Revolution and Counter-Revolution

Revolution and Counter Revolution is the famous chain of articles or letters that Marx wrote for the New York Tribune between 1851 and 1852.

Although Marx had only been in England some eighteen months and was living in conditions of horrible poverty and bitter sufferings, these letters are among the most lucid and readable of his writings and were described by Engels as ‘excellent specimens of that marvellous gift of apprehending clearly the character, the significance and the necessary consequences of great historical events. The series created such a sensation that, before it had been completed, Marx was appointed the Tribune’s London correspondent.

Forty-five years later Marx’s daughter, Eleanor Aveling, published the letters in their present form and this new paperback edition makes them available in a popular, modern format with her lively and illuminating introduction.

The letters describe the ‘revolutionary torrent’ which flooded Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century, spread through Germany, Prussia, Poland, France and England and culminated in ‘the last successful flash of popular energy’ in Vienna and ‘the bloody struggle in Paris during June of 1848.