London, Friday, [8 October”] 1858 
Dear Frederick, 

You will today be receiving two packages aT once since not all the 
stuff could go into one letter. It consists of: 

1. Cuttings from Reynolds’s relating to Jones. You will see for 
yourself where Reynolds is conveying Facrs, and opinions based on 
racts, and where he is venting his spleen. Reynolds is a far greater 
rogue than Jones, but he is rich and a good speculator. The mere 
FACT THAT HE HAS TURNED AN OUT AND OUT Chartist shows that this position 
must stiLt be a ‘profitable’ one. I have read the speech Jones made 
in Manchester.” Since you did not see his earlier speeches in 
Greenwich, etc., you couldn’t have detected that he is making 
another Turn and seeking again to bring the ‘alliance’ more into 
accord with his former attitude. 

2. Pyat’s new lettre, which contains one or 2 Facts that are 
INTERESTING, Otherwise in his former manner.?? The marks in the 

a K, Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. - > Date inserted by 
Engels. - « F. Pyat, Lettre au jury. Défense de ta lettre au Parlement et a la Presse. 

margin have been scribbled by my sasy* and do not, therefore, 
have any bearing on the contents. 

3. Mazzini’s new manifesto.” Still the same old jackass. Save that 
now he is gracious enough not to consider le salariat any longer 
as the absolute and final form. There’s nothing funnier than the 
way he contradicts himself, on the one hand saying that in Italy 
the revolutionary party is organised according to his views and, on 
the other, proving after ‘his own’ fashion not only that it has the 
nation behind it, but also that there is every outward prospect of 
success—and finally fails to explain why, despite Dio e Popolo ann 
Mazzini INTO THE Bargain, all is calm in Italy. 

4. A little cutting from the Cincinnati Hochwdchter containing a 
letter from ‘General’ Willich. 

Considering the optimistic turn taken by world trade art Tuis 
moment (although the vast accumulations of money in the banks of 
London, Paris and New York show that things cannot by any 
means be ALL RIGHT yet), it is some consolation at least that the 
revolution has begun in , Russia, for I regard the convocation of 
‘notables’ to Petersburg as such a beginning. Similarly in Prussia 
things are worse than they were in 1847, and the ridiculous 
DELUSIONS AS TO THE MIDDLE CLASS PROPENSITIES OF THE PRINCE OF Prussia will be 
exploded in‘ an outburst of rage.*** It will do the French no harm 
to see that, even without them, the world ‘mov’t’ (Pennsylvania- 
fashion).* At the same time exceptional movements are on foot 
amongst the Slavs, notably in Bohemia, which, though counter- 
revolutionary, yet provide ferment for the movement.’ The 
Russian war of 1854-55,° wretched though it was and little though 
its consequences damaged the Russians (but rather the Turks), 
nevertheless clearly precipitated the present turn of events in 
Russia. The only circumstance which turned the Germans into 
mere satellites of France so far as their revolutionary movement 
was concerned, was the artirupe of Russia. This absurdity will cease 
with an internal movement in Moscovy. As soon as the thing 

“assumes clearer shape there, we shall have proof of the full extent 
to which the worthy Regierungsrat Haxthausen has allowed 
himself to be hoodwinked by the ‘authorities’ and by the peasants 
those authorities have trained.**’ 

There is no denying that bourgeois society fas for the second 
time experienced its 16th century, a 16th century which, I hope, 

a Eleanor Marx - > Published in Pensiero ed Azione, 14 September 1858 (for details see 
Marx’s article‘ Mazzini’s New Manifesto’). - « wage labour - 4 Marx has (pennsyl- 
vanisch) which presumably is a comment on ‘mov’t’ and means: the way Germans in 
Pennsylvania speak English. - ¢ the Crimean war 

will sound its death knell just as the first ushered it into the world. 
The proper task of bourgeois society is the creation of the world 
market, at least in outline, and of the production based on that 
market. Since the world is round, the colonisation of California 
and Australia and the opening up of China and Japan would seem 
to have completed this process. For us, the difficult question is this: 
on the Continent revolution is imminent and will, moreover, 
instantly assume a socialist character. Will it not necessarily be 
CRUSHED in this litthe corner of the earth, since the Movement of 
bourgeois society is still-in the ascenpanr over a far greater area? 

So far as China in particular is concerned, I have, by carefully 
analysing the movement of trade since 1836, established first that 
by 1847 the surge in English and American exports between 1844 
and 1846 had proved a complete fraud and that, in the 10 years 
that followed, the average remained pretty stationary whereas 
imports from China into England and America rose enormously; 
secondly, that the only result of the opening up of the 5 ports 
and the annexation of Hong Kong was a shift of trade from 
Canton to Shanghai. The other ‘emporiums’ do not count. The main 
reason for the rarure of this market would seem to be the opium 
trade—to which, indeed, every increase in the export trade to 
China has invariably been confined; however, another factor is the 
country’s internal economic organisation, its MINUTE AGRICULTURE, etc., 
to demolish which will take an enormously long time. England’s 
present treaty with China**? which, in my view, was worked out 
by Palmerston jointly with the cabinet in Petersburg and was given 
to Lord Elgin to take with him on his journey, is A MOCKERY FROM