Marx letter to Engels about revolution interrupting Capital
anecdote · personal/autobiographical ·
retold in 9 talks
In a late letter, Marx worries that a looming European revolution will force him to do revolution before he finishes writing Capital, showing that the theoretical work mattered most to him as an authentic end in itself.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 9
“Oh my God, now we will have to do a revolution, but I haven't yet finished writing Capital and so on. That mattered most to him.”
“What are these guys doing? They want revolution now, I haven't yet finished Capital.”
“you already want a revolution, but I haven't yet finished my Capital. Can't they wait a little bit?”26:22 Slavoj Zizek: Our public face is't our mask, our private inner truth is the real maskpub. 2017-09-10 · 44:58
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Shoshana Zuboff2Václav Havel2Margaret Atwood2Jon Elster2Friedrich Engels6Joseph de Maistre1Ra'anan Gissin1Ben Hecht1
alongside works
Every retelling 9
In a late letter, Marx worries that a looming European revolution will force him to do revolution before he finishes writing Capital, showing that the theoretical work mattered most to him as an authentic end in itself., illustrating authentic act,pure act
Marx wrote to Engels expressing deep worry that revolutionaries wanted revolution immediately while he hadn't finished Capital, Žižek uses this as a model for the intellectual's proper relation to practice: theory first, don't concede to the blackmail of immediacy., illustrating intellectual duty,theory vs. practice
26:22 Slavoj Zizek: Our public face is't our mask, our private inner truth is the real maskpub. 2017-09-10 · 44:58
When a revolution seemed imminent, Marx wrote Engels worriedly that he hadn't yet finished Capital and asked 'Can't they wait a little bit?', Žižek's model for the freedom to think before acting., illustrating freedom to think vs activism,be Marxists in the sense of theory
During the Paris Commune, Marx, still writing Capital, complained in a letter to Engels: 'What are they breaking now? I haven't even finished Capital, leave me in peace!' Žižek cites this comic moment as the reason he still loves Marx despite criticizing Marxism's theoretical limitations., illustrating substantial revolutionary subject,exploitation in leisure time
In a letter during the Paris Commune period, Marx reportedly wrote in anxiety that revolutionaries wanted to start the revolution before he had finished Capital; Žižek uses this to defend the intellectual's right, even duty, to theorize before acting., illustrating the intellectual's duty,resistance to false urgency
During the 1870 Paris Commune, when revolution seemed possible, Marx wrote to Engels complaining he had not finished Capital yet and couldn't afford a revolution now, Žižek offers this as the true spirit of the intellectual who prefers to write over seizing power., illustrating Marx's true spirit,intellectual over revolutionary,writing over power