Letter to Léon Bigot, July 11, 1871

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 11 July 1871


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Moscow, 1935
Printed according to the author's copy collated with the rough copy
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


MARX TO LÉON BIGOT[1]

IN PARIS

London, 11 July 1871

Sir,

I declare that the letter attributed to me in which I allegedly speak of Mr Assi is a forgery, like all the other letters attributed to me by the French newspapers.

I have never dealt with Mr Assi either in private or in public with one exception. A few days after the revolution of 18 March the London newspapers published a telegram according to which that revolution was allegedly prepared by me in secret collabora-

tion with Blanqui and Mr Assi who supposedly had come to Lon- don to reach an understanding with me. I then declared in The Times that this was all a fairy tale invented by the French police.[2]

I have the honour of remaining

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ Marx wrote this in reply to the letter the lawyer Léon Bigot had sent to the Secretary of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association. When a group of Communards were court-martialled in Paris (see Note 268) Bigot defended the accused Adolphe Alphonse Assi, a member of the Central Committee of the National Guard and the Paris Commune. In his letter, written with Assi's consent, Bigot asked the International's leaders what they thought of the slanderous accusation 'of spreading false rumours' about Assi which the bourgeois papers had levelled against Marx.
    The letter is printed from the rough copy Marx made in a notebook where, under the heading 'Affaire Assi', a collection of material is to be found relating to the above-mentioned affair.
  2. ↑ K. Marx, 'To the Editor of The Times', The Times, No. 27028, 4 April 1871.