During 2008 I read all 50 volumes of Marx and Engels's Collected Works (MECW). I soon realised that the most sensuous and seductive sections came at the end of the preface to each volume. Here one finds the various ‘scientific editors’ – writers of prefaces and notes, compilers of indices, translators and researchers responsible for tracking down the various works by Marx and Engels. They might be connected with Progress Publishers or with the Institute for Marxism-Leninism. And what names!

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