The International Workingmen's Association, To the editor of the Social-Demokrat

The International Workingmen's Association

To the editor of the Social-Demokrat

The undersigned promised to contribute to the Social-Demokrat
and permitted their being named as contributors on the express condition
that the paper would be edited in the spirit of the brief programme submitted
to them. They did not for a moment fail to appreciate the difficult position
of the Social-Demokrat and therefore made no demands that were inappropriate
to the meridian of Berlin. But they repeatedly demanded that the language
directed at the ministry and the feudalabsolutist party should be at least
as bold as that aimed at the men of Progress. The tactics pursued by the
Social-Demokrat preclude their further participation in it. The
opinion of the undersigned as to the royal Prussian governmental socialism
and the correct attitude of the workers' party to such deception has already
been set out in detail in No. 73 of the Deutsche-Brusseler-Zeitung
of September 12, 1847, in reply to No. 206 of the Rheinischer Beobachter
(then appearing in Cologne) [reference to Marx's article "The Communism
of the Rheinischer Beobachter"], in which the alliance of the "proletariat"
with the "government" against the "liberal bourgeoisie" was proposed. We
still subscribe today to every word of the statement we made then.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

London and Manchester,

February 23, 1865

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