[London,] 22 November 1859 

Dear Lassalle, 

For one thing today is mailing day for America‘; for another I 
have taken medicine. So writing is difficult either way. Hence I 
shall be quite brief. 

a [Blind,} ‘Prognostikon des wahrscheinlichen Verlaufes des italienischen Krieges; 
geschrieben kurz vor Ausbruch desselben’, Hermann, No. 46, 19 November 
1859. - b [K. W. Eichhoff,] ‘Stieber’, Hermann, Nos. 36-38, 40, 42, 43; 10, 17, 24 
September, 8, 22, 29 October 1859. - © [K. W. Eichhoff,] ‘Berlin, 8. Nov. (Stieber)’, 
Hermann, No. 45, 12 November 1859. - 4 It was a Tuesday. On Tuesdays and Fridays 
Marx sent off articles for the New-York Daily Tribune. 

1, Tuanxs for your last letter but one. I shall, however, probably 
succeed in arranging a bill on myself here in London, at an 
exorbitant rate of interest. 

2. You had best abandon your anti-Vogt statement now that 
the Reform has already printed a statement of mine.? My chief 
concern now is to compel Mr Vogt to pursue the matter in 
London.° ; 

3. I have told Freiligrath that you have praised his poem on 
Schiller and criticised his conduct towards you.” He will now 
write to you. Read No. 43 of the Gartenlaube wherein Kinkel’s 
sycophant, Mr Beta (sometime editor of the How do you do? 
published here by Louis Drucker, and presently faiseur-en-chef* of 
the Hermann, whose epirors are all recruited from the literary 
Lumpenproletariat), makes the discovery that Freiligrath ‘seldom 
sang any more’ after he had been ‘inspired’ by me.“ During recent 
years Freiligrath has been whoring too much after the idols of 
Babylon, so great is his thirst for popularity. His wife may not be 
an altogether beneficent influence 1N Tus Respect. I will dilate no 
further on this theme, except to say that I show more considera- 
tion for old personal and party friends than seems right to many 
very clever people in our party. 

4. Ad vocem Bonaparte. So far as I can see, the Italian war*” 
has temporarily strengthened Bonaparte’s position in France; 
betrayed the Italian revolution into the hands of the Piedmontese 
doctrinaires and their henchmen; made Prussia exceptionally 
popular with the liberal vulgus' by virtue of her Haugwitzian 
policy; increased Russta’s influence in Germany; and, finally, 
propagated demoralisation of an unprecedented kind—a most 
repulsive combination of Bonapartism and drivel about 
nationalities. I for my part fail to see any reason why members of 
our party had to give dialectical support to these nauseous, 
counter-revolutionary illusions of philistine-liberal provenance. It 
is my belief that, from the moment when Disraeli publicly 
admitted the existence of an alliance between Bonaparte and 
Russia,*’ and more especially from the moment when Russia sent 
out her shameless circular note to the German -courts,? the 
battle-cry should have been raised against the Russo-French 

a K. Marx, ‘Statement to the Editors of Die Reform, the Volks-Zeitung and the 
Allgemeine Zeitung’. - > See this volume, p. 525. - © chief impresario - 4 [H.] Bfeta,] 
‘Ferdinand Freiligrath’, Die Gartenlaube, No. 43, 1859.-¢ As to -f common 
people - 8 A. Gortschakoff, ‘Circularschreiben an die russischen Gesandtschaften 
vom 15 (27) Mai 1859’, Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 167, 16 June 1859. 

alliance. Opposition to Russia would instantly have disposed of the 
delusion that there was anything anti-liberal about a turning 
against France. 

Schleinitz’s despatches,” which I have studied in detail, together 
with the statements made by the ministers over here, some direct 
to Parliament, some in the press, confirm my view that Prussia had 
no intention of intervening so long as the German frontier was not 
violated. Bonaparte, as the protégé of Russia and England, had at 
the time been given permission to conduct a ‘localised’ war in 
order to keep him in France. Prussia would not have dared lift a 
finger and, had she done so, there would have been war between 
Germany and Russia, than which nothing could be more desirable. 
But in Facr there was no question of it, because Prussia would never 
have had the courage to take such a step. Rather it was a question, 
partly of exposing the Prussian government in all its miserable 
weakness, partly and above all of unmasking Bonapartist DELusions, 
Nor would the game have been too difficult, since all the 
representatives of the revolutionary party from Mazzini to Louis 
Blanc, Ledru-Rollin and even Proudhon would have joined in. 
This would have meant that the polemic against Bonaparte’s 
imposture could not have acquired the appearance of hostility to 
Italy or France. 

I am not, of course, going into the matter thoroughly here, but 
merely jotting down a few points. However, I shall, with your 
permission, make one further observation. There is a possibility 
that things will come to a head again soon. In that case one of two 
things must prevail in our party: either no one speaks for the 
party without prior consultation with the others, or everyone has 
the right to put forward his views without any regard for the 
others. Now this last is certainly not to be recommended, since a 
public polemic would in no way benefit so small a party (which, I 
hope, makes up in vigour for what it lacks in numbers). I can only 
say that, during my travels through England and Scotland (this. 
summer) ““*—for our old party friends are scattered about the 
country—I did not find anybody here who would not have wished 
you had modified your pamphlet” in many respects. I see a quite © 
simple explanation for this, namely that foreign policy, in 

4 to the Prussian embassies in Britain, Russia and Germany (Berlin, June-July 1859); 
reports on the despatches appeared in the Neue Preufische Zeitung, No. 170, 24 July 
1859 (‘Zu der “Vermittlung”’), No. 171, 26 July (‘Preußische Depeschen’) and 
No. 174, 29 July 1859 (‘Deutschland’). See also p. 520 - > F. Lassalle, Der italienische 
Krieg und die Aufgabe Preufens. 

particular, presents a very different aspect according to whether 
you view it from English soil or from the Continent. 
Salut. 

Your 
K. M.