Marx-Engels Correspondence 1860
Source: MECW Volume 41, p. 11;
First published: in F. Lassalle. Nachgelassene Briefe und Schriften, Stuttgart-Berlin 1922
Dear Lassalle,
I was very glad to get your letter. For I had believed — and had written to tell Engels so — that your reason for not writing was pique at my last letter.
I can only spare a minute or two since I have a leader to write today for the New-York Tribune. Quite briefly then:
1. I shall send you the pamphlet on the ‘Communist Trial’ straight away. So far as I am aware, you have already had one from me.
2. Vogt has been careful not to let his Telleringian concoction — i.e. the first version — reach us here. Neither Freiligrath (whom I have just seen) nor Kinkel, nor the Hermann, nor any of the booksellers over here have had it. The imperial rascal wishes, of course, to steal a march on me.
What I know, I have learned from the National-Zeitung. A pack of Stieberian lies. I have written and told my lawyer in Berlin to sue the N-Z. for libel. What do you think of this? Let me know by return.
From your letter I see that Vogt himself admits having been bought indirectly by Bonaparte, for I know about the manoeuvres of your revolutionary Hungarians. I denounced them in London in an English paper and had five copies sent to Mr Kossuth. He kept his trap shut. In New York, and elsewhere, Hungarian refugees have adopted resolutions censuring him.
Your reasoning ad vocem Vogt eludes me. I shall write a pamphlet as soon as I get hold of his rubbish. But I shall begin by saying in the foreword that I don’t give a damn about the opinion of your German public.
Liebknecht is an upright man. The Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung is — to my mind — just as good as the N-Z. and the Volks-Zeitung.
To judge by the excerpts I have seen in the N-Zeitung, Vogt is some kind of Chenu or de la Hodde.
3. About my work on political economy — the second instalment, when it appears, will contain only the conclusion of section 1, Book 1, and there are six books. Hence you cannot wait until it is finished . However, you would, in your own interests, be well-advised to await the next instalment which contains the quintessence. Appalling circumstances are to blame for the fact that it isn’t yet in Berlin.
Salut.
K. M.