Works of Karl Marx 1873
Source: The Times, January 3, 1873;
Transcribed: by Tony Brown.
Sir, — My attention is called to a paragraph in The Times of to-day headed “Karl Marx and the International.” It is there asserted that the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association, while calling upon the different federations and sections to propose themselves the plenipotentiaries to be appointed by the General Council, has declared it
“imperatively necessary that an exact copy should be simultaneously forwarded to Karl Marx in London. The drift of this is that none will receive credentials but those acceptable to and approved by Karl Marx in London, and as these agents will, as a matter of course, have to be in constant communication with him, he will be virtually the autocrat of the movement.”
The circular in question is published, among others, in the Leipsic Volksstaat of the 25th of December. It calls upon the German members of the Association to send a copy of their proposals to the late corresponding secretary for Germany (that is to say, to me) for the purpose of authentication. It is evident that the new General Council cannot know either the persons or their handwriting. The service demanded from me appeared to the New York General Council so much a matter of course that I was not even previously communicated with upon the subject. With the authentication of agents for the other countries, where the free organization of the International meets with legal impediments, I have nothing whatever to do.
The paragraph further states,
“In France these agents expel members without a hearing, and dissolve sections, committees, and federations at pleasure.”
Your correspondent will have to explain how these agents can commit all these horrors before a single one of them has been appointed. If in France individuals have been expelled from the International, it has been by the local sections, and not at all by the New York General Council.
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
Karl Marx
January 2