In mid-1909 The Charles H. Kerr company completed among their most important contributions to the US workers’ movement, the decade-long project of translating a producing all three volumes of Marx’s Capital in English for the first time. The first authorized English edition of Volume Three of Capital. Capital arrives in America and it is not an overstatement to say that Charles H. Kerr brought it here. Only available in English through an extremely limited number of imports from London in the late 1880s, no complete, authorized edition of Capital was printed in the U.S. until this. Kerr began the project to publish all three volumes in 1902, two and three for the first time in English. Marx’s defining work went to press at Chicago’s John T. Higgins printers on September 1, 1906.

Among the single most editions of any work published in U.S. revolutionary history, this full version of Marx’s magnum opus was based on the 4th German Edition compared with the authorized translation done by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling in 1887 and overseen by Engels. To complete the translation process, Kerr received funds from Eugene Dietzgen, son of Joseph Dietzgen and patron of the Second International., ‘as a gift to the U.S. socialist movement.’ Marxist economist, translator, and writer Ernest Untermann holed up on a chicken farm outside of Orlando, Florida and began the massive task in early 1905. Working on all three volumes of Capital simultaneously, he finished Volume One in July, 1906. He revised the footnotes, added an index, and found ten extra pages of text not in the previous English translation. The first run of 2000 quickly sold out and within several years over ten thousand had been sold. For the first time anywhere, Volume Two appeared in English in July, 1907. Financial needs (Kerr sold the books at a loss to encourage sales, and reading) delayed the completion of Volume Three, also the first time seen in English, until it was printed in July, 1909.

Sold as a set, these editions of Capital carry the ‘Jimmy Higgins’ , union bug, the long-time printer for Kerr, meaning they are the first authorized editions produced by a union shop. Priced at $2.00 a volume, $1.20 for stockholders (and only $3 for the set) in the Kerr Co-operative, these would be read by a generation of American Marxists as all three volumes went through numerous printings. Not superseded by subsequent translations until Ben Fowke’s 1976 translation. Here, Untermann provides a substantial introduction to volume three.

‘The Third Volume of Marx’s “Capital” by Ernest Untermann from The International Socialist Review. Vol. 9 No. 12. June, 1909.

THE first generation of proletarian students in Europe received the economic theories of Marx, not as a complete and connected system, but in installments, American socialists have been in the same position until the present time. The result has been the same in Europe and America. With a few exceptions, the Marx students, who were compelled to assimilate his theories in this disconnected manner, misunderstood and misinterpreted them. Out of this desultory study arose an immense volume of controversies, attacking and defending what was supposed to be Marx’s position, but what was in fact merely a caricature made of his system by friends and foe.

Marx had become clear in his mind about the fundamental outlines of his historical and economic theories by 1847. Even most of the details of special problems had been worked out by him in a series of rough manuscripts by 1863. These manuscripts contained the essential portions of all three volumes of “Capital” and of the material now published in Germany under the title of “Theories of Surplus-Value.” Later manuscripts amplified and perfected the older ones, but added nothing new to the fundamental principles.

Under these circumstances, the antagonists of Marx in the bourgeois camp, who insinuated that he had “abandoned” in his second and third volumes the principles laid down in the first one, added but another proof of their mental incapacity to all the others which they had given previously. For if Marx had abandoned his economic principles, he would have done so before he wrote volume I of “Capital,” and this whole work would then be an illustration of his disloyalty to principles laid down by him in his manuscripts. But as these manuscripts were precisely the material, from which he constructed this great work, it is evident that the professors did not understand enough about political economy to grasp his meaning.

True, it was not the professors alone who misunderstood him. Even most of his sympathizers did not get a correct conception of his economic system. And that was a natural result of the disconnected way, in which the economic works of Marx appeared, and of the lack of mental training among the working people. But that even so his system could be understood by close study and with sufficient mental preparations, was proved by Josef Dietzgen’s review of the first volume of “Capital,” in 1868, and by Karl Kautsky’s popular volume on “The Economic Teachings of Karl Marx,” the first edition of which was published in 1886, eight years before the publication of volume III of “Capital.” Kautsky could justly write in his preface to the eighth edition of his popularization: “It is a widespread idea, which is shared even by some Marxists, that the interpretation formerly given of the first volume of “Capital” by us Marxians was completely overthrown and made untenable by the third volume. Nothing is more erroneous than that. I have subjected my work to a thorough revision after the publication of the third volume, and have not found the least change necessary in my theoretical position. This was to be expected from the outset, for Engels had inspected and endorsed my manuscript of the first edition at a time, when he was already familiar with the contents of volume III. If he had found in my book any conceptions, which would have been overthrown by volume III, he certainly would have called by attention to this fact.”

However, what was possible for Dietzgen and Kautsky, was impossible for the vast mass of the rank and file of Marx students. They lacked the exceptional training, which Dietzgen and Kautsky had undergone.

Marx had the essential parts of his system before him, when he wrote out the individual sections. He knew what relation each part bore to the whole. He knew that there was no contradiction between these individual parts and the whole system. But most of his readers, not accustomed to a systematic scientific study, and generally unfamiliar with political economy, received and saw only the individual parts of the Marxian system as they issued from the press. And all who have tried to piece these various parts together into a connected and organic system, will remember, what a difficult task that was, and how often they despaired of accomplishing it.

The new generation of American socialists will not have to struggle with this difficulty any more. They will read all three volumes in rapid succession. The logical consistency of these volumes will become clear to them without much difficulty.

The light, which this third volume, now published for the first time in English, throws upon the preceding two volumes of “Capital,” reaches far beyond this work. It clears up many doubts, which must have arisen in the mind of a critical student, who read the other economic writings of Marx, which appeared long before the first volume of “Capital” saw the world. A glance at the entire economic literature of Marx proves, that he worked consistently towards the end reached in volume III long*before he put his hand to the first volume of this work.

Already the “Poverty of Philosophy,” in 1847, demonstrated the superiority of Marx’s historical method over the metaphysical speculations of a thinker like Proudhon, who tried to solve economic riddles, not by going down into the basic depths of the process of production and following up its historical development, but by a philosophical mimicry of Kant’s “antinomies” or Hegel’s “negations.” Even though Marx still uses the economic terminology of the classic economists in this controversy with Proudhon, his historical clearsightedness enables him to point out the utopian meanderings of the radical bourgeois Proudhon, who, unconscious to himself, vacillates back and forth between the capitalist economist and the communist thinkers, without rising to the level of either. The working class point of view, which sprang forth so strongly soon after the “Poverty of Philosophy” in the “Communist Manifesto,” expresses itself uncompromisingly in this controversy with Proudhon and opens up a deep chasm between Marx and his adversary.

While the historical point of view of the “Poverty of Philosophy” is already that of “Capital,” the details of the economic theories had not yet crystallized into that clear distinction of economic categories, which enabled Marx later on to advance beyond Adam Smith and Ricardo in his analysis of exchange-value. In the “Poverty of Philosophy” as well as in “Wage-Labor and Capital,” a series of lectures delivered to a workingmen’s circle in Brussels, in 1847, Marx does not yet distinguish between “labor” as an activity creating exchange- values, but having no exchange-value itself, and “labor power” as a commodity, whose exchange-value is determined by the labor time required for its reproduction. He still uses the term “labor” for both things, just as the classic economists do.

At that time, Marx had studied political economy only for a few years, and knew the English economists only from French translations. Besides, the political situation compelled him continually to interrupt his studies and take part in the various revolutionary movements that sprang up in Germany and France from 1847 to 1849. Later, when he was getting his manuscript of “Capital” ready for the press, the organization of the “International Workingmen’s Association,” in 1864, interfered with his economic writings. Had it not been for such interruptions, and for various attacks of illness, Marx surely would have completed “Capital” before his death.

The next link in the economic theories of Marx, which became public, was his “Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” in 1859. It contains the essential portions of his analysis of exchange-value and use-value, which were later embodied in the first volume of “Capital.” As Marx himself explains in his preface to the first edition of this volume, “the substance of that earlier work is summarized in the first three chapters of this volume. This is done not merely for the sake of connection and completeness. The presentation of the subject-matter is improved. As far as circumstances in any way permit, many points only hinted at in the earlier book are here worked out more fully, whilst, conversely, points worked out fully there are only touched upon in this volume. The sections on the history of the theories of value and of money are now, of course, left out altogether. The reader of the earlier work will find, however, in the notes to the first chapter additional sources of reference relative to the history of these theories.”

While “Capital” thus contains a more improved presentation of the fundamentals of Marx’s theory of value, as first laid down in the “Critique,” this earlier work is famous for the systematic statement of the materialist conception of history contained in its introduction. Marx had practically formulated this conception in his mind by 1845. In the “Poverty of Philosophy” and the “Communist Manifesto,” this conception first showed its results in a tangible form. In the Critique” it received its most systematic formulation. And in the three volumes of “Capital” as well as in numerous historical writings, Marx demonstrated, what this conception can really accomplish for the science of human society.

The question of exchange-value and use-value had been cleared up by the “Critique,” but not that of surplus-value and its relation to profit. “Wage-Labor and Capital” had, indeed, contained the conception, that capital was the fruit of surplus-labor. But as “labor” and “labor-power” had not been analyzed in their relation to value, the question of surplus-value, of profit, of the role of prices in the ex-change between labor-power and capital, of the production of surplus-value and its transformation into profit, had not been clearly stated or solved.

The next public step in this direction was made by Marx in his lecture on “Value, Price and Profit,” delivered before the General Council of the “International” on June 26, 1865. This lecture gives a glimpse of the Marxian system as a whole, and is not only a fine synopsis of the first volume of “Capital,” but of all three volumes. And if the hints given by this lecture had been appreciated by the readers of volume I, many of them might have saved themselves a good deal of controversy about the question, whether commodities are always and everywhere sold at their full labor value. For in it Marx refutes Weston’s assumption of a fixed wage fund, shows that the proportions of the various factors in production and distribution are continually changing, that prices do not depend upon the free will of the capitalists, but upon economic laws, and that a general rise in wages, if possible, could lead to a general rise of prices only, because higher wages would increase the demand of the workers for articles of consumption and because their demand might exceed the supply of goods. In this way, a deviation of prices from values would take place temporarily, but the swing of competition would gradually balance prices again. This is a hint, the significance of which is made very clear by the detailed analysis of volume III, of “Capital,” and a careful reader might have found this hint even in volume I of this work. Still more significant is the other hint given by this lecture in regard to the transfer of capital from one sphere of production to another in consequence of a rise of the average rate of profit in one sphere and its fall in another. For an average rate of profit for all capitals of a certain sphere necessarily means that the individual capitalists in that sphere do not sell their commodities at their individual values, but at prices varying from these values, so that they reap profits not in proportion to the surplus-value turned out by each individual capital, but in proportion to the percentage, which each individual capital represents in the total capital of that sphere.

All this was indicated by Marx long before he published Volume I of “Capital”. If these hints had been kept in mind during the study of this volume, all the controversies about: the alleged sale of all commodities at their individual value might have been avoided. This lecture might well have served as a basis for a solution of the conundrum, which Engels propounded to the economists in his preface to Volume II, in 1885, namely: How do you reconcile Marx’s theory of value with the fact that equal capitals, with different proportions of constant and variable capital, got the same average profit during the same period? For the answer was already contained in this lecture, when Marx, referring to Adam Smith, said that the “natural price” (average value) was the center, around which the prices of commodities continually fluctuated. This hint coupled with the analyses of the effect of changes in the proportion between constant and variable capital upon the production of surplus-value, sufficed as an indication of the direction, in which the solution of Engels’ conundrum could be found.

It is true, that Marx, for the sake of simplicity, occasionally calls in this lecture “rate of profit” what he later on calls “rate of surplus-values.” But in his illustration he assumes that the capital, of which he speaks, is one of average composition, which sells its commodities at its value, so that the profit in this case equals the surplus-value. And if in this case he calculates the rate of profit on the variable instead of on the total capital, he has corrected this little slip later on in his “Capital,” so that there could be no misunderstanding of his meaning. In all other respects, the terminology of this lecture is that of “Capital.”

The only points, then, which Marx does not clearly state in this lecture, are: The effect of changes in the proportion between constant and variable capital upon the production of absolute and relative surplus-value; the distinction between surplus-value and profit; the transformation of surplus-value into profit by means of prices which may vary from the individual value of commodities; the general laws by which this transformation is regulated.

The first point was fully cleared up, when volume I of “Capital” appeared in 1867. But neither this volume nor the second volume cleared up the question of the relation of surplus-value to profit. The basic assumption of the first two volumes is rather, that all commodities are sold at their value, and the student who is not familiar with the previous economic writings of Marx, or who has forgotten what they contain, is apt to overlook, that Marx makes this assumption merely for the sake of simplifying the problem, but does not wish to be understood that this is absolutely the actual state of affairs in reality.

However, for the inquiries in volumes I and II, this assumption corresponded closely enough to reality. For these inquiries are dealing with the social capital as a whole in the sphere of production or of circulation, and for the total social capital it is true enough, that commodities are sold at their value, always remembering, that here, as in other fields of science, absolute mathematical exactness does not exist.

Especially in volume I, which deals more specifically with the historical relations between wage workers and capitalists and does not go into the question of the relations of the various types of capitalists among themselves, there is no need of departing from the standpoint of society and its capital and labor as a whole.

Neither volume I nor volume II of “Capital” deals with the division of the total social surplus-value among the various kinds of capitalists. The question of the transformation of surplus-value into profit is not touched in these volumes. The first merely deals with the production of commodities, the second with their circulation, and the various functions and disguises of capital are analyzed in their relations to necessary and surplus labor.

Nevertheless, a close study of these two volumes and their comparison with volume III shows, that the first two pave the way for the analyses of the third. While volume I reveals the deep significance of the division of capital info a constant and a variable part for the production of surplus-value, volume II adds another link in the evidence by pointing out the significance of the division of constant capital into a fixed and a circulating portion for the turnover of capital, and thus far the circulation of surplus-value. The significance of this distinction becomes clear, when we turn to volume III and study the role of fixed capital in helping to make up the cost-price and the price of production (cost-price plus average profit.) This distinction also enables us to understand how it is that the capitalist, who calculates his rate of profit on the total capital, whether all the fixed capital has been used up or not, can always ,make his returns appear smaller than they really are, when we inquire into the actual value of capital that has been transferred to the commodities.

When we look back in this way over the various economic writings of Marx and over the first two volumes of “Capital,” we can readily understand that volume III does not abandon a single fundamental proposition laid down in those earlier writings or in the first two volumes. All of them are logical steps in the same direction, all of them are based upon the same fundamental material. If the terminology is not uniform throughout, still the meaning of these various terms is always thoroughly explained, and it is uniform at least throughout all three volumes of “Capital.” Only a superficial reader, or a superficial thinker, can find any flagrant contradictions between these three volumes, or between them and the earlier writings of Marx. But those, who really have a scientific love for political economy, will find a never-ending delight in following up the Marxian analyses and comparing the various parts of his system, and their organic consistency, with the loose and really contradictory fragments of his adversaries.

In this light, the Marxian system of economy towers high and strong above all others in the world’s history, and explains more nearly and more naturally the actual processes in the historical development of human modes of production, especially of capitalist production, than any other system ever discovered by any human brain. And no critique outside or inside of the ranks of the Socialist Parties has ever touched the solid rock of its foundations. Neither has any critic ever offered to place another and superior system upon its ruins. What has been attempted in this line, has from the outset demonstrated the weakness, lack of cohesion and superficiality of the Marx critics.

What Marx says in volume I about exchange-value and use-value, constant and variable capital, and what he adds in volume II about the fixed constant and circulating constant capital, offers the natural material, from which he constructs his conception of the technical and value-composition of capital, which together make out the organic composition of capital. And with this organic composition for a starting point, the transformation of surplus-value into profit, and the equalization of the various rates of profit into an average rate of profit in the various spheres of production, and their equalization into a social or general rate of profit, becomes a logical continuation of the fundamental analyses of the first two volumes.

It is then seen, that the assumption of volumes I and II, to the effect that commodities are sold at their value, actually holds good in two ways: First, it holds good for the total capital of society as a whole; second, it holds good for capitals, which have the same organic composition as the total social capital; those are called capitals of average composition.

But not all capitals of a certain society, or of a certain sphere of production, have this average composition. Some are behind in the development of their composition. These employ relatively more variable than constant capital and are called capitals of lower composition. Others are ahead of the rest and employ relatively more constant than variable capital; those are called capitals of higher composition.

Now all capitals produce commodities for sale in a competitive market. If the relation between supply and demand is normal. that is, if they are approximately balanced, the capitals of average com- position sell their products at their value (constant plus variable capital plus surplus-value); all other capitals likewise sell their products at this average price set by the capitals of average composition. But since capitals of higher composition produce commodities at a lower value than the average, they receive in the average profit more surplus-value than they would, if they sold their goods at their individual value. And since capitals of lower composition produce commodities at a higher value than the average, they lose some of their individual surplus-value when getting the average profit.

In this way, all capitals sell their commodities at an average price determined by the average conditions of production in the various spheres, and in society as a whole, and the fundamental department of production, which sounds the keynote, as it were, is that in which the necessities of life are produced, which form the bulk of the subsistence of the wage workers and thus determine the value of the variable capital in its organic proportion to the constant capital. Each capital adds to the cost-price (constant plus variable capital consumed) the average profit, and this sum constitutes what Marx calls the individual price of production. The price of production of the capitals of average composition is the average price of production.

But while demand and supply tend toward a balance, they never balance altogether in reality, for any length of time. The population increases the productive power of labor through technical improvements, through the cultivation of new and more fertile soils, etc., increases likewise, production is planless and tends to overreact: the demand, crop failures or bumper crops shift the balance, capitals crowd into one sphere of production and leave another, laborers are plentiful in one section of a country and scarce in another, and so the regulating position of the average capitals of one period is taken by capitals of a different organic composition of another period. And since the capitals of higher composition are in the most favorable position, whenever a change in technical methods or in the proportions between demand and supply intensifies competition, they can undersell the capitals of average and lower composition and still make a profit.

Under these circumstances, the average rate of profit is never a tangible or fixed rate, but rather assumes the aspect of a liquid, ever shifting magnitude. And since under the pressure of competition there is a continual tendency to increase the constant capital faster than the variable, the rate of profit has a tendency to fall, so long as competition rules the market. But the natural outcome of composition is monopoly. The so-called “life of trade” dies and a new power steps upon the throne. With the advent of monopoly, the tendency of the constant capital to increase faster than the variable capital continues, but the monopoly has no longer any competition to fear, it enables the monopolists to fix prices more in accord with their wishes, even in the world market, and this conscious and arbitrary human control now interferes with the uncontrolled pressure of competition and largely oversteps the limits set under competition by the law of value.

This power of monopoly to overcome the law of value shows itself in many ways even while competition still rules the world at large. It shows its first signs in two institutions, which have from the outset carried an element of monopoly in them, namely in interest and ground rent.

Interest and ground rent according to Marx are forms of surplus-value. Under a capitalist form of production, both interest and ground rent are more or less under the sway of the industrial profit, and it is controlled by the law of value. So far as the rate of interest and the rate of ground rent depend upon the industrial rate of profit they must have the same tendency to fall as the rate of profit. But ground rent and interest are from the outset the outcome of a combination of things, which enable their beneficiaries to enjoy the fruits of monopoly. They are, of course, always due to society and to class rule, and to that extent they are not “natural” monopolies, not the outcome of natural, but of social law. But both money-capital and land can be easily monopolized, and to the extent that they are monopolized, they can escape the workings of the law of value to a greater or smaller degree. Nevertheless, the law of value controls them more or less, so long as competition rules the industrial world.

But with the institution of banks, of stock companies, of bills of exchange, of fictitious capital, interest becomes to a large extent exempt from the law of value. There is no actual value back of the greater part of the capitalist “securities,” and even the bank deposits represent sums which are backed but by an infinitesimal amount of actual values. Yet interest is charged on all these things, and so far as this sort of interest is concerned, Marx himself says that it does not depend upon the law of value, but upon “accident,” and that there is no law, by which its rate is determined. With the coming of industrial monopoly even the last “necessary” connection between interest and industrial profit is destroyed, and monopolists can sway production and distribution without much regard for social laws. But they cannot escape them in the end.

It has often been pointed out of late that in the United States the rate of interest is now as high as it was before the Civil War, or even higher. And it has been said that this contradicts the Marxian theory, and that we should revise our ideas on this point. But this new “revisionism,” like the older one, is based upon a misconception of the Marxian analysis of interest. Marx has never claimed that the rate of interest absolutely follows the rate of industrial profit, but has merely pointed out that so long as interest is paid out of industrial profits made under competition, so long interest must depend upon the laws of industrial productivity. He has, however, never overlooked the fact that banks, money lenders, stock speculators, etc., enjoy a monopoly and work largely with fictitious values, and he has never denied that the rate of interest may largely be determined by market condition, which enable money monopolists to charge usury rates for the use of their “capital.” We need not revise his theory, on that score in the least. It suffices fully for the explanation of all phenomena, which the advent of monopoly, even in industry, may place before us for solution.

In ground rent, likewise, Marx has from the outset acknowledged that it may be the outcome of monopoly. He distinguishes three historical forms of ground rent: Labor Rent, Rent in Kind, and | Money Rent. He distinguishes two main forms of capitalistic money rent: Differential Rent and Absolute Rent. Differential Rent, according to him, appears in two principal forms: Differential Rent I arises through the investment of equal or unequal capitals side by side upon lands of different natural fertility. Differential Rent II arise through the investment of equal or unequal capitals successively upon the same land with different results.

Absolute Rent, according to Marx, is due from the outset to conditions, which enable the landlord to pocket any surplus profits, which may arise from market constellations in which the capitalist may sell his agricultural product at monopoly prices.

The two forms of differential rent arise in the last analysis from the increased productivity of labor due to a monopolization of superior soils, and of natural powers, so that capitals invested upon these better soils are enabled to sell their agricultural products at an average price of production determined by the cost price and profit of the capitals invested in the worst land. The surplus profit, which is thus made by the favored capitals, does not enter into the equalization brought about by the general rate of profit, but is paid to the land- lords in the form of rent.

All this does not contradict Marx’s law of value in the least, but is rather built up upon the law of value as the fundamental premise. So far as interest and ground rent modify this law or escape its rule, it is due to conditions of monopoly, which Marx has not overlooked but emphasized from the very beginning. No revision of his theories is necessary in this respect but only a revision of the misconceptions of the would-be revisionists by themselves. If they were as eager to revise their own muddled concepts as they are to revise Marx’s. theories, they would get to work studying Marx more profoundly, and that would be of great benefit to themselves and to the socialist movement.

A question which has long bothered our impossibilists who are only revisionists at the radical pole of the socialist movement, is that of secondary exploitation. They have strenuously denied that the proletariat can be exploited in the circulation of commodities as well as in their production. According to them commodities are always and everywhere sold at their value, the whole production and circulation of society resolves itself into mathematical example, and value, price, profit and surplus-value come out in the end without a fraction. This according to them is Marx’s theory of value. I have had to stand a good deal of abuse for about a decade whenever I tried to make my impossibilist friends understand that that was a theory of value of their own making. At last they can read volume III and see for themselves that Marx considered a secondary exploitation of the proletariat as one of the principal means by which the rate of profit is prevented from falling. And it is evident, that this secondary exploitation must be far greater in a stage of industrial monopoly like the one in which we are now living, than it was under the stage of competition in which Marx wrote. Here, then, is another opportunity for a “revision” not of Marxian theories, but of the muddled conceptions of the impossibilist revisionists. Or, if they stick to their own theory of value it is up to them to demonstrate that Marx’s theory of value is wrong in this respect. I shall await developments with a great deal of interest.

Of course Marxian economy is not absolute in the sense that it can not be developed and improved a good deal. It can and shall and Marx and Engels were the first to desire it. But before we younger socialists can attempt that, it is necessary that we should have understood what Marx and Engels actually taught.

Engels has added some contributions to Marx’s economy in later articles, which were published soon after Engels died. One of these is an interesting sketch of the role of labor in the humanization of the anthropoid ape, the other a discussion of the relations between the law of value and the average rate of profit which comments on some of the misinterpretations of Marx’s analyses by various economists and clears up a good many doubtful points. I hope to publish these two articles in the near future in an English translation.

In the meantime I hope that a large body of American proletarians and their friends will delve into the rich mine, which volume III of “Capital” offers to them. And by the time that they have assimilated its contents I hope that either myself or some other comrade will have translated Kautsky’s edition of the “Theories of Surplus-Value,” which gives many interesting glimpses of the historical development of this important theory and adds materially to an understanding of “Capital” itself.

Best of all I hope that after this the discussions of the economic theories of Marx will proceed on a higher level. This should be the immediate result of a study of volume III, at least among socialists. From the capitalist professors, I don’t expect much, of course, and none of us cares very much, anyway, what they think or say. We can take care of ourselves, thanks to Marx.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v09n12-jun-1909-ISR-riaz-gog.pdf