THE PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNISM
INTRODUCTION
Principles of Communism was Engels' first
draft of what was to be the Communist Manifesto. The final manifesto,
worked on by Marx, differs considerably from this first draft, which Engels
commented on in the following way in his letter to Marx of 23-24 November
1847:
"Think over the Confession of Faith a bit. I believe we had better
drop the catechism form and call the thing: Communist Manifesto.
As more or less history has got to be related in it, the form it has been
in hitherto is quite unsuitable. I am bringing what I have done here with
me; it is in simple narrative form, but miserably worded, in fearful haste...."
Despite Engels' reservations, Principles of Communism remains an
excellent introduction to Marxism, in many ways more immediately approachable
than the Manifesto itself.
The first English translation by Max Bedacht was published by
the Daily Worker Publishing Co., Chicago, around 1925. Another by Eden
and Cedar Paul was included as an appendix to Riazanov's edition of the
Communist
Manifesto (International Publishers, 1933). A third was issued by Guido
Baracchi in Australia (Melbourne, 1933).
This edition is based on the text produced by Monthly Review as
a pamphlet in 1952. It was translated by Paul M. Sweezy, and the following
is an extract from the editors' note to that edition:
Principles of Communism was written in late October 1847, and
was first published (from Engels' handwritten script) by Eduard Bernstein
in 1914 in Vörwarts!, the central organ of the German Social
Democratic Party. It has since appeared in a number of German versions,
the definitive edition being that in the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe,
published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute in Moscow. The present translation
is from the text of the Gesamtausgabe, First Division, Volume 6,
pages 503-522.
The editors go on to point out that Engels often uses the term Manufaktur,
and its derivatives, which have been translated by their exact English
equivalents, "manufacture", "manufacturing", etc. They are used in their
literal sense to denote production by hand, not the factory production
of modern capitalism, which Engels generally refers to with the term "big
industry". However, manufacture differs from handicraft,
which refers to the pure guild production of the mediaeval towns, carried
out by independent artisans, assisted perhaps by journeymen and apprentices
who hope some day to acquire independent status. Manufacture is carried
out either by homeworkers working for the account of merchant capitalists,
or else by groups of craftsmen working together in large workshops belonging
to capitalist employers. It is therefore a transitional form between guild
production and modern factory production.
By Pluto Press, London, 1971
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