Preface to Marx-Engels Collected Works Volume (31)

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Volume 31 of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels contains the continuation of Marx’s economic manuscript of 1861-1863, its central part—”Theories of Surplus Value” (Notebooks VII-XII, pp. 299-636 of the manuscript), the beginning of the manuscript being published in Vol. 30 of the present edition.

Marx proceeded here with his historico-critical analysis of the views held by bourgeois political economists—Smith, Ricardo, Rodbertus and others.

The whole manuscript is printed here in accordance with its new publication in the languages of the original in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), Zweite Abteilung, Bd. 3, (Teile 1-6), Berlin, 1976-82.

Obvious slips of the pen in Marx’s text have been corrected by the editors without comment. The proper and geographical names and other words abbreviated by the author are given in full. Defects in the manuscript are indicated in footnotes, places where the text is damaged or illegible are marked by dots. Where possible, editorial reconstructions are given in square brackets.

Foreign words and phrases are given as used by Marx, with the translation supplied in footnotes where necessary. English phrases, expressions and individual words occurring in the original are set in small caps. Longer passages and quotations in English are given in asterisks. Some of the words are now somewhat archaic or have undergone changes in usage. For example, the term “nigger”, which has acquired generally—and especially in the USA—a more profane and unacceptable status than it had in Europe during the 19th century. The passages from English economists quoted by Marx in French are given according to the English editions used by the author. In all cases the form of quoting used by Marx is respected. The language in which Marx quotes is indicated unless it is German.

The text of and notes to Volume 31 were prepared by Lyubov Zalunina with the assistance of Yelena Vashchenko. The volume was edited by Vitaly Vygodsky (Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU). The name index, the index of quoted and mentioned literature and the index of periodicals were compiled by Vardan Azatian (Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU).

The translations included in Volume 31 are based on the three-volume edition of Marx’s Theories of Surplus Value, published by Progress Publishers, Moscow. They were made by Emile Burns, Renate Simpson and Jack Cohen and edited by Salo Ryazanskaya. These translations have been editorially checked with new MEGA edition by Margarita Lopukhina and Natalia Karmanova. The volume was prepared for the press by Svetlana Gerasimenko, Yelena Krishtof, Margarita Lopukhina, Alia Varavitskaya and Anna Vladimirova (Progress Publishers).

Scientific editor for this volume was Larisa Miskievich (Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU).