London, 1 February 1859 
9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, 
Haverstock Hill 

Dear Weiwi, 

Your letter is dated 28 February 1858, arrived here (or at any 
rate reached me) at the end of May and is being answered in 
February 1859.*?! This is easily explained: During the whole of 
the spring and summer I suffered from liver trouble and it 
was only with difficulty that I found time for essential work. 
Hence such writing as was not absolutely necessary was out oF THE 
question. Later in the year, however, I was overwhelmed with 
work. 

Well, to start with, I must convey cordial regards to you and 
yours from all members of the family, likewise from Engels, Lupus 
and Freiligrath. In particular I would wish to be most kindly 
remembered to your dear wife. 

Engels is still in Manchester, also Lupus, who is giving lessons 
and doing moderately well; Freiligrath is manacer of a branch of 
the Swiss Crédit mobilier** in London; Dronke is a commission 
agent in Glasgow; Imandt (I’m not sure if you know him) is a 
teacher in Dundee; our dear friend Weerth died in Haiti,*™ 
alas,—an_ irreplaceable loss. 

Things have gone badly rather than well for me during the past 
2 years; for on the one side the good old Tribune made the crisis a 
pretext for halving my income although in times of prosperity 
they never gave me an extra penny; on the other, the time 
demanded by my work on political economy (of which more 
anon) compelled me (if with a heavy heart) to turn down 
very remunerative offers made me in London and Vienna. 
But I have got to pursue my object through thick and thin 
and not allow bourgeois society to turn me into a MONEY-MAKING 
MACHINE. 

Mr Cluss was over here last May. I happened to be staying with 
Engels in Manchester at the time. Cluss called on my wife and 
accepted an invitation for the following day; and who failed to put 
in an appearance? Why, Cluss! He [dis]appeared from London 

and never showed his face again. Instead he sent my wife a scrawl 
to which ‘embarrassment’ had given an uncouth tournure* He 
didn’t turn up in Manchester either. Subsequently we learned that 
he had allied himself with Mr Willich. This, then, also explains the 
mysterious discontinuation of his correspondence. If we were 
conceited we would feel duly chastened by the news that a fool 
like Willich had been able to oust us from the good graces of a 
shrewd chap like Cluss. But as it was, the whole story was so funny 
that it eliminated any bitter feelings. 

I have broken with Ernest Jones.“ Despite my repeated 
warnings, and although I had predicted exactly what would 
happen—namely that he would ruin himself and disorganise the 
Chartist Party—he took the course of trying to come to terms with 
the sourceots rapicats. HE 1s Now A RUINED MAN, but the harm he has 
done to the English proletariat is incalculable. The fault will, of 
course, be rectified, but a most favourable moment for action has 
been missed. Imagine an army whose general goes over to the 
enemy camp on the eve of battle. 

You'll have heard that Mr Kinkel has become a famous man 
again because Mrs Kinkel fell out of a window and broke her 
neck. The ‘cheery’ customer—never has he felt so jolly as since 
the death of the old Mockel woman—promptly decided to tout 
round his ‘grief’. Freiligrath allowed himself to be misled by 
Gottfried’s melodramatic scenes into writing a poem about 
Johanna? which he already regrets. For he has come to realise, 
firstly, that Gottfried is merry as a grig, and secondly that he 
immediately used the poem to disseminate to all and sundry the 
lie that Freiligrath had entered into an alliance with him and 
broken with us. A week later, in an attempt to exploit the Kinkel 
Revival sparked off by his wife’s death, Gottfried published 
in London a weekly dubbed the Hermann; unless this is the 
Hermann sung by Schénaich* and crowned by Gottsched, the 
title ought to be Gottfried. In the first place the rag preaches 
peace with God and the world,’ and secondly it is nothing more 
than a puff for Mr Gottfried vis-a-vis German Philistia in the 
City of London. Nothing more pitiful has ever seen the light 
of day, and we can thank our stars that the 10 years of exile 
have so completely laid bare the hollowness of our democratic 
friends. The Ko6lnische Zeitung is witty and daring by com- 
parison. 

245 

a twist - > F. Freiligrath, ‘Nach Johanna Kinkels Begrabnis’, 20 November 1858. - 
¢ Ch. O, von Schénaich, Hermann, oder das befreyte Deutschland... - 4 A pun: Gottfried 
(Kinkel’s sur: .nis}=Gort (God)+Friede (peace) 

What is really choice about Kinkel’s exploitation of his wife’s 
death is that the latter creature, who was suffering from heart 
disease, was outraged because our suave parson had seduced a 
Jewess by the name of Herz, and generally treated her ‘coldly’. In 
Manchester the Jewish women swear that this’ is the reason why 
Johanna Mockel of blessed memory fell out of the window. 
Anyhow, this would show that, inane though Gottfried may be in 
other respects, he is cunning enough to exploit public crepu.iry. 
But that’s enough about this humbug. 

The wind of revolution which is blowing across the Continent of 
Europe has, of course, awakened all the great men °87 from their 
winter sleep. 

At the same time as this letter, I am sending one—indeed, my 
firs\—to Komp. I have given up associations— organised ones. 
They were, I thought, compromising for our friends in Germany. 
Over here, on the other hand, after the dirty tricks I have suffered 
at the hands of the louts who have allowed themselves to be used 
as mere tools against myself by a Kinkel, a Willich or some other 
such humbug, and since the Cologne trial,”? I have withdrawn 
completely into my study. My time was too precious to be wasted 
in fruitless endeavour and petty squabbles. 

And now for essentials. My Critique of Political Economy is to be 
published in instalments (the first ones in a week or ten days’ 
time*) by Franz Duncker of Berlin (Bessersche Verlagsbuchhand- 
lung). It was only thanks to Lassalle’s extraordinary zeal and 
powers of persuasion that Duncker was induced to take this step. 
He has, however, left himself a loophole. A firm contract depends on 
the sale of the first instalments. 

I divide the whole of political economy into 6 books. 

Capital; landed property; wage labour; the State; foreign trade; 
world market. 

Book I, on capital, comprises 4 sections. 

Section I: Capital in general comprises 3 chapters, 1. The 
Commodity; 2. Money, or simple circulation; 3. Capital. 1 and 2, asout 
10 sheets, make up the contents of the first instalments to be 
published. You will understand the political motives that led me to 
hold back the third chapter on ‘Capital’ until I have again become 
established. 

The contents of the instalments now being published are as 
follows: 

a A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy 

Chapter One: The Commodity 

A. Historical notes on the analysis of commodities. {William Petty 
(Englishman, Charles II’s reign); Boisguillebert (Louis XIV); 
B. Franklin (first of his early works 1729)*; the Physiocrats; Sir 
James Steuart; Adam Smith; Ricardo and Sismondi} 

Chapter Two: Money or simple circulation 

1. Measure of value 

B. Theories of the standard of money. (Late 17th century, Locke and 
Lowndes, Bishop Berkeley (1750)°; Sir James Steuart; Lord 
Castlereagh; Thomas Attwood; John Gray; Proudhonists.) 

2. Medium of circulation 

a) The metamorphosis of commodities 
b) The circulation of money 
c) Coin. Token of value 
3. Money 
a) Hoarding 
b) Means of payment 
c) Money oF THE world 

4. The Precious metals 

C. Theories of the medium of circulation and of money. {Monetary 
system; Spectator,’ Montesquieu, David Hume; Sir James Steuart; 
A. Smith, J.-B. Say; Bullion Committee,° Ricardo, James Mill; Lord 
Overstone and school; Thomas Tooke (James Wilson, John 
Fullarton).} 

In these two chapters the Proudhonist socialism now FASHIONABLE 
in France—which wants to retain private production while 
organising the exchange of private products, to have commodities 
but not money—is demolished to its very foundations. Commu- 
nism must above all rid itself of this ‘false brother’? But apart 
from all polemical aims, the analysis of simple money forms is, you 
know, the most difficult because the most abstract part of political 
economy. 

I hope to win a scientific victory for our party. But the latter 
must itself now show whether its numbers are great enough to buy 
enough copies to banish the publisher’s ‘moral scruples’. The 
continuation of the venture depends on the sale of the first 

a B. Franklin, A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency. - 
b G. Berkeley, The Querist...- © This refers to Report from the Select Committee on the 
High Price of Gold Bullion...- 4 Cf. 2 Corinthians 11:26