Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1848
Source: MECW Volume 7, p. 8
Written: at the end of March 1848;
First published in English: in Science and Society, 1940.
Citizen Cabet,
Would you be so kind as to insert the attached Declaration in the next number of the Populaire. The point is not to let the Communist Party be made responsible for an enterprise and conduct which have already reawakened in a part of the German nation the old national and reactionary prejudices against the French people. The Alliance of German Workers, an association of various workers’ societies in all European countries, which counts among its members Mr. Harney and Mr. Jones, the English Chartist leaders, is composed entirely of communists and openly professes itself communist. The so-called German Democratic Society in Paris[3] is essentially anti-communist insofar as it claims not to recognise the antagonism and struggle between the proletarian and bourgeois classes. It is, therefore, a question of making a protest and a declaration in the interests of the Communist Party. And it is this which makes us anticipate your compliance. (This note is strictly confidential.)
Fraternal greetings,
Frederick Engels
Karl Marx
The undersigned committee considers it its duty to inform the various branches of the Alliance of German Workers in the different European countries that it has in no way participated in the proceedings, posters and proclamations to appeal to the French citizens for clothes, arms and money. The German Workers’ Club[4] is the only one in Paris which maintains relations with the Alliance, and it has nothing in common with the society in Paris, called the Society of German Democrats, whose leaders are Herr Herwegh and Herr von Bornstedt.
The Central Committee of the Alliance of German Workers
(signed) K. Marx, K. Schapper, H. Bauer, F. Engels, J. Moll, W Wolff