MARX TO ENGELS!” 

London, 30 August 1852 
28 Dean Street, Soho 

Dear Engels, 

You will have seen from the documents I sent you how 
Kinkel-Willich are manoeuvring.” They are ignoring their deposi- 
tion by the guarantors in their immediate vicinity and are 
endeavouring to obtain individual votes by stealth, which is partly 
why Schurz left for America immediately after the 12th. (A further 
object is to set up kindergartens there, of the Friends of Light.”°') 
What the gentlemen have in mind is at long last to play a real role 
in the administration of the funds, from which they threaten to 
resign if not given their way. The point d'argent‘ is this. The chaps 
have spent £200, which would hardly be ratified here. Hence the 
attempt to obtain from America, directly and ‘with the utmost 
dispatch’, authority to make use of the funds or to co-opt a third 
colleague so that they may act as a properly constituted body. 
They have, after their usual fashion, set about things very artfully. 
First, they sent the documents to America and Switzerland, behind 
the backs of the London guarantors. Then the letters were 
delivered to the latter on the 26th (although dated 11 and 12), 
with the remark that silence would be taken for consent. 

a 31 August - > See this volume, p. 166. - © money matter 

But since there is a possibility that the majority of the 
guarantors, even in America and Switzerland, might vote against 
these gentlemen, they have, on the quiet, called a meeting of 
guarantors (friends of Kinkel) for 14 or 15 September in Antwerp, 
in order to safeguard themselves against all eventualities by means 
of an alleged congress resolution. 

The nature of their much-vaunted ‘strong’ organisations in 
Germany will be plain to you from the following. 

As you know, Gebert has allegedly left for America. Tout le 
monde le crow.” But this is how things really stand. 

At the beginning of this month Kinkel-Willich sent an emissary 
to Germany, 1.e. Gebert, the tipsy journeyman tailor. In Magdeburg 
he assembled a so-called communist community; for 3 consecutive 
days discussions were held, 26-30 members taking part; in the 
chair was one Hammel; during the debates Marx and Engels were 
attacked with much acrimony;—in addition to various administra- 
tive and organisational questions there arose the question of how 
and in what manner a printing-house might be set up. They 
succeeded in finding an impoverished printer of books with a 
business in or near Magdeburg and concluded an agreement with 
him. He placed his office’ at their disposal for propaganda, the 
‘name of the firm being retained. In return he was paid 100 talers 
down and given a bill of exchange for 350 talers, maturing in a 
year’s time reckoning from now. 

The police knew about everything, beginning with Gebert’s 
departure, and had him followed everywhere. They had their 
informant at the loutish gathering. in Magdeburg. They don’t 
intend to pull him in until he has completed his mission and 
compromised as many people as possible. The affair is most 
unfortunate for our prisoners in Cologne. If Gebert is pulled in, 
etc., I think the time would be ripe to denounce the fellows 
publicly and to issue a warning about them, namely that, from a 
secure hiding-place, they are playing into the hands of the 
German governments, especially the Prussian, for the purpose of 
pseudo-agitation and _ self-aggrandisement. I notified Cologne 
immediately. I can tell you only by word of mouth how I found out 
about the business.”” Over here, too, secrecy of mails is somewhat 
problematic. 

Willich is quite gone to the dogs. He can no longer borrow from 
anyone on the strength of the imminence of ‘the great day’. A few 
days ago his friend Scharttner told him coram publico? that ‘free’ 

a Everybody believes this. - > in public 

grub and booze must now cease. He turned red as a turkey-cock 
and the implacable Scharttner, promptly suiting action to word, 
insisted on his paying cash for the pots he had just imbibed. 
However Willich still obtains some, if inadequate, sustenance by 
tumbling his old philistine of a landlady. That, too, has become 
notorious and no one any longer believes in the asceticism of this 
Sancho Panza. When, together with Johann,’ etc., he writes, ‘the 
time of the pen is past, the time of the sword has come’,”” this last 
should read tN plain GERMAN: ‘The time of fencing has come.’? 

Techow, the revolutionary general, is only sailing for Australia 
in a few days, accompanied by Madame Stirner“ and his fiancée. 
As you know, he has for some time been staying here with the 
Stirner woman. But then his fiancée arrives, a person of substance. 
Upon becoming aware of this, the Schmidt woman declares she 
will stand down. But now the fiancée, on learning that Techow has 
been living with the Schmidt woman, declares she no longer wants 
him and sends for her potential fiancé, an East Prussian farmer. 
Nevertheless he lives in the same house as herself, and the fiancé 
(the other one) an hour away from London. Poor Buridan- 
Techow! 

A few days ago Pyat (Félix) called a reunion of his French 
adherents and laid before them a programme which is now to be 
published. Needless to say, ‘God’ had had a hand in it. One of 
those present objected to ‘Cod’ finding lodgment in a revolution- 
ary programme. In conformity with gouvernement direct? Pyat put 
it to the vote. ‘God’ got by with a majority of 7. L’étre supréme est 
sauvé encore une fois. God doth not forsake his own, as the saying 
used to go. Now it is: God’s own do not forsake him. One good 
turn deserves another. 

For a long time General Vetter was not seen in London; no one 
knew where he had gone. The mystére has now been cleared up. 
Vetter was travelling on an American passport, in which he figures 
as a painter, accompanied by his mistress, a singer named 
Ferenczi. He passed for an artist. She gave concerts at all places of 
importance and thus he travelled from Genoa and Milan to Rome, 
Naples and Palermo. Mazzini-Kossuth had provided him with 
passworps and recommendations. This gave him access to clandes- 
tine circles in Italy, while his ostensible rape introduced him into 

@ Kinkel - > Play on the word Fechten, which, besides ‘fencing’, can also mean 
‘door-to-door - begging’. - © wife of Caspar Schmidt, whose pen-name was Max 
Stirner - ¢ direct government - © The Supreme Being is saved once again. 

the higher cercles". He came back here some time ago and 
submitted a report to the ‘European’ Central .Committee.'” 
(Notabene: Darasz died and was buried last week.) In brief, to the 
great mortification of the ‘pious’ Mazzini, L’Italie s’est tout a fait 
matérialisée, On n’y parle que commerce, affaires, soies, huiles et autres 
miséres mondaines. Les bourgeois calculent d’une maniere terriblement 
positive les pertes que la révolution de Mars les a fait subir et ne pensent 
qu’a se reprendre sur le présent. Quant a linitiative insurrectionnelle 1s 
sont heureux de la laisser aux Frangais, a ce peuple frivole et sensualiste. 
La seule chose, dont tls ont peur, c'est que les Frangais ne se hatent trop. 

Tu penses bien, mon cher, quel coup de foudre pour l’archange 
Mazzini. Le général Vetter, nommé déja comme commandant supérieur 
des forces Mazzini-Kossuthiennes leur a déclaré que les choses étant ainsi, 
al ne saurait mieux faire que de passer avec sa maitresse en Amérique. 
Au bout du compte, le malheureux Mazzini est convenu avec Kossuth de 
vouloir bien laisser aux Francais linitiative insurrectionnelle” 

Not to the vile multitude, however, but to Bonaparte. 

I have had a letter from Paris? about this and other matters: 

‘Kiss, Kossuth’s ambassador, has entered into relations here, not only with the 
Orleanists, but also with the Bonapartists. Kiss is acquainted with Jéréme’s* sons. 
On the strength of this formal acquaintanceship, he was able to bamboozle Kossuth 
into concluding with the French government an alliance favourable to Hungary. 
The whimsical agitator fell into the trap and to this end dispatched Kiss to Paris, 
provided with gulden. Kiss enjoys himself in coffee and other houses, from time to 
time appears in the antechamber of Pierre Bonaparte, pulls the wool over the 
latter’s eyes, writes splendid reports to Kossuth, and Hungary’s liberation is no 
longer in doubt. These revolutionaries: par excellence send agents to conclude a life 
and death alliance with a “tyrant”!’ 

* circles - > Italy has grown wholly materialist. The sole topics of conversation 
there are commerce, business, silks, oils and other wretchedly mundane things. The 
bourgeois reckon in the most dreadfully positive way the losses they incurred as a 
result of the March revolution and think only how they may recoup them from the 
present. As for insurrectionary initiative, they are glad to leave this to that frivolous 
and sensual people, the French. Their only fear is that the French might be in too 
much hurry. 

You can imagine, my friend, what a thunderbolt this was to the Archangel 
Mazzini. General Vetter, already appointed commander-in-chief of the Mazzini- 
Kossuthian forces, told them that in the circumstances he could do no better than 
betake himself to America with his mistress. In the final count, the unfortunate 
Mazzini agreed with Kossuth that insurrectionary initiative was best left to the 
French. - © These words were used by Thiers in his speech in the Legislative 
Assembly on 24 May 1850, Le Moniteur universel, No. 145, 25 May 1850. - 4d from 
Zerffi - © Jér6me Bonaparte 

Mais ce n'est pas tout. 

I have it from a reliable source that that old fool Lelewel and 
Thaddaus Gorzowski have been here on behalf of the Polish 
‘Centralisation’.°" They submitted to Kossuth-Mazzini an insurrec- 
tionary plan of which Bonaparte’s co-operation is the pivor. These 
old jackasses of conspirators are always putting their foot in it. 
They had, and continue to have, as agent here a certain Count 
Lanckoroénski or some such. This lad (lives at 7 Harington Street, 
Hampstead Road) is a Russian agent, and their insurrectionary 
plan was done the honour of being amended beforehand in 
Petersburg.””° 

Your 
K. M.