Letter to Ferdinand Freiligrath, July 20, 1867

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 20 July 1867


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, Moscow, 1934
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


MARX TO FERDINAND FREILIGRATH6

IN LONDON

[Copy]

[London,] 20 July 1867

Dear Freiligrath,

I am not a regular reader of German literary trash, but I cannot prevent friends in Germany from occasionally sending me excerpts containing personal references to me. Thus, yesterday I received all the passages referring to myself in a publication by a certain Rasch entitled 'Zwölf Streiter der Revolution'. I should be obliged to you for an explanation of the following:[1]

'Freiligrath had, etc., broken off relations with Marx entirely; a quite unpardonable action on Marx's part, about which I wish to say no more here, had been the last straw. It can only be explained as due to the obnoxious character of a man like Marx. I was so indignant about it that one day I asked Freiligrath for details, but he tactfully passed over it.'

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ G. Struve and G. Rasch, Zwölf Streiter der Revolution, p. 61.