{Paris, about 23 October 1846] 
Dear M., 

Have received the thing against Kriege.'”° Not bad. Since you 

alone signed, Kriege will no doubt put the more peremptory tone 
of the first document* down to my personal account, and eat 
humble pie in respect of the second, but little do I care. Let him 
give free rein to his personal malice and paint me as black as may 
be in the eyes of the American Straubingers,”* if that gives him any 
pleasure. 

You will see from the Committee letter’ how successful I was 
with the Straubingers here. The devil knows, I didn’t spare them. 
I attacked their worst prejudices, and told them they were not 

proletarians at all. But Grün also played very beautifully into my 
hands. 

aK. Marx and F. Engels, ‘Circular Against Kriege’.- > See this volume, 
pp. 81-86. 

For heaven’s sake don’t stamp your letters to me. If it hadn’t 
been for that damned Leske, who finally sent me a worthless bill 
of exchange, which I had to return, for the old stuff I had sent to 
Puttmann*—if the cur hadn’t left me in the lurch, I’'d send you 25 
fr. immediately for Committee funds. But meanwhile I shall take 
upon myself at least the cost of the correspondence with me. If I 
failed to stamp my previous letter, it was because it was too late 
and I could only get it off by dropping it straight into the letter 
box. As soon as Leske sends me the money, you'll get a share of it. 

None of the Straubingers are to be allowed to see the reply to 
Kriege. Otherwise it wouldn’t be safe from Grin. We must be 
careful not to let anything disturb the chap until he’s finished his 
work on Proudhon’s book, with notes by K. Grin.” Then we'll 
have him. In it he completely retracts a mass of things he has 
previously said, and delivers himself up body and soul to the 
Proudhonian system of redemption. Then there'll be no more 
exploitation, unless he is willing to turn his coat again. 

Is Weitling still in Brussels '”'? 

I think I shall be able to pull it off with the Straubingers here. 
True, the fellows are horribly ignorant and, their condition in life 
being what it is, completely unprepared. There is no competition 
whatever among them, wages remain constantly at the same 
wretched level; the struggle with the master, far from turning on 
the question of wages, is concerned with ‘journeymen’s pride’, etc. 
The slop-shops are now having a revolutionising effect on the 
tailors. If only it were not such a rotten trade! 

Grün has done a frightful amount of harm. He has turned all 
that was distinct in these fellows’ minds into woolly daydreams, 
humanitarian aspirations, etc. Under the pretence of attacking 
Weitlingian and other doctrinaire communism, he has stuffed 
their heads full of vague literary and petty-bourgeois catch- 
phrases, maintaining that all else was system-mongering. Even the 
cabinet-makers, who have never, save a few exceptions, been 
Weitlingians, entertain a superstitious fear of ‘bread-and-butter 
communism’ [L6ffelkommunismus] and—at least before the resolu- 
tion was passed—would sooner have associated themselves with 
the woolliest daydreams, peaceable philanthropic schemes, etc., 
than with this ‘bread-and-butter communism’. Here utter confu- 
sion reigns. 

a F, Engels, ‘Description of Recently Founded Communist Colonies Still in 
Existence’. - > P. J. Proudhon, Philosophie der Staatsdkonomie oder Nothwendigkeit des 
Elends. Deutsch bearb. von Kar! Grün.