Marx/Engels Collected Works

MECW volumes on a bookshelf

Marx/Engels Collected Works (also known as MECW) is the largest existing collection of English translations of works by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Its 50 volumes contain publications by Marx and Engels released during their lifetimes, many unpublished manuscripts of Marx's economic writings, and extensive personal correspondence. The Collected Works, for the most part compiled by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU, was issued from 1975 to 2004 by Progress Publishers (1931, Moscow) in collaboration with Lawrence and Wishart (1936, London) and International Publishers (1924, New York City).

History and overview

MECW volumes, most of them without their typical white book jackets, in a library.

Although about a third of Marx and Engels' works were originally written in English and partly published in the British or American press, the vast majority of their literary legacy was not collected, translated (where necessary) and made available in an extensive English edition for decades after their death.

In the Soviet Union, comprehensive collections of the works of Marx and Engels were already compiled in the 1920s and 1930s (an aborted complete edition, MEGA1, as well as a first Russian edition in 28 volumes, Sochineniya1). But only following the publication of new editions in Russian and German in the 1950s and 1960s (Sochineniya2 and Marx-Engels-Werke with 39 basic volumes and a few more supplementary ones later on), an English edition begun being prepared by Soviet editors with the help of the publishing houses of the Communist Parties in Great Britain and the USA and translators from these countries.

After general editing principles had been agreed upon by the representatives of all three sides (Institute of Marxism-Leninism and Progress Publishers, Moscow, the Central Committees of the CPs in Great Britain and the US and their publishers Lawrence and Wishart, London, and International Publishers, New York) at a conference in Moscow in December 1969, the first volume of the new edition was published in 1975.

More than forty volumes were published before the fall of the USSR; the few remaining ones were completed and issued by 2004 (V. 50).

Large parts of both authors' early writings, many of their newspaper articles (e.g. from the Neue Rheinische Zeitung 1848-49) and most of their letters as well as many of Marx's economic manuscripts were published in English for the first time in the Collected Works. In total, the 50 volumes comprise 1,968 works and other documents (of which 805 were published in English for the first time) and 3,957 letters (of which 2,283 had never been published in English before).

The Collected Works consists of writings by Marx between 1835 and his death in 1883, and by Engels between 1838 and his death in 1895. Early volumes (V. 1-2) include juvenilia, such as correspondence between Marx and his father, Marx's poetry, and letters from Engels to his sister. The edition also contains several major, well-known works by Marx and Engels, such as The Condition of the Working Class in England (V. 4), The Communist Manifesto (V. 6), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (V. 11), and Anti-Dühring (V. 25).

The collection is divided into three parts. Volumes 1-27 collect the political, philosophical, historical and journalistic writings of the authors, in chronological order. Volumes 28-37 specifically collect Marx's writings on political economy, including a large amount of draft material and manuscripts which culminated in the three volumes of Capital (V. 35-37). Finally, volumes 38-50 collect the letters and personal correspondence of the authors.

Contents by volume

Although most of MECW's volumes include material written by Marx and Engels (whether separately or as co-authors), a large minority of volumes are devoted to material written by only one author. Red check marks indicate the author's presence in a volume, while black X marks indicate that the author's work is absent. Although the volumes typically contain large varieties of material, only major selected items are listed below, for illustration.

Volume Marx Engels Period Pub. Date Major Contents
1 check ☒ 1835–1843 1975 Early writings of Marx, including doctoral dissertation The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature
2 ☒ check 1838–1842 1975 Early writings of Engels
3 check check 1843–1844 1975 Early writings of both, including the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
4 check check 1844–1845 1975 The Holy Family, The Condition of the Working Class in England
5 check check 1845–1847 1976 The German Ideology, Theses on Feuerbach
6 check check 1845–1848 1976 The Communist Manifesto, The Poverty of Philosophy, Principles of Communism
7 check check 1848 1977 Articles for Neue Rheinische Zeitung
8 check check 1848–1849 1977
9 check check 1849 1977
10 check check 1849–1851 1978 The Class Struggles in France 1848–1850, The Peasant War in Germany
11 check check 1851–1853 1979 The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany
12 check check 1853–1854 1979 Newspaper articles concerning global politics and other writings, including The Civil War in the United States
13 check check 1854–1855 1980
14 check check 1855–1856 1980
15 check check 1856–1858 1986
16 check check 1858–1860 1980
17 check check 1859–1860 1981
18 check check 1857–1862 1982
19 check check 1861–1864 1984
20 check check 1864-1868 1985 Articles and writings concerning the First International, Value, Price and Profit (V. 20)
21 check check 1867–

1870

1985
22 check check 1870–1871 1986
23 check check 1871–1874 1988
24 check check 1874–1883 1989 Critique of the Gotha Program, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
25 ☒ check — 1987 Anti-Dühring, Dialectics of Nature
26 ☒ check 1882–1889 1990 Origin of the Family, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy
27 ☒ check 1890–1895 1990 Late political writings of Engels
28 check ☒ 1857–1861 1986 Grundrisse, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
29 check ☒ 1857–

1861

1987
30 check ☒ 1861–1863 1988 Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863, which includes Theories of Surplus Value
31 check ☒ 1861–1863 1989
32 check ☒ 1861–1863 1989
33 check ☒ 1861–1863 1991
34 check ☒ 1861–1864 1994
35 check ☒ — 1996 Capital, Volume I
36 check ☒ — 1997 Capital, Volume II
37 check ☒ — 1998 Capital, Volume III
38 check check 1844–

1851

1982 Letters
39 check check 1852–1855 1983
40 check check 1856–1859 1983
41 check check 1860–1864 1985
42 check check 1864–1868 1987
43 check check 1868–1870 1988
44 check check 1870–1873 1989
45 check check 1874-1879 1991
46 check check 1880–1883 1992
47 ☒ check 1883–1886 1995
48 ☒ check 1887–1890 2001
49 ☒ check 1890–1892 2001
50 ☒ check 1892–1895 2004

Differences with other Marx/Engels collections

Although the Collected Works is the most comprehensive English translation of Marx and Engels' work, it is not their complete work. An ongoing project to publish the pair's complete works in their original language (Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe) is expected to require 114 volumes. However, as MEGA differs from MECW particularly in content in that it presents numerous excerpts and notes in its fourth section, publishes the letters to Marx and Engels from third persons, and prints various editions of the same works (e.g. Capital), the overwhelming majority of the published writings, manuscripts, and letters of Marx and Engels are in any case included in MECW.

See also