Works of Marx and Engels: 1850s

 


—“Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since ... the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.”— [Preface to CPE]

1850s

 

Letters

“Civil vexations of every kind, all manner of business and, finally, the general difficulty I have in bringing myself to write a letter, will explain to you my long silence. I have at last, after so many vicissitudes, succeeded in giving reality to my Revue that is to say, I have a printer and a distributor in Hamburg. Otherwise we do everything at our own expense. The worst of it is that in Germany so much time is always lost before one can get to the point of publication. I have little doubt that by the time 3, or maybe 2, monthly issues have appeared, a world conflagration will intervene and the opportunity of temporarily finishing with political economy will be gone”. [from Letter to Weydermeyer, Marx, 1849]

1850

Address of the Central Committee to the Communist Leaguerecommended
England's 17th c. Revolution
Articles in Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Revue

The Class Struggle in France, 1848 to 1850recommended
The Peasants' War in Germany

1851

Prospects of a War of the Holy Alliance Against France
Constitution of the French Republic Adopted Nov 1848
Letter to the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung

1852

Letter to The Times from a Prussian
Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germanyrecommended
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparterecommended
The Heroes of the Exile!
The Trials at Cologne
A Final Declaration on the Late Cologne Trials
Free Trade and The Chartists

1853

Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne (M)
The Duchess of Sutherland and Slavery
Articles in New York Tribune on Europe and China,
British Rule in India and East India Company
Michael Bakunin, Letter to The Morning Advertiser
Letter to the People’s Paper

1854

The Knight of Noble Consciousness
Revolutionary Spain

1855

The Armies of Europe
Anti-Church Movement: Demonstration in Hyde Park

1856

Speech at the Anniversary of the People's Paper

“The publication of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1848 and 1849 and subsequent events cut short my economic studies, which I could only resume in London in 1850. The enormous amount of material relating to the history of political economy assembled in the British Museum, the fact that London is a convenient vantage point for the observation of bourgeois society, and finally the new stage of development which this society seemed to have entered with the discovery of gold in California and Australia, induced me to start again from the very beginning and to work carefully through the new material. These studies led partly of their own accord to apparently quite remote subjects on which I had to spend a certain amount of time. But it was in particular the imperative necessity of earning my living which reduced the time at my disposal. My collaboration, continued now for eight years, with the New York Tribune, the leading Anglo-American newspaper, necessitated an excessive fragmentation of my studies, for I wrote only exceptionally newspaper correspondence in the strict sense. Since a considerable part of my contributions consisted of articles dealing with important economic events in Britain and on the continent, I was compelled to become conversant with practical detail which, strictly speaking, lie outside the sphere of political economy”. [from Preface to Critique of Political Economy, Marx, 1859]

1857

Diplomatic History of the 18th Century, Marx
Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations

THE GRUNDRISSE, Marx recommended
The First Indian War of Independence
On Afghanistan, Engels
Mountain Warfare in the Past and Present, Engels
Bauer's Pamphlets On the Collision with Russia, Marx

“The Afghans are a brave, hardy, and independent race; they follow pastoral or agricultural occupations only ... With them, war is an excitement and relief from the monotonous occupation of industrial pursuits. ... Their indomitable hatred of rule, and their love of individual independence, alone prevents their becoming a powerful nation; but this very irregularity and uncertainty of action makes them dangerous neighbours, liable to be blown about by the wind of caprice, or to be stirred up by political intriguers, who artfully excite their passions.” [On Afghanistan, Engels, 1857]

1858

To the Editor of the Neue Zeit, Marx July 1858
Second Draft of Critique of Political Economy.

1859

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
    including the PREFACErecommended
Po and Rhine, Engels April 1859
Quid Pro Quo, Marx July/August 1859