Zur entstehungsgeschichte des Marxschen "Kapital"; er rohentwurf desKapital 1857-1858.

by Roman Rosdolsky

Rosdolsky's Making of Marx's 'Capital" is a major work of interpretation and criticism, written over fifteen years by one of the foremost representatives of the European marxist tradition. Rosdolsky investigates the relationship between various versions of Capital and explains the reasons for Marx's sucessive reworkings; he provides a textual exegesis of Marx's Grundrisse, now widely available, and reveals its methodological riches. He presents a critique of later work in the marxist tradition on the basis of Marx's fundamental distinction between 'capital in general' and 'capital in conrete reality.' The Making of Marx's Capital' was first published in 1968 as Zur Enstehungsgeschichte des Marx'schen 'Kapital". 'The single best exegesis on Marx's Capital that I have ever read ...the tone is firm, completely undogmatic and wonderfully lucid.' Robert Heilbroner

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Philosophy

201 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Roman Osipovich Rosdolsky (Russian: Роман Осипович Роздольский; Ukrainian: Рома́н О́сипович Роздо́льський Roman Osipovič Rozdol's'kyj) was an important Marxian scholar and political revolutionary.

As a youth, Rosdolsky was a member of the Ukrainian socialist Drahomanov Circles. He was drafted in the imperial army in 1915, and edited with Roman Turiansky the journal Klyči in 1917. He was a founder of the International Revolutionary Social Democracy (IRSD) and studied law in Prague. During World War I he founded the antimilitaristic "Internationale Revolutionäre Sozialistische Jugend Galiziens" (International Revolutionary Socialist Youth of Galizia). He became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Eastern Galicia, representing its émigré organization 1921-1924 and a leading publicist of the Vasylkivtsi faction of the Ukrainian Communists. In 1925, he refused to condemn Trotsky and his Left Opposition, and was later, at the end of the 1920s, expelled from the Communist Party.

In 1926-1931, he was correspondent in Vienna of the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow, searching for archival materials. At that time, in 1927, he met his wife Emily. When the labour movement in Austria suffered repression, he emigrated in 1934 back to L'viv, where he worked at the university as lecturer. He published the Trotskyist periodical Žittja i slovo 1934-1938, and was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942, but survived internment for three years in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Oranienburg. He emigrated to the USA in 1947, and worked there as independent scholar - failing to obtain a university post. He published also under pseudonyms such as "Roman Prokopovycz", "P.Suk.", "Tenet" and "W.S.".

Rosdolsky is mainly known in the Anglo-Saxon world for his careful scholarly exegesis The Making of Marx's Capital, a collection of essays some which had previously been published, which overturned many previous interpretations of Das Kapital. Yet he published much more, especially on historical topics (see below). During his life, he corresponded with numerous well known Marxist writers including Isaac Deutscher, Ernest Mandel, Paul Mattick, and Karl Korsch. Mandel called Rosdolsky's work on the National Question the only Marxist criticism of Marx himself.

Reviews

[An · Rating 4 out of 5]

Xuli. L'he llegit de forma fragmentària i he perdut una mica la noció d'unitat del llibre, però en general m'ha agradat. És MOLT exhaustiu. Per bo i per dolent (no fa falta citar fragments de pàgina i mitja ni emplenar més els peus de pàgina que la pàgina mateixa). El llibre mostra com tota l'obra de Marx (especialment El Capital) es transforma en mirar-la a través dels Grundrisse. Aprofundeix en el Grundrisse i en El Capital i en les recepcions de Marx (ojo amb els annexes que són molt bons!).

besis

[Andreas Chari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I only grasped 40% of this, which isn't terrible, considering I have not read the Rough Draft before and only read Vol I last year. Will be coming back to this in the future.

[Francisco Mota · Rating 5 out of 5]

Juntamente com o livro do Rubin, é também um dos mais importantes e essenciais para se entender O Capital. É grandinho, mas sem dúvida vale a pena ler antes de ir para o livro do Marx em si.

Além disso, ponto extra por rebater diretamente as baboseiras stalinistas e da ciência positiva ditas sobre Marx.

[Leonardo]

Hay una paradoja en el pensamiento de Marx que puede ser particularmente ilustrativa para resolver los problemas que enfrentamos. En sus borradores sobre el esquema del Capital, Marx planeó tres volúmenes que nunca fueron escritos: uno sobre el salario, un segundo sobre el Estado, y un tercero sobre el mercado mundial.

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