Socialism: Utopian and Scientific of thousands of copies. Throughout the decade of the 1860s, Karl Marx, close personal friend and political associate of Friedrich Engels, dedicated himself to the study of economics, culminating in the publication of the first volume of "Das Kapital" in 1867. Marx's lengthy and ponderous volume was extremely difficult for the average to penetrate, however, leading Engels to suggest to Marx in a letter of September 16, 1868 that a short popularized version of "Das Kapital" for a working class audience was urgently needed. "If it is not written, some Moses or other will come along and do it and
Grundrisse Grundrisse The Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie ("Fundamentals of Political Economy Criticism") is a lengthy, unfinished manuscript by the German philosopher Karl Marx. The series of seven notebooks were rough-drafted by Marx, chiefly for purposes of self-clarification, during the winter of 1857-8. Left aside by Marx in 1858, it remained unpublished until 1939. The "Grundrisse" is very wide-ranging in subject matter and covers all six sections of Marx's economics (of which only one, the first volume of "Das Kapital", ever reached a final form). It is often described as the rough draft of "Das Kapital", although there is considerable