L 
Dear Frep, [London,] 25 July 1877 

Best thanks for the billet doux. 
Another word about Neuenahr.*” If one keeps going uninter- 
mittently to Karlsbad, one is forever staking one’s last card. If, 

a Abdul Hamid II - > 22 July - ¢ love letter (see previous letter) 

however, one has recourse to a less potent spa, there will always 
be a last resort should things take a turn for the worse. And one 
has to treat one’s physique with as much diplomacy as everything 
else. 

Herewith, ditto, an excerpt from Geib’s letters to Hirsch. Hirsch 
regrets not having Liebknecht’s letters with him because, he says, 
we should see from them that Liebknecht has been agitating 
vigorously against the Dühring clique for months. Liebknecht, it 
would seem, has to swallow a great deal of trouble which he 
conceals from us. 

What do you think of the workers of the Unrtep States? This, the 
first outbreak against the associated CAPITAL oligarchy that has arisen 
since the crv war, will, of course, be suppressed, but may well 
provide a point of departure for the constitution of a serious 
workers’ party in the Unirep Statrs. There are two favourable 
circumstances on top of that. The policy of the new President* will 
turn the negroes, just as the big expropriations of land (Exactly oF 
THE FERTILE LAND) for the benefit of the Ramway, Muninc, etc. 
companies will turn the peasants of the West— whose grumbling is 
already plainly audible—into militant allies of the workers. So 
there’s a pretty fair storm brewing over there, and the transfer of 
the centre of the International to the Unirrp States *!” may yet, post 
festum,” be presented with a quite exceptional opportunity. 

You will recall that Challemel (I don’t know how the name is 
spelt) de Lacour‘ wrote a caustic, perfectly insulting anti-Mac- 
Mahon article in the République Frangaise in which, inter alia, he 
spoke of the ‘blessure opportune’,’ failing which he [Mac-Mahon] 
would have been relegated to the same gloire-liste“ as the 
Frossards, Faillys, etc. Thereupon notification was given in the 
official papers that the République was to be prosecuted for this 
libellous article. But it wasn’t and, as Hirsch says, for the following 
reason: the famous Stoffel, mortal enemy of Mac-Mahon who 
dismissed him from the army and with whom he had a 
tremendous row during Bazaine’s trial,*’ called on Gambetta and 
offered, should the trial proceed, to give evidence about Mac- 
Mahon’s exports during the battle of Sedan.'" This soon became 
known in the Elysée*” and the prosecution was dropped. 

Ad vocem' Broglie. As you know, he had discharged his debts in 
the first ordre moral government*’* but now once more found 
himself in difficulties, of which the whole of Paris was aware. He 
was waiting for the death of a very old and frail relative (stinking 

a Rutherford Birchard Hayes - > after the event -¢* Paul Armand Challemel- 
Lacour - 4 timely wound - © honours list - £ As to 

rich) in Switzerland, a Mrs von Staél (a relative of the famous 
viraco*),. This person died on 13 March 1877, leaving her whole 
fortune to a lady and—not a rarruinc to Broglie. Whereupon, like 
Dolleschall, he said: ‘Now it’s a question of daily bread. Now I 
have nothing to count on!’ 

Your reply to the Berliners would be seasonable. The fellows 
must be made to feel that, if one is long-suffering, one is also 
capable of digging one’s heels in. 

I shall see whether the trai with Hirsch can be arranged.° Today 
he is at the Crystal Palace,*'* which means that I’m unlikely to see 
him until tomorrow afternoon (since he writes his articles for the 
Vossische, etc., in the mornings). 

Salut. 

Your 
Moor 

Sample of the ‘great perspicacity’ of the armchair socialists: 

‘Not even great perspicacity such as is at the command of Marx is able to solve 
the task of “reducing use values’ (the idiot forgets that the subject under discussion 
is ‘commodities’) ‘i.e. vehicles for enjoyment, etc., to their opposite, to amounts of 
effort, to sacrifices etc.’ (The idiot believes that in equalising values I wish to ‘reduce’ 
use values to value.) ‘That is to substitute a foreign element. The equation of 
disparate use values is only explicable by the reduction of the same to a common 
factor of use value.’ (Why not simply to— weight?) 

Thus dixit Mr Knies, the critical genius of professorial political 
economy.' 
Excerpts from letters from Geib to Hirsch. 

1. Hamburg, dated 3.6.77 

(Concerning the founding of the review8): ‘A comrade, Karl Hochberg, in Berlin’ (in 
Hirsch’s view a ‘comrade’ of the Illustrious Eugen Dühring), ‘native of Frankfurt 
am Main, has undertaken to make the party an annual gift of 10,000 marks for 
literary purposes. Having thus been made independent, we resolved at Gotha to 
publish, as from 1 October, not only the Review but also a Social-Democratic 
news-letter—autographed—such as we had privately discussed the previous year at 
Gotha. You immediately sprang to mind as editor of both papers. The review is to 
come out twice a month and the news-letter two or three times; six times while the 
Reichstag is in session, etc. 

“‘Héchberg, who has a degree and is about thirty years old, will help as required 
with the editing of the Review, but will not have any administrative say in it. The 
editor of both undertakings is to have an annual salary of 3,000 marks... Everyone 
IT have asked so far is agreed that the editing could be entrusted to no better hands 
than yours,’ 

a Anne Louise Germaine de Staé] - > i.e. to the Zukunft editorial board (see previous 
letter) - © to Engels in Ramsgate (see previous letter) - 4 Vossische Zeitung - © saith 
-! C. Knies, Geld und Credit, Part I: ‘Das Geld’, Berlin, 1873, p- 119. - 8 Die Zukunft 

2. Hamburg, 5.7.77: ...‘The review will come out as from 1 October... Héchberg, 
who will probably approach you direct, will assist you with the editing of the 
review. This I envisage as follows: You either hand over to him, or make some 
arrangement with him about, certain departments which he is to administer, such 
as, e.g., philosophy, history, natural science. New books in this sphere will be 
discussed by Hochberg... If it transpires that you-have to devote your entire 
attention to the news-letter, it will be easy to make some other arrangement. In this 
connection I would mention Dr Wiede, who is a keen party member, speaks and 
writes French, English and Italian, has travelled widely and was himself proposing 
to publish a socialist review in Zurich.* When he was here recently ] dissuaded him 
from carrying out his plan, etc.’ (but to no effect!) 

3. Hamburg, 18.7.77. 

‘..You have definitely accepted so far as the news-letter is concerned’ (i.e. 
Hirsch proposes to try the thing out for a month in August). ...".We have still not 
settled anything definite in respect of the review. As you have refused, we have 
latterly been engaged in verbal negotiations here with Héchberg. Here we had to 
consider the circumstances that the Leipzigers are all, to a man, opposed to the 
review’s editorial board being composed solely of newcomers to the party. Everyone 
likes Hdchberg well enough, but not Wiede. It is feared that a weak editorial 
board—and an unknown one might ultimately turn out to be weak—in Berlin 
might easily be led into Dühringian channels, thus sowing the seeds of fatal 
dissension within the party. Not that I myself take such a gloomy view of it, though 
in one respect I agree with all the rest, namely that in the first quarter the review 
must be co-edited and signed—in other words, launched—by a lettered man, a 
comrade known to the whole party. I believe that you could do this quite well...’ 
(whereupon, however, Hirsch declares that he won’t do it).