The International Workingmen's Association

To the editor of the Social-Demokrat

Written: by Engels on February 23, 1865;
First published: in Barmer Zeitung, No. 60 and Elberfelder Zeitung, No. 60, February 26, 1865;
Translated: by Barrie Selman;
Transcribed: by director@marx.org.

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