The Turbulent 1960s: The Publication of Long-Lost Pages of the 1845–46 Manuscripts

Abstract

Although in 1859 Marx had merely written that he and Engels had left the manuscripts to the “gnawing criticism of the mice,” it was later on argued by Bernstein and Mehring that the hungry mice had not only taken a morsel here and there, but in some cases had left nothing but “little pieces” and “fragments” behind (Marx, 1961: 10; Rjazanov, 1925: 389; Mehring, 1976: 120). In turn, the editors of the 1932 MEGA1 and the 1958 Marx-Engels-Werke edition were a little more cautious in their accusations against these little creatures at the lower end of the food chain, but had still not come up with any other plausible explanation as to why one can observe “gaps” in the manuscripts (Marx and Engels, 1958: 10). According to Marx’s pagination of the “main manuscript” (8–72) of the so-called Feuerbach chapter, there were at least 12 manuscript pages missing. These were still missing by the beginning of the 1960s. The lost pages were presumably numbered 1–7, 29, and 36–39.