Karl Marx in The Times 1871
Written: on March 21, 1871;
Source: The Times, March 23, 1871;
Transcribed: for marxists.org by Tony Brown.
Sir, —
I am directed by the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association to solicit your favour to publish the following in the columns of your journal: —
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 scapegoat for all untoward events. This is now repeated over again. While the Swiss and the Prussian press accuses it of having created the late outrages upon Germans in Zurich, French papers, such as the Courrier de Lyon, Courrier de la Gironde, La Liberté, etc., tell of certain secret meetings of Internationals having been held at Geneva and Berne, 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.
Yours respectfully,
J. George Eccarius,
General Secretary of the International Working Men’s Association
256, High Holborn, March 22