1844
Dear Marx,
No doubt you are surprised, and justifiably so, not to have heard from me sooner; however I still cannot tell you even now anything about my return. I've been stuck here in Barmen for the past three weeks, amusing myself as best I can with few friends and many relations amongst whom, fortunately, there are half a dozen amiable women. Work is out of the question here, more especially since my sister[3] has become engaged to the London communist, Emil Blank, an acquaintance of Ewerbeck's and, of course, the house is now in a hellish state of turmoil. Moreover, it's clear to me that considerable obstacles will continue to be placed in the way of my return to Paris, and that I may well have to spend six months or a whole year hanging about in Germany; I shall, of course, do everything I can to avoid this, but you have no idea what petty considerations and superstitious fears I have to contend with.
I spent three days in Cologne and marvelled at the tremendous propaganda we had put out there. Our people are very active, but the lack of adequate backing is greatly felt. Failing a few publications in which the principles are logically and historically developed out of past ways of thinking and past history, and as their necessary continuation, the whole thing will remain rather hazy and most people will be groping in the dark. Later I was in Düsseldorf, where we also have some able fellows. The ones I like best, by the way, are my Elberfelders, in whom a humane way of thinking has truly become second nature; these fellows have really begun to revolutionise their family lives and lecture their elders whenever these try to come the aristocrat over the servants or workmen — and that's saying a great deal in patriarchal Elberfeld. But besides this particular group there's another in Elberfeld which is also very good, though somewhat more muddled. In Barmen the police inspector is a communist. The day before yesterday I was called on by a former schoolfellow, a grammar school teacher,[3] who's been thoroughly bitten although he's had no contact whatever with communists. If we could bring direct influence to bear on the people, we'd soon get the upper hand, but such a thing is virtually impossible, especially since we writers have to keep quiet if we're not to be nabbed. Otherwise it's safe enough here, no one bothers much about us so long as we keep quiet, and it seems to me that Hess' fears are little more than phantoms. I've not been molested at all here so far, although the public prosecutor once insistently questioned one of our people about me, but up till now I haven't had wind of anything else.
According to the paper here, Bernays has been charged by the government here and taken to court in Paris.[2] Let me know whether this is true, and also how the pamphlet[13] is getting on; presumably it's finished by now. Nothing has been heard of the Bauers here, nobody knows anything about them. On the other hand, every one is still scrambling to get hold of the Jahrbücher? My article on Carlyled has, absurdly enough, earned me a tremendous reputation among the 'mass', whereas only very few have read the one on Economy.' That's natural enough.
In Elberfeld, too, the clerical gentry have been preaching against us, at least Krummacher has; for the present they confine themselves to the atheism of the young, but I hope this will soon be followed by a philippic against communism. Last summer the whole of Elberfeld talked of nothing but these godless fellows. By and large, the movement here is remarkable. Since I was here last,[3] the Wupper valley has made greater progress in every respect than in the preceding fifty years. Social manners have become more civilised, participation in politics, in the opposition is widespread, industry has made enormous progress, new districts have been added to the towns, entire woods have been grubbed up, and the level of civilisation throughout the region is indeed above rather than below that in Germany as a whole, whereas only four years ago it was far lower. In other words this promises to be first-rate soil for our principle, and if only we can get our wild, hot-blooded dyers and bleachers on the move, the Wupper valley will surprise you yet. As it is, the workers had already reached the final stage of the old civilisation a few years ago, and the rapid increase in crime, robbery and murder is their way of protesting against the old social organisation. At night the streets are very unsafe, the bourgeoisie is beaten, stabbed and robbed; and, if the proletarians here develop according to the same laws as in England, they will soon realise that this way of protesting as individuals and with violence against the social order is useless, and they will protest, through communism, in their general capacity as human beings. If only one could show these fellows the way! But that's impossible.
My brother(1) is at present a soldier in Cologne and, so long as he remains above suspicion, will provide a good address to which letters for Hess, etc., may be sent. At the moment I myself am not sure of his exact address and cannot therefore let you have it.
Since writing the above I have been in Elberfeld, where I once again came across several communists I had never heard of before. Turn where you will, go where you may, you'll stumble on a communist. A very impassioned communist, a cartoonist and aspiring historical painter by the name of Seel will be going to Paris in two months' time. I'll direct him to you; the fellow's enthusiasm and his painting and love of music will appeal to you, and he may very well come in useful as a cartoonist. It's possible, but not very probable, that I may be there myself by then.
A few copies of Vorwärts[4] arrive here and I have seen to it that others place orders as well; ask the dispatch department to send specimen copies to the following in Elberfeld: Richard Roth, Captain Wilhelm Blank junior, F. W. Strücker, Meyer, a Bavarian publican in the Funkenstrasse (a communist beerhouse), all to be sent through Bädeker, the communist bookseller, and under sealed cover. Once the fellows see that copies are coming in, they, too, will place orders. Also to W. Müller, M.D., in Düsseldorf; and, if you like, to d'Ester, M.D., Löllchen,a the publican, your brother-in-law,b etc., in Cologne. All of them, of course, through the booksellers and under sealed cover.
See to it that the material you've collected is soon launched into the world.[5] It's high time, heaven knows! I too shall settle down to work and make a start this very day. The Teutons are all still very muddled about the practicability of communism; to dispose of this absurdity I intend to write a short pamphlet showing that communism has already been put into practice and describing in popular terms how this is at present being done in England and America.c The thing will take me three days or so, and should prove very enlightening for these fellows. I've already observed this when talking to people here.
Down to work, then, and quickly into print! Convey my greetings to Ewerbeck, Bakunin, Guerrier and the rest, not forgetting your wife, and write very soon to tell me all the news. If this letter reaches you safely and unopened, send your reply under sealed cover to F. W. Strücker and Co., Elberfeld, with the address written in as commercial a hand as possible; otherwise, to any of the other addresses I gave Ewerbeck. I shall be curious to know whether the postal sleuth-hounds are deceived by the ladylike appearance of this letter.
Goodbye for the present, dear Karl, and write very soon. I have not been able to recapture the mood of cheerfulness and goodwill I experienced during the ten days I spent with you. I have not as yet had any real opportunity of doing anything about the establishment we are to establish.d
2. Marx to Julius Campe. 7 October
IN HAMBURG
Paris, 7 October 1844 rue Vanneau 38
Messrs Hoffmann and Campe, Booksellers, in Hamburg Julius Campe, Esq.
Dear Sir,
Engels and I have written a pamphlet of some ten sheets against Bruno Bauer and his supporters.a
It deals with themes from philosophy, history and idealism, contains a critique of the Mystères de Parish etc., and will not be without interest for Germany. Nor, by and large, will it be objectionable to the censors.
Should you wish to undertake its publication, I would request you to reply forthwith, since the pamphlet cannot but lose in interest if printing is delayed.[6] If Heine is still in Hamburg, would you be so kind as to convey to him my best thanks for the poems he sent. I have not yet advertised them, as I wish to advertise the first part, the ballads, at the same time.[7]
Yours faithfully
Dr Marx
Tor, Jg. 2, H. 11/12, 1947, S. 1073 and in full in Hundertundzehn Jahre Verlag Rütten und Loening. Berlin 1844 bis 1954, [Berlin, 1954,] S. 28
3. Marx to Heinrich Börnstein. Not later than November
Dear Sir,
Return the Feuerbach sheetsa to me as soon as you have printed them.[8]
Yours faithfully
Marx
4. Marx to Heinrich Börnstein. Autumn
Dear Sir,
You would greatly oblige me if you would ascertain by Tuesday at the latest whether or not Frank is willing to undertake publication of the pamphlet against Bauer.b
It is of complete indifference to me which way he decides. I can find a foreign publisher any day. Only, in the case of this particular pamphlet, in which every word counts, it would be pleasant to have it printed under my own supervision and to be able to correct it personally.
At any rate I beg you to reply speedily. Ready to reciprocate,
Yours faithfully
Dr Marx
5. Engels to Marx. 19 November
P.S. Since the pamphlet is directed against Bauer and on the whole contains little to which the censor could object, I should hardly suppose that distribution in Germany would present any great difficulty.
5
ENGELS TO MARX[9]
IN PARIS
No. 2
Barmen, 19 November 1844
Dear M.,
About a fortnight ago I received a few lines from you and Bürgers dated 8 October and postmarked Brussels, 27 October.[10]
At about the same time you wrote your note, I sent off a letter to you, addressed to your wife,(1) and trust that you received it. In order to make sure in future that our letters are not tampered with, I suggest we number them; thus my present one is No. 2 and, when you write, let me know up to what number you have received and whether one is missing from the series.
A couple of days ago I was in Cologne and Bonn. All goes well in Cologne. Grün will have told you about our people's activities. Hess is thinking of joining you in Paris, too, in a fortnight or three weeks' time, provided he can get hold of sufficient money. You now have Bürgers there as well, and hence enough for a council. You will have all the less need of me and there is all the more need for me here. Obviously I can't come now since it would mean falling out with my entire family. Besides, I have a love affair to clear up first. And after all, one of us ought to be here because all our people need prodding if they are to maintain a sufficient degree of activity and not fall into all manner of shuffling and shifting. Jung, for instance, as well as many others, cannot be convinced that the difference between us and Ruge is one of principle," and still persists in believing that it is merely a personal squabble. When told that Ruge is no communist, they don't quite believe it and assert that in any case it would be a pity if such a 'literary authority' as Ruge were to be thoughtlessly discarded. What is one to say to that? One must wait until Ruge once again delivers himself of some monumental stupidity, so that the fact can be demonstrated ad oculos* to these people. I don't know, but there's something not quite right about Jung; the fellow hasn't enough determination.
We are at present holding public meetings all over the place to set up societies for the advancement of the workers [12]; this causes a fine stir among the Teutons and draws the philistines' attention to social problems. These meetings are arranged on the spur of the moment and without asking the police. We have seen to it that half the rules-drafting committee in Cologne consists of our own people; in Elberfeld, at least one of them was on it and, with the help of the rationalists,[13] we succeeded at two meetings in thoroughly trouncing the pious; by a huge majority, everything Christian was banned from the rules.[14] It amused me to see what a ridiculous figure these rationalists cut with their theoretical Christianity and practical atheism. In principle they entirely agreed with the Christian opposition, although in practice, Christianity, which according to their own assertions forms the basis of the society, must nowhere be mentioned in the rules. The rules were to cover everything save the vital principle of the society! So rigidly did the fellows cling to this absurd position that, even without my putting in a single word, we acquired a set of rules which, as things are now, leaves nothing to be desired. There is to be another meeting next Sunday, but I shan't be able to attend because I am leaving for Westphalia tomorrow.
I am up to my eyebrows in English newspapers and books upon which I am drawing for my book on the condition of the English proletarians."b I expect to finish it by the middle or the end of January, having got through the arrangement of the material, the most arduous part of the work, about a week or a fortnight ago. I shall be presenting the English with a fine bill of indictment; I accuse the English bourgeoisie before the entire world of murder, robbery and other crimes on a massive scale, and I am writing an English prefacec which I shall have printed separately and sent to English party leaders, men of letters and members of Parliament. That'll give those fellows something to remember me by. It need hardly be said that my blows, though aimed at the panniers, are meant for the donkey, namely the German bourgeoisie, to whom I make it plain enough that they are -as bad as their English counterparts, except that their sweat-shop methods are not as bold, thorough and ingenious. As soon as I've finished this, I shall make a start on the history of the social development of the English,[15] which will be still less laborious, since I already have the material for it and have sorted it out in my head, and also because I'm perfectly clear about the matter. Meanwhile I shall probably write a few pamphlets, notably against List,[16] as soon as I have the time.
You will have heard of Stirner's book, Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum* if it hasn't reached you yet. Wigand sent me the specimen sheets, which I took with me to Cologne and left with Hess. The noble Stirner — you'll recall Schmidt of Berlin, who wrote about the Mystères in Buhl's magazine b—takes for his principle Bentham's egoism, except that in one respect it is carried through more logically and in the other less so. More logically in the sense that Stirner as an atheist sets the ego above God, or rather depicts him as the be-all and end-all, whereas Bentham still allows God to remain remote and nebulous above him; that Stirner, in short, is riding on German idealism, an idealist who has turned to materialism and empiricism, whereas Bentham is simply an empiricist. Stirner is less logical in the sense that he would like to avoid the reconstruction effected by Bentham of a society reduced to atoms, but cannot do so. This egoism is simply the essence of present society and present man brought to consciousness, the ultimate that can be said against us by present society, the culmination of all the theory intrinsic to the prevailing stupidity. But that's precisely what makes the thing important, more important than Hess, for one, holds it to be. We must not simply cast it aside, but rather use it as the perfect expression of present-day folly and, while inverting it, continue to build on it. This egoism is taken to such a pitch, it is so absurd and at the same time so self-aware, that it cannot maintain itself even for an' instant in its one-sidedness, but must immediately change into communism. In the first place it's a simple matter to prove to Stirner that his egoistic man is bound to become communist out of sheer egoism. That's the way to answer the fellow. In the second place he must be told that in its egoism the human heart is of itself, from the very outset, unselfish and self-sacrificing, so that he finally ends up with what he is combatting. These few platitudes will suffice to refute the one-sidedness. But we must also adopt such truth as there is in the principle. And it is certainly true that we must first make a cause our own, egoistic cause, before we can do anything to further it — and hence that in this sense, irrespective of any eventual material aspirations, we are communists out of egoism also, and it is out of egoism that we wish to be human beings, not mere individuals. Or to put it another way: Stirner is right in rejecting Feuerbach's 'man', or at least the 'man' of Das Wesen des Christentums.(2) Feuerbach deduces his 'man' from God, it is from God that he arrives at 'man', and hence 'man' is crowned with a theological halo of abstraction. The true way to arrive at 'man' is the other way about. We must take our departure from the Ego, the empirical, flesh-and-blood individual, if we are not, like Stirner, to remain stuck at this point but rather proceed to raise ourselves to 'man'. 'Man' will always remain a wraith so long as his basis is not empirical man. In short we must take our departure from empiricism and materialism if our concepts, and notably our 'man', are to be something real; we must' deduce the general from the particular, not from itself or, à
la Hegel, from thin air. All these are platitudes needing no explanation; they have already been spelled out by Feuerbach and I wouldn't have reiterated them had not Hess — presumably because of his earlier idealistic leanings — so dreadfully traduced empiricism, more especially Feuerbach and now Stirner. Much of what Hess says about Feuerbach is right; on the other hand he still seems to suffer from a number of idealistic aberrations— whenever he begins to talk about theoretical matters he always proceeds by categories and therefore cannot write in a popular fashion because he is much too abstract. Hence he also hates any and every kind of egoism, and preaches the love of humanity, etc., which again boils down to Christian self-sacrifice. If, however, the flesh-and-blood individual is the true basis, the true point of departure, for our 'man', it follows that egoism — not of course Stirner's intellectual egoism alone, but also the egoism of the heart—is the point of departure for our love of humanity, which otherwise is left hanging in the air. Since Hess will soon be with you, you'll be able to discuss this with him yourself. Incidentally, I find all this theoretical twaddle daily more tedious and am irritated by every word that has to be expended on the subject of 'man', by every line that has to be read or written against theology and abstraction no less than against crude materialism. But it's quite another matter when, instead of concerning oneself with all these phantasms — for such even unrealised man remains until the moment of his realisation — one turns to real, live things, to historical developments and consequences. That, at least, is the best we can hope for so long as we're confined exclusively to wielding a pen and cannot realise our thoughts directly with our hands or, if need be, with our fists.
But Stirner's book demonstrates yet again how deeply abstraction is rooted in the Berliners' nature. Clearly Stirner is the most talented, independent and hard-working of the 'Free',[17] but for all that he tumbles out of idealistic into materialistic abstraction and ends up in limbo. From all over Germany comes news of the progress made by socialism, but from Berlin not a whisper. When property has been abolished throughout Germany these clever-clever Berliners will set up a démocratie pacifique* on the Hasenheide — but the fellows will certainly get no further. Watch out! A new Messiah will presently arise in the Uckermark, a Messiah who will tailor Fourier to accord with Hegel; erect a phalanstery upon the eternal categories and lay it down as an eternal law of the self-developing idea that capital, talent and labour all have a definite share in the product. This will be the New Testament of Hegelianism, old Hegel will be the Old Testament, the 'state', the law, will be a 'taskmaster over Christ',b and the phalanstery, in which the privies are located in accordance with logical necessity, will be the 'new Heaven' and the 'new Earth', the new Jerusalem descending from heaven decked out like a bride,c
all of which the reader will be able to find expounded at greater length in the new Revelation. And when all this has been completed, Critical Criticism will supervene, declare that it is all in all, that it combines in its head capital, talent and labour, that everything that is produced is produced by it, and not by the powerless masses — and sequestrate everything for itself. That will be the end of Berlin's Hegelian [peacejful democracy.
If Critical Criticism"* is finished, send me a few copies under sealed cover through the booksellers — they might be confiscated. In case you [didn't re]ceive my last letter, I repeat that you can write to me either [...] F. E. junior, Barmen, or under sealed cover to F. W. Strücker and Co., Elberfeld. This letter is being sent to you by a roundabout route.
Write soon — it's more than two months since I last heard from you — how goes it with Vorwärts? My greetings to all.
Your(3)
[Address on envelope]
A Monsieur Charles Marx Rue Vanneau N 38 Faubg. St. Germain, Paris
6. Marx to Heinrich Börnstein. End of December 1844-beginning of January 1845
Dear Sir,
It is impossible for me to let you have the review of Stirner before next week. Therefore deliver the specimen copy without my contribution; Bürgers will let you have an article in its stead.
You shall have my article next week.[18]
Yours faithfully
Marx
Published in English for the first time 1845
7
Endnotes
[2] Karl Bernays, one of the editors of the German newspaper Vorwärts!, published in Paris, was sued by the French authorities in September 1844 at the request of the Prussian Government for not having paid the caution-money required for the publication of a political newspaper. The real reason, however, was the article 'Attentat auf den König von Preußen' published in Vorwärts!, No. 62,
[4] In July 1844 Marx began to contribute to the newspaper Vorwärts!, which prior to that — from early 1844 to the summer of the same year — reflected the moderate liberalism of its publisher, the German businessman H. Börnstein, and its editor A. Bornstedt. However, when Karl Bernays, a friend of Marx, became its editor in the summer of 1844, the newspaper assumed a democratic character. By contributing to the newspaper, Marx began to influence its policy and in September became one of its editors. Other contributors were Engels, Heine, Herwegh, Ewerbeck and Bakunin. Under Marx's influence the newspaper came to express communist views, and attacked Prussian absolutism and moderate German liberalism. At the behest of the Prussian Government, the Guizot ministry took repressive measures against its editors and contributors in January 1845, when publication ceased.—5
[5] Engels is referring to Kritik der Politik und National-Okonomie, a work which Marx planned to write. Marx began to study political economy at the end of 1843 and by spring 1844 he set himself the task of writing a criticism of bourgeois political economv from the standpoint of materialism and communism. The draft 'Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844' (see present edition. Vol. 3), written at that time, have reached us incomplete. Work on The Hoh Family forced Marx temporarily to interrupt his study of political economy until December 1844. In February 1845, just before his expulsion from Paris, he signed a contract for his Kritik der Politik und Nationalökonomie with the publisher Leske (see Note 27). In Brussels Marx continued to study the works of English, French, German, Italian and other economists and added several more notebooks of excerpts to those compiled in Paris, although his original plan for the book was not carried out.—6, 27, 94, 105, 532
[6] The Hoh Family by Marx and Engels was published not in Hamburg by Hoffmann and Campe, but in Frankfurt am Main by Z. Löwenthal, founder of the Literarische Anstalt publishing house (owned by Joseph Rütten since the autumn of 1844).— 7
[7] Heinrich Heine wrote to Marx from Hamburg on 21 September 1844 (see the new Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe—referred to in future as MEGA 2—Abt. III. Bd. 1, S. 443-44) telling him that a new collection of his poems, Neue Gedichte, had been published there. It contained romances, ballads and other poems including the satirical poem Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen, which was also published separately by Hoffmann and Campe. Heine sent Marx a copy of this poem for simultaneous publication in Vorwärts! and announcement of his new collection of verse in this and other newspapers (he promised to bring the ballads and other poems to Paris himself). On 19 October 1844 Vorwärts!, No. 84, carried Heine's preface to the separate edition of his poem. It was dated 17 October 1844 and entitled 'FI. Heines neue Gedichte'. It was preceded by an editorial introduction which accorded high praise to the poet's new work and in fact expressed Marx's point of view. The poem was published in full in Vorwärts! in late October-November 1844.—7
[8] L. Feuerbach's Das Wesen des Glaubens im Sinne Luther's was published in instalments in Vorwärts! from the middle of August to the end of October 1844.—8 lJ This letter without an address on the back of it was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F. Engels, On Britain, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1953 and in full in Letters of the Young Engels, 1838-1845, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976.—9
[9] This letter without an address on the back of it was publ
[10] The letter written by Marx and Bürgers to Engels on 8 October 1844 has not been found.—9 3 Rationalists—representatives of a Protestant trend which tried to combine theology with philosophy and to prove that 'divine truths' can be explained by reason. Rationalism opposed pietism, an extremely mystical trend in Lutheranism.— 10
[12] A reference to the Associations for the Benefit of the Working Classes formed in a number of Prussian towns in 1844 and 1845 on the initiative of the German liberal bourgeoisie, who were alarmed at the rising of the Silesian weavers in the summer of 1844, and hoped that the associations would help to divert the German workers from militant struggle. Despite the efforts of the bourgeoisie and the government authorities to give these associations a harmless philanthropic appearance, they gave a fresh impulse to the growing political activity of the urban masses and drew the attention of broad sections of German society to social questions. The movement to establish such associations was particularly widespread in the towns of the industrial Rhine Province. Seeing that the associations had taken such an unexpected direction, the Prussian Government hastily cut short their activity in the spring of 1845 by refusing to approve their statutes and forbidding them to continue their work.—10
[14] At the meeting held in Cologne on 10 November 1844 and attended by former shareholders of and contributors to the Rheinische Zeitung, liberals Ludolf Camphausen, Gustav Mevissen, radicals Georg Jung, Karl d'Ester, Franz Raveaux and others among them, a General Association for Relief and Education was set up with the aim of improving the workers' condition (the measures to be taken included raising funds for mutual assistance and relief to the sick, etc.). Despite the opposition of the liberals, the meeting adopted democratic rules which provided for the workers' active participation in the work of the Association. Subsequently a definitive split took place between the radical-democratic elements and the liberals. The latter headed by Camphausen withdrew from the Association, which was soon prohibited by the authorities. In November 1844 an Educational Society was set up in Elberfeld. Its founders had from the very start to fight against the local clergy, who attempted to bring the Society under their influence and give its activity a religious colouring. Engels and his friends wished to use the Society's meetings and its committee to spread communist views (see F. Engels, 'Speeches in Elberfeld', present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 243-64). As Engels had expected, the statute of the Society was not approved by the authorities, and the Society itself ceased to exist in the spring of 1845. (On the meetings in Cologne and Elberfeld, see F. Engels, 'Rapid Progress of Communism in Germany', present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 229-42).—10 20-1543 5 Originally Engels planned to write a work on the social history of England and to devote one of its chapters to the condition of the working class in England (see present edition, Vol. 4, p. 302). But realising the special role played by the proletariat in bourgeois society, he decided to deal with this problem in a separate book, which he wrote on his return to Germany, between September 1844 and March 1845. Excerpts in Engels' notebooks made in July and August 1845, and the letters of the publisher Leske to Marx of 14 May and 7 June 1845 (see MEGA2, Abt. Ill, Bd. 1, S. 465, 469) show that in the spring and summer of 1845 Engels continued to work on the social history of England. Though he did not abandon his plan up to the end of 1847, as is seen from an item in the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung, No. 91 of 14 November 1847, he failed to put it into effect.— 11 6 Engels did not write a pamphlet on Friedrich List's book Das nationale System der politischen Oekonomie (Stuttgart und Tübingen, 1841) though later he continued to discuss this idea with Marx (see this volume, pp. 28 and 79), who in his turn intended to publish a critical analysis of List's views (see K. Marx, 'Draft of an Article on Friedrich List's Book Das nationale System der politischen Oekonomie'. present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 265-93). Engels criticised the German advocates of protectionism, and List above all, in one of his 'Speeches in Elberfeld' (see present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 256-64).—11
[15] Originally Engels planned to write a work on the social hist
[16] Engels did not write a pamphlet on Friedrich List's book Das
[17] 'The Free'—a Berlin group of Young Hegelians formed early in 1842. Among its prominent members were Edgar Bauer, Eduard Meyen, Ludwig Buhl and Max Stirner (pseudonym of Kaspar Schmidt). Their criticism of the prevailing conditions was abstract, devoid of real revolutionary content and ultra-radical in form. The fact that 'The Free' lacked any positive programme and ignored the realities of political struggle soon led to differences between them and the representatives of the revolutionary-democratic wing of the German opposition movement. A sharp conflict arose between 'The Free' and Marx in the autumn of 1842, when Marx had become editor of the Rheinische Zeitung (see present edition, Vol. 1, pp. 393-95). During the two years which had elapsed since Marx's clash with 'The Free' (1843-44), Marx's and Engels' disagreement with the Young Hegelians on questions of theory and politics had deepened still more. This was accounted for not only by Marx's and Engels' transition to materialism and communism, but also by the evolution in the ideas of the Bauer brothers and their fellow-thinkers. In the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung Bauer and his group renounced the 'radicalism of 1842' and, besides professing subjective idealist views and counterposing chosen personalities, the bearers of 'pure Criticism', to the allegedly sluggish and inert masses, they began spreading the ideas of moderate liberal philanthropy. It was to the exposure of the Young Hegelians' views in the form which they had acquired in 1844 and to the defence of their own new materialistic and communistic outlook that Marx and Engels decided to devote their first joint work The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism. Against Bruno Bauer and Co. (present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 3-211).—13, 19
[18] Here Marx writes about the Vorwärts! Pariser Deutsche Monatsschrift which Heinrich Börnstein planned to publish instead of the newspaper Vorwärts! The prospectus of the monthly published in German and French on 1 January 1845 (its publication date helps in determining the approximate date of this letter) stated that one of the reasons for the reformation of Vorwärts! was that no caution-money was needed for publishing a journal as distinct from a newspaper. The journal of eight printed sheets was to appear on the 16th of each month. The expulsion of Marx and other contributors to Vorwärts! from France (see notes 4 and 19) prevented the publication of the first issue, the proof sheets of which had already been printed. As is seen from this letter and that of Engels to Marx written approximately
[3] August 1844. On 13 December 1844 Bernays was sentenced to two months' imprisonment and a fine.—4 '* Engels left Germany in November 1842 and lived for nearly two years in England, working in the office of a Manchester cotton-mill of which his father was co-proprietor.—4
[13] Rationalists-representatives of a Protestant trend which tried to combine theology with philosophy and to prove that 'divine truths' can be explained by reason.