London, 12 February 1873 

Dear Liebknecht, 

Before I can give you a definite answer to the many questions in 
your letter, I must first know exactly what you mean by saying 
that ‘the Volksstaat cannot become involved in International 
polemics at the present time’.©* If the Volksstaat proclaims itself 
neutral in the International’s war against the secessionists, if it 
refuses to explain these events clearly to the German workers, if, 
in a word, the Lassallean revolt is to be concluded by your shaking 
hands over and beyond the International and by your sacrificing 
the International and Yorck to the Hasselmanns, then our attitude 
to the Volksstaat will change fundamentally. So I must ask you to 
speak out frankly at once. 

About my book,’ negotiations are pending with Wigand and I 
would have to free myself from him before deciding on any 
alternative. But on the general issue of letting you have the rights 
to practically all our earlier writings gratis at the very moment 
when we are in a position to make money from them, I would ask 
you to bear in mind that we too need money, firstly in order to 
live, and secondly in order to meet the daily mounting costs of 
agitation, propaganda material, etc. The essays by Marx and 
myself will certainly be collected and printed, but at the moment 
we have no time to take care of it ourselves. I am even less in a 
position to distil the essence of Owen’s works for you. In the first 
place I do not have the time and in the second, I lack the 
material— my collection of Owen’s writings went astray in 1848-49, 
and these things are no longer obtainable.—At all events the 
Misére de la philosophie is being reprinted in Paris; as to the 
German translation, Marx is negotiating with Meissner about a 
complete edition of earlier writings and so can hardly just take out 
one of the largest works without further ado. And anyway, you 
have plenty of time before you get from the Utopia” to us; better 
look after the intermediate links first. 

a F, Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England.-> Th. Morus, 
Utopia.