ABSTRACT
The reception of Joseph Roy’s French translation of Capital, Volume I, has a complex and contradictory history. This translation was both celebrated and subject to challenge, with its reception also experiencing phases of greater or lesser intensity. Contrary to the long-accepted thesis of an ‘untraceable Marxism’ in pre-1914 France, there is significant evidence that the analyses developed in the book were read by both Marx’s supporters and his opponents in this period. Often, this did not so much take the form of readers directly getting to grips with Capital, as of the dissemination of its theses based on excerpts reproduced in the press or on the famous abridgement produced by Gabriel Deville. However, it was especially starting in the mid-twentieth century, thanks to the republication of Volume I by the French Communist Party (PCF) press, that the text gained wider circulation. This new phase of its reception was also marked by the tension between attempts to correct Roy’s translation by recourse to the German original and faithfulness to an edition that had, after all, been authorised by Marx in his own lifetime. During the twentieth century, the Lachâtre edition of Roy’s translation was also a vehicle for the dissemination of Marx’s ideas well beyond France’s borders, notably in Africa and Asia.
