ENGELS TO MARX” 

{[Barmen, about 20 January 1845] 

Dear Marx, 

If I haven’t answered your letter before, it’s mainly because I 
was waiting for the Vorwarts you promised me. But as the thing 
has still not arrived, I’ve given up waiting, either for that or for 

the Critical Criticism? of which I have no further news whatever. 
As regards Stirner, I entirely agree with you. When I wrote to 
you, I was still too much under the immediate impression made 
upon me by the book.” Since I laid it aside and had time to think 
it over, I feel the same as you. Hess, who is still here and whom I 
spoke to in Bonn a fortnight ago, has, after several changes of 
mind, come to the same conclusion as yourself. He read me an 
article, which he is shortly to publish, about the book‘; in it he 
says the same as you, although he hadn’t read your letter. I left 
your letter with him,” because he still wished to use some things 
out of it, and so I have to reply from memory. As regards my 
removal to Paris, there is no doubt that in some two years’ time [ 
shall be there; and I’ve made up my mind too that at any cost I 
shall spend 4 to 6 weeks there next autumn. If the police 
make life difficult for me here, I'll come anyway, and as things are 
now, it may occur to these scum any day to molest us. Puttmann’s 
Bürgerbuch will show us just how far one can go without being 
locked up or thrown out. 

My love affair came to a fearful end. P’ll spare you the boring 
details, nothing more can be done about it, and I’ve already been 
through enough over it as it is. ’m glad that I can at least get 
down to work again, and if I were to tell you the whole sorry tale, 
I'd be incapable of anything this evening. 

The latest news is that from 1 April Hess and I will be 
publishing at Thieme & Butz’s in Hagen the Gesellschaftsspiegel, a 
monthly in which we shall depict social misére and the bourgeois 
regime. Prospectus, etc., shortly.” In the meantime it would be a 
good idea if the poetical Ein Handwerker would oblige by sending 
us material on misére in Paris. Particularly individual cases, exactly 
what’s needed to prepare the philistine for communism. Not much 
effort will be involved in editing the thing; contributors 
enough can be found to supply sufficient material for 4 sheets a 
month—we shan’t have much work to do with it, and might exert 
a lot of influence. Moreover, Leske has commissioned Püttmann to 
put out a quarterly, the Rheinische Jahrbiicher, bulky enough to 
evade censorship,”* which is to be communism unalloyed. You too 
will doubtless be able to have a hand in it. In any case it will do no 
harm if we have part of our work printed twice—first in a 
periodical and then on its own and in context; after all, banned 

a K. Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family.- > M. Stirner, Der Einzige und sein 
Eigenthum. - ¢ M. Hess, Die letzten Philosophen (published in pamphlet form in June 
1845). - 4 Deutsches Bürgerbuch für 1845 - ¢ A reference to the German saying (coined 
in 1809 by Major Ferdinand von Schill). 

books circulate less freely and in this way we'll have twice as much 
chance of exerting an influence. So you see we here in Germany 
have our work cut out if we’re to keep al) these undertakings 
supplied with material and at the same time elaborate greater 
things—but we shall have to put our backs into it if we’re to 
achieve anything, and that’s all to the good when you're itching to 
do something. My book on the English workers? will be finished in 
two or three weeks, after which I shall set aside four weeks for 
lesser things and then go on to the historical development of 
England and English socialism.” 

What specially pleases me is the general recognition, now a fait 
accompli, which communist literature has found in Germany. A 
year ago it began to gain recognition, indeed, first saw the light of 
day, outside Germany, in Paris, and now it’s already worrying the 
German man-in-the-street. Newspapers, weeklies, monthlies and 
quarterlies, and reserves of heavy artillery coming up— 
everything’s in the best of order. It’s certainly happened devilish 
fast! Nor has the underground propaganda been unfruitful. Every 
time I visit Cologne, every time I enter a pub here, I find fresh 
progress, fresh proselytes. The Cologne meeting? has worked 
wonders. One gradually discovers individual communist groups 
which have quietly evolved without any direct cooperation on our 
part. 

The Gemeinniitziges Wochenblatt which was formerly published 
together with the Rheinische Zeitung, is now also in our hands. It 
has been taken over by d’Ester who will see what can be done. But 
what we need above all just now are a few larger works to provide 
an adequate handhold for the many who would like to improve 
their imperfect knowledge, but are unable to do so unassisted. Do 
try and finish your political economy book‘, even if there’s much 
in it that you yourself are still dissatisfied with, it doesn’t really 
matter; minds are ripe and we must strike while the iron is hot. 
Presumably my English things cannot fail to have some effect 
either, the facts are too convincing, but all the same I wish I had 
less on my hands so that I could do some things which would be 
more cogent and effective in regard both to the present moment 
and to the German bourgeoisie. We German theoreticians—it may 
be ludicrous, but it’s a sign of the times and of the dissolution of 
the German national filth—cannot yet so much as develop our 
theory, not even having been able as yet to publish the critique of 

a F, Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England. - » See this volume, 
p. 10. - © ibid. p. 6. 

the nonsense. But now it is high time. So try and finish before 
April, do as I do, set yourself a date by which you will definitely 
have finished, and make sure it gets into print quickly. If you can’t 
get it printed in Paris, have it done in Mannheim, Darmstadt or 
elsewhere. But it must come out soon. 

The fact that you enlarged the Critical Criticism to twenty sheets 
surprised 12e not a little. But it is all to the good, for it means that 
much can now be disseminated which would otherwise have lain 
for heaven knows how long in your escritoire. But if you have 
retained my name on the title page it will look rather odd since I 
wrote barely 1'/, sheets. As I told you, I have as yet heard nothing 
from Lowenberg,* nor anything about the publication of the book, 
which I most eagerly await. 

Yesterday I received Vorwdarts, which I haven’t seen since my 
departure. I was greatly amused by some of Bernays’ jokes; the 
fellow can make one laugh so heartily, which I seldom do when 
reading. For the rest, it is definitely bad and neither interesting 
nor instructive enough to induce many Germans to take it for any 
length of time. How does it stand now, and is it true, as I hear in 
Cologne, that it is to be turned into a monthly '8? We’re so terribly 
overburdened with work here that you can expect no more than 
an occasional contribution from us. You over there will also have 
to bestir yourselves. You should write an article every 4 or 6 
weeks for it and not allow yourself to be ‘governed’ by your 
moods. Why doesn’t Bakunin write anything, and why can’t 
Ewerbeck be induced to write at least something humdrum? Poor 
Bernays is, I suppose, by now in jug.” Give him my regards and 
tell him not to take this dirty business too much to heart. Two 
months is not an eternity, although it’s dreadful enough. What are 
the lads doing generally? You tell me nothing about it in your 
letters. Has Guerrier returned, and is Bakunin writing French? 
What’s become of the lot who used to frequent the Quai Voltaire 
every evening in August? And what are you doing yourself? How 
goes it with your situation there? Is the Fouine“ still living under 
your feet? Not long ago, the Fouine again let fly in the Telegraph? 
On the subject of patriotism, needless to say. Splendid how he 
rides it to death, how he doesn’t care a rap, provided he succeeds 
in demolishing patriotism. Probably that was the substance* of 

2 Léwenberg (lion’s mountain) is a pun on Léwenthal (lion’s valley), the Frankfort 
publisher’s name. - > See this volume, p. 4. - © Marten, Arnold Ruge’s nickname. - 
4 A. Ruge. ‘An einen Patrioten’, Telegraph für Deutschland, Nos. 203 and 204, 
December 1844. - ¢ The original has ‘Des Pudels Kern’— Goethe, Faust, Erster Teil, 
‘Studierzimmer’. 

what he refused to give Frébel. German newspapers recently 
alleged that the Fouine intends to return to Germany. If it’s true I 
congratulate him, but it can’t be true, else he’d have to provide 
himself for the second time with an omnibus with privy, and that’s 
out of the question. 

Not long ago I spoke to someone who'd come from Berlin. The 
dissolution of the caput mortuum* of The Free!’ would appear to 
be complete. Besides the Bauers, Stirner also seems no longer to 
have anything to do with them. The few who remain, Meyen, 
Rutenberg and Co., carry on serenely, foregathering at Stehely’s 
every afternoon at 2 o'clock, as they have done for six years past,” 
and amusing themselves at the expense of the newspapers. But 
now they have actually got as far as the ‘organisation of labour’, 
and they will get no farther. It would seem that even Mr 
Nauwerck has ventured to take this step, for he participates with 
zeal in popular meetings. I told you all these people would become 
démocrates pacifiques“ At the same time they have much ‘acclaimed’ 
the lucidity, etc., of our articles in the Jahrbiicher? When next the 
devil drives I shall begin corresponding with little Meyen; one can, 
perhaps, derive some entertainment from the fellows even if one 
doesn’t find them entertaining. As it is, there’s never any 
opportunity here for an occasional outburst of high spirits, the life 
I lead being all that the most splendiferous philistine could desire, 
a quiet, uneventful existence, replete with godliness and respecta- 
bility; I sit in my room and work, hardly ever go out, am as staid 
as a German. If things go on like this, 1 fear that the Almighty 
may overlook my writings and admit me to heaven. I assure you 
that I’m beginning to acquire a good reputation here in Barmen. 
But I’m sick of it all and intend to get away at Easter, probably to 
Bonn. I have allowed myself to be persuaded by the arguments of 
my brother-in-law* and the doleful expression on both my 
parents’’ faces to give huckstering another trial and for [...] days 
have been working in the office. Another motive was the course 
my love affair was taking. But I was sick of it all even before I 

a Literally: dead head; the term is borrowed from the alchemists and figuratively 
means ‘the remnants’. - > Probably an allusion to Louis Blanc’s Organisation du 
travail. - © See this volume, p..13. - 4 The reference is to the articles published in the 
Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbiicher: K. Marx, ‘On the Jewish Question’ and ‘Contribution 
to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law. Introduction’ and F. Engels, ‘Outlines of 
a Critique of Political Economy’ and ‘The Condition of England, Past and Present by 
Thomas Carlyle’. - € Emil Blank - ! Friedrich and Franziska Engels. 

began work; huckstering is too beastly, Barmen is too beastly, the 
waste of time is too beastly and most beastly of all is the fact of 
being, not only a bourgeois, but actually a manufacturer, a 
bourgeois who actively takes sides against the proletariat. A few 
days in my old man’s factory have sufficed to bring me face to 
face with this beastliness, which I had rather overlooked. I had, of 
course, planned to stay in the huckstering business only as long as 
it suited me and then to write something the police wouldn’t like 
so that I could with good grace make off across the border, but I 
can’t hold out even till then. Had I not been compelled to record 
daily in my book the most horrifying tales about English society, I 
would have become fed up with it, but that at least has 
kept my rage on the simmer. And though as a communist one 
can, no doubt, provided one doesn’t write, maintain the outward 
appearance of a bourgeois and a brutish huckster, it is impossible 
to carry on communist propaganda on a large scale and at the 
same time engage in huckstering and industry. Enough of 
that—at Easter I shall be leaving this place. In addition there is 
the enervating existence in this dyed-in-the-wool Christian- 
Prussian family—it’s intolerable; I might end up by becoming 
a German philistine and importing philistinism into commu- 
nism. 

Well, don’t leave me so long without a letter as I have left you 
this time. My greetings to your wife, as yet a stranger, and to 
anyone else deserving of them. 

For the time being write to me here. If I have already left, your 
letters will be forwarded. 

Your 
F. E. 

[Address on envelope] 

A Madame Marx. Rue Vanneau N 38 

Paris