Volume 1 of Marx’s political writings: The key essays and texts on politics and history—including The Communist Manifesto. Karl Marx was not only the great theorist of capitalism, he was also a superb journalist, politician and historian. In these brand-new editions of Marx’s Political Writings we are able to see the depth and range of his mature work from 1848 through to the end of his life, from The Communist Manifesto to The Class Struggles in France and The Critique of the Gotha Programme. Each book has a new introduction from a major contemporary thinker, to shed new light on these vital texts.

Volume 1: The Revolutions of 1848: Marx and Engels had sketched out the principles of scientific communism by 1846. Yet it was from his intense involvement in the abortive German Revolution of 1848 that Marx developed a depth of practical understanding he would draw on in Capital and throughout his later career. This volume includes his great call to arms—The Communist Manifesto—but also shows how tactical alliances with the bourgeoisie failed, after which Marx became firmly committed to independent workers’ organizations and the ideal of “permanent revolution.” The articles offer trenchant analyses of events in France, Poland, Prague, Berlin and Vienna, while speeches set out changing communist tactics. In a new introduction the major socialist feminist writer Sheila Rowbotham examines this period of Marx’s life and how it shaped his political perspective.