WAGE LABOUR
AND
CAPITAL

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  ^[1] Wage Labour and Capital was written by Marx on the basis of a series of lectures he delivered at the German Workers' Society in Brussels in the second half of December 1847. A manuscript entitled "Wages," copied by Joseph Weydemeyer, has been preserved, which conforms almost entirely to the text published in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Early in 1848 Marx tried to publish the work in Brussels, but he had to give up the plan in consequence of his expulsion from Belgium.
    The work was first published under the title of "Wage Labour and Capital' as a series of leading articles in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung of April 5-8 and 11, 1849. But the series was interrupted by Marx's temporary departure from Cologne and, subsequently, by the aggravation of the political situation in Germany and the termination of the publication of the paper.
    Marx's articles carried in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung contributed to the dissemination of the ideas of scientific socialism among German workers. By the decision of the Committee of the Cologne Workers' Association, they were recommended for discussion in workers' associations in Cologne and other cities.
    After the suppression of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Marx intended to publish Wage Labour and Capital in pamphlet form, but the plan did not materialize. The first separate edition of the work came out in Breslau in 1880 without Marx's participation, followed by a second edition published in the same city. With the participation of Engels, another edition was published in Hottingen-Zurich in 1884, which included a brief preface by Engels tracing the history of the

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work. A new edition for propaganda among workers, edited and prefaced by Engels, was published in 1891.
    The text of Wage Labour and Capital remains incomplete. A draft outline of Marx's concluding lectures, which he worked out in December 1847 under the title of "Wages," complements the present work.    [Pub.Note]

  ^[2] The Introduction was written by Engels for a new edition of Karl Marx's Wage Labour and Capital published under his direction in Berlin in 1891. Engels began the Introduction by restating his preface to the 1884 edition of the same work. The pamphlet containing the Introduction was printed in large numbers of copies for the dissemination of Marx's economic teachings among the workers.
    The Introduction appeared in workers' and socialist journals as a separate thesis and enjoyed a wide circulation. It was published, before the pamphlet came off the press, as a supplement to Vorwärts, No. 109, May 13, 1891, under the title of "Wage Labour and Capital." A slightly abridged version was carried in the weekly Freiheit, No. 22, May 30, 1891; in the Italian journal Critica sociale, No. 10, July 10, 1891; in Le Socialiste, No. 44, July 22, 1891; in an almanac published by the French socialist magazine, Question sociale, in 1892, and in other publications.
    The Introduction was included in all subsequent editions of Marx's work, which was translated into various languages on the basis of the 1891 edition.    [Pub.Note]

  ^[3] The German Workers' Society was founded by Marx and Engels in Brussels at the end of August 1847 for conducting political education and spreading the ideas of scientific communism among German workers residing in Belgium. Under the direction of Marx, Engels and their comrades-in-arms, the society became the legal rallying centre for revolutionary German proletarians in Belgium, and maintained direct contact with Flemish and Walloon workers' clubs. Later the best members of the society joined the Brussels section of the Communist League. The society ceased to function soon after the bourgeois February Revolution in France in 1848 as its members were arrested or banished by the Belgian police.    [p.1]

  ^[4] Reference is to the intervention carried out by tsarist troops in Hungary in 1849 for the purpose of suppressing the bourgeois revolution in the country and restoring the rule of the Austrian Hapsburg Dynasty there, and to the uprisings staged in Germany in support of the Imperial Constitution which was adopted by the Frankfort National Assembly on March 28, 1849 but rejected by the governments of most German

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states. The uprisings marked the final stage of the bourgeois democratic revolution in Germany.    [p.1]

  ^[5] See Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, International Publishers, New York, 1970, pp. 27-52; and Karl Marx, Capital, Charles H. Kerr and Company, Chicago, 1926, Vol. I, pp. 41-96.    [p.4]

  ^[6] See Capital, Chicago, 1926, Vol. I, p. 588.    [p.8]

  ^[7] Ibid., pp. 185-96.    [p.8]

  ^[8] Engels refers here to the May Day celebrations in 1891. In some countries, such as Britain and Germany, May Day was celebrated on the first Sunday after May 1, which in 1891 fell on May 3. Mass rallies and demonstrations were held on May Day, 1891, by workers in many cities in Britain, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Russia and other countries.    [p.12]

  ^[9] This refers to the Revolution of February 23-24, 1848 in Paris, of March 13 in Vienna, and of March 18 in Berlin.    [p.15]