A Review of German Academic Research on Marx’s *London Notebooks*

German Marxist scholars’ research on the *London Notebooks* was concentrated mainly in the 1970s to the 1990s, a period when the trend of Marxological research was also prevalent in the West. This meant that from the outset their study of the *London Notebooks* had to possess a certain theoretical orientation: to critique the interpretive methods of bourgeois Marxology that severed and isolated the integrity of Marx’s thought. Thus, overall, the German academic circles of the time, whether in the editing and publication of the *London Notebooks* or in their theoretical analysis of them, all emphasized that the *London Notebooks* of 1850–1853 constituted an intrinsic link in the development of Marx’s thought, and in particular that they formed an important theoretical foundation for *Capital* and its manuscripts.

德国马克思主义学者对《伦敦笔记》的研究主要集中在1970至1990年代，而此时亦是马克思学的研究之风在西方盛行的时期，这意味着他们对《伦敦笔记》的研究从一开始就需要有一定的理论针对性：批判割裂和孤立马克思思想整体性的资产阶级马克思学的解释方法。因而，总的来看，当时的德国学界不论是对《伦敦笔记》的编辑出版还是对其进行的理论分析，都着重突出了1850—1853年的《伦敦笔记》是马克思思想发展历程的一个内在环节，特别是它构成了《资本论》及其手稿的重要理论基础。

I. The Halle Research Group and the *London Notebooks* as the Prehistory of Marx’s “Six-Book Plan”

一、哈勒研究小组与作为马克思“六册计划”前史的《伦敦笔记》

In 1969, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (also known as Halle-Wittenberg University) accepted a cooperation agreement from the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the German Democratic Republic. The contents included: first, responsibility for editing MEGA² Part II, Volumes 3.3 and 3.4 (partial texts of the *Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863*); second, training 15 academic successors and potential collaborators for the editorial board responsible for this part of the MEGA² editing work and for the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the German Democratic Republic; third, concentrated research on Marx’s political economy from 1850 to 1863. This contract opened a golden period of systematic research on the *London Notebooks* for the Halle Marx-Engels Research Group (hereafter “the Halle Research Group”). Over the following 20-plus years, under the leadership of group head Wolfgang Jahn and others, the group completed the editing of MEGA² Part IV, Volumes 7–9, i.e., Notebooks I–XIV of the *London Notebooks*. Alongside these commendable editorial achievements, the Halle Research Group also reaped important theoretical results in textual research on the *London Notebooks*, most of which were collected in the group’s internal journal, *Hallesche Arbeitsblätter zur Marx-Engels-Forschung*.

1969年，马丁路德·哈勒-维滕贝格大学（亦称哈勒-维腾贝格大学）接受了一份来自德意志民主共和国马列主义研究院的合作协议，内容包括：第一，负责编辑MEGA2第二部分第3.3和3.4卷（《1861—1863年经济学手稿》的部分文本）；第二，为负责这部分MEGA2编辑工作的编委会、德意志民主共和国马列主义研究院培养15名学术接班人和潜在的合作者；第三，集中研究马克思1850—1863年的政治经济学。这份合同为哈勒的马克思恩格斯研究小组（简称“哈勒研究小组”）开启了系统研究《伦敦笔记》的黄金时期。在此后的20多年里，该小组在小组负责人沃尔夫冈·雅恩（Wolfgang Jahn）等人的领导下完成了MEGA2第四部分第7—9卷，即《伦敦笔记》第Ⅰ—XIV笔记本的编辑工作。伴随着可喜的编辑成绩，哈勒研究小组在关于《伦敦笔记》的文本研究方面也收获了重要的理论成果，这些成果大都收录在小组的内部学刊《马克思恩格斯研究哈勒论文集》（Hallesche Arbeitsblätter zur Marx-Engels-Forschung）中。

All the research work of the Halle Research Group, including the editing and study of the *London Notebooks*, was carried out under the theoretical keynote set by Jahn. This theoretical keynote was the theoretical principle and research plan he formulated in his article “Problems of Marx’s Development of Political Economy in the Period 1850 to 1863” for presenting Marx’s “six-book plan” for his work on political economy. Of course, the complex academic environment of the time had first to be considered. Jahn pointed out that after the 1968 publication of Roman Rosdolsky’s *The Making of Marx’s ‘Capital’*, Marx’s notebooks and manuscripts from the period 1850–1863 were constantly subjected to revision and distortion by bourgeois Marxologists. They dismembered the complex historical process of Marx’s political-economic research into isolated scientific-methodological questions divorced from class struggle, and this had become an academic fashion. Faced with the theoretical predicament swept along by bourgeois Marxology, reaffirming the integrity and continuity of Marx’s thought, especially his political-economic research, became an urgent task for the Halle Research Group. However, this academic background was only one reason for the research keynote of the Halle Research Group; another, more important factor was Marx’s famous “six-book plan” proposed in 1858 for his political-economic research. Jahn and his Halle Research Group insisted that there was no indication or evidence that Marx had ever abandoned this plan, and that Marx’s objective analysis of bourgeois social economy was the inevitable result of his application of the dialectical materialist methodology to research on capitalist society and its economic laws, proceeding from the abstract to the concrete. Thus, reconstructing Marx’s “six-book plan” naturally became the core of the Halle Research Group’s study of Marx’s thought. But Jahn also realized that to undertake this extremely difficult theoretical work, it was first necessary to conduct a comprehensive and complex verification and study of Marx’s historical legacy. This meant that the *London Notebooks* were of paramount importance, because this body of documents constituted the prehistory of Marx’s “six-book plan”; collating and studying the *London Notebooks* would be an important theoretical foundation for re-establishing this “plan.” This was mainly reflected in the following two points.

哈勒研究小组的全部研究工作，包括对《伦敦笔记》的编辑和研究，都是在雅恩制定的理论基调下展开的。这一理论基调是他在《1850至1863年期间马克思的政治经济学发展问题》一文中为呈现马克思政治经济学著作的“六册计划”而拟定的理论原则和研究方案。当然，这首先要考虑到当时复杂的学术环境。雅恩指出，在1968年罗曼·罗斯多尔斯基(Roman Rosdolsky)的《马克思〈资本论〉的形成》（Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Marxschen „Kapital“）一书出版之后，马克思在1850—1863年期间写作的笔记和手稿不断地遭到资产阶级马克思学家的修正和曲解。他们把马克思复杂的政治经济学研究的历史过程肢解为脱离了阶级斗争的孤立的科学方法论问题，而这已经成为一种学术时尚。面对被资产阶级马克思学裹挟的理论困境，重申马克思的思想，尤其是其政治经济学研究的完整性和连续性，成为哈勒研究小组迫在眉睫的任务。不过，这个学术背景只是构成哈勒研究小组的研究基调的其中一个原因，另外一个更重要的因素是，马克思在1858年为其政治经济学研究提出的著名的“六册计划”。雅恩及其哈勒研究小组坚持认为，没有迹象和证据表明马克思曾经放弃过这一计划，马克思对资产阶级社会经济的客观分析是基于其运用辩证唯物主义的方法论对资本主义社会及其经济规律进行从抽象上升到具体的研究的必然结果。如此一来，重建马克思的“六册计划”自然而然地成为哈勒研究小组的马克思思想研究的核心。但雅恩同时也意识到，如果要着手开展这项极其艰难的理论工作，首先就需要对马克思的历史遗产进行全面、复杂的考证与研究。这意味着《伦敦笔记》至关紧要，因为该文献构成了马克思“六册计划”的前史，整理和研究《伦敦笔记》将是重新确立这一“计划”的重要理论基础。这主要体现在以下两点上。

First, Jahn believed that Marx’s investigations in the *London Notebooks* of issues such as money, banking and finance, crisis, technology, and world history provided many new insights for the construction of his theoretical framework. Even though the research of this period was incomplete, and some content was not reflected in *Capital*, we can still discern traces of these theoretical influences within *Capital*.

第一，雅恩认为，马克思在《伦敦笔记》中对货币、银行和金融、危机、技术、世界历史等问题的考察为其理论框架的构建提供了许多新的见解，即使这一时期的研究并不完整，有些内容也并未体现在《资本论》中，但我们仍能从《资本论》中窥见这些理论影响的痕迹。

Second, Marx’s grasp of the research method in the narrow sense was also formed through the *London Notebooks*. Jahn pointed out: “The excerpt notebooks clearly show that for Marx, as a materialist, when researching an object, only objective reality and social practice can serve as the starting point. There is no doubt that the question of the starting point of research and the question of moving from the abstract to the concrete are among the most important issues concerning the relationship between the method of inquiry and the method of presentation. But if, like some bourgeois ‘Marxologists,’ one restricts this relationship to this point, that is one-sided and becomes very erroneous.” Therefore, Jahn emphasized that Marx did not conduct research in isolation, without presuppositions, starting from “point zero,” but rather used “historical-collectivist and practical experiential concepts” to elaborate his theory. This is precisely what all of Marx’s excerpt notebooks and jottings from the 1850s onward represent. The surviving notebooks and documents published in MEGA² would “bear witness to the ‘Mont Blanc’ of facts, materials, statistics, and documentary excerpts that Marx had to master in the course of his research,” and would also present how Marx, step by step, through the accumulation of his own theory, achieved the unveiling of the laws of motion of the capitalist economy.

第二，马克思对狭义上的研究方法的把握也是通过《伦敦笔记》形成的。雅恩指出：“摘录笔记本清楚地表明，对于马克思来说，作为一个唯物主义者，在研究一个对象时，只有客观现实、社会实践才能成为出发点。毫无疑问，研究起点的问题和从抽象到具体的问题，是研究方式与表述方式之间关系的最重要的问题之一。但如果像某些资产阶级‘马克思学家’那样，把这种关系限制在这一点上，那就是片面的，而且会变得非常错误。”因此，雅恩强调，马克思并不是孤立地、在没有预设的情况下从“零点”开始展开研究，而是利用“历史—集体主义的和实践的经验概念”来阐述他的理论，这就是马克思自1850年代以来的所有摘录笔记和札记。MEGA2出版的这些幸存的笔记和文献将“见证马克思在研究过程中必须掌握的事实、材料、统计、文献摘录等的‘勃朗峰’”，同时也将呈现马克思是如何在自身理论的积累中一步一步实现对资本主义经济运动规律的揭秘的。

It was precisely based on the above considerations that Jahn proposed his own research plan: to collect and edit excerpts, manuscripts, letters, and documents not yet used in *Capital* (especially the *London Notebooks*, for whose editorial rights he had been striving since 1970). “This includes not only collecting and evaluating these materials (e.g., the excerpt notebooks), but also reconstructing and elaborating them according to the original structural plan.” In the many years that followed, this plan guided the research direction of the Halle Research Group. In 1989, the new head of the Halle Research Group, Ehrenfried Galander, proposed a more specific “monograph” concept for Marx’s “six-book plan,” and a theoretical consensus was formed within the group. However, regrettably, two years later (i.e., in 1991), the Halle Research Group was forced to disband, and the editing and publication of the *London Notebooks* has been suspended ever since. Nevertheless, overall, the Halle Research Group made important theoretical contributions to the study of the *London Notebooks*. This is manifested not only in the group members’ extensive work in collecting and organizing the *London Notebooks* documents, but, more importantly, in their reflection, based on certain of Marx’s excerpts, especially the unpublished notebooks, on the historical thread of Marx’s economic research. This provides us with valuable research ideas for examining the internal logic of the development of Marx’s thought.

正是基于上述思考，雅恩提出了自己的研究方案：收集和编辑摘录、手稿、信件以及尚未被《资本论》使用的文献（尤其是《伦敦笔记》，他从1970年起一直在争取该笔记的编辑权）。“这不仅包括收集和评估这些材料（例如摘录笔记本），还涉及根据原有的结构计划对它们进行重建和阐述。”在此后的很多年里，这一方案一直引导着哈勒研究小组的研究方向。1989年，哈勒研究小组的新任负责人埃伦弗里德·加兰德（Ehrenfried Galander）为马克思的“六册计划”提出了更具体的“专著”概念，并在该小组中形成理论共识。然而，令人遗憾的是，两年后（即1991年），哈勒研究小组被迫解散，《伦敦笔记》的编辑出版工作也自此搁浅。但总的来讲，哈勒研究小组对《伦敦笔记》的研究作出了重要的理论贡献，这不仅表现为小组成员对《伦敦笔记》做了大量的文献收集和整理工作，更重要的是，他们根据马克思的某些摘录、特别是尚未出版的笔记反思了马克思经济学研究的历史线索，这为我们考察马克思思想发展的内在逻辑提供了宝贵的研究思路。

II. The Overall Exploration of the *London Notebooks* and Marx’s Political-Economic Research

二、《伦敦笔记》的总体性探析与马克思政治经济学研究

In Germany, Jahn is the most systematic and in-depth scholar of the *London Notebooks*. As noted above, Jahn led and participated in the editing of the *London Notebooks*, so his research on them holds a pivotal position in German academia. His representative works include: “The Heuristic Value of Karl Marx’s *London Notebooks* (1850–1853),” “On Marx’s ‘Reflections’ of 1851,” *Marx’s *London Notebooks* (1850–1853)* co-authored with Klaus Fricke, and *On Certain Developments in Marx’s Method of Political Economy Research in the *London Notebooks* (1850–1853)* and *On the Question of the Development of Karl Marx’s Research Method in the *London Notebooks* (1850–1853)*, both co-authored with Dieter Noske. Here, I primarily analyze the work co-authored by Jahn and Noske, *On the Question of the Development of Karl Marx’s Research Method in the *London Notebooks* (1850–1853)*. In this work, published in 1979 as a complete, independent piece in the *Halle Colloquium on Marx-Engels Research* [1]1 The *Halle Colloquium on Marx-Engels Research* (Marx-Engels-Forschung Hallesche Kolloquium) was a series of publications by East German scholars, often associated with the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, that focused on the critical edition of Marx and Engels’s works., Volume 7, Jahn and Noske conduct a textual review of Marx’s 24 notebooks of the *London Notebooks* from the perspective of intellectual history. Using Marx’s dialectical materialist method as a thread, they analyze the historical logic of his political economy research during his London period, and thereby sharply criticize bourgeois Marxology.

在德国，雅恩是研习《伦敦笔记》最为系统和深入的学者。如上所述，雅恩领导和参与了《伦敦笔记》的编辑，因而他对《伦敦笔记》的研究在德国学界有着举足轻重的地位，其代表成果有：《卡尔·马克思1850—1853年〈伦敦笔记〉的启发性价值》、《论马克思1851年的“反思”》、与克劳斯·弗里克（Klaus Fricke）合著的《马克思的1850—1853年〈伦敦笔记〉》，以及与迪特尔·诺斯克（Dieter Noske）合著的《论马克思的政治经济学研究方法在〈伦敦笔记〉（1850—1853）中的某些发展》和《关于卡尔·马克思在1850—1853年〈伦敦笔记〉中的研究方式发展的问题》。笔者在此主要分析的是雅恩和诺斯克合著的《关于卡尔·马克思在1850—1853年〈伦敦笔记〉中的研究方式发展的问题》。在这本于1979年在《马克思恩格斯研究哈勒论文集》第7期中以完整独立的形式刊载的著作中，雅恩和诺斯克从思想史角度对马克思《伦敦笔记》的24个笔记本进行了文本梳理，以马克思的辩证唯物主义方法论为线索剖析了他在伦敦期间的政治经济学研究的历史逻辑，进而严厉地批判了资产阶级的马克思学。

This work comprises eight parts. In the first two parts, Jahn and Noske critique the erroneous interpretations of Marx’s thought by Marxology. They argue that Marxology distorts Marx’s thought in two main ways. First, regarding Marx’s own mention in the Afterword to the second edition of *Capital*, Volume 1, of a certain difference between his method of inquiry and his method of presentation, Marxology claims that the distinction between the two is absolute—that is, the method of inquiry is materialist, while the method of presentation is Hegelian idealism. Jahn and Noske insist that the difference between Marx’s method of inquiry and his method of presentation is merely a difference within the principal unity of the materialist-dialectical, not an absolute heterogeneity. Second, Marxology’s division of Marx into a “young” Marx and an “old” Marx separates political economy from scientific communism and dialectical materialism, making it a relatively independent component of the unified Marxist theory. In response, Jahn and Noske counter that the three basic components of Marx’s theory are both unified and interconnected; they are the premise of Marx’s political economy research.

这本著作包括八个部分，雅恩和诺斯克在前两个部分批判了马克思学对马克思思想的错误解读方式。他们认为，马克思学主要从两个方面歪曲了马克思的思想。首先，针对马克思曾在《资本论》第1卷第二版跋中提到自己在研究方法和表述方式上存在一定的不同，马克思学主张二者间的区别是绝对的，即研究方法是唯物主义的，表述方式则是黑格尔式的理想主义。雅恩和诺斯克坚持认为，马克思的研究方法与表述方式只是唯物主义—辩证法这个主要统一体中的差异，并非绝对的异质。其次，马克思学对“青年”马克思与“晚年”马克思的划分将政治经济学从科学共产主义和辩证唯物主义中分离出来，成为统一的马克思主义理论中相对独立的组成部分。对此，雅恩和诺斯克反驳道，马克思理论的三个基本组成部分既是统一的又是相互联系的，它们是马克思政治经济学研究的前提。

Subsequently, in the third part of the work, they point out that the critique of bourgeois political economy is an important aspect of Marx’s research and is clearly evident in the excerpts of the *London Notebooks*. In Jahn and Noske’s view, Marx did not unconditionally begin his research process in political economy, as Marxology claims; rather, his starting point for research was determined by the practical demands of the class struggle of the working class. They argue that the failure of the revolutions of 1848–1849 [2]2 The revolutions of 1848–1849 were a series of republican revolts against European monarchies, which Marx and Engels analyzed as a failed bourgeois-democratic revolution that nevertheless clarified the need for proletarian class struggle. likely made Marx realize that a revolutionary upsurge “could only occur when the two factors—modern productive forces and the capitalist form of production—came into conflict.” Because Marx foresaw that the outbreak of an economic crisis would bring a new revolutionary upsurge, his initial research was entirely concentrated on the theory of crisis. The *London Notebooks*, Notebooks I–VII, written by Marx between September 1850 and February 1851, primarily focused on the connection between monetary theory and economic crisis. Moreover, at all stages of his research and exposition, Marx emphasized the “critique of political economy” and listed the word “critique” in the title of his planned six-book *Capital* and later in its subtitle.

进而，他们在书中的第三部分指出，对资产阶级政治经济学的批判是马克思研究的一个重要方面，并且很明显地体现在《伦敦笔记》摘录中。在雅恩和诺斯克看来，马克思并不像马克思学声称的那样无条件地开始其政治经济学研究过程，他的研究出发点是由工人阶级阶级斗争的实践要求决定的。他们认为，1848—1849年革命的失败很有可能让马克思意识到，革命的高涨“只有在现代生产力与资本主义生产形式这两个因素产生冲突的时候才有可能发生”。由于马克思预见到经济危机的爆发会带来新的革命高潮，因此其最初的研究才完全集中在危机理论方面。马克思在1850年9月至1851年2月期间撰写的《伦敦笔记》第I—Ⅶ笔记本主要关注了货币理论与经济危机之间的联系；并且，马克思在研究和阐述的所有阶段都强调了“政治经济学批判”，并将“批判”一词列为其计划中的六册《资本论》的标题以及后来的副标题。

In the fourth part of the work, Jahn and Noske provide a textual review of the *London Notebooks*, Notebooks I–VII. They argue that Marx’s excerpts in these seven notebooks from the works of economic historians such as James Gilbart and Thomas Tooke provided a rich documentary source for his later theoretical research on money, credit, value, and commodities. For example, Marx recognized from these the defects of David Ricardo’s quantity theory of money.

在该书的第四部分，雅恩和诺斯克对《伦敦笔记》第I—Ⅶ笔记本进行了文本梳理。他们认为，马克思在这七本笔记里对詹姆斯·吉尔巴特（James Gilbart）、托马斯·图克（Thomas Tooke）等经济史学家的著作的摘录，为其后来对货币、信贷、价值和商品的理论研究提供了丰富的文献来源，例如，马克思从中认识到了大卫·李嘉图（David Ricardo）的货币数量论的缺陷。

Next, in the fifth part of the work, Jahn and Noske specifically analyze Marx’s “Reflections” and “Bullion. The Finished Monetary System.” They argue that these two texts not only reveal the essence of circulation hidden behind surface appearances but also reflect that Marx achieved a temporary theoretical equilibrium in his economic research in 1851—namely, the dialectical unity of experience and theory—especially in “Reflections.” Jahn and Noske believe that in “Reflections,” Marx fully recognized: “It is not enough to remain at the level of quantitative research and objective social analysis. The main task of research is, on the contrary, to penetrate into the basic social relations hidden behind the objective social relations.”

接着在该书的第五部分，雅恩和诺斯克专门分析了马克思的《反思》和《金银条块。完成的货币体系》，认为这两个文本不仅揭示了隐藏在表面假象背后的流通的本质，也反映了马克思在1851年的经济学研究中达到了短暂的理论平衡，即经验与理论的辩证统一，尤其是《反思》。雅恩和诺斯克认为，马克思在《反思》中充分认识到：“仅仅停留于定量研究和社会客观分析是不够的。研究的主要任务反而是深入到隐藏在社会—客观关系背后的基本社会关系中”。

As research deepened, Jahn and Noske assert in the sixth part of the work that Marx’s research on political economy entered a new phase of integration in Notebooks VII–VIII (i.e., the “Ricardo Notebooks”). Marx not only simultaneously studied the views of the three bourgeois economists James Steuart, Adam Smith, and Ricardo, but the problems he studied also became increasingly complex. The study of each new category was the result of resolving the contradictions of the preceding category, just as, after encountering the contradiction between the use-value and value of a commodity, he inevitably encountered the problem of the contradiction between the labor that forms use-value and the labor that forms value. Jahn and Noske point out that the *London Notebooks*, Notebooks VII–VIII, represent Marx’s theoretical process of rising from the abstract to the concrete, which is also the focus of their analysis in the seventh part of the work.

随着研究的深入，雅恩和诺斯克在该书的第六部分断言，马克思在第Ⅶ—Ⅷ笔记本（即“李嘉图笔记”）中对政治经济学的研究进入了新的整合阶段。马克思不但同时研究了詹姆斯·斯图亚特（James Steuart）、亚当·斯密（Adam Smith）和李嘉图这三位资产阶级经济学家的观点，而且研究的问题也越来越复杂，对每一个新范畴的研究都是解决前面范畴的矛盾的结果，就像他遭遇商品的使用价值与价值之间的矛盾之后，必然会碰到形成使用价值的劳动与形成价值的劳动之间的矛盾问题一样。雅恩和诺斯克指出，《伦敦笔记》第Ⅶ—Ⅷ笔记本是马克思在理论上从抽象上升到具体的过程，这亦是他们在该书的第七部分分析的重点。

In the eighth part of the work, Jahn and Noske introduce Marx’s research on other specialized fields, such as research on the condition of the working class in Notebook XI, research on the development of the theory of agriculture and ground rent in Notebooks XII–XIII, research on population theory in Notebook XIII, research on history and technology in Notebook XV, research on the history of women and later on colonies in Notebook XVI, and research on the Asiatic mode of production in Notebooks XX–XXIV, among others. Overall, Jahn and Noske hold the *London Notebooks* in very high regard, even placing them in a very special position within Marx’s “six-book plan.” They consider them not only Marx’s “knowledge warehouse” but also the condition that created the possibility for Marx’s theoretical leaps (the discovery of the theory of surplus value) in 1857–1858 and 1861–1863.

在该书的第八部分，雅恩和诺斯克介绍了马克思对其他特殊领域的研究，例如，第XI笔记本中关于工人阶级状况的研究，第XII—XIII笔记本中关于农业和地租理论发展的研究，第XIII笔记本中关于人口理论的研究，第XV笔记本中关于历史学和工艺学的研究，第XVI笔记本中关于女性历史问题和之后关于殖民地的研究，以及第XX—XXIV笔记本中关于亚细亚生产方式的研究，等等。总体来看，雅恩和诺斯克对《伦敦笔记》的评价非常高，甚至将其置于马克思“六册计划”中一个十分特殊的位置，认为它不仅是马克思的“知识仓库”，更是为马克思在1857—1858年以及1861—1863年实现理论飞跃（剩余价值理论的发现）创造了条件。

Besides the general grasp of Marx’s political economy research in the *London Notebooks* by scholars such as Jahn and Noske, German Marxist scholars have also attempted theoretical deepening on this theme, expounding their insights into Marx’s political economy research from 1850–1853 based on different theoretical starting points and interests. Given that the texts involved in these analyses are essentially the already familiar MEGA² [3]3 MEGA² (Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe, Second Edition) is the ongoing historical-critical edition of the complete works of Marx and Engels, published by the Internationale Marx-Engels-Stiftung (IMES). Section IV, Volumes 7–9, and due to space limitations, I will only provide a brief overview here.

除了雅恩和诺斯克等学者对《伦敦笔记》中马克思的政治经济学研究进行了总体性把握之外，德国的马克思主义学者还尝试对这一主题进行理论深耕，基于不同的理论出发点和兴趣点来阐述他们对马克思1850—1853年政治经济学研究的见解。鉴于这些分析所涉及的文本基本上是我们已熟知的MEGA2第四部分第7—9卷，又因篇幅所限，笔者在此只做简要概述。

First, German scholars’ analysis of the monetary theory, credit issues, circulation principles, and banking theory in the first seven notebooks of the *London Notebooks*. For example, Lyudmila Vasina, in her article “Karl Marx’s Exposition of Monetary Theory in the *London Notebooks* (1850–1851),” points out that Marxology has not only falsified Marx’s views on money but also reduced Marx’s theory to the level of Ricardo’s views; therefore, clarifying Marx’s monetary theory is a necessary theoretical task. Vasina argues that in the *London Notebooks*, Marx for the first time scientifically grasped the origin, nature, function, and laws of circulation of money, and that this research is inseparable from Marx’s theory of value and theory of circulation. At the same time, the excerpts on monetary issues in the first seven notebooks, on the one hand, reveal the role played by the theoretical sources of Marx’s economic doctrine in its formation process; on the other hand, they also illustrate the differences between Marx’s views on monetary issues and those of his predecessors on this issue, especially his distinction from Ricardo on monetary theory. This makes it possible for the first time to understand Marx’s monetary issues from the perspective of the history of theory. Wolfgang Müller focuses on the credit issues in the *London Notebooks*. He argues that Marx comprehensively examined the many phenomena that emerged in the capitalist credit system, as well as the position of these phenomena within the capitalist mode of production and their interaction with economic crises, and then points out that Marx’s research on credit issues constitutes an important foundation for his creation of his credit theory in Volume 3 of *Capital*. Frank Schellhardt also notes the monetary and credit issues raised by Marx between 1850 and 1851, discussing how Marx, through his study of economic history in the first six notebooks, formed a comprehensive understanding of the actual movement of money. In addition, Brigitte Arnhold discusses the circulation principles and banking theory in the *London Notebooks*.

一是德国学者关于《伦敦笔记》前七个笔记本中的货币理论、信贷问题、流通原则和银行理论的分析。例如，柳德米拉·瓦西娜（Lyudmila Vasina）在《卡尔·马克思在〈伦敦笔记〉中对货币理论的阐述（1850—1851）》一文中指出，马克思学不仅伪造了马克思关于货币的观点，还将马克思的理论降低到了李嘉图的观点的水平，因此，对马克思的货币理论进行澄清是十分必要的理论任务。瓦西娜认为，马克思在《伦敦笔记》中第一次科学地把捉了货币的起源、性质、功能以及流通规律，这一研究与马克思的价值理论和流通理论是不可分割的。同时，前七个笔记本关于货币问题的摘录，一方面显示了马克思经济学说的理论来源在其形成过程中所发挥的作用，另一方面也说明了马克思在货币问题上的观点同前人在此问题上的观点之间的差异，特别是他与李嘉图在货币理论上的区别。这让人们第一次有可能从理论史的角度认识马克思的货币问题。沃尔夫冈·米勒（Wolfgang Müller）则关注了《伦敦笔记》中的信贷问题。他认为，马克思在《伦敦笔记》中全面考察了资本主义信用体系中出现的诸多现象，以及这些现象在资本主义生产方式中的地位及其与经济危机的相互作用，进而指出马克思对信贷问题的研究构成了他在《资本论》第3卷中创立其信用理论的重要基础。弗兰克·谢尔哈特（Frank Schellhardt）同样注意到了马克思在1850—1851年间提出的货币和信贷问题，谈到马克思通过前六个笔记本的经济史研究形成了对货币的实际运动的全面认识。另外，布里吉特·阿恩霍尔德(Brigitte Arnhold)讨论了《伦敦笔记》中的流通原则和银行理论。

Second, German scholars’ research on texts within the *London Notebooks* such as “Reflections,” “Bullion. The Completed Monetary System,” and the “Ricardo Notes.” German scholars hold almost the same attitude toward these three texts in the *London Notebooks*, regarding them as the theoretical peak of Marx’s economic research phase from 1850 to 1853. Jahn provides a detailed textual interpretation of the 1851 “Reflections.” He points out that although the original text of this manuscript was published separately in 1977, this does not mean it has an independent character; on the contrary, it is closely connected with Notebooks I–VII of the *London Notebooks*. Jahn argues: “‘Reflections’ is the first attempt at a theoretical formulation of the knowledge gained in the debate between the currency principle and banking theory, and it is also a small monograph on self-clarification (zur Selbstverständigung).” It reflects the basic progress of Marx’s crisis theory, and it is necessary to re-study it within the theoretical context of the *London Notebooks* and to edit a new edition for MEGA². As is well known, the development of Marx’s political economy is inseparable from his critical reception of bourgeois classical economics and his confrontation with vulgar economics. Hella Christ and Marion Zimmermann analyze Marx’s research and evaluation of Smith and Ricardo, starting from the quantity theory of money and the theory of rent, in the above three texts of the *London Notebooks*. In addition, Gisela Winkler and Klaus Stude (both members of the editorial board of MEGA²’s *London Notebooks*) conduct a relatively in-depth discussion by combining the wage theory, population theory, and rent theory in the *London Notebooks* with the *Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858*.

二是德国学者对《伦敦笔记》中的《反思》《金银条块。完成的货币体系》以及“李嘉图笔记”等文本的研究。德国学者对《伦敦笔记》中的这三个文本几乎持相同的态度，认为它们是马克思在1850—1853年经济学研究阶段的理论高峰。雅恩对1851年的《反思》进行了详细的文本解读。他指出，尽管这份手稿的原文曾在1977年单独发表过，但并不意味着它具有独立的性质，相反，它与《伦敦笔记》第Ⅰ—Ⅶ笔记本有着密切的联系。雅恩认为：“‘反思’是对在货币原则与银行理论之间的争论中所获得的知识进行理论表述的第一次尝试，并且也是一部关于自我反思（zur Selbstverständigung）的小专著。”它反映了马克思危机理论的基本进展，有必要将其置于《伦敦笔记》的理论背景中进行重新研究，并编辑MEGA2新的版本。众所周知，马克思政治经济学的发展同他对资产阶级古典经济学的批判性接受以及与庸俗经济学的对抗是分不开的。海拉·克里斯(Hella Christ)和马里昂·齐默尔曼(Marion Zimmermann)分析了马克思在《伦敦笔记》的上述三个文本中从货币数量论和地租理论出发对斯密、李嘉图的研究和评价。除此之外，吉塞拉·温克勒(Gisela Winkler)和克劳斯·施图德(Klaus Stude)（两人均是MEGA2《伦敦笔记》的编委会成员）将《伦敦笔记》中的工资理论、人口和地租理论同《1857—1858年经济学手稿》相结合进行了较为深入的探讨。

III. The *London Notebooks* and Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production, the Asiatic Property Question

三、《伦敦笔记》与前资本主义生产方式、亚细亚所有制问题

In addition to the overall grasp and specific analysis of Marx’s political economy, German academic circles also pay considerable attention to issues concerning pre-capitalist modes of production, ancient history, and Asiatic landed property in the *London Notebooks*. These studies, because they involve the contents of Notebooks XV–XXIV, which have not yet been fully published, are not well known to Chinese scholars. In fact, Marx’s research in the *London Notebooks* on pre-capitalist modes of production, Asiatic landed property, and other issues was extremely important for his eventual formation of a scientific understanding of the capitalist social formation and its laws of development.

除对马克思政治经济学的总体性把握和具体性分析外，德国学界也较为关注《伦敦笔记》中涉及的前资本主义生产方式、古代历史、亚细亚土地所有制等问题，这些研究因涉及目前尚未出版完的第XV—XXIV笔记本的内容而未被我国学者所熟知。事实上，马克思在《伦敦笔记》中对前资本主义生产方式、亚细亚土地所有制等问题的研究，对他最后形成关于资本主义社会形态和发展规律的科学认识极为重要。

Schelhardt examined Marx’s research on pre-capitalist modes of production in the *London Notebooks*. He argues that for Marx, political economy is not merely an economic discipline in the narrow sense, but rather a historical science; therefore, in the *London Notebooks*, Marx not only analyzed the mature forms of capitalist relations of production, but also paid close attention to the history of pre-capitalist modes of production, especially medieval economic history—this was also a continuation of his research on this issue in the *Notebooks on Gülich*. Schelhardt focuses in particular on Marx’s excerpts from the works of Karl Hüllmann in Notebook XVII of the *London Notebooks*, and finds that Marx studied and excerpted four works by this historian and economic historian on medieval urban history, namely *Medieval Cities*, *History of the Origin of German Cities*, *History of the Origin of the German Territorial Lords*, and *History of Medieval German Finance*. Among these, the excerpts from Hüllmann’s seminal work *Medieval Cities* occupy a large portion of Notebook XVII, with a short continuation in Notebook XVIII. Schelhardt notes that Marx focused on the content concerning medieval state law and property division in the two books *History of the Origin of German Cities* and *History of the Origin of the German Territorial Lords*; subsequently, in his notes on *History of Medieval German Finance*, Marx expanded his field of investigation to the medieval financial system, studying the history of finance up to the end of the 13th century. He studied Hüllmann’s discussion of the “public obligations” of the working people in great detail, classifying them into obligations in kind such as tribute, military provisions, war service, and interest, as well as other forms such as exile and peace court cases. At the same time, Marx also discovered that all monetary payments in the Middle Ages were based on payments required by land ownership, and therefore all medieval monetary payments were land taxes, which in essence were no different from “public obligations.” Schelhardt also points out that through *Medieval Cities*, Marx gained a comprehensive understanding of the developed period of feudalism, for example, the social division of labor under the progress of handicrafts and the development of commerce and trade (the latter constituting the driving force for the development of new economic relations), the gradual emergence of political struggle against the old feudalism accompanying new economic conditions, the impact of handicraft development on agriculture, and research on guilds. It should be noted that Schelhardt particularly emphasizes Marx’s excerpts on the issue of “money” in this book, considering this to be the theoretical focus of Notebooks III–V of the *London Notebooks*. He points out that, in addition to studying the reasons for the emergence of monetary exchange in the Middle Ages, Marx also realized that the conversion of gold and silver into coinage had become a common phenomenon, and that “bills of exchange” had already appeared in the Middle Ages. In Schelhardt’s view, these notes provided certain theoretical inspiration for Marx’s theory of money; in them, Marx “learned about the historical facts and events that he later summarized under the term ‘primitive accumulation.’ The Middle Ages were characterized by the material and spiritual domination of feudal lords. For the working people, this meant dark centuries, but they were also characterized by the development of free cities. Marx later described this in *Capital* as ‘the splendor of the Middle Ages.’ In my view, this assessment stems from his study of the aforementioned works of Hüllmann.”

谢尔哈特考察了马克思在《伦敦笔记》中对前资本主义生产方式的研究情况。他认为，在马克思那里，政治经济学不只是狭义意义上的经济学科，更是一门历史科学，所以马克思在《伦敦笔记》中不仅分析了资本主义生产关系的成熟形式，还非常关注前资本主义生产方式的历史，特别是中世纪经济史——这也是他对《居利希笔记》中该问题研究的继续。谢尔哈特尤其关注马克思在《伦敦笔记》第XVII笔记本中对卡尔·休耳曼（Karl Hüllmann）著作的摘录，且发现马克思研读并摘抄了这位历史学家和经济史学家关于中世纪城市史的四部著作，即《中世纪城市》《德国城市起源史》《德意志邦君起源史》《中世纪德国金融史》。其中，对休耳曼的成名之作《中世纪城市》的摘抄在第XVII笔记本中占据了很大的篇幅，在第XVIII笔记本中仍有小段续篇。谢尔哈特谈到，马克思关注了《德国城市起源史》和《德意志邦君起源史》这两本书中关于中世纪的国家法律、财产划分等内容；在随后关于《中世纪德国金融史》一书的笔记中，马克思又将自己的考察领域扩大到了中世纪的金融体系，研究了截至13世纪末的金融史。他非常详细地研究了休耳曼有关劳动人民的“公共义务”的讨论，并将其分为贡品、军粮、战争服务、利息等形式的实物义务，以及流放与和平法庭案件的其他形式。同时，马克思还发现，中世纪全部的货币支付都是基于土地所有权所要求的支付，因此中世纪的所有货币支付都是土地税，它们在本质上与“公共义务”没有区别。谢尔哈特还指出，马克思通过《中世纪城市》一书全面认识了封建主义的发达时期，例如，手工业进步下的社会劳动分工和商业贸易发展（后者构成了新的经济关系发展的推动力），伴随着新的经济条件而逐渐出现的与旧封建主义的政治斗争，手工业的发展对农业的影响，以及有关行会的研究。需要注意的是，谢尔哈特特别强调了马克思对该书中“货币”问题的摘录，认为这是《伦敦笔记》第Ⅲ—Ⅴ笔记本的理论重点。他指出，马克思除研究了中世纪货币交换出现的原因外，还意识到黄金和白银转化为铸币已经成为一种普遍现象，并且“汇票”在中世纪时就已经出现。在谢尔哈特看来，这些笔记为马克思的货币理论带来了一定的理论启发，马克思在其中“了解了那些后来他将其总结为‘原始积累’一词的史实和事件。中世纪的特点是封建领主的物质和精神统治。对于劳动人民来说，这虽然意味着黑暗的世纪，但也以自由城市的发展为特征。马克思后来在《资本论》中将其描述为‘中世纪的辉煌’。在我看来，这种评价源于对休耳曼上述作品的研究”。

Another scholar who focuses on Marx’s research on pre-capitalist modes of production in the *London Notebooks* is Sylvia Winkelmann. She believes that Marx’s grasp of this issue played an indispensable role in his comprehensive and scientific exposition of the inner essence and historical origin of the capitalist mode of production in the “six-book plan” [5]5 The “six-book plan” refers to Marx’s original plan for *Capital*, which he outlined in the 1850s, intending to cover capital, landed property, wage labour, the state, foreign trade, and the world market. Only the first book (on capital) was completed in the form we know today. of *Capital*. Winkelmann also notes Marx’s excerpts in Notebook XIV from William Prescott’s two works, *History of the Conquest of Mexico* and *History of the Conquest of Peru*, primarily concerning the history of the Spanish colonial conquest of Mexico and Peru and the socio-economic conditions of the latter. Sylvia believes that these notes hold a special status. On the one hand, the historical facts they collect on the socio-economic relations of the Incas and Aztecs are helpful for examining the development of bourgeois trade, commodity production, and exchange value, and they were fully utilized in the preparation of *Capital* and its manuscripts. On the other hand, these excerpts made a significant contribution to the development of Marx’s theory of social formations (the excerpts illustrate the complexity of the transition from one social formation to another, and the long-term coexistence and alternating interpenetration of elements of different modes of production), greatly deepening and broadening his understanding of pre-capitalist modes of production. Garand also believes that Marx’s outline of the European bourgeois colonial theory in Notebook XIV of the *London Notebooks* and his shift to the social-historical study of Asian colonies in Notebooks XXI–XXIII already transcended the narrow issue of colonialism and delved into the study of pre-capitalist modes of production, providing important theoretical experience for his treatment of these issues in Chapter 24 of Volume 1 of *Capital*, “The So-Called Primitive Accumulation,” and Chapter 25, “The Modern Theory of Colonization.”

同样关注马克思在《伦敦笔记》中对前资本主义生产方式研究的学者还有希尔维亚·温克尔曼(Sylvia Winkelmann)。她认为，马克思关于这个问题的把握，对他在《资本论》“六册计划”中对资本主义生产方式的内在本质、历史起源进行全面科学的阐述有着不可忽视的作用。温克尔曼还注意到了马克思在第XIV笔记本中对威廉·普雷斯科特（William Prescott）的《墨西哥征服史》和《秘鲁征服史》这两本著作的摘录，主要是关于西班牙对墨西哥和秘鲁的殖民征服史以及后者的社会经济状况的摘录。希尔维亚认为，这些笔记有着特殊的地位。一方面，它们收集的印加人和阿兹特克人的社会经济关系史实，有助于考察资产阶级的贸易、商品生产和交换价值的发展，它们在《资本论》及其手稿的准备过程中得到了充分运用。另一方面，这些摘录对马克思社会形态理论的发展作出了重大贡献（摘录说明了从一种社会形态向另一种社会形态过渡的复杂性，不同生产方式的要素的长期共存和交替性的相互渗透），大大加深和拓宽了他对前资本主义生产方式的认识。加兰德也认为，马克思在《伦敦笔记》第XIV笔记本中对欧洲资产阶级殖民理论的概述以及在第XXI—XXIII笔记本中转向对亚洲殖民地的社会历史研究，已经超越了狭义的殖民主义问题，深入到对前资本主义生产方式的研究中，这为他在《资本论》第1卷第24章“所谓原始积累”和第25章“现代殖民理论”中处理这些问题提供了重要的理论经验。

Wolfgang Rein excavated the issue of Asiatic landownership mentioned in Notebook XXII of the *London Notebooks*. He pointed out that whether it was the investigation of Latin America in Notebook XIV or the investigation of colonialism and basic economic and social structures in Asian countries such as India and Iran in Notebooks XXI–XXIII, these all became important knowledge reserves for Marx’s study of India and China in 1857–1859. In particular, the study of Asiatic landownership dominates Notebook XXII. Rein discovered that in Notebook XXII, Marx made excerpts from works such as Thomas Stamford Raffles’s *The History of Java*, John Chapman’s *The Cotton and Commerce of India*, and George Campbell’s *Modern India*, and achieved the following gains. First, he formed some specific insights into the relations of Asiatic landownership. For example, Raffles emphasized that in Java, a country “‘where a considerable rent can be obtained,’ the absolute owner of all the land is the sovereign”—this passage is an example of the characteristics of Asiatic landownership that Marx mentioned in his letter to Engels on June 14, 1853. Second, in Campbell’s work, he found clues about the development of the socio-economic base. For example, Campbell noted that the various landownership claims raised by the British in India contributed to the dissolution of the sovereign’s ownership as the representative of the supreme political body and the village community landownership (the Indian village community system). Through violence, the British forcible seizure of land blatantly demonstrated how pre-capitalist modes of production were forcibly subordinated to capital. Based on these excerpts, Rein further argued that Marx had already recognized here that “the ‘outermost form’ (äußerste Form) of the separation of the producer from the means of production is realized through capital.” In the *London Notebooks*, Marx described the contradictory nature of this process. “On the one hand, the dissolution of lower forms of living labor; on the other hand, the dissolution of the conditions of happiness of the direct producer. On the one hand, the dissolution of slavery and serfdom; on the other hand, the dissolution of forms in which the means of production exist as the property of the direct producer… Finally, the dissolution of forms of common property, in which the worker, as an organic part of this naive natural common property, is at the same time posited as the owner or possessor of his means of production.” In short, in Rein’s view, the *London Notebooks* can provide new insights for our study of the formation of Marx’s concept of primitive accumulation of capital, as well as the development of capital relations on a world scale and the subordination of pre-capitalist structures to capital.

沃尔夫冈·赖因(Wolfgang Rein)挖掘了《伦敦笔记》第XXII笔记本中提到的亚细亚土地所有制问题。他指出，不论是在第XIV笔记本中对拉丁美洲，还是在第XXI—XXIII笔记本中对印度、伊朗等亚洲国家的殖民主义、基本经济和社会结构的调查，都成为马克思在1857—1859年研究印度和中国问题的重要知识储备。尤其是在第XXII笔记本中占主导的亚细亚土地所有制研究。赖因发现，马克思在第XXII笔记本中对托马斯·斯坦福·拉弗尔斯（Thomas Stamford Raffles）的《爪哇史》、约翰·查普曼（John Chapman）的《印度的棉花和贸易》、乔治·坎伯尔（George Campbell）的《现代印度》等著作进行了摘录，并取得了以下收获。一是形成了对亚细亚土地所有权关系的一些具体见解。比如，拉弗尔斯强调在爪哇这个“‘可以获得相当可观的地租的’国家中，全部土地的绝对所有者是君主”——这段话是马克思在1853年6月14日写给恩格斯的信中提及的亚细亚土地所有权特点的例证。二是在坎贝尔的著作里找到了关于社会经济基础的发展线索。例如，坎贝尔提到，英国人在印度提出的各种土地所有权要求促成了作为最高政体代表的君主所有权和村社土地所有权（印度的村社制度）的解体，英国通过暴力对土地的强制占有露骨地彰显了前资本主义生产方式是如何被迫从属于资本的。基于这些摘录，赖因进一步认为，马克思在这里已经认识到，“生产者与生产资料分离的‘最外层形式’（äußerste Form）是通过资本实现的”。马克思在《伦敦笔记》中描述了这一过程的矛盾性。“一方面是较低的生存劳动形式的解体，另一方面是直接生产者的幸福条件的解体。一方面是奴隶制和农奴制的解体，另一方面是生产资料作为直接生产者的财产而存在的形式的解体……最后是公有制形式的解体，在其中，劳动者作为这种朴素自然的公有制的一个有机部分，同时被设定为其生产资料的所有者或拥有者。”总之，在赖因看来，《伦敦笔记》可以为我们研究马克思的资本原始积累概念的形成以及世界范围内资本关系的发展和前资本主义结构从属于资本等问题提供新的见解。

(Author: Wu Ting, Department of Philosophy, Nanjing University)

（作者：吴婷，南京大学哲学系）

Online Editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心