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The
most important work by K. Marx,
in which, applying the dialectical materialist interpretation of the
historical
process to the analysis of capitalist socioeconomic formation, he
discovered
the economic law of development of bourgeois society and demonstrated
the
inevitability of the downfall of capitalism and the victory of
communism. V. I.
Lenin characterized Das Kapital as “the greatest
work on political
economy” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 2, p.
11). At the same time, Das
Kapital is an outstanding philosophical and historical study.
“If Marx did
not leave behind us ‘Logic’ (with a capital letter L),”
wrote Lenin, “he
did leave the logic of Das Kapital. … in Das
Kapital, Marx
applied to one science logic, dialectics, and the theory of knowledge …
of
materialism” (ibid., vol. 29, p. 301). Lenin noted
that the work
provided the “history of capitalism and the analysis of the concepts
summing it
up” (ibid.). As F. Engels and Lenin stressed, Das
Kapital is
Marx’ main work in which scientific communism is expounded (see Marx
and
Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 19, p. 109, and Lenin,
Poln. sobr. soch,
5th ed., vol. 1, p. 187). “As long as capitalists and workers have
existed in
the world,” wrote Engels, “no single book that could have had such
importance
for workers has appeared” (Marx and Engels, Sock,
2nd ed., vol. 16, p.
240).
Marx
devoted 40 years of his
life—from 1843 to 1883—to the writing of Das Kapital.
In their works of
the 1840’s (A Contribution to the Critique of Political
Economy, Economic
and Philosophical Manuscripts of1844, The German Ideology, The Poverty
of
Philosophy, Wage Labor and Capital, and The Communist Manifesto),
Marx and
Engels formulated the basic propositions of the materialist
interpretation of
history and the theory of scientific communism that grew out of it.
Thus, the
indispensable methodological premises of the Marxist economic doctrine
were
created—the doctrine which is “the most profound, comprehensive, and
detailed
confirmation and application of Marx’ theory” (Lenin, Poln.
sobr. sock,
5th ed., vol. 26, p. 60).
The
bases of the theory of surplus
value, which Lenin characterized as the “cornerstone” of Marx’ economic
doctrine (ibid., vol. 23, p. 45), were set forth by
Marx during the
1850’s, as he was working on the manuscript “A Critique of Political
Economy”
(1857–58), the initial version of Das Kapital. Marx
revealed the
mechanism of capitalist exploitation and showed that the capitalists’
appropriation of surplus value created by the working class takes place
in
complete accord with the internal laws of the capitalist mode of
production—primarily the law of value. Marx reached the conclusion that
the
liberation of the working class from exploitation could not be achieved
within
the framework of capitalism. In this manuscript of 1857–58, the major
propositions of the theory of scientific communism, that which concerns
the
ripening of the material preconditions of communism within the womb of
bourgeois society, was developed to a considerable degree. Finally,
Marx
concluded that capitalism, in comparison to any preceding socioeconomic
structure, had a deeper internal capacity to develop productive forces.
In the
Introduction to the manuscript “A Critique of Political Economy,” Marx
characterized the scientific method of the ascent from the abstract to
the
concrete as the method of political economy. The ascent from the
abstract to
the concrete is the common method of building scientific theory. Many
methodological principles of “systems analysis,” which later spread as
a result
of the generalization of the achievements of natural science, were
provided by
Marx in Das Kapital. The first installment of A
Contribution to the
Critique of Political Economy, which contained the theory of
value and the
theory of money, was published in 1859. In the preface to this work,
Marx gave
the classic formulation of the materialist interpretation of history.
Marx
conducted his economic
investigations during the 1850’s within the framework of the “six-book
plan”
that he worked out from 1857 to 1859 (On Capital, Landed
Property, Wage
Labor, The State, Foreign Trade, and The World
Market).
Subsequently, Marx elaborated the most important part of this program
in the
four volumes of Das Kapital; this part formed the
content of the section
“Capital in General” the first section of the book On Capital.
(The
other sections of this book are “Competition of Capital,” “Credit,” and
“Joint-Stock Capital.”)
Marx
essentially completed the
theory of surplus value in the 1860’s, in the process of working on the
manuscript of A Contribution to the Critique of Political
Economy, the
second draft of Das Kapital
Marx
rewrote the first three volumes
of Das Kapital (1863–65; the third draft of Das
Kapital). A major
part of this manuscript is the only draft of the third volume of Das
Kapital.
It was on the basis of this draft that Engels, using Marx’s later
interpolations and additions, published the third volume in 1894. In
addition,
of the manuscripts of 1863–65, the first of eight drafts of the second
volume
remained intact, as did Chapter 6, which Marx wrote as the concluding
chapter
of the first volume; this chapter summed up the analysis of the process
of the
production of capital and served as a transition to the second volume.
(It was
published in the Archive of Marx and Engels, vol. 2
[7], Moscow, 1933.)
The antagonistic contradictions of the capitalist mode of production
are
analyzed by Marx in their concrete manifestation on the surface of
capitalist
society in the manuscript of the third volume of Das Kapital.
Profit is
the goal of capitalist production and the fundamental stimulus to its
development. But at the same time, this goal limits the development of
the
productive forces of bourgeois society. The increase in the organic
composition
of capital results in a tendency for the rate of profit to decline. In
developing production, the capitalists strive to compensate for the
falling
rate of profit by increasing the total amount of profit. This leads to
the
further increase in the organic composition of capital and to a still
greater
decline in the rate of profit. This process results in a level of
socialization
of production for which the framework of capitalist society becomes
ever more
confining. “The real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself
…. The
means—unconditional development of the productive forces of
society—comes
continually into conflict with the limited purpose, the self-expansion
of the
existing capital” (Marx, op. cit, vol. 25, part 1,
p. 274).
In
1866, Marx began immediate preparations
for the publication of the first volume of Das Kapital,
which appeared
in September 1867. In it, on the basis of previous research, Marx
examined the
process of capitalist production, beginning with the analysis of the
commodity
as the elementary cell-form of capitalism and the analysis of the
twofold
character of the labor that creates a commodity.
Marx
examined three stages in the
increase of labor productivity and the development of relative surplus
value:
simple cooperation, the division of labor and the manufactory, and the
development of machinery and large-scale industry. At the same time,
the stages
reflect the process of the socialization of labor occurring under the
antagonistic conditions of private capitalist appropriation.
In
the first volume of Das
Kapital, Marx traced the history of the economic struggle of
the working
class, explained the role of factory legislation in this struggle,
analyzed the
capitalist application of machinery, and examined in depth the category
of
wages in its two forms. (The question of the use of machinery under
capitalism
was examined in detail for the first time by Marx in the second draft
of Das
Kapital.) Analyzing the tendency toward an increase in the
organic
composition of capital, Marx formulated the general law of capitalist
accumulation while he explained at the same time the countervailing
tendencies
that modify the effect of this law. He formulated the historical
tendency of
capitalist accumulation thus: “The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter
upon
the mode of production which has sprung up and flourished along with
and under
it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of
labor at
least reach a point where they become incompatible with their
capitalist
integument. Thus integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist
private
property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated” (ibid,
p. 772–73).
After
Marx’ death, Engels did a
great deal of work to prepare the second and third volumes for
publication. He
prepared the second volume on the basis of Marx’ manuscripts of the
1870’s, and
it appeared in 1885. Marx had formulated, on the basis of the
examination of
the processes of capital circulation and social reproduction (simple
and
extended), the law of the realization of the social product in
capitalist
society. As he had demonstrated, the normal functioning of these laws
presupposes the proportional distribution of the social product among
the
branches of production. But under capitalism, the conditions of
realization
“change into so many conditions of abnormal movement, into so many
possibilities of crises, since a balance is itself an accident owing to
the
spontaneous nature of this production” (ibid., vol.
24, p. 563).
In
1894, Engels published the third
volume of Das Kapital on the basis of Marx’
manuscript of 1863–65.
Studying capitalist relations in the form in which they emerge on the
surface
of bourgeois society (commodity-trade and money-trade capital, loan
capital,
credit, and land rent), Marx noted the further intensification of
capitalist
contradictions and evidence of the historically transient nature of
capitalism.
Das
Kapital
not only contains the solution of the paramount theoretical
problems of Marxist political economy but also poses new problems
requiring
further elaboration. Thus, in the third volume of Das Kapital,
Marx
calls attention to the fact that the real movement of market prices is
related
to the doctrine of competition, which falls outside the framework of Das
Kapital (ibid., vol. 25, part 2, p. 324). Characterizing the
analysis of
credit and the money market in the third volume, Engels noted that it
contained
“much that is new and still more that is unresolved concerning this
question;
consequently, along with new solutions, there are new problems” (ibid,
vol. 38, p. 108).
The
supplements to the third volume,
which Engels wrote in 1895, were aimed primarily at eliminating
difficulties in
understanding the problems of the third volume and secondarily at
analyzing new
phenomena that had been established in the economy of capitalism.
Studying the
development of capitalism, Engels was able during the last years of his
life to
note such new phenomena in the capitalist economy as the rapid
development of
joint-stock companies and of trusts and the growing role of the stock
exchange
and the banks in the development of industry, the export of capital,
and the
division of colonies—the phenomena that signal the transition to
monopoly
capitalism, or imperialism. The Leninist theory of imperialism was the
direct continuation
and development of Marx’ economic theory.
In
1883 and 1890, Engels published
the third and fourth German editions of the first volume of Das
Kapital
and edited the translation of this volume into English. (The English
edition
appeared in 1886.) Engels also published a second German edition of the
second
volume of Das Kapital (1893). Lenin wrote of the
second and third
volumes: “Indeed these two volumes of Das Kapital
are the work of two
men: Marx and Engels…. Engels erected a majestic monument to the genius
who had
been his friend, a monument on which, without intending it, he
indelibly carved
his own name” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 2,
p. 12). In his
letters of 1883–95, Engels repeatedly mentioned his intention to
prepare for
publication, in the form of a fourth, concluding volume of Das
Kapital,
the manuscript of the Theories of Surplus Value
from the second draft of
Das Kapital. However, his death prevented him from
doing this. The Theories
of Surplus Value was first published in the years 1905–10 by
K. Kautsky,
who made arbitrary changes and substantial abridgments of the text. The
first
genuinely scientific edition of the Theories… was
made by the Institute
of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the CPSU in the years
1954–61
and made up a fourth volume of Das Kapital.
Das
Kapital
was published in nine languages while Marx and Engels were
alive. The first translation of the three volumes of Das
Kapital was the
translation into Russian. (The volumes were published in 1872, 1885,
and 1896
respectively.) By mid-1972, Das Kapital had been
published in 40
languages outside the USSR. In the USSR, it has been published in 22
languages
of the peoples of the USSR, with total editions of 6, 701,000 copies.
If
bourgeois science of the 19th century
made every attempt possible to hush up Das Kapital,
the 20th century has
been marked by countless attempts of “Marxologists” of all sorts to
refute
Marx’ economic doctrine or to distort its revolutionary content.
According to
the “Marxologists,” Das Kapital has “become
obsolete.” Some bourgeois or
revisionist theoreticians, who do not deny the importance of Das
Kapital
in gaining an understanding of modern capitalism, attempt to separate
Marx the
researcher from Marx the revolutionary. However, the revolutionary
conclusions
of Marx’ economic theory are inseparable from the theory itself. The
course of
the historical development of humanity completely confirms the
worldwide
historical role of the proletariat as the creator of communist society,
a role
discovered by Marx and Engels and scientifically substantiated in Das
Kapital. The importance of Das Kapital
for the practice of the
international workers’ movement under contemporary conditions continues
to
grow.
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vol. 46, part 1, p. v-xxiv.
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1–4, 40–48; vol. 26, p. 43–93; vol. 29, pp. 131, 162, 301, 318.
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S. VYGODSKII