Page:The Paris Commune - Karl Marx - ed. Lucien Sanial (1902).djvu/16



it not for certain happenings of recent date in the international socialist movement, which give to the contents of this book an additional interest, there would be no occasion here for a lengthy preface. The three manifestoes of the International Workingmen's Association, issued from the pen of Karl Marx in 1870–71, and supplemented by an introduction which his life-long friend and co-laborer Frederick Engels wrote twenty years later, speak indeed for themselves. Insomuch as their perfect understanding by the present generation may require an ampler and truer knowledge of certain important events therein briefly mentioned than can be obtained from the "historic" works of capitalist mouthpieces, a footnote has been appended wherever an explanation or comment seemed most needful. But, realizing the insufficiency of annotations for the purpose in view, as well as their interference with the concentration of the reader's mind upon the text, the editor has sparingly resorted to this mode of information, preferring to refer the student to Lissagaray's admirable History of the Commune for a methodical and reliable presentation of nearly all the facts which it is essential to know in order to grasp, in their fulness and verity the historic, philosophic, and economic generalizations