ABSTRACT
Without the world crisis of 1857-8, Marx probably would not have written the Grundrisse. The outbreak of the great crisis in August 1857 spurred Marx to put his thoughts on the critique of political economy, his greatest project, to paper. In a few month’s time, from August 1857 to May 1858, he produced a first rough draft of the foundations of his Economics in seven notebooks plus an introduction. At the same time, he wrote an impressive number of newspaper articles on various topics, including the events of the crisis. Last, but not least, he filled three voluminous notebooks with copious material on the course of the great crisis of 1857-8.1
Marx and Engels had long expected the next crisis, and actually waited for it from 1852 onwards. During the summer of 1850, Marx had studied the economic history of the past decade in much detail and the history of economic crises in Europe since 1815 in particular. He came to the conclusion that the crisis of 1847-8 was behind the outbreak of the revolutionary wave in Europe as well as the returning prosperity had made the victory of reaction possible. Thanks to the renewed prosperity that had already kept Britain apart from the European revolutions, the counter-revolution had prevailed. There could be no revolutionary movement without another economic crisis. But another crisis was bound to come in due time – and hence another revolutionary upsurge. That is why Marx and Engels kept looking for the signs of the next crisis from 1852 onwards.
