In general, only the third section is difficult, but far less so for workers, whose general conditions of life it concerns, than for the “educated” bourgeois. The content on the other hand, I think I can assert, will cause German workers few difficulties. Oral information is of much greater assistance. Translation, therefore, distorts the sense it confuses instead of explaining. The unavoidable foreign words, usually generally accepted scientific-technical expressions, would not have been unavoidable if they had been translatable. Where they were unavoidable, I have refrained from adding so-called explanatory translations. I have restricted myself to removing all unnecessary foreign words. Since that time our workers have read newspapers to a far greater extent and far more regularly and to the same extent they have become thereby more familiar with foreign words. But even Lassalle in his speeches and propaganda writings was not at all sparing with foreign words, and to my knowledge there has been no complaint about it. So far as form is concerned, only the numerous foreign words could arouse doubts. How could what was in the first place a purely scientific work be suitable for that, What changes in form and content were required? It was, however, not originally written for immediate popular propaganda. I was naturally in agreement with that and put my work at their disposal. Then the editors of the Zurich Sozialdemokrat informed me that a demand was generally being raised within the German Social-Democratic Party for the publication of new propaganda pamphlets, and they asked me whether I would not apply those three chapters to this purpose. The surprising success of the Lafargue translation in the French-speaking countries and especially in France itself forced me to consider the question whether a separate German edition of these three chapters would not likewise be of value. A rendering into Polish made from the French translation has just appeared in Geneva and bears the title: Socyjalizm utopijny a naukowy, Imprimerie de l’Aurore, Genève, 1882. The French translation revised by me appeared first in the Revue socialiste and then independently under the title: Socialisme utopique et socialisme scientifique, Paris, 1880. Iput them together for my friend Paul Lafargue for translation into French and added a few extra remarks. Dürings Umwalzung der Wissenschaft, Leipzig, 1878. The following work is derived from three chapters of my book: Herrn E.
Engels, Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft, Hottingen-Zurich, 1882 Preface to the First German Edition of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Frederick Engelsįrederick Engels 1882 Preface to the First German Edition of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
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