Marx's Capital. Volume III

Author: Translated by the Translation and Compilation Bureau of the Works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
Publisher:
Publishing Time: Not available
Features: At last, I have handed to the readers the third volume of the main works of Marx, the conclusion of the theoretical part. When the second volume was published in 1885, I had thought that the difficulties of the third volume were probably only technical, of course, with some extremely important chapters being exceptions. In fact, this was the case; but I did not then realize that it was precisely these important chapters that would cause me so many difficulties, nor did I expect that other obstacles would delay the publication of this book so severely. The first and foremost obstacle was my long-term deterioration in eyesight, so for many years I had to limit my writing time to a minimum, and until now, I have only occasionally written by lamplight. In addition, there were other unavoidable tasks, such as the re-publication and translation of our previous works by Marx and myself, which often required proofreading, writing prefaces, and supplements, and these tasks could not usually be carried out without new research. First and foremost is the English edition, for which I was responsible for the final review, so it took up a great deal of my time. Anyone who pays even slight attention to the tremendous growth of international socialist literature in the last decade, especially the number of translations of the works of Marx and those before him, will agree with the following view: I am fortunate that I can only help translators in a limited number of languages, and thus I can only bear an irrefutable responsibility for reviewing in a limited number of languages. However, the increase in literature is merely a symbol of the corresponding development of the international working-class movement itself. And the development of the international working-class movement has given me new responsibilities. Since the days when we began our public activities, the work of liaison between the socialist and working-class movements in various countries has mostly fallen to Marx and myself; this work has increased accordingly with the growth of the entire movement. But before Marx's death, he bore the main responsibility for this work, and after his death, this ever-increasing work fell entirely on me. However, during this period, direct communication between the workers' parties of various countries has become the norm, and it is to be hoped that this is becoming increasingly so; Nevertheless, from the perspective of my theoretical work, people expect too much from me in terms of assistance. But anyone who, like me, has been involved in this movement for over fifty years, will regard the various tasks arising from it as an unavoidable and immediate obligation. In our turbulent age, like the sixteenth century, in the interests of the public, there are only theorists on the reactionary side; precisely because of this, these gentlemen are not true theorists at all, but only defenders of the reactionaries. I live in London, and my party contacts are mainly through correspondence in winter and mostly through face-to-face meetings in summer. For this reason, and because I must keep an eye on the development of the movement in an ever-increasing number of countries and the even faster growth of its press organs, all work that cannot be interrupted must be done in winter, especially in the first three months of the year. When one is over seventy, the Menetrier fibers in the brain work so slowly that it is annoying to overcome the effects of interruptions in difficult theoretical work, and it is no longer as easy or as quick as before. Therefore, if a winter's work is not completed, a large part of it must be redone the following winter. This is particularly true for the fifth and most difficult chapter. The reader will see from the following account that the editorial work of this volume is fundamentally different from that of the second volume. The third volume has only one draft and is extremely incomplete. The beginning of each chapter is usually written with considerable care, and even the wording is often polished. But as one goes further down, the manuscript becomes increasingly draft-like, incomplete, and digresses into peripheral issues that arose during the research process and whose final position is to be determined later, with sentences becoming longer and more complex as they are written down according to the thoughts that arose at the time. In many places, the handwriting and narrative clearly show that the author's illness, caused by overwork, had flared up and was gradually worsening; this situation first made it increasingly difficult for him to work alone and later often made his work completely impossible. This is not surprising. Between 1863 and 1867, Marx had not only written the first drafts of the last two volumes of Capital and prepared the volume for printing but had also done a great deal of work for the founding and expansion of the International Working Association. However, for this reason, his illness showed serious symptoms in 1864 and 1865, preventing him from personally completing the second and third volumes. My first task was to dictate the entire manuscript in accordance with the original text and produce a legible copy; even the original text of this manuscript often required great effort on my part to decipher. This task took up a considerable amount of time. Only after the copying was completed could the real editorial work begin. I have limited this editorial work to necessary scope. Where the meaning is clear, I have tried to preserve the nature of the original draft as much as possible. In places where there is repetition, I have not crossed anything out, because in those places, as Marx usually did, the same issue is discussed from different angles or at least explained in different ways. Where my revisions or additions have gone beyond the scope of simple editing, or where I had to use the practical material provided by Marx, even if I drew conclusions in the spirit of Marx myself, I have enclosed them in square brackets (braces {} in this volume—editor's note) and added my initials. The footnotes I added sometimes do not use brackets; but any footnote that ends with my initials is entirely my responsibility.