About the book: 1961 / This work is part of a brochure conceived but not completed by Engels on the topic: "The role of violence in history." Initially, at the end of 1886, Engels had in mind to rework for a separate publication three chapters of the second section of “Anti-Dühring”, united under one title “The Theory of Violence” and devoted to criticism of this theory by Dühring, as well as the presentation - in contrast to it - of materialist views on the relationship between economics and politics; to these chapters Engels intended to add, also in a revised form, two more chapters from the first section of the same work concerning morality and law - “Eternal Truths” and “Equality” (see this edition, vol. 20). Engels intended to call this book “On Law and Violence in World History.” Subsequently, Engels changed his plan, deciding to limit himself to publishing a pamphlet from the first mentioned three chapters with the addition of a new, fourth chapter, dedicated to concretizing the main points expressed in them using the example of the history of Germany from 1848 to 1888, analyzed from the point of view of criticism of “all Bismarckian policy." The brochure was supposed to be entitled “The Role of Violence in History.” Engels began work on this chapter around the end of 1887 and continued in the first months of 1888. However, due to his workload with other matters, he interrupted this work in March 1888 and, apparently, never returned to it. After Engels’s death, in his archive, in a special envelope with the inscription “Theory of Violence”, the three above-mentioned chapters from “Anti-Dühring”, an unfinished manuscript of the fourth chapter of the proposed pamphlet and a draft of the preface to it, a plan for the fourth chapter as a whole and a plan for its final part were discovered. which was never written, as well as chronological extracts on the history of Germany in the 70s and 80s of the 20th century, in particular from the book by S. Bulle. “Geschichte der neuesten Zeit. 1815-1885". 2. Aufl., Bd. Ⅰ—Ⅳ, Berlin, 1888 (K. Bulle. “History of modern times. 1815—1885.” 2nd ed., vols. Ⅰ—Ⅳ, Berlin, 1888). The manuscript of the unfinished chapter, a draft of the preface and some preparatory materials were first published by E. Bernstein in the journal Neue Zeit Nos. 22-26, 1895-1896 under the title “Power and Economics in the Creation of the New German Empire.” Bernstein's work in preparing the manuscript for publication is one example of the unceremonious treatment of Engels's handwritten legacy by right-wing Social Democrats: without bothering to make a copy of the manuscript, Bernstein with his own hand divided it into separate sections, providing each of them with a subtitle he himself invented, and numbered the notes , made his own insertions into Engels' text. It is possible that as a result of Bernstein's unacceptably careless attitude, some pages of the manuscript (see this volume, pp. 459-465) were lost. In 1896, the manuscript, translated into French, was published in the journal Devenir Social (Social Becoming) Nos. 6-9, along with the three above-mentioned chapters from Anti-Dühring. In 1899, Engels's work was published in Rome in Italian in a separate edition, which was a complete reprint of its German publication in Neue Zeit. In Russian, this work was published in incomplete form in 1898 in St. Petersburg in the journal “Scientific Review” No. 5. The first separate Russian edition in the same volume was published in Kyiv in 1905. In the publication published in Moscow in 1923 under the title “Strength and Economics in the Formation of the German Empire,” in addition to the manuscript of the fourth chapter, for the first time in Russian, that part of the preparatory materials for the brochure, which was published in “Neue Zeit,” was printed in Russian. In the first edition of the Works of K. Marx and F. Engels (vol. ⅩⅥ, part Ⅰ, 1937), Engels’ work was for the first time published not from the publication in Neue Zeit, but from the manuscript itself, and all layers belonging to Bernstein (divided into sections, subheadings, etc.). The title has also been brought into line with.