the ethnological notebooks of karl marx - Marxists Internet Archive

ADDENDAi. Chronology of materials in IISG Notebook B 146, containing excerptsand notes from Morgan, Phear and Maine; and Notebook B 150 containingexcerpts and notes from Lubbock. (See below, note 15 for surveyof notebooks.)The materials were worked on in the order indicated. There is nodirect evidence in the notebooks themselves or from correspondence,etc., when the work was begun. There is a direct indication relative tothe dating of the close of the materials from Notebook B 146 which aredealt with in the present essay; the indication, while it is direct, is notentirely free of problems, and hence is not firm. Marx commented on anIrish Coercion Bill in Parliament in his notes on Maine, p. 192, i.e. fivepages from the end, interpolating in that connection, “Dies geschriebenJuni 1888.” It had been announced in January 1880 that a CoercionStatute then in force would be allowed to lapse on June 1, 1880. A newCoercion Bill was introduced by W. E. Forster, of the party of the viceroyof Ireland, in the British Parliament on January 24, 1881 and enacted onMarch 2, 1881, after strenuous parliamentary debate and public protest.“It practically enabled the viceroy to lock up anybody he pleased, and todetain him as long as he pleased, while the Act remained in force.” 158The Notebook B 146 was filled seriatim, although number 144 wasskipped in the pagination (but not the page - see the place and note 15).It has generally been held that this portion of the Notebook, with theexception of the notes from Hospitalier, was filled within a fairly short,consecutive period of time. It now must be considered that the timeperiod in which the materials from Morgan, Phear and Maine (as well asMoney and Sohm) as a whole were worked on was somewhat longer thanthat which has been accepted hitherto. Following the notes taken fromMaine he included in Notebook B 146 in or about November 1882those from Hospitalier’s work on electricity, which had been publishedin 1881.159As to when the sequence of the materials in this Notebook was begun,there is no direct evidence but only external and indirect indications thatMarx worked on the first of the series, Morgan’s Ancient Society, duringthe winter, and perhaps spring of 1880-1881. Vera Zasulich had writtento Marx concerning agrarian problems and the village commune inRussia160 in a letter dated February 16, 1881. Marx’s reply is dated86