Manchester, 21 August 1851 

Dear Marx, 

Herewith an article of a sort.* Various circumstances have 
conspired to spoil the thing. In the first place I have, for a change, 
been unwell ever since Saturday. Then there was the total absence 
of material—all I could do was scrape the bottom of the barrel, 
and rely on memory. Then the shortness of time and working to 
order, almost total ignorance of the paper” and its readership, 
precluding any proper plan. Finally, the impossibility of keeping 
the manuscript of the whole series for comparison, hence the need 
for a plus ou moins* pedantically methodical beginning to obviate 
repetitions in subsequent articles. All this, combined with the fact 
that I have quite got out of the habit of writing, has made the 
piece very dry and, if there’s anything to be said in its favour, it is 
the greater fluency of the English, which I owe to the fact that for 
the past eight months I have been accustomed to speak and read 
practically nothing but English. Enfin, tu en feras ce que tu voudras.* 

I am half way through the Proudhon and heartily endorse your 
view. His appeal to the bourgeoisie, his reversion to Saint-Simon 
and a hundred and one other matters in the critical section alone, 
provide confirmation that he regards the industrial class, the 
bourgeoisie and the proletariat as virtually identical and as having 
been brought into opposition only by the fact that the revolution 
was never completed. The pseudo-philosophical nature of the 
historical construction is plain for all to see: before the revolution, 
the industrial class an entity in itself, 1789-1848 in opposition: 
negation; Proudhonian synthesis To wind up THE WHOLE WITH A FLOURISH. 
The whole thing seems to me a last attempt to maintain the 
bourgeoisie in theory; our premises on the decisive historical 
initiative of material production, class struggle, etc., largely 
adopted, for the most part distorted and used as the basis for the 
endeavour apparently to reincorporate the proletariat in the 

a F, Engels, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany, Article 1. - & New-York 
Daily Tribune - © more or less -¢ Anyhow, you can do what you please with it. 

bourgeoisie by a pseudo-Hegelian sleight-of-hand. I have not yet 
read the synthetic part. There are one or two nice things in the 
attacks on L. Blanc, Robespierre, and Rousseau, but on the whole 
it would be hard to find anything more pretentiously insipid than 
his critique of politics, e.g. im the case of democracy, in which, like 
the Neue Preussische Zeitung and all the old historical school,*”* he 
comes up with head-counting, and in which, without a blush, he 
builds up systems out of small, practical deliberations worthy of a 
schoolboy. And what a great idea that pouvoir and liberté* are 
irreconcilably opposed, and that no form of government can 
provide him with sufficient moral grounds why he should obey it! 
Par Dieu!” Then what does one need pouvoir for? 

I’m convinced, by the way, that Mr Ewerbeck let him have his 
translation of the Manifesto’ and also, perhaps, in an underhand 
manner, passages translated from your articles in the Revue’ A 
number of points were indubitably lifted from them—e.g. that a 
gouvernement is nothing but the power of one class to repress the 
other, and will disappear with the disappearance of the contradiction 
between classes. Then, a number of points concerning the French 
movement since 1848. I don’t think he can have found all that in 
your book against him.‘ 

In a few days’ time, as soon as I’ve read the whole thing, I'll 
write about it in greater detail. Meanwhile, Weerth, who is making 
one of his sudden visits to Bradford, is likely to turn up here any 
day, in which case I may be obliged to keep the Proudhon for 
another two or three days. 

Tell Lupus that I’ve spoken to Watts, who is going to make 
every effort, and with every prospect of success, to obtain a 
position for him here. Watts believes that his having been a 
member of the National Assembly‘ will be quite sufficient here. 
He knows the whole genus of schoolmasters and clergy of liberal 
complexion and, once he gets moving, will certainly be able to 
arrange something. I shall therefore keep him in good humour; as 
soon as I hear anything further, I shall let him know. By the way, 
Watts is, all things considered, no. less tolerable than the usual type 
of philistine. Since the man lives the life of an Englishman, 
socialist, doctor and paterfamilias, allowance must be made for the 
fact that he’s been a rrerora.ier for the past 7 years—-and has even 

a power and liberty - > By Cod! -¢ K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the 
Communist Party (the French translation, made in 1848, was not published). - 
dK. Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 (published in the Neue 
Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-okonomische Revue). - © K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy.- 
f in Frankfurt in 1848-49 

felt a yearning to become a Struvian herbivore. His wife,” on the 
other hand, tipples and guzzles enough for two. It’s regrettable, 
but a fact, that here in Manchester your ordinary little man is, by 
and large, more congenial than anyone else; he tipples, talks smut, 
is a republican (like Martens), and you can laugh about him. 

What news have you from Germany? In Hamburg 3 have been 
released and one re-arrested. So al} the journeyman tailor 
Nothjung’s confessions amount to is that he’s the emissary of a 
propagandist secret society— quelle découverte!” 

Your 
F. E.