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Marx-Engels Correspondence 1852
Marx To Adolf Cluss
In Washington
Source: MECW Volume 39, p. 204;
First published: in full in Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, 1934.
London, 5 October 1852, 28 Dean Street, Soho
Dear Cluss,
Your letter of 16 September arrived very late today. I am therefore sending only a few lines in reply, since you ask for an answer by return. Next Friday a rather more substantial report will be going off to you. My information about the Brüningk woman (she’s not a spy but corresponds with her aunt, the Princess Lieven, in Paris, who is notoriously one) came from Bangya. The latter, however, has very important reasons for not being named. If he were, he would forfeit many ‘sources of information’ which, being important to us, must be preserved.
You can write and tell Schnauffer that he merely has to answer that no further authorities need be cited since his (Brüningk’s) two friends, Kinkel and Willich, have themselves been spreading it about in London that Mrs von Brüningk has suspect political connections.
That Willich has been saying things of this kind is so well known that Schimmelpfennig has taken him to task about it. If necessary, witnesses can be cited to support this.
Kinkel voiced this suspicion outright, e.g. to his friend Kamm, the brushmaker (from Bonn), when the latter passed through here on his way to America. Kamm helped to spread it further.
(Willich, of course, did not discover that the woman was suspect until after she had dropped him.)
Your
K. M.