Page:Friedrich Engels - The Revolutionary Act - tr. Henry Kuhn (1922).pdf/12



The work, herewith republished, represents Marx's first attempt to explain a segment of contemporary history by means of his materialist conception upon the basis of the prevailing economic condition. In the Communist Manifesto, this theory had been applied in rough outline to the entire modern history, and in Marx's and my own articles in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung it had constantly been used for the interpretation of current political events. Here, however, it became a matter of tracing the inherent causal connection of a development extending over several years which was for the whole of Europe as critical as it was typical, that is, bringing back, in the sense of the author, upon political events the effects of what, in the last analysis, were economic causes.

In an attempt to judge events and series of events taken from current history, one will never be able to go back to the very last economic causes. Even in these days, when the professional press furnishes material so copiously, it will be impossible even in England to trace the course of industry and commerce in the world's market, or to follow the changes in production methods