Rosdolsky’s Methodology and Lange’s Revisionism

Abstract

Among non-Stalinist but leadership-conscious Marxists, there is hardly a work that has gained the acclaim accorded to The Making of Marx’s “Capital” by Roman Rosdolsky. Published in Germany in 1968, it has now been brought out by Pluto Press in an English translation for the fantastic sum of $35. It is as if the price itself testifies to its importance. If not a “classic,” it is, after all, about the only available lengthy, serious commentary on Marx’s Grundrisse, which has only recently been published in English for the first time. Roman Rosdolsky, a well-known Marxist theoretician, tells us that ever since 1948, when he obtained one of the rare copies of the Grundrisse then available, he has been studying that “Rough Draft” of Capital and set himself a twofold task: (1) to write a commentary, or more precisely, an exposition of the new discovery “mainly in Marx’s own words”; and (2) “to make a scientific evaluation of some of the new findings which it contained” (p. xi). The preoccupation with the latter comprises Roman Rosdolsky’s original contribution. To it he devotes Parts One and Seven—“Introduction,” i.e., mainly the origin and structure of the work; and “Critical Excursus.” To these 225 pages should really be added some 35 pages (Part Six, “Conclusion”) which summarize what he found in the exposition and commentary of the work.1 Since, as he correctly notes, “Of all the problems in Marx’s economic theory the most neglected has been that of his method both in general and, specifically, in relation to Hegel” (p. xi), methodology is the underlying motif not only of his “critical excursus,” but the reason for writing the whole of the 581 pages. I wish I could report that a genuine contribution to dialectical methodology had been made by Rosdolsky. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. If there is anything that is totally missing in his massive study, it is dialectics. To the extent to which he does make a contribution to the