[London,] 25 May 1876 

Dear Frep, 

At the same time as this letter I am posting off Most’s 
manuscript '° in the inadequately packed state in which it arrived. 
I opened the enclosed scrawl from Wilhelm” because I thought it 
had something to do with Most’s affair. In addition, I removed 
from your house a communication from the Great Northern 
Railway intending to forward it to you because I thought it was a 
business letter, but now discover it to be simply a Programme oF 
Tourist ARRANGEMENTS. 

I consider that, if one is to adopt a ‘position vis-a-vis these 
gentlemen’ one can do so only by criticising Duhring without any 
compunction. He has obviously been secretly at work among the 
literary loutish careerists devoted to him in order to obviate such 
criticism; they for their part have been counting on Liebknecht’s 
weakness of which they are well aware. It was, BY THE By, 
Liebknecht’s duty, and he should be told as much, to let these 
laddies know that he had repeatedly asked for such criticism and 
that we had long (for the business started after my first return 
from Karlsbad *’) refused on the grounds that the work was too 

a2 June - > Wilhelm Liebknecht 

paltry. As he knows, and as his letters to us go to prove, the thing 
only seemed worth doing when, by repeatedly passing on to us the 
louts’ letters, he drew our attention to the threat of debased 
propaganda within the party.'* 

As regards Mr Most in specie,* he must by the nature of things 
regard Duhring as an authentic thinker because of the latter’s 
having broadcast the discovery, not only in a lecture to workers in 
Berlin, but subsequently in black and white, that Most was the only 
one to have made some sense out of Capital.’ Dihring 
systematically flatters these louts—something they cannot com- 
plain we do. Most and Co.’s vexation over the way you 
dumbfounded the Swabian Proudhonist' is typical. It serves as a 
terrible example before which they quail, and they are trying to 
prevent such a thing ever happening again by means of 
tittle-tattle, stalwart bonhomie and outraged brotherly love. 

Certainly, the root of the trouble is and will remain Liebknecht’s 
want of manuscripts, in which, generally speaking, his editorial 
talent seems to be concentrated. However, the pettiness with which 
he avoids according Becker’s history of the French Commune? so 
much as a word of recognition, let alone publishing an extract or 
two from it, proves that even the want of manuscripts is not the 
only governing factor. 

You may remember that, in a recent conversation we had about 
Turkey, I drew your attention to the possibility of a puritan party 
(based on the Koran) amongst the Turks. This has now 
supervened. According to a news item from Constantinople in the 
Frankfurter Zeitung, there is a plan, if things continue as they are, 
to remove the Sultan and put his brother in his place.’ The 
correspondent, who speaks Turkish and has much _ personal 
intercourse with Turks in Constantinople, insists inter alia that 
they know very well what Ignatiyev is up to, and that he is the 
source of all the disquieting rumours circulating among the 
Christians in Constantinople. Of one thing we may be sure: the 
Turks are not to be got rid of without HARNESS ON THEIR BACK, and the 
Russians, who did not dare (or, perhaps, could not, due to lack of 
money) act swiftly and thus seize time by the forelock, may 
perhaps by the present adventure contribute more to the collapse of 
their own régime than to that of the Turks in Europe. 

Jennychen is well, but the little boy is somewhat seedy, though 
it’s nothing of consequence, the doctor says. He is to be called 

a in particular - > B. Becker, Geschichte der Revolutiondren Pariser Kommune in den 
Jahren 1789 bis 1794, 

Jean (after Longuet’s father) Laurent (nickname oF Laura) Frederick 
(in your honour). 

The Copenhagen people have invited me by telegram, as well as 
in a letter to Pio (who left on Monday"), to attend a working 
men’s congress (beginning of June). It’s fantastic to suppose I 
should now be able to give guest performances of this kind. 

Today our park has been boarded off. Funny how ancient 
Teutonic customs survive as curiosities in England. This is the 
safeguarding of ‘genuine freehold’ by fencing off and hence 
separating it from the common mark. 

Pumps has written long letters to my wife and Tussy. Even if 
the spelling sometimes isn’t up to scratch, she has really made 
astonishing progress in the matter of style and ease of expression, 
which are far more important. 

Kindest regards to Madame Lizzy. 

Your 
K. Marx 

What a jackass Dizzy” has become! At a moment when England 
is completely isolated, he insists on keeping a dozen or more 
Fenians to himself! '™ 

As regards ‘Richter’, Liebknecht shouldn’t confine himself to 
mere Hints when uttering warnings of this kind.’ While there may 
be a possibility that my address book disappeared along with 
Richter, I don’t for the time being believe it. 

The fact of Eichhoff’s working for Arnim was, of course, known 
to us long before Liebknecht, nor is there anything in the least 
surprising about it, in view of Eichhoff’s hatred of Bismarck and 
Stieber. Notabene, in the Frankfurter Zeitung there is a Prussian 
warrant against Arnim, in accordance with which he is to be 
relieved of his money and handed over to the Berlin police; the 
authorities abroad will have their expenses paid and are assured of 
their services being requited in kind! (This on account of the 
suppression of documents for which he had already been sen- 
tenced.) !