Preface to Marx-Engels Collected Works Volume (3)

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Preface

The third volume of the works of Marx and Engels covers the period between March 1843 and August 1844, before their close collaboration began. The contents fall into two parts; the first consists of Marx’s works, letters and preparatory material from March 1843 to August 1844; the second contains Engels’ writings from May 1843 to June 1844. Included as appendices are biographical documents of Marx and letters which is wife Jenny wrote to him between June and August 1844.

This period marked an important stage in the formation of the world outlook of both Marx and Engels, each of whom accomplished in 1843 the transition from idealism to materialism and from the standpoint of revolutionary democracy to that of communism. The development of each proceeded in the main independently of the other, although they showed a growing interest in each other’s writings and activity.

By late 1843 and early 1844 Marx and Engels were alike opponents not only of the existing political systems of feudal absolutism and bourgeois monarchy, but of any kind of social system resting on private property and exploitation of the working people. They both saw in the emancipation movement of the working class the only way to free humanity from social inequality and oppression. It was at this time that Marx and Engels made their first contacts with the working class. After moving to Paris in October 1843 Marx found himself in an atmosphere of intense socialist agitation and activity of workers’ groups and secret societies. And during the same year, Engels, who had been living in England since November 1842, established close links with the Chartists and the Owenite Socialists and became a contributor to their periodicals.

The main efforts of Marx and Engels during this period were directed towards working out the scientific basis of a new, revolutionary-proletarian world outlook. Each had arrived at materialist and communist convictions, and set about studying a broad spectrum of philosophical, historical, economic and political problems. Marx was engaged upon a number of theoretical projects: he began writing a work on Hegel’s philosophy of law, intended to write a history of the Convention, and was also planning works devoted to the criticism of politics and political economy; Engels, for his part, was studying social developments in England, the condition of the English working class. Each clearly realised the necessity to dissociate himself from current economic, philosophical and sociological doctrines; each considered the criticism of these essential if the theoretical principles of a new world outlook were to be arrived at. They both clearly understood the inconsistency of Hegel’s idealism, the narrow-mindedness of the bourgeois economists, and the weaknesses of the Utopian Socialists, but at the same time they tried to make use of all that was rational in the views of their predecessors. They were deeply impressed by Feuerbach’s materialism, but had already gone far beyond Feuerbach in their approach to theoretical and practical problems, particularly in interpreting the life of society.

The works included in this volume register the completion of Marx’s and Engels’ transition to materialism and communism and the initial stage in synthesising the emerging revolutionary-communist and dialectical-materialist views into a qualitatively new theory. The contribution each made to this complex process may be seen. Evident too are the common features in their views which led them later to unite their efforts in the theoretical and practical struggle.

The volume opens with Marx’s extensive though incomplete manuscript Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law (written in the spring and summer of 1843). The object of this study was not only Hegel’s philosophy. Marx studied a broad range of problems in the history and theory of the state and law, world history, the history of separate countries (England, France, Germany, the USA, Italy, Sweden), the English Revolution of the seventeenth century, and the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. All this was reflected in his manuscript and in his notebooks of excerpts (the so-called Kreuznach Notebooks). Although he was strongly influenced by Feuerbach’s materialism, Marx did not approach the criticism of Hegel through an analysis of religion, as Feuerbach had done, but through an investigation of social relations. For this reason what interested Marx most in Hegel was his philosophy of law, his teaching on the state and society. In the process of criticising Hegel’s philosophy of law, Marx was led to the conclusion that the state is determined by civil society, that is, the sphere of private — first and foremost material — interests, and the social relations connected with them, and not civil society by the state, as Hegel had asserted.

Marx wished to define the concept of civil society in concrete terms, to bring out the essential features of its historical evolution, and in particular to analyse the stage at which bourgeois private property began to play the dominant role in the field of material relationships. Giving a materialist explanation of the mutual connection between the state in his time and bourgeois ownership, Marx wrote that the existing political constitution in the developed countries was “the constitution of Private Property” (see this volume, p. 98).

Later, in 1859, in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx recalled the important part his work on the critique of Hegel’s philosophy of law had played in the formation of his materialist views: “My inquiry led me to the conclusion that neither legal relations nor political forms could be comprehended either by themselves or on the basis of a so-called general development of the human mind, but that on the contrary they originate in the material conditions of life, the totality of which Hegel, following the example of English and French thinkers of the eighteenth century, embraces within the term ‘civil society'; that the anatomy of this civil society, however, has to be sought in political economy.”

From the criticism of the conservative aspects of Hegel’s philosophy, such as the idealisation of monarchical and bureaucratic institutions, Marx went on to a critical reconsideration of the very basis of Hegel’s idealism. He arrived at the conviction that idealism inevitably leads to religion and mysticism. But Marx did not reject the rational content of Hegel’s philosophy or his dialectics, and stressed that Hegel had succeeded in presenting, though in an abstract, mystified form, many of the real processes of social life. Contrary to Feuerbach, Marx continued to attach great importance to Hegel’s dialectical method and made the first step towards a materialist transformation of dialectics, towards freeing it from its mystical shell.

In his manuscript Marx put forward his own, essentially communist conception of democracy as a social system free from social oppression and worthy of man. We can, he stressed, acquire genuine freedom by throwing off the impositions of both the bureaucratically organised state and of a civil society resting on the egoistic principles of private property. But “for a new constitution a real revolution has always been required” (see this volume, p. 56).

Closely connected with the manuscript of 1843 is Marx’s note on Hegel taken from the Kreuznach Notebooks, which is included in this volume. It bears witness to the internal connection between the manuscript and the notebooks, which were compiled because Marx felt the necessity to supplement his philosophical investigation with concrete historical material. In this note Marx criticises Hegel for separating the abstract idea of the state from its real historical form.

Marx’s final transition to the standpoint of communism was associated with the preparation and publication of the journal Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.

Marx’s draft programme of this journal and his correspondence with the co-founder, the radical philosopher and publicist Arnold Ruge, which are included in this volume, reflect the different approaches of the editors to the journal’s tasks. Contrary to Ruge, who wanted to give it a more moderate, purely enlightening character, Marx held that the main theme of the journal, the purpose of which was to unite the German and French Socialists and democrats, should be relentless criticism of the existing world order. Accordingly, in the letters published in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, Marx had no use for speculative theories divorced from life and the practical struggle of the masses, and demanded the embodiment of theoretical criticism in practical revolutionary activity, “making ... real struggles the starting point of our criticism” (see this volume, p. 144). He expressed here one of the principal ideas of the emerging revolutionary-communist world outlook -the idea of the unity of theory and practice.

In his article “On the Jewish Question”, Marx attacked Bruno Bauer’s idealistic, narrowly theological presentation of the problem of Jewish emancipation. As opposed to his former fellow thinkers, the Young Hegelians, Marx saw criticism of religion, as well as of politics, not as the final aim but as a tool to be used in the revolutionary struggle, and he wanted to go further and deeper in the critical reconsideration of all existing relationships. Marx’s polemic with Bauer provided him with the occasion for a broader materialist examination of the problem of mankind’s emancipation not only from national, religious and political, but also from economic and social oppression. In this work Marx developed the concept of the limited nature of the bourgeois revolution, which he called “political emancipation”. He put forward the idea of the necessity for a deeper-going revolution aiming at the real elimination of all social antagonisms. This kind of revolution he called “human emancipation”.

In another of his works published in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher — “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law. Introduction”, Marx continued his analysis of the problem of “human emancipation”. Here he comes to the crucial conclusion of the historical role of the proletariat in the revolutionary transformation of the world. For the first time he declared that the proletariat is the social force capable of carrying out the complete emancipation of mankind. In this work Marx also came to another important conclusion: the profound revolutionising significance of advanced theory. “The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses” (see this volume, p. 182).

Lenin considered Marx’s articles in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher as the final link in his transition from revolutionary democracy to proletarian revolution: “Marx’s articles in this journal showed that he was already a revolutionary, who advocated merciless criticism of everything existing’, and in particular the ‘criticism by weapons’, and appealed to the masses and to the proletariat” (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 47).

After the journal Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher ceased publication, Marx wrote several articles for Vorwärts!, the German emigrants’ paper in Paris. His articles in this newspaper, his direct participation in the editorial work from September 1844, and his enlistment of Frederick Engels, Heinrich Heine and Georg Herwegh as contributors, made this journal a militant political weapon in the struggle against both Prussian absolutism and German moderate liberalism. Under the influence of Marx and Engels the paper began to assume a communist character.

Marx’s article “Critical Marginal Notes on the Article The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian”, dealing with the uprising of the Silesian weavers in 1844, was published in Vorwärts! It was directed against Ruge, who considered the Silesian uprising a futile revolt of the desperate poor. Marx, on the other hand, regarded it as the first major class action of the German proletariat against the bourgeoisie, a testimony to the broad revolutionary possibilities of the working class. Developing the idea he had already expressed in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher about the world-historical role of the proletariat, Marx pointed out that “it is only in the proletariat that” the German people “can find the dynamic element of its emancipation” (see this volume, p. 202).

Having arrived at a materialist position, Marx came to the conclusion that an extensive study of economic relations had to be undertaken. From this time until the end of his life the study of political economy occupied the central place in his scientific activity. Marx made numerous excerpts from the works of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Say, Skarbek, List, James Mill, Destutt de Tracy, McCulloch, Boisguillebert, Lauderdale, Schütz and other economists,. in many cases accompanying these excerpts with his own comments and critical remarks. The most extensive of these are the “Comments on James Mill, Élémens d'économie politique”, which formed part of Marx’s summary of this work and are included in the present volume. From these comments it is clear that although Marx’s own economic views were still in the initial stage of formation, he nevertheless succeeded in noting the main defect of bourgeois political economy — its anti-historical approach to capitalism. He pointed out that Mill, like other bourgeois economists, thought capitalist relations eternal and immutable, corresponding to “man’s nature”.

Many of the thoughts expressed in the “Comments” have much in common with the unfinished, only partially extant work which has editorially been given the title Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. This was Marx’s first attempt at a critical examination, from the standpoint of the dialectical-materialist and communist conclusions he had reached, of the economic bases of bourgeois society and the views of the bourgeois economists. At the same time, these manuscripts were the first attempt of synthesising the new philosophical, economic and historical-political ideas of the integral world outlook of the proletariat.

The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 embrace various fields of the social sciences. In all these fields Marx used and developed materialist dialectics as a penetrative instrument of knowledge. He achieved a new stage of comprehension of the structure and development of society. Marx emphasised here for the first time the decisive role of production in the social process and pointed out that private property and the division of labour are the material basis of society’s division into classes. Analysing the economic structure of bourgeois society, he stressed that the class contradictions of capitalism would inevitably grow deeper as wealth became concentrated in the hands of capitalist owners. Extremely penetrating are Marx’s thoughts on the influence of man’s productive labour and his social relations on science and culture. He noted in particular the process not only of social enslavement, but also of spiritual impoverishment of the working man resulting from the domination of private property.

In his manuscripts Marx put forward materialist criteria for assessing the development of economic thought, a development which, he explained, is a reflection in the ideological sphere of the evolution of actual economic relations. The development of science, according to Marx, repeats the development of society itself. He considered the teaching of the leading bourgeois economists — Adam Smith, Ricardo and others — as the highest achievement of political economy. But although he had not yet undertaken an analysis of the labour theory of value, he at the same time noted the limitations of their views-their failure to understand the true internal connections and dynamics of the economic phenomena described, and their metaphysical approach to them. In their striving to perpetuate artificially the basis of capitalism and the relationships of inhuman exploitation, Marx discerned the anti-humanist tendencies of the bourgeois economists.

In the manuscripts of 1844, as in his other works of this period, Marx used the traditional terminology, partly of Feuerbach and partly of Hegel. Thus, in accordance with Feuerbach’s usage Marx wrote that “communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism”. In fact, however, Marx gave these terms an essentially new content, and put forward views which were in many respects opposed to Feuerbach’s abstract humanism and supra-class anti-historical anthropologism. His manuscripts are pervaded with the sense of history and understanding of the significance of revolutionary practice, and are distinguished by their class approach to the social phenomena under consideration. As regards Hegel, it can be seen from the manuscripts of 1844 that Marx had achieved a quite mature understanding of the relationship between the rational and conservative aspects of his teaching. Marx showed the groundlessness of Hegel’s attempts to transform nature into another mode of existence of the mystical Absolute Idea. At the same time he also stressed the positive aspects of the Hegelian dialectic and in particular the significance of Hegel’s conception-although it was expressed in an idealistic form-of the development and resolution of contradictions.

One of the central problems in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 is the problem of estrangement or alienation. Hegel had already made extensive use of this concept. With him, however, it is not real living people but the Absolute Idea that undergoes alienation. Feuerbach operates with a similar concept in his theory of the origin of religion, reducing it to the alienation of the universal (generic) qualities of abstract man, which are imputed to an illusory divinity.

Marx used the concept of alienation for purposes of a profound analysis of social relations. For him alienation was characteristic of those social relations under which the conditions of people’s life and activity, that activity itself, and the relations between people, appear as a force which is alien and hostile to people. So in Marx’s interpretation alienation is by no means a supra-:historical phenomenon. Marx was the first to link alienation with the domination of private property and the social system it engenders. He saw that alienation could be overcome only by the liquidation of private property and of all the consequences of its domination.

Marx’s views on alienation appeared in a concentrated form in his treatment of “estranged labour”. The concept of “estranged labour” summed up the enslaved condition of the worker in capitalist society, his being tied down to a definite job, his physical and moral crippling as a result of labour which is forced on him, “the loss of his self”. The concept of “estranged labour” in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 constituted in particular the initial expression of the future Marxist theory of the appropriation of labour of others by capital, a preliminary approach to the important ideas later developed especially in Capital.

The wide application of the concept of alienation was distinctive of the initial stage in the shaping of Marx’s economic teaching. In his subsequent works this concept was superseded to a considerable degree by other, more concrete determinations revealing more completely and more clearly the substance of the economic relations of capitalism, the exploitation of wage-labour. However, as a philosophically generalised expression of the exploiting, inhuman character of the social system based on private property, and of the destitution of the working masses in that society, it continues to be used in Marx’s later works.

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 Marx clearly formulated his conclusion that the system of private property can be overthrown only as a result of the revolutionary struggle of the broad masses. “In order to abolish the idea of private property, the idea of communism is quite sufficient. It takes actual communist action to abolish actual private property”.

As Marx saw it, the future social system represents the antipode of the existing society of exploitation. At that stage of social development man will have become capable of freeing himself from social antagonisms and all forms of alienation. Marx criticised the various primitive theories of egalitarian communism, with their tendencies towards asceticism, social levelling, and a return to the “unnatural simplicity of the poor and crude man who has few needs”. The future society must give scope for the all-round satisfaction of man’s requirements, and the full flowering of the human personality.

The second section of the first part of this volume contains letters written by Marx which provide supplementary material showing the development of his views and his political activity during the period.

Of special interest are two letters from Marx to Ludwig Feuerbach. Marx wanted to draw the great materialist philosopher into active political and. ideological struggle. In his letter of October 3, 1843, inviting Feuerbach to contribute to the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, Marx mentioned how important it would be if his authority as a philosopher could be used to discredit Schelling’s reactionary and idealist philosophy. The idea that philosophical materialism and idealism are irreconcilable likewise runs through another letter, written on August 11, 1844. In it Marx stressed that progressive philosophy should serve the most revolutionary social force, the proletariat. At that time Marx still regarded Feuerbach’s materialism as the theoretical substantiation of the necessity for the revolutionary transformation of society. He considered that Feuerbach had provided “a philosophical basis for socialism”. However, it soon became obvious to Marx that such a foundation could be laid only by overcoming the weak sides of Feuerbach’s philosophy, with its tendency towards abstraction from real social relations, and by working out a theory that would reveal the objective dialectical laws of social development.

The section “From the Preparatory Materials” contains a conspectus of the memoirs of the Jacobin Levasseur made by Marx after his move to Paris, most probably in connection with his unrealised intention to write a history of the Convention. This conspectus, entitled by Marx “The Struggle Between the Montagnards and the Girondists”, demonstrates Marx’s sustained interest in the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century as a major event of world history. It contains few of Marx’s own remarks, but the selection of the material shows that he was particularly interested in the influence of the popular masses on the course of the Revolution. It was precisely the growing revolutionary activity of the masses after the fall of the monarchy on August 10, 1792, and their increasing discontent with the administration of the Girondists-who represented the moderate bourgeoisie, as the facts quoted by Marx eloquently prove -that led to the establishment of the revolutionary dictatorship of the Jacobins. His study of these events undoubtedly played a major part in the formation of his views of the determining role of the working masses in history and the class struggle as the most important factor in historical development.

This section also includes a short summary made by Marx of Engels’ article “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy”. This article was one of the causes which led Marx to study political economy. Marx recognised in Engels a philosophical and political fellow thinker, and was deeply influenced by Engels’ initiative in dealing with problems of economics from the standpoint of communism-a field in which his future associate was then a pioneer.

The second part of the volume contains the works of Engels written from May 1843 to June 1844. Living in England, the most highly developed capitalist country of the time, Engels studied with a profound interest its economic and political life and social relations. He devoted himself especially to the study of British political economy and the works of the English Utopian Socialists, in particular Robert Owen.

The key problem in Engels’ series of articles “Letters from London”, printed in the Swiss progressive journal Schweizerischer Republikaner in May and June 1843, concerns the social structure of English society. In analysing it, Engels laid bare the class character of the English political parties. He noted the important role of the Socialist and Chartist movements and stressed that Chartism “has its strength in the working men, the proletarians”. The “Letters from London” mark a new stage in the development of Engels’ revolutionary-materialist world outlook since his arrival in England in the autumn of 1842. The thoughts he expressed in them show that he appreciated the part played by the class struggle in social development, and understood the role of the proletariat as the force capable of accomplishing a social revolution in England.

By his writings in the English and continental press Engels sought to bring about an international rapprochement in the field of ideas between the proletariat and the Socialists. He considered that the English Socialists were doing great service by making known to the workers the ideas of the eighteenth-century French Enlightenment. Engels himself thought it his duty to inform the English Chartists and Owenists about the socialist and communist movements in other countries. For this purpose he wrote a number of articles for the

Owenist paper The New Moral World, including the essay “Progress of Social Reform on the Continent”. Engels linked the inception and development of socialist and communist teachings with the social protest of the working masses against oppress on and exploitation, and showed that socialist views came into being as a reflection of that protest in the consciousness of progressive thinkers. Drawing attention to the common underlying social base and international character of the socialist and communist movement, he wrote: ... Communism is not the consequence of the particular position of the English, or any other nation, but ... a necessary conclusion, which cannot be avoided to be drawn from the premises given in the general facts of modern civilisation”. At the same time he noted the influence of each people’s national peculiarities on the development of socialist thought.

Engels followed the history of socialist and communist ideas in France, Germany and Switzerland. He brought out the rational elements in the teaching of the various schools of utopian socialism and communism and at the same time he indicated the inconsistencies and immature features inherent in them. The article shows that he was clearly aware of the need to overcome the defects of previous socialist ideas, to deepen the theoretical understanding of communism and unite it with advanced philosophy.

The article “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy” published in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher was Engels’ first work on economics. In it, Lenin wrote, he “examined the principal phenomena of the contemporary economic order from a socialist standpoint, regarding them as necessary consequences of the rule of private property” (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 24). Engels’ work is remarkable for its profound revolutionary purposefulness, its materialist proletarian class approach to economic phenomena and theories, and its clear understanding of the failure of the metaphysical method used by the bourgeois economists. His article was the first experiment in applying the materialist world outlook and materialist dialectics to the analysis of economic categories.

The work is devoted mainly to a critical examination of the economic basis of the capitalist system-private property. Engels proved that the main cause of the social antagonisms in the bourgeois world and the cause of the future social revolution was the development of the contradictions inherent in and engendered by private property. He investigated the dialectical interconnections between competition and monopoly resulting from the nature of private property, and the profound contradictions between labour and capital.

While criticising the bourgeois economists, Engels made no distinction at that time between the representatives of the classical school, Smith and Ricardo, and vulgar economists of the type of Say, McCulloch and others. At this stage he had not yet accepted Smith’s and Ricardo’s labour theory of value and was unable properly to assess its place in the development of economic teachings. At the same time he put forward the profound concept of the correspondence between the development of political economy and the level of economic relations achieved. He vehemently criticised the unscientific misanthropic population theory of Malthus and proved that poverty and destitution are in no way to be accounted for by allegedly limited possibilities of production and of applied science. On the contrary, Engels stressed that “the productive power at mankind’s disposal is immeasurable”. Social calamities, he concluded, are engendered by the existing economic system, which must be subjected to a revolutionary communist reconstruction.

Engels’ Review — also published in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher — of Carlyle’s Past and Present, which he criticised from the standpoint of materialism and atheism, took issue with Carlyle’s idealist interpretation of history, his hero-worship and romantic idealisation of the Middle Ages. In opposition to these views Engels emphasised that at the basis of the historical process lies the concrete activity of people, their hard struggle both to subjugate nature and to establish social relationships corresponding to man’s dignity and genuine interest. Engels rejected Carlyle’s view of the working class as a mere suffering mass. He expressed faith in the creative role of the proletariat, in its ability to carry out radical social changes.

In the articles continuing this review and published in the newspaper Vorwärts! — “The Condition of England. I. The Eighteenth Century” and “The Condition of England. II. The English Constitution” — Engels performed pioneering work in the materialist interpretation of the history of England, and this Was a most important premise for the subsequent elaboration by Marx and Engels of the materialist understanding of the whole historical process. Engels traced the part played by the industrial revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in England’s development and analysed in detail its social and political consequences. Examining the English political system, he showed the limitations of bourgeois democracy. Opposing to it the idea of “social democracy”, Engels arrived at the conclusion that the conquest of political power by the working class was the necessary condition for the transition to socialism.

This volume contains a large group of articles previously unknown as written by Engels from the Chartist paper The Northern Star, to which he began to contribute at the end of 1843. They had a common theme-the democratic and socialist movement in the countries of Central Europe, and exposure of the reactionary policy pursued by the governments of those states. Engels demonstrated the common condition of the working class in different countries and the identity of the social causes giving rise to the class actions of the workers.

Particularly notable are the articles “News from Prussia” and “Further Particulars of the Silesian Riots” because they are the first comments on the uprising of the Silesian weavers from the standpoint of revolutionary communism. Engels saw in the uprising the confirmation of the universal character of the contradictions of capitalism and pointed out that the emergence of the factory system would have the same effects in every country as it had in England. The account of the Silesian uprising in these articles coincided in many respects with Marx’s assessment of it in his work “Critical Marginal Notes on the Article ‘The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian”.

The evolution of Engels’ views led him to the same conclusions at which Marx was arriving. The ensuing steps in developing the scientific principles of the revolutionary world outlook were made by them jointly in their unique collaboration, which began after their meeting in Paris at the end of August 1844.

Some of the works included in this volume have never before been translated into English. Published for the first time in English are an extract from the Kreuznach Notebooks of 1843; “Draft Programme of the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher”; letters to the editors of the newspapers Démocratie pacifique and Allgemeine Zeitung; “Illustrations of the Latest Exercise in Cabinet Style of Frederick William IV”; Marx’s letter of November 21, 1843, to Julius Fröbel, all the items in the section “From the Preparatory Materials” and also the letters of Jenny Marx published in the Appendices.

The works of Engels not previously published in English include the first three articles in the series “Letters from London” and one article in the series “The Condition of England”. The eleven articles from the newspaper The Northern Star have been collected together for the first time.

Those works included in this volume which have been previously published in English are given either in new or in carefully revised translations. Peculiarities in the arrangement of the text of some works, in particular the manuscripts, are described in the notes.

Publishers and translators express their gratitude to Clarendon Press, Oxford, and Professor Sir Malcolm Knox for their kind permission to take as a basis for some of the quotations in the Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law the text of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right translated and edited by Professor Knox. Certain changes have been introduced in the translation and some passages retranslated to render Marx’s interpretation of the respective passages.

All the texts have been translated from the German except where otherwise indicated.

The volume was compiled and the preface and notes written by Velta Pospelova and edited by Lev Golman (Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU). Indexes of names and of books and periodicals mentioned or quoted were prepared by Kirill Anderson, and the subject index by Boris Gusev (Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU).

The translations were made by jack Cohen, Clemens Dutt, Martin Milligan, Barbara Ruhemann, Dirk J. Struik and Christopher Upward, and edited by James S. Allen (International Publishers), Maurice Cornforth, Martin Milligan, Margaret Mynatt, Barbara Ruhemann, the late Alick West (Lawrence and Wishart) and Salo Ryazanskaya (Progress Publishers). The supplement was translated by Alex Miller in consultation with Diana Miller and Victor Schnittke.

The volume was prepared for the press by the editors Maria Shcheglova, Tatyana Grishina and Lyudgarda Zubdlova, and the assistant-editor Tatyana Butkova, for Progress Publishers, and Larisa Miskievich, scientific editor, for the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU.