47. K. Marx and F. Engels. Preface to the 1872 German Edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party
47. K. Marx and F. Engels. Preface to the 1872 German Edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party[131]
The Communist League,[132] an international association of workers, which could of course be only a secret one under the conditions obtaining at the time, commissioned the undersigned, at the Congress held in London in November 1847, to draw up for publication a detailed theoretical and practical programme of the Party. Such was the origin of the following Manifesto, the manuscript of which travelled to London, to be printed, a few weeks before the February Revolution.[3] First published in German, it has been republished in that language in at least twelve different editions in Germany, England and America.[133] It was published in English for the first time in 1850 in The Red Republican, London, translated by Miss Helen Macfarlane, and in 1871 in at least three different translations in America.[134] A French version first appeared in Paris shortly before the June insurrection of 1848 [135]
and recently in Le Socialiste of New York. A new translation is in the course of preparation. A Polish version appeared in London shortly after it was first published in German. A Russian translation was published in Geneva in the sixties. Into Danish, too, it was translated shortly after its first appearance.[136]
However much the state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in this Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the obtaining historical conditions, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary
a The 1848 revolution in France.— Ed.
measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry in the last twenty-five years, and of the accompanying improved and extended party organisation of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details become antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made State machinery, and wield it for its own purposes". (See The Civil War in France. Address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association, German edition, p. 19, where this point is further developed.(1)) Further, it is self-evident that the criticism of socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, because it comes down only to 1847; also, that the remarks on the relation of the Communists to the various opposition parties (Section IV), although in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the earth the greater portion of the parties there enumerated.
But, then, the Manifesto has become an historical document which we have no longer any right to alter. A subsequent edition may perhaps appear with an introduction bridging the gap from 1847 to the present day; this reprint was too unexpected to leave us time for that.
Karl Marx Frederick Engels London, June 24, 1872
Endnotes
[131] The Manifesto of the Communist Party was written by Marx and Engels as the programme of the Communist League (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 477-519) and first published in German in February 1848 in London as a pamphlet. In March-July 1848, the Manifesto was published in the Deutsche Londoner Zeitung, the democratic press organ of the German refugees. That same year it was reprinted in pamphlet form in London; certain misprints of the first edition were corrected and this text was used by Marx and Engels for subsequent authorised editions. The 1872 German edition of the Manifesto with Marx's and Engels' preface and slight corrections in the text was brought out on the initiative of the editors of Der Volksstaat. This preface was included into many editions in other languages. This preface was published in English for the first time in K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Glasgow, 1909.
[132] See Note 44.
[3] Jules Gottraux, a Swiss-born subject of Great Britain and a member of the International, was detained by the French police on the French-Swiss frontier on September 30, 1866, when he was returning to London from Switzerland. The police confiscated letters, printed matter, and other material entrusted to him by the International's leaders in Geneva for delivery to the General Council. The seized documents included the preliminary report on the work of the Geneva Congress which had been drawn up by Council member Joseph Card and published in French in Geneva as a pamphlet. (Later, this gave rise to rumours that the French authorities had confiscated the Congress minutes, which in fact had bv that time been brought to London by Hermann Jung.) The General Council decided to lodge a complaint about this wanton act and to use the fact publicly to expose the regime of the Second Empire. At the beginning of December, the Council addressed the British Foreign Secretary, requesting him to make a corresponding démarche to the French government, which forced the French authorities to return, on December 21, the materials taken from Gottraux.
[133] Besides German editions of the Manifesto of the Communist Party mentioned in Note 131, between 1848 and 1872 the work was also published in German, in full and in part, in Germany, Austria, Britain and the USA in the periodicals: Die Hornisse, Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue, Republik der Arbeiter, Die Revolution, Arbeit-Blatt; in the collections: Wermuth-Stieber. Die Communisten-Verschwörungen des neunzehnten Jarhunderts. Leipziger Hochver-rathprozeß and in pamphlet form: Das Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei London and Berlin, 1860 and Chicago, 1871.
[134] A reference to "Manifesto of the German Communist Party", The Red Republican, Nos. 21-24, November 9, 16, 23 and 30, 1850, London; "Manifesto of the German Communist Party", The World, November 21, 1871, New York (in fragments); "Manifesto of the German Communist Party", Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, No. 7, December 30, 1871. In England, besides the translation by Helen Macfarlane mentioned in the text, fragments from the introduction and chapters I and II were translated by William Stepney and published in The Social Economist, August 1 and September 1, 1869.
[135] The reference is to the heroic insurrection of the Paris workers in June 1848 (see present edition, Vol. 7, pp. 124-28, 130-64). The French translation of the Manifesto of 1848 has not been found. In New York, the French Section of the International published the translation of chapters I and II: "Manifest de Karl Marx", Le Socialiste, Nos. 16-17, 19-24 and 26, January 27, February 10, 17 and 24, March 2, 9, 16 and 30, 1872.
[136] The Russian translation of the Manifesto of the Communist Party was published in Geneva in 1869 in Chernetsky's printshop. Recently doubts have arisen whether the Russian translation was done by Bakunin; some scholars believe it might have been done by N. N. Lyubavin. This translation contained certain mistakes, distorting the meaning. The shortcomings of the first publication were eliminated in the translation by Georgi Plekhanov, which appeared in Geneva in 1882. The Polish and Danish translations of 1848 have not been found, p. 174