Letter to the Editor of De Werker

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This letter to De Werker was written by Marx at the request of the editorial secretary Ph. Coenen to expose the forgeries published in the Paris-Journal and reprinted in the reactionary press of various countries in order to defame the International. The editor prefaced the letter, translated from the French into Flemish with the following paragraph: “It has been known for a long time that our opponents stop at nothing to achieve their aims. Despite this we did not believe they were so impudent as to write forged letters on behalf of the members of the International. But this is what happened. Some time ago a letter by’Karl Marx’ on the conduct of French workers could be read in all big newspapers. In connection with this, the Antwerp section asked Karl Marx for an explanation. Here is what the member of the General Council of the International replied.”

London, March 31, 1871

Citizen,

My so-called letter addressed to the Paris members of the International is quite simply, as I have already stated in The Times of the 22nd March, a fabrication by the Paris-Journal one of these disreputable papers spawned in the imperialist gutter. Moreover, all the organs of the “good press” throughout Europe have, so it seems, received the order to employ falsification as their major weapon of war against the International. In the eyes of these honest advocates of religion, order, the family and property the crime of falsification is not even a peccadillo.

Greetings and Fraternity,

Karl Marx