Manchester, 27 February 1865 
Dear Siebel, 

Marx has sent you our statement denouncing the Social- 
Demokrat in Berlin.* In the meantime, to do something positive to 
prevent the people from lumping us together with Bismarckery, I 
have written a pamphlet,” and O. Meissner in Hamburg has 
accepted it. I should be grateful if you would arrange for a notice 
concerning it to be placed in the Düsseldorfer Zeitung and other 
papers to which you have access, with something like the following 
content: 

A pamphlet by Fr. Engels entitled The Prussian Military Question 
and the German Workers’ Party will shortly be published by Otto 
Meissner in Hamburg. It originated at the request of a so-called 
‘social-democratic’ paper‘ to the author to express his views on the 
subject in that paper.* Detailed treatment of the subject, however, 
required more space than a newspaper could command; the 
pro-Bismarck direction adopted by the latest ‘Social-Democracy’ 
furthermore made it impossible for the people at the Neue 
Rheinische Zeitung to collaborate with the organs of this particular 
‘Social-Democracy’. In these circumstances, the above-mentioned 
work is being published independently in pamphlet-form...'° 

You will need to act quickly as Meissner has written that the 
pamphlet was already going to be distributed on 24 February. It 
will vex the Lassallean clique most dreadfully, the men of 
Progress” no less so, and not least Monsieur Bismarck. There are 
some most impudent things in it which have previously, for the 
most part, been passed over with tactful timidity. As long as the 
press does not again totally ignore the thing'™ with its fulmina- 
tions against all and sundry, the story will have some effect. 

So, be quick now! This is all important. For the Rheinische 
Zeitung I shall supply the necessary material through Dr Klein in 
Cologne. 

Best wishes to your wife. Your 
| Dae Oe 

a K. Marx and F. Engels, ‘To the Editor of the Social-Demokrat’. - > F. Engels, The 
Prussian Military Question and the German Workers’ Party. - © Der Social-Demokrat - 
d See this volume, pp. 67-69. 

N.B. You can further add: and sets out the views of the 
‘Social-Democrats’ of 1848 with regard to both the government 
and the Party of Progress.