[Manchester, about 20 July 1851) 

Dear Marx, 

I return the documents herewith. I like the letter from Miquel. 
The fellow does at least think, and would assuredly turn out very 
well if he were to spend some time abroad. His fears concerning 
the ill-effects of our document,? now published, on the democrats 
are without doubt perfectly correct as regards his own district; this 
primitive, Lower Saxon, middle peasant democracy, whose arse 
the Kélnische Zeitung has recently been licking and to whom it has 
offered an alliance, is just what one might expect and is greatly 
inferior to the philistine democracy of the larger towns by which, 
after all, it is dominated. And this humdrum, petty-bourgeois 
democracy, although obviously much piqued by the document, is 
itself so pinched and oppressed that it is far more likely, in 
common with the big bourgeoisie, to come round to the necessity 
of passer par la mer rouge.” The fellows will increasingly resign 
themselves to the need for a short reign of terror by the 
proletariat—it can’t, of course, last very long, for so nonsensical, 
indeed, is the actual tenor of the document that there can be no 
question of permanent rule by such people ‘or of the eventual 
implementation of such principles! On the other hand the 
Hanoverian big and middle peasant, who has nothing but his land, 
and whose house, farm, barn, etc., are exposed, with the 
prospective ruin of all the assurance companies, to every kind of 
peril, and who in any case, since the accession of Ernst August, 
has tasted all the sweets of lawful resistance—this srurpy German 
yeoman Will take good care not to enter the Red Sea any sooner 
than he has to. 

According to Bermbach’s letter, the traitor was Haupt—which I 
cannot believe.“? The business must in any case be investigated. It 

a K. Marx and F. Engels, ‘Address of the Central Authority to the League, March 
1850’. - > crossing the Red Sea (see Exodus 13:18; 15:22) 

may of course seem suspicious that Haupt, at least so far as I] 
know, is still free. The possibility of travelling to Hamburg from 
G6éttingen or Cologne cannot be entertained. What sort of 
explanation will emerge, and when, from the record of the trial or 
from the proceedings is impossible to say. S’il y a trahison,* it must 
not be forgotten, and it would be most desirable, given the 
opportunity, were an example to be made. 

I hope that Daniels will be released soon, apres tout c’est la seule 
téte politique, qu’il y ait dans Cologne? and, despite surveillance by 
the police, he would still be in a position to keep the business on 
the right track. 

To come back to the effect of our document on the democrats: 
Miquel should not forget that we have continuously and uninter- 
ruptedly harried the gentry in writings which were, after all, more 
or less party manifestos. Why, then, the present outcry about a 
programme that merely sums up in a very calm and, above all, 
quite impersonal manner, what has already long been in print? 
Did our disciples on the continent, then, deny us? Did they involve 
themselves more deeply with the democrats than party policy and 
party honour permitted? If it was because of freedom from 
contradiction that the democrats shouted in such revolutionary 
tones, who was it that freed them from contradiction? Not we, to 
be sure, but in all likelihood the German communists in Germany. 
And there, it would seem, lies the snag. Any democrat with a 
modicum of intelligence must have known from the start what was 
to be expected of our party—the document cannot have taught 
him much that was new. In so far as they allied themselves pro 
tempore with the communists, they were fully au fait with the 
conditions and duration of the alliance, and no one but 
Hanoverian middle peasants and lawyers could have ever believed 
that the communists had, after 1850, turned away from the 
principles and the policy of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. The 
thought certainly never occurred to Waldeck and Jacoby. Anyhow, 
in the long run publications of this kind can have no effect either 
on the ‘nature of things’ or on the ‘concept of relation’, to use 
Stirner’s expressions,© and the democrats will soon be in full 
cry again, wire-pulling as busily as ever and proceeding hand in 
hand with the communists. And we have long known that, 
on the lendemain? of the movement, the fellows are bound to 

a If there is treason - » after all, he’s the only political brain in Cologne - © See 
M. Stirner, Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum -~ d morrow 

- 

play us some dirty tricks. No amount of diplomacy will prevent 
this. 

On the other hand, I am delighted that, as I anticipated, small 
communist groups are being formed everywhere on the basis of 
the Manifesto” This is just what we lacked, the General Staff 
having hitherto been so weak. There'll never be any shortage of 
rank and file when it comes to the point, but it is agreeable indeed 
to have in prospect a General Staff not consisting of Straubinger *° 
elements, and admitting of a wider selection of men with a 
modicum of education than does the existing staff of 25. It would 
be a good idea to issue a general recommendation to carry out 
propaganda among office workers everywhere. In the event of 
having to set up an administration, such fellows would be 
indispensable—they are accustomed to hard work and intelligible 
book-keeping, and commerce is the only practical school for 
reliable clerks. Our jurists, etc., are no good for that. Clerks for 
book-keeping and accounts, talented, well-educated men for 
preparing dispatches, letters, and documents, voila ce qu’il faut? I 
could organise an administrative office infinitely more simply, 
practically and more conveniently with 6 office workers than with 
60 government advisers and financial experts. The latter cannot 
even write legibly, and make such a mess of one’s books that the 
devil himself couldn’t make head or tail of them. Since we are 
increasingly obliged to prepare for this eventuality, the matter is 
not without importance. Besides, these office workers, being 
accustomed to sustained mechanical activity, are Jess exacting, 
more easily kept from loafing about, and easier to get rid of in 
case of inefficiency. 

The letter to Cologne has gone off—all nicely taken care ofS; if 
it doesn’t arrive safely, I don’t know why. Otherwise Schulz’s 
address isn’t to be recommended —ex-co-publisher “!