the ethnological notebooks of karl marx - Marxists Internet Archive

Notes to Introduction, p. 88.169 The chronology of Marx’s work on the Morgan text, according to theeditors of the Moscow edition of the Works of Marx and Engels isgiven as May 1881 to mid February 1882. (Sochineniia, 2nd ed., v. 19,p. 617.) At this time he was engaged in the ‘intensive study of Morgan’s“Ancient Society” .’ The editors of the Sochineniia add that heread, excerpted, and commented on Maine, Sohm, Tylor and others.The editors of MEW 19, p. 619, concur in this.The Sochineniia, ib., p. 619, have noted that c. August-September 1881,Marx studied the history, development and current condition of thecolonial peoples, in particular the work ofMani [i.e. Money-see n. 15]on Java and Phear’s Aryan Village. (MEW, ib., p. 620.)The chronology of Marx’s study of Lubbock’s Origin of Civilisationis given in the Sochineniia, ib., p. 623-624, as October-November 1882.(MEW, ib., p. 624.)The contact between Marx and Hyndman is dated October 1880 toc. May 1881 (Sochineniia, ib., p. 614; MEW, ib., p. 616). The correspondenceof Marx with Zasulich is dated from the end of Februaryto the beginning of March 1881. (Sochineniia, ib., p. 616; MEW ib.,p. 618.) The date of Marx’s work on Morgan is given as 1880-1881 inthe Sochineniia, v. 21, p. 565, and in MEW v. 21, p. 5 5 2. It is given as1881-1882 in the Sochineniia, ib., p. 653 and MEW ib., p. 636.The editors of MEW have based themselves on the 2nd edition of theSochineniia. The basis for neither of the proposed chronologies isgiven in these sources, nor is the seeming contradiction accounted for.In general, the dates given here are possible, but they contain, nevertheless,certain inherent difficulties. Thus, the second chronologyproposed by the editors of the Sochineniia and MEW, 1881/1882, doesnot parse out fully the conjectural from the known. The references toMorgan in Marx’s drafts of letters to Zasulich and the references toMarx-Morgan in the Hyndman memoirs both antedate the periodhere proposed, which commences only in May 1881.The internal evidence of the notebooks likewise makes this chronologyless probable, although it is not ruled out: In the notebookB 146, the Maine excerpts follow those from Phear’s work. But theMaine manuscript was being completed in the month of June (probably1881, less probably 1880, improbably 1882). The Phear manuscriptmust therefore have been completed before that time; accordingto the chronology advanced by the editors of the Sochineniia and MEW,the Phear manuscript would then have to have been completed inAugust or September of 1880, or 1879, thus forcing us to date theMorgan ms. of Marx, which predates the Phear ms., even earlier.This possibility has even greater intrinsic difficulties, as we have seen.What is to be made of the reference to Tylor in this context is anotherquestion, which falls outside that of the notebooks taken up in thepresent work, for, like the Dawkins, it does not appear in either ofthem.395