Revolutionary feeling must be but slightly developed when it can be forgotten, as M. Marx has forgotten, that Bakunin is not of the stuff of which police-spies are made. Why, at least, did he not, as is the custom of the English papers, why did he not simply publish the letter of the Polish refugee which denounced Bakunin? He would have retained the regret of seeing his name associated with a false accusation.“[17] –
Ich denke dem Kerl folgendes (siehe unten) zu antworten, was Du mir umgehend (bis Montag, wenn möglich) stilisiert zurückschicken mußt.
Zugleich fragt es sich, ob nicht auch Du und Dronke eine Erklärung machen wollt als Editors der Neuen Rheinischen Gazette, Clique gegen Clique. Auf der anderen Seite stehen nur Ruge, Herzen, Golowine. Letzteren nannte Bakunin selbst „un polisson“.[18] 1843 und 1844 einer der eifrigsten Bewunderer von Nikolas wurde er Demokrat, weil er glaubte, verdächtig geworden zu sein, und nicht nach Rußland zurückzukehren wagte. In letzterem besteht sein ganzer Heroismus.
Ich für meinen Teil würde also der Substanz nach folgende Erklärung vorschlagen:
„It is better to deal with a wise enemy, than with a stupid friend“ Bakunin would have exclaimed if he was ever to read the letter of the „foreign“ Sancho Pansa who, in your Saturday’s paper, indulges in his proverbial commonplaces.
Is he not a „stupid friend“ who reproaches me with not having done by what doing I would have according to himself „retained the regret of seeing my name associated with a false accusation“?
Is he not a „stupid friend“ who is astonished of what every schoolboy knows that truth is established by controversy and that historical facts are to be extricated from contradictory statements?
When the Neue Rheinische Gazette brought the Paris letter Bakunin was at liberty. If he was right to be satisfied with the public explanations of the Neue Rheinische Gazette in 1848 is it not a „stupid friend“ who pretends to find fault with them in 1853? If he was wrong in renewing his intimate relations with the Editor of the Neue Rheinische Gazette is it not „stupid“ on the part of a pretended friend to reveal his weakness to the public?
Is he not a „stupid friend“ who thinks necessary to „plunge Russia anew in its despotism“ as if she had ever emerged from it?
Is he not a „stupid friend“ who calls the latin proverb „calumniare audacter“ a french proverb?