Early Writing

It is true Mehring reprinted some of Marx’s early published work in 1902 (in his Aus dem literarischen Nachlass). But the more important writings remained unknown. And in any case by that time the whole first generation of Marxian interpreters and disciples – including Kautsky, Plekhanov, Bernstein and Labriola – had already formed their ideas. So the Marxism of the Second Internationalwas constituted in almost total ignorance of the difficult and intricate process through which Marx had passed in the years from 1843 to 1845, as he formulated historical materialism for the first time.