853 by an unknown person. 

‘One is never betrayed but by one'sownconnexion,'says another proverb; 
‘and it is better to deal with a wise enemy, than with a stupid friend.' The 
conservative journals have not become the organ of the calumny insinuated 
against Bakunin. A friendly journal undertook that care. 

Revolutionary feeling must be but slightly developed, when it can be 
forgotten for a moment, as Mr. Marx has forgotten, that Bakunin is not of 
the stuff of which police spies are made. Why, at least, did he not do, as is 
the custom of the English papers—why did he not simply publish the Jetter 
of the Polish refugee, which denounced Bakunin? He would have retained 
the regret of seeing his name associated with a false accusation!" 

The Foreign Correspondent 

in Saturday's "Morning Advertiser." 

"Tt is better to deal with a wise enemy than a stupid friend.’ Exactly so. 

Is he not a ‘stupid friend’ who is astonished at the discovery, that a con- 
troversy involves antagonistic opinions, and that historical truth cannot be 
extricated but from contradictory statements? 

Is he not a 'stupid friend’ who thinks necessary to find fault with ex- 
planations in 1853, with which Bakunin himself was satisfied in 1848, to 
‘plunge Russia anew in its despotism,’ from which she has never emerged, 
and to call French a trite Latin proverb? 

Is he not a 'stupid friend’ who assures a paper to have 'countenanced' a 
statement made by its Foreign Correspondent and unmarked by its editor? 

Is he not a ‘stupid friend' who sets up 'conservative journals' as models 
for 'revolutionary feeling’ at its highest pitch, invented the lois des suspects, 
and suspected the ‘stuff of a traitor even in the Dantons, the Camille 
Desmoulins, and the Anacharsis Cloots, who dares attack third persons in 
the name of Bakunin, and dares not defend him in his own name? 

In conclusion, let me tell the friend of proverbial common place that I have 
now done with him and with all such like friends of Bakunin." 

Karl Marx. 
London, September 4th. 

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