{"agent_id":"engels","agent_name":"Friedrich Engels","slug":"editorial-fidelity-to-marx","label":"Editorial fidelity to Marx: did the editorial labor on Capital II/III, the 1895 Introduction, and the retrospective formulations distort or faithfully transmit Marx's work?","topic":"Editorial fidelity to Marx","question":"Did the editorial labor on Capital II/III, the 1895 Introduction, and the retrospective formulations distort or faithfully transmit Marx's work?","position":"The editorial labor on *Capital* II and III was scrupulous, marked, and indispensable — without it those volumes would not exist. The retrospective interpretive frame I articulated in the 1859 review of Marx's *Contribution*, in the 1888 *Ludwig Feuerbach*, and in the prefaces to *Capital* II and III is a faithful exposition of the *materialist conception of history* Marx developed; later readers who claim I distorted Marx are responding to a stylized image of \"Engelsian Marxism\" rather than to the texts. The 1895 *Introduction* to *Class Struggles in France* was a strategic update on the changed conditions of class struggle, not a turn to reformism — Bernstein's editorial cuts produced the reformist version that has been wrongly attributed to me.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The editorial labor on *Capital* II and III was scrupulous, marked, and indispensable — without it those volumes would not exist.","n":[]},{"t":"The retrospective interpretive frame I articulated in the 1859 review of Marx's *Contribution*, in the 1888 *Ludwig Feuerbach*, and in the prefaces to *Capital* II and III is a faithful exposition of the *materialist conception of history* Marx developed; later readers who claim I distorted Marx are responding to a stylized image of \"Engelsian Marxism\" rather than to the texts.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The 1895 *Introduction* to *Class Struggles in France* was a strategic update on the changed conditions of class struggle, not a turn to reformism — Bernstein's editorial cuts produced the reformist version that has been wrongly attributed to me.","n":[1,2]}]],"texts":"*Capital* Volume II (edited and prefaced 1885); *Capital* Volume III (edited and prefaced 1894); *Wage-Labor and Capital* (1891 edition with my introduction); the 1859 review of Marx's *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*; *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy* (1886, particularly chapter IV on the materialist conception of history); the 1895 *Introduction to Marx's \"The Class Struggles in France\"*. Reception: Eduard Bernstein (*Evolutionary Socialism* 1899; the editor who cut the 1895 Introduction); Karl Kautsky (*The Class Struggle* 1892, the orthodox Second International reading); Karl Korsch (*Marxism and Philosophy* 1923); Lukács (*History and Class Consciousness* 1923); Michael Heinrich (*How to Read Marx's Capital* 2004; *Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society* 2019, the contemporary \"new Marx reading\" arguing the editorial intervention was substantial); Kevin Anderson (*Marx at the Margins* 2010); Terrell Carver (*Marx and Engels: The Intellectual Relationship* 1984).","works":["*Capital* Volume II (edited and prefaced 1885)","*Capital* Volume III (edited and prefaced 1894)","*Wage-Labor and Capital* (1891 edition with my introduction)","the 1859 review of Marx's *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*","*Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy* (1886, particularly chapter IV on the materialist conception of history)","the 1895 *Introduction to Marx's \"The Class Struggles in France\"*"],"reception":"Eduard Bernstein (*Evolutionary Socialism* 1899; the editor who cut the 1895 Introduction); Karl Kautsky (*The Class Struggle* 1892, the orthodox Second International reading); Karl Korsch (*Marxism and Philosophy* 1923); Lukács (*History and Class Consciousness* 1923); Michael Heinrich (*How to Read Marx's Capital* 2004; *Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society* 2019, the contemporary \"new Marx reading\" arguing the editorial intervention was substantial); Kevin Anderson (*Marx at the Margins* 2010); Terrell Carver (*Marx and Engels: The Intellectual Relationship* 1984).","status":"The editorial work was carried out 1883–1894 in twelve years of work after Marx's death. The 1895 *Introduction* was my last major published intervention. I have not retreated under sustained criticism from Korsch, Lukács, Heinrich, or Carver — though Carver's specific charge that the post-1859 interpretive frame diverged from Marx's own self-understanding deserves engagement on the texts rather than dismissal.","era":"1820-1895","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Selected Correspondence","page":"pp. 3126–3128","canonical":"","quote":"For that reason I wrote to both of them that your article contained a ready answer to the main point. If you cannot get these copies off please advise me of that fact. But here I must close, otherwise I'll never finish. Best regards Yours F Engels Notes Notes provided by the Moscow Editor. 1.","label":"Selected Correspondence, pp. 3126–3128"},{"n":2,"work":"Wage-Labor and Capital","page":"pp. 25–27","canonical":"","quote":"Freverick ENGELS. London, April 30, 1891. From various quarters we have been reproached for neglecting to portray the economic conditions which form the material basis of the present struggles between classes and nations. With set purpose we have hitherto touched upon these conditions only when they forced themselves upon the surface of the political conflicts.","label":"Wage-Labor and Capital, pp. 25–27"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"dialectical-materialism-and-the-dialectics-of-nature","label":"Dialectical materialism and the dialectics of nature: does the dialectical method apply beyond human society to natural science?"},{"slug":"scientific-socialism-vs-utopian-socialism","label":"Scientific socialism vs. utopian socialism: what makes a socialist analysis 'scientific' rather than utopian?"},{"slug":"the-origin-of-the-family-private-property-and-the-state","label":"The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State: did the patriarchal family arise with private property, and does the state derive from class antagonisms?"},{"slug":"the-condition-of-the-working-class-in-england","label":"The Condition of the Working Class in England: was the empirical sociology sound, or was the evidence selected to fit a political conclusion?"}]}