Karl Marx

A Brief Biographical Sketch With an Exposition of Marxism

No complete collection of Marx’s works and letters has yet been published. More works by Marx have been translated into
Russian than into any other language. The following list of
Marx’s writings is arranged in chronological order. In 1841 Marx wrote
his thesis on Epicurus’s philosophy. (It was included in
Literarischer Nachlass , of which more will be said later.) In this
thesis, Marx still fully adhered to the Hegelian idealist point of view. In
1842 Marx wrote articles for Rheinische Zeitung (Cologne), among
them a criticism of the free-press debate in the Sixth Rhenish Diet, an
article on the laws concerning the stealing of timber, another in defence of
divorcing politics from theology, etc. (partly included in Literarischer Nachlass ). Here we see signs of Marx’s transition from idealism
to materialism and from revolutionary democracy to communism. In 1844, under
the editorship of Marx and Arnold Ruge, there appeared in Paris
Deutsche-Franzosische Jahrbücher , in which this transition
was finally made. Among Marx’s articles published in that magazine,
the most noteworthy are A Criticism of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right (besides Literarischer Nachlass , also published as a
separate pamphlet) and On the Jewish Question (likewise in
Literarischer Nachlass; issued as a pamphlet brought out by the
Znaniye Publishers in their Cheap Library, No. 210). In 1845, Marx
and Engels jointly published, in Frankfort on Main, a pamphlet entitled
The Holy Family. Against Bruno Bauer and Co. (besides
Literarischer Nachlass , there are two Russian editions as
pamphlets: one published by Novy Gobs in St. Petersburg, 1906, the
other by Vestnik Znaniya , St. Petersburg, 1907). In the spring of
1845, Marx wrote his theses on Feuerbach (published as an appendix to

Frederick Engels’s pamphlet entitled Ludwig Feuerbach (there
is a Russian translation). In 1845-47 Marx wrote a number of articles (most
of which have not been collected, republished, or translated into Russian)
in the papers Vorwärts, Deutsche Brüsseler-Zeitung (1847); Westphalisches Dampboot (Bide. fold, 1845-48); Der Gesellschatsspiegel (Elberfeld, 1846). In 1847 Marx wrote his
fundamental work against Proudhon, The Poverty of Philosophy , a
reply to Proudhon’s work The Philosophy of Poverty . The book
was published in Brussels and Paris (there have been three publications in
Russian by Novy Mir , one by G. Lvovich, one by Alexeyeva, and one
by Prosveshcheniye , all in 1905-06). In 1848 the Speech on Free Trade was published in Brussels (Russian translation available),
followed by the publication in London, in collaboration with Frederick
Engels, of the celebrated Manifesto of the Communist Party , which has been
translated into probably all the languages of Europe and into a number of
other languages (there are about eight Russian publications referring to
1905 and 1906; by Molot, Kolokol, Alexeyeva, etc. , most of which were
confiscated. These appeared under various titles: The Communist Manifesto, On Communism, Social Classes and Communism, Capitalism and Communism, The Philosophy of History . A complete and most accurate
translation of this, as well as of other works by Marx, will be found in the
editions of the Emancipation of Labour group, issued abroad [31] ). From
June 1, 1848, to May 19, 1849, Neue Rheinische Zeitung was
published in Cologne with Marx as the actual editor-in-chief. His numerous
articles for that paper, which to this very day remains the finest and
unsurpassed organ of the revolutionary proletariat, have not been collected
and republished in full. The most important of them were included in
Literarischer Nachlass . Wage-Labour and Capital , published in that
paper, has been repeatedly issued as a pamphlet (four Russian editions, by
Kozman, Mobot , Myagkov, and Lvovich, 1905 and 1906); also from the
same paper The Liberals at the Helm (published by Znaniye
Publishers in their Cheap Library, No. 272, St. Petersburg, 1901). In 1849
Marx published, in Cologne, Two Political Trials (two speeches in
his own defence by Marx, who was acquitted by a jury when facing trial on the charge of having violated the press law and called for armed resistance
to the government. Russian translations are available in five publications
brought out in 1905 and 1906 by Alexayeva, Molot, Myagkov, Znaniye ,
and Novy Mir ). In 1850 Marx published, in Hamburg, six issues of
the magazine Neue Rheinische Zeitung . The most important articles published
therein were later included in Literarischer Nachlass . Especially
noteworthy are Marx’s articles, republished by Engels in 1895 in a
pamphlet entitled Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850 (Russian
translation, published by M. Malykh, Library, No. 59-60; also in the
Collection of Historical Works , translated by Bazarov and
Stepanov and published by Skirmunt, St. Petersburg, 1906; also Thoughts and Views of the 20th Century , St. Petersburg, 1912). In 1852 a
pamphlet by Marx was published in New York under the title of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Russian translation in
publications just mentioned). In the same year a pamphlet was published in
London under the title of Enthüllungen über den Communistenprozess in Köln (Russian translation entitled The Cologne Trial of the Communards , Popular Science Library, No. 43, St. Petersburg, 1906,
Oct. 28).

From August 1851 until 1862, [1]
Marx was a regular contributor to the New York Tribune , where many of his articles appeared
unsigned, as editorials. Most outstanding among these is a series of
articles, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany , which were
republished after the death of Marx and Engels in a German translation (a
Russian translation is available in collections translated by Bazarov and
Stepanov, and then, in pamphlet form, in five editions brought out in
1905-06 by Alexeyeva, Obshchestvennaya Poiza, Novy Mir, Vseobshchaya
Biblioteka and Molot ). Some of Marx’s articles in the
Tribune were later published in London as separate pamphlets, as,
for instance, the one on Palmerston, published in 1856; Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century (regarding the constant
venal dependence on Russia of the British Liberal Ministers), and others. After Marx’s death, his daughter, Eleanor Aveling, published a
number of his Tribune articles on the Oriental question, under the
title of The Eastern Question , London, 1897. Part has been
translated into Russian: War and Revolution , Issue I, Marx and
Engels: Unpublished Articles (1852, 1853, 1854) , Kharkov, 1919
( Our Thought Library). From the end of 1854, and during 1855, Marx
contributed to the Neue Oder-Zeitung and in 1861-62 to the Viennese
paper Presse . These articles have not been collected, and only a few of
them were reprinted in Die Neue Zeit , as were also Marx’s
numerous letters. The same is true about Marx’s articles from Das Volk (London, 1859) on the diplomatic history of the Italian War of
1859. In 1859 Marx’s Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy appeared in Berlin (Russian translations: Moscow, 1896, edited
by Manuilov; St. Petersburg, 1907, translated by Rumyantsev), In 1860 a
pamphlet by Marx, entitled Herr Vogt , appeared in London.

In 1864 the Address of the International Workingmen’s Association , which was written by Marx, came out in London (Russian
translation available). Marx was the author of numerous manifestos, appeals
and resolutions of the International’s General Council. This material
is far from having been analysed or even collected. The first approach to
this work is Gustav Jaeckh’s book, Die Internationale (in the
Russian translation: St. Petersburg, 1906, Znaniye Publishers), which
includes several of Marx’s letters and draft resolutions. Among the
documents of the International that Marx wrote was the Address of the General Council on the Paris Commune . The document appeared in 1871
in London, as a pamphlet entitled The Civil War in France
(Russian translations: one edited by Lenin, Molot Publishers, and
others). Between 1862 and 1874 Marx corresponded with Kugelniann, a member
of the International (two Russian translations: one by A. Goikhbarg, the
other edited by Lenin). In 1867 Marx’s main work, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , Vol. 1, appeared in Hamburg. Volumes 2
and 3 were published by Engels in 1885 and 1894, after the death of
Marx. The Russian translations: Vol. 1, in five editions (two in a
translation by Danielson, 1872 and 1898; two in a translation by
E. A. Gurvich and L. M. Zak, edited by Struve; 1st ed.—1899, 2nd ed.—1905; another edited by Bazarov and
Stepauov). Volumes 2 and 3 appeared in a translation by Danielson (less
satisfactory) and in another under the editorship of Bazarov and Stepanov
(the better). In 1876 Marx took part in the writing of Engels’s
Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft (Anti-Dühring) ; he went over the manuscript of the whole work
and wrote an entire chapter dealing with the history of political economy.

The following works by Marx were published posthumously: Critique of the Gotha Programme (St. Petersburg, 1906, and in German in Die Neue Zeit , 1890-91, No, 18); Value, Price and Profit (a
lecture delivered on June 26, 1865; Die Neue Zeit , XVI, 1897-98; Russian
translations, brought out by Molot , 1906, and Lvovich, 1905); Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels und Ferdinand Lassalle , three volumes, Stuttgart, 1902 (Russian
translation, edited by Axelrod and others, 2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1908:
Vol. 1 also edited by E. Gurvich, Moscow, 1907. Lassalle’s letters
to Marx, published separately, are included in Literarischer Nachlass); Letters from K. Marx and F. Engels and Others to F. A. Sorge and Others (two editions in Russian; one edited by Axeirod, another
published by Dauge, with a preface by Lenin); Theorien über den Mehrwert , three volumes in four parts, Stuttgart, 1905-10, which is
the manuscript of the fourth volume of Capital and published by
Kautsky (only the first volume translated into Russian; in three editions;
St. Petersburg, 1906, edited by Plekhanov; Kiev, 1906, edited by
Zheleznov, and Kiev, 1907, edited by Tuchapsky). In 1913 four big volumes
of Marx-Engels Correspondence came out in Stuttgart, with 1,386
letters written between September 1844 and January 10, 1883, and providing
a mass of highly valuable material for a study of Marx’s biography
and views. In 1917, two volumes of Marx’s and Engels’s works
appeared, containing their articles for 1852-62 (in German). This list of
Marx’s works must conclude with a note that many of Marx’s
shorter articles and letters, published, for the most part, in Die Neue Zeit , Vorwärts , and other German-language Social-Democratic
periodicals, have not been enumerated. The list of Russian translations of
Marx is no doubt incomplete especially with reference to pamphlets that
appeared in 1905-06.

The literature on Marx and Marxism is very extensive. We shall mention
only what is most outstanding, and divide the authors into three main groups:
Marxists who, in important matters, adhere to Marx’s point of view;
bourgeois writers, in essence hostile to Marxism; and revisionists, who,
while claiming to accept certain fundamentals of Marxism, in fact replace it
with bourgeois conceptions. The Narodnik attitude towards Marx should be
considered a peculiarly Russian variety of revisionism. In his Ein Beitrag zur Bibliographie des Marxismus (Archiv für
Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, XX, 2. Heft, [2]
1905, pp. 413-30), Werner
Sombart gives some three hundred titles in a list that is far from
complete. More can be found in the indexes to Die Neue Zeit , 1883-1907,
et seq., also in Josef Stammhammer’s Bibliographie des Sozialismus und Kommunismus , Bd. I—III, [3]
Jena (1893—1909). For a detailed bibliography on Marxism see
also Bibliographic der Sozialwissenschaften , Berlin. Jahrgang 1, 1905,
u. ff. [4]

See also N. A. Rubakin, Among Books (Vol. 2, 2nd ed.). We mention
here only the most important bibliographies. On the subject of Marx’s biography, attention must be called first of all to
Frederick Engels’s articles in Volkskalender , [5] published by Bracke in Brunswick in
1878 and in Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschatten , Bd. 6, S.
600—03 [6] ;

W. Liebknecht, Karl Marx zum Gedächtniss , [7] Nuremberg, 1896; Lafargue, Karl Marx , Persönliche Ermnnerungen; [8] W. Liebknecht, Karl Marx , 2nd ed., St. Petersburg, 1906; P. Lafargue, My Recollections of Karl Marx , Odessa, 1905 (see original in Die Neue Zeit , IX,
1); Karl Marx: In Memoriam , St. Petersburg, 1908, 410 pages, a collection of
articles by Y. Nevzoroy, N. Rozhkov, V. Bazarov, Y. Steklov,
A. Finn-Yenotayevsky, P. Rumyantsev, K. Renner, H. Roland-Holst,

V. Ilyin, R. Luxemburg, G. Zinoviev, Y. Kamenev, P. Orlovsky,
M. Tagansky; Franz Mehring, Karl Marx. The extensive biography of
Marx written in English by the American socialist, Spargo (John Spargo,
Karl Marx, His Life and Work , London, 1911), is unsatisfactory. For
a general review of Marx’s activities, see Karl Kautsky, Die historische Leistung von Karl Marx . Zum 25. Todestag des
Meisters, [9] Berlin,
1908. The Russian translation is entitled Karl Marx and His Historical Importance , St. Petersburg, 1908. See also a popular pamphlet by Clara
Zetkin, Karl Marx und sein Lebenswerk [10] (1913). Reminiscences of
Marx: those by Annenkov in Vestnik Yevropy , 1880, No. 4 (also in
his Reminiscences , Vol. 3, A Remarkable Decade , St. Petersburg,
1882); those by Karl Schurz in Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1906,
No. 12; by M. Kovalevsky in Vestnik Yevropy , 1909, No. 6, et seq.

On the question of Marxist philosophy and historical materialism the best
exposition is given by G. V. Plekhanov, For Twenty Years ,
St. Petersburg, 1909, 3rd ed.; From Defence to Attack ,
St. Petersburg, 1910; Fundamental Problems of Marxism ,
St. Petersburg, 1908; A Critique of Our Critics , St. Petersburg,
1906; The Development of the Monist View of History , St. Petersburg, 1908, and other works. Antonio Labriola, On the Materialist View of History [in Russian], St. Petersburg, 1898; also
his Historical Materialism and Philosophy , St. Petersburg, 1906;
Franz Mehring, On Historical Materialism [in Russian] (two
editions, by Prosveshcheniye and Molot ), St. Petersburg,
1906, and The Lessing Legend [in Russian], St. Petersburg, 1908
( Znaniye ); see also Charles Andler (non-Marxist), The Communist Manifesto. History, Introduction, Comments [in Russian],
St. Petersburg, 1906. See also Historical Materialism ,
St. Petersburg, 1908, a collection of articles by Engels, Kautsky, Lafargue,
and many others; L. Axelrod, Philosophical Sketches. A Reply to Philosophic Critics of Historical Materialism , St. Petersburg, 1906. A special
defence of Dietzgen’s unsuccessful deviations from Marxism is
contained in E. Untermann’s Die logischen Mängel des engeren Marxismus , [11] Munich,
1910, 753 pages (an extensive but none too serious work). Hugo Riekes’s Die philosophische Wurzel des Marxismus , in Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft , 62. Jahrgang, 1906, 3. Heft, S. 407—32, [12]
is an interesting piece of work by an opponent of the Marxist views, showing their
philosophical integrity from the viewpoint of materialism. Benno
Erdmann’s Die philosophisehen Voraussetzungen der materialistischen Geschichtsaufiassung , in Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft (Schtnollers Jahrbuch) , 1907, 3. Heft, S. 156, [13] is a
very useful formulation of some of the basic principles of Marx’s
philosophical materialism, and a summary of arguments against it from the
current viewpoint of Kantianism, and agnosticism in general. Rudolph
Stammier (a Kantian), Wirtschaft und Rechi nach der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung , [14] 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1906;
Woltmann (also a Kantian), Historical Materialism (in a Russian
translation, 1901); Vorländer (also a Kantian), Kant and Marx , [in Russian], St. Petersburg, 1909. See also the polemic
between A. Bogdanov, V. Bazarov and others, on the one hand, and
V. Ilyin, [15] on the
other (the views of the former being contained in An Outline of the Philosophy of Marxism , St. Petersburg, 1908; A. Bogdanov, The Downfall of a Great Fetishism , Moscow, 1909, and elsewhere, and the views of the
latter, in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism , Moscow, 1909). On the
question of historical materialism and ethics: Karl Kautsky, Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History , St. Petersburg, 1906, and numerous other
works by Kautsky; Louis Boudin, The Theoretical System of Karl Marx in the Light of Recent Criticism , translated from the English under the
editorship of V. Zasulich, St. Petersburg, 1908; Hermann Gorter, Der historische Materialismus , [16]
1909. Of works by opponents to Marxism, we would name Tugan-Baranovsky,
The Theoretical Fundamentals of Marxism , St. Petersburg, 1907; S. Prokopovich, A Critique of Marx ,
St. Petersburg, 1901; Hammacher, Das philosophisch-ökonomische System des Marxismus , [17]
Leipzig, 1910 (730 pages, collection of quotations); Werner Sombart, Socialism and the Social-Movement in the Nineteenth Century in Russian], St. Petersburg;
Max Adler (a Kantian), Kausalität und Teleologie , Vienna, 1909, in
Marx-Studien , also Marx als Denker [18] by the same author.

The book of an Hegelian idealist, Giovanni Gentile, La filosofia di Marx , [19] Pisa, 1899,
is noteworthy. The author deals with some important aspects of Marx’s materialist dialectics
which usually escape the attention of the Kantians, Positivists,
etc. Likewise: Levy, Feuerbach , a work about one of the main
philosophical predecessors of Marx. A useful collection of quotations from a
number of Marx’s works is contained in Chernyshev’s Notebook of a Marxist , St. Petersburg (Dyelo), 1908. On Marx’s economic
doctrine, the following books are outstanding: Karl Kautsky, The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx (numerous editions in Russian), The
Agrarian Question, The Erfurt Programme , and numerous pamphlets. Cf. also: Eduard Bernstein, The Economic Doctrine of Marx. The Third Volume of Capital (Russian translation, 1905);
Gabriel Deville, Capital (an exposition of the first volume of
Capital , Russian translation, 1907). A representative of so-called
revisionism among Marxists, as regards the agrarian question, is Eduard
David, Socialism and Agriculture (Russian translation, St. Petersburg, 1902). For a critique of revisionism see V. Ilyin, The Agrarian Question , Part I, St. Petersburg, 1908. See also the following
books by V. Ilyin: The Development of Capitalism in Russia , second
edition, St. Petersburg, 1908; Economic Essays and Articles ,
St. Petersburg, 1899; New Data on the Laws of Development of Capitalism in Agriculture , Book 1, 1917. An application of Marx’s views, with some deviations, to the latest data concerning agrarian relations in
France can be found in Cornpère-Morel, La question agraire et le socialisme en France , [20] Paris, 1912, 455 pages. For the further
development of Marx’s economic views as applied to recent phenomena in
economic life see Hilferding’s Finance Capital [in Russian],
St. Petersburg, 1911 (outstanding inaccuracies in the author’s views
on the theory of value have been corrected by Kautsky in “Gold, Papier
und Ware”,—“Gold, Paper Money and Commodities”—in Die Neue Zeit , XXX, 1; 1912, pp. 837 and 886); and V. Ilyin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism , 1917. Pyotr Maslov in his Agrarian Question (two volumes) and The Theory of Economic Development ,
St. Petersburg, 1910, deviates from Marxism on important points. A
criticism of some of Maslov’s deviations may be found in
Kautsky’s “ Malthusianism and Socialism ” in
Die Neue Zeit , XXIX, 1, 1911.

A criticism of the economic doctrine of Marx, from the point of view of
the so-called marginal utility theory that is widespread among bourgeois
professors, is contained in the following works: Böhm-Bawerk, Zum Abschluss des Marxschen Systems [21] (Berlin 1896, in Staatswiss. Arbeiten, Festgabe für K. Knies ), Russian translation,
St. Petersburg, 1897, The Theory of Marx and Its Criticism , and
also his Kapital und Kapitalzins , 2nd ed., two volumes, Innsbruck,
1900-02 (Russian translation, Capital and Profits , St. Petersburg,
1909). See also: Riekes, Wert und Tauschwert (1899) [22] ; von Bortkiewicz,
Wertrechnung und Preisrechnung im Marxschen System (Archiv für
Sozialwissenschaft, 1906—07) [23] ; Leo von Buch, Über die Elemente der politisczen Olconomie . I. Th. Die Intensität d. Arbeit ,
Tvert u. Preis [24] (published also in Russian). For an analysis of Böhm-Bawerk’s
critique from a Marxist point of view see Hilferding’s Böhm-Bawerks Marx-Kritik [25] (Marx-Studien,
I. Band, Vienna, 1904), and in shorter articles published in Die Neue Zeit .

On the question of the two main currents in the interpretation and
development of Marxism—the “revisionist” and the radical
(“orthodox”)—see Eduard Bernstein’s Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie (German
original, Stuttgart, 1899; Russian translations: Historical Materialism ,
St. Petersburg, 1901, and Social Problems , Moscow, 1901); see
also his From the History and Theory of Socialism , St. Petersburg,
1902. A reply to Bernstein is contained in Karl Kautsky’s
Bernstein und das sozialdemokratische Programm (German original,
Stuttgart, 1899; Russian translation in four editions; 1905-06). For French
Marxist literature see Jules Guesde’s Quatre ans de lutte des classes , En garde and Questions d’hier et d’aujourd’hui
(Paris, 1911) [26] ; Paul Lafargue, Le déterminisme économique de K. Marx (Paris, 1909) [27] ; Anton Pannokoek, Zwei Tendenzen in der Arbeiterbewegung . [28]

On the question of the Marxist theory of the accumulation of capital
there is a new work by Rosa Luxemburg, Die Accumulation des Kapitals (Berlin, 1913), [29]
and an analysis of her incorrect interpretation of Marx’s theory by Otto Bauer, Die Accumulation des Kapitals
( Die Neue Zeit , XXXI, 1, 1913, §.831 und 862). [30] See also Eckstein in
Vorwürtsand Pannekoek in Bremer Bürger-Zeitung for 1913.

Of the older Russian literature on Marxism the following should be noted:
B. Chicherin, “The German Socialists,” in Bezobrazov’s
Collection of Political Science , St. Petersburg, 1888, and
The History of Political Doctrines , Part 5, Moscow, 1902, 156
pages; a reply to the above by Zieber, “The German Economists Through
Mr. Chicherin’s Glasses,” in his Collected Works , Vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1900; L. Slonimsky, The Economic Doctrine of Karl Marx , St. Petersburg, 1898; N. Zieber,
David Ricardo and Karl Marx in Their Socioeconomic Investigations , St. Petersburg, 1885, and his Collected Works ,
in two volumes, St. Petersburg, 1900. Also J. Kaufmann’s (J. K-n)
review of Capital in Vesinik Yevropy for 1872, No. 5—an
article marked by the fact that, in his addendum to the second edition of
Capital , Marx quoted J. K-n’s arguments, recognising them as
a correct exposition of his dialectical-materialist method.

The Russian Narodniks on Marxism: N. K. Mikhailovsky in Russkoye Bogatstvo , 1894, No. 10, and 1895, Nos. 1 and 2; also reprinted in his