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Title: Marx to Paul Lafargue, London, 23 March 1871
Description: Marx sends Lafargue his denial in the Times of the forged letter of the Paris-Journal and the General Council’s statement on the so-called Anti-German League of Paris.
Author: Karl Marx
Date: 1871-03-23
URL: https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/cartas/originales/1871-03-23%20Marx%20to%20Paul%20Lafargue
---


*Karl Marx to Paul Lafargue in Bordeaux; London, 23 March 1871. Written in English; the postscript in French. Text after the manuscript, [MEGAdigital](https://megadigital.bbaw.de/briefe/detail.xql?id=M1444496) (MEGA², Section III, letters of 1871, no. 89), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, CC BY-SA 4.0, without the editors’ apparatus. Underlining in italics; deletions omitted; editorial additions in square brackets; […] illegible word(s). [Traducción al español](https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/cartas/1871-03-23%20Marx%20a%20Paul%20Lafargue)*

London, 23 March, 1871.

Dear Paul,

I enclose Seraillier’s declaration in the “Courrier de l’Europe, 18 March, 1871”—(this French paper is published at London) in regard to the impudent mystification of the *Paris-Journal* of March 14, of which you are probably aware.

The following is published in the “*Times*” of *22nd March* 1871 under the title

“The *International Association*: M. Karl Marx asks us to contradict the statement contained in a letter published by us in the 16th of March, from our Paris correspondent, that ‘Karl Marx has written a letter to one of his principal *affiliés* in Paris, stating that he is not satisfied with the attitude which the members of that society have taken up in that city, that they violate the Statutes of the Association in dabbling in politics, that they disorganise labour instead of organising it etc.’ M. Karl Marx says this statement has evidently been taken from the *Paris-Journal* of the 14th of March, where also the publication in full of the pretended letter is promised, and that the *Paris-Journal* of the 19th of March contains a letter dated London, February 28, 1871, purporting to be signed by him, *which letter M. Marx declares is from beginning to end an impudent forgery*.”

I come now to the second trick of that dirty Parisian reactionary press. When we were informed of the pretended exclusion of the German “*Internationals*” by the *Paris “Internationals”*, we wrote to the “frères et amis” at Paris, who replied that this story was nothing but an invention of the Paris press scum. Meanwhile, the false news spread like wildfire through the London press which indulged in long leaders upon that pleasant event proving at the same time the decomposition of the *International* and the incorrigible perversion of the Paris workmen.

In to-days’ *Times* (23 March, 1871.) the following declaration of the *General Council* is published:

“*The Anti-German Ligue of Paris.*

*To the Editor of the Times.*

Sir,

A statement has gone the round of the English press that the Paris members of the International Working Men’s Association had in so far joined the so-called Anti-German League as to declare all Germans to be henceforth excluded from our association.

This statement is the very reverse of fact. Neither the Federal Council of our association in Paris, nor any of the Paris sections represented by that council, have ever passed any such resolution. The so-called Anti-German League, as far as it exists at all, is the exclusive work of the upper and middle classes; it was started by the Jockey Club, and kept up by the adhesions of the Academy, of the Stock Exchange, of some bankers and manufacturers etc. The working-classes have nothing whatever to do with it.

The object of these calumnies is evident. A short time before the outbreak of the late war the International was made the general scape-goat for all untoward events. This is now repeated over again. While the Swiss and Prussian press accuse it of having created the late outrage upon Germans in Zürich, French papers, such as the *Courrier de Lyon, le Courrier de la Gironde, la Liberté* etc., tell of certain secret meetings of Internationals having been held at Geneva and Bern, the Prussian ambassador in the chair, in which meetings a plan was concocted to hand over Lyons to the united Prussians and Internationals for the sake of common plunder.

*By order of the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association*

London, March 22. J. G. Eccarius, General Secretary.”

____________________

I have to-day still so many letters to write that I must shut up. Tell Laura that I was greatly delighted with her letter.

Yours

K. Marx.

Votre lettre à Jenny vient d’arriver. Ce n’est pas mon ardeur juvénile, comme vous le croyez, ce sont des *manifestes*, publiés par le Conseil Fédéral de Paris pendant la guerre, et qui nous ont [été] communiqués *officiellement*, qui faisaient croire le General Council dans la possibilité d’une telle bêtise que l’exclusion des Internationaux allemands par les Intern. parisiens! J’ai aujourd’hui envoyé au *Volksstaat* à Leipzig (le journal de Liebknecht) et au *Zukunft* à Berlin (organe du Dr. Jacoby) une déclaration sur les phantaisies du *Paris-Journal* et la soi-disant exclusion des Internationaux Allemands par les Parisiens, qui a fait beaucoup de bruit dans la «bonne presse» allemande. J’ai fini cette déclaration par ces mots:

« C’est dans la nature des choses que les grands dignitaires et les classes dominantes de la vieille société, qui ne sauraient perpétuer leur pouvoir et l’exploitation des masses productives que par le moyen des antagonismes et des luttes *nationaux*, traitent l’*Association Internationale des Travailleurs* comme l’ennemi commun.».