Marx-Engels Correspondence 1862
Source: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975). Scanned and prepared for the Marxist Internet Archive by Paul Flewers.
... As for subscriptions to your essay, [2] I shall do all I possibly can, but expect little success. The ragtag and bobtail that make up the various societies – with the exception of the Workers Educational Association which has no funds whatever – are all constitutionally disposed, and even favour the Prussian National Association. [3] Those fellows would rather give money to suppress an essay like yours. I must tell you, these Germans, young and old, are all very clever, robust, prudent and practical men; they consider people like you and me immature fools who have still not been cured of their revolutionary fantasies. And that riff-raff is as bad at home as it is here abroad. During my stay in Berlin and elsewhere I convinced myself that any attempt to influence that mob by means of literature was absolutely futile. The self-complacent stupidity of those fellows, who regard their press, that woebegone press, as an admirable elixir of life, is simply incredible. Add to this that mental lassitude: caning is the only means to resurrect the ordinary German who, ever since he lost his philosophical illusions and took to moneymaking, and moreover to the idea of ‘Little Germany’ and ‘practical constitutionalism’, has become a superficial impulsive clown...
1. Johann Philipp Becker (1809-1886) – prominent figure in German and international working-class movement, brush-maker, in 1830s and 1840s took part in democratic movement in Germany and Switzerland, was active in 1848-49 revolution, after defeat of Baden-Palatinate insurrection fled from Germany, in 1860s one of outstanding figures in First International, attended all its congresses, editor of Vorbote, friend and close associate of Marx and Engels – Progress Publishers.
2. This refers to a work on the unification of Germany which Becker was writing at that time. It was published in 1862 entitled Wie und Wann? Ein ernstes Word über die Fragen und Aufgaben der Zeit (How and When? Serious Remarks About the Problems and Tasks of Our Time) – Progress Publishers.
3. The National Union was set up on 15-16 September 1859, at a conference held in Frankfurt on the Main of bourgeois liberals from the German states. Its purpose was the unification of all German states except Austria under Prussian hegemony. After the Austro-Prussian war and the creation of the North German Confederation on 11 November 1867, it disbanded itself – Progress Publishers.