Marx and Engels on China

A collection of articles compiling Marx and Engels’ expositions concerning the Chinese question. The earliest edition was that of the Foreign Workers’ Publishing House, Moscow, in 1937; it was followed by a proofread reprint published by the Yan’an Liberation Publishing House in 1938; a new revised edition was published by the Renmin Publishing House in 1957; the Renmin Publishing House published a new proofread edition which was edited by the Compilation and Translation Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1997; and the Compilation and Translation Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China published Marx and Engels on China with revisions and additions in accordance with the latest translations in December 2015.

Although the revolutionary mentors Marx and Engels never came to China during their lives, they were deeply concerned about this vast Eastern country throughout their theoretical researches and revolutionary careers. In their whole works, there are more than 800 passages that specifically refer to the Chinese question, some of which are especially about China, and some of which are fragmentary elaborations on the Chinese question. Marx and Engels on China is divided into two parts, the first part only contains articles, which mainly has 18 articles written by Marx and Engels, except one of them which was published in the daily press Newsday, Vienna, Austria, the rest are review articles published in the New-York Daily Tribune, USA. These articles were all written during the 1850s and early 1860s. At that time, the Chinese people have given a brave and tenacious struggle against foreign powers and against the domestic rule of the decadent Qing government. Marx and Engels paid close attention to the resistance and struggle of the Chinese people and expressed their deep sympathies. The second part contains passages about China, which are scattered in their other works and their letters which belong to the period during 1840s to 1890s. The literature in this work covers a wide range of topics, including the impact of the development of world trade on China’s economy, the two Opium Wars, the peasant uprising in China, and many other issues, also, the role played by Chinese inventions such as gunpowder and printing were mentioned.

Marx and Engels on China is a work in which Marx and Engels elaborated their standpoint on the Chinese question, an important document for the systematic study of Marx and Engels’ conception of China.