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Introduction
The theory of communism is the center of Marxist doctrine. So when and how did Marx become a communist? That is an intriguing and fundamental issue in Marxist study. Although Marx publicly declared himself as a communist in a newspaper statement on January 18 in 1846,1but almost everyone agrees that Marx’s conversion to communism was in fact more earlier. Prior to that, apart from The German Ideology (1845) and The Holy Family (1845), the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (hereafter, Manuscripts) seems to be the earliest writing that contains effusive praise for communism. The Manuscripts certainly represents a turning point in the development of Marx’s theory of communism, but it of course does not form a kind of “epistemic break” as Althusser argued, because the shift that occurred in the Manuscripts did not come about suddenly without any causes or clues. In fact, close connection and links with earlier texts are much more adequate than that might be expected.
Before Manuscripts, there is a very important stage for Marx, that is the period from the end of Rheinische Zeitung (March, 1843) to the publication of Deutsche–Französische Jahrbücher (German–French Yearbooks, February, 1844). During this period, young Marx2 successively wrote four texts:3The Kreuznach Notebooks (hereafter, Notebooks), Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (hereafter, Critique), On the Jewish Question (hereafter, Question), and Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Introduction (hereafter, Introduction). As we all know, young Marx actually completed the transition from a young Hegelian to a critic of the young Hegelians during this period. In fact, as the key cumulative phase of young Marx’s intellectual development, works at this stage are the key premise and indispensable logical chain for understanding the ideological transitions in the Manuscripts meanwhile. And more importantly, they constitute as an important part for understanding the formative development of Marx’s communism theory. Objectively speaking, however, compared to its importance, there are two problems with current studies so far: one is that not enough attention has been paid to this stage or to all the works of this stage, and the other is that the topic of “communism” in this stage has not been properly evaluated and explored.
On...