Principles of communism

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The program outline Principles of Communism was written by Friedrich Engels in 1847 and forms an important preparatory work for the program of the League of Communists , the manifesto of the Communist Party . In 1968 , a preliminary work on the "Principles of Communism" was discovered, referred to as the Draft of a Communist Creed (or Draft of ... ; or Creed ).

Principles of communism

After the London central authority of the League of Communists distributed a draft program in September 1847, which was then revised by Moses Hess , Engels criticized it in detail at a meeting of the Paris district authority of the League of Communists on October 22 and was then commissioned to draft his own program from which the "principles of communism" emerged. The text, about 20 pages long, 25 questions and 22 answers, was created between the end of October and mid-November 1847 as a preliminary draft program.

The text was first printed in 1932 in the Marx-Engels Complete Edition based on the manuscript , and according to other information in 1914 by Eduard Bernstein in the magazine Vorwärts! . The text is now available in sixteen languages ​​in the Marxists Internet Archive .

Draft Communist Creed

In June 1847, Engels wrote a similar pamphlet for the Bund with 22 questions, some of which were the same. This was discovered in 1968 and first published the following year. Those three questions that remained unanswered in the "Principles of Communism" are also found here - albeit answered.

catechism

In a letter to Marx from 23./24. In November 1847, Engels advised to abandon the catechism form found in the “Principles of Communism” and especially the “Draft of a Communist Creed” and first preferred by the Bund , and to write a program in the form of a manifesto : “Think about the creed . I think we do best, we leave out the catechism form and title the thing: Communist Manifesto. Since more or less history has to be told in it, the previous form does not fit at all. I'll bring the local [Note: this is the preparatory work for the program] that I did, it's simply narrative, but poorly edited, in a terrible hurry. "

Preparatory work for the Communist Party's manifesto

At the second congress of the Union of Communists from November 29th to December 8th, 1847, Marx and Engels were finally commissioned to work out a "Manifesto of the Communist Party", which was completed in February 1848. Engels' preparatory work for the program was used.

expenditure

Principles of communism
  • MEGA , First Department, Volume 6, Berlin 1932, pp. 503-522.
  • Marx-Engels-Werke , Volume 4, Berlin 1974, pp. 361-380.
Draft Communist Creed
  • Bert Andréas (ed.): Founding documents of the League of Communists (June to September 1847). Hamburg: Hauswedell, 1969.

swell

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The Marx-Engels-Werke noted in this regard in a footnote to: "In the manuscript of Engels stands on the site of the answer in question 22 and 23, only the word" remains ". Obviously, this means that the answer should remain as it is formulated in a preliminary, but so far not found draft program of the League of Communists. "
  2. ↑ According to MEW
  3. ↑ Source on marxists.org
  4. ^ Cross-Language Section, Marx-Engels Archive , accessed April 25, 2009.
  5. ↑ Engels to Marx. 23/24 November 1847, MEW 27: 106f.