I was recently reading an English translation of a non-theory-related non-fiction book that was published just a few years ago. Next on my list was re-reading Engels’ “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”.

I can only describe my experience as the most severe whiplash; comparable only to reading the comments on a news thread on .world after checking the Lemmygrad thread.

I found myself reading so slowly. In 30 minutes I would have barely read a few pages, even though I was not struggling with the content itself.

I found that it’s just that the language is so needlessly impenetrable. So many run-on sentences, so many odd turns of phrases, archaic terms (not relevant to Marxist theory), and bizarre sentence structures.

I have never read the original German text nor any other language translation, so I don’t have a point of reference. I don’t know how much of it is Engels’ writing style, versus the translator’s 19th century English.
A translation written in 1892 was not written for English speakers in 2026.

My question is: Would these works not become so much more accessible if we had a modern English translation from the original text?

If this would be considered useful, how could we realistically realise this for all of the fundamental works from that time period?

  1. I imagine that finding and hiring a translator who is familiar with Marxism to re-do the translations would be extremely difficult and expensive.

  2. Community translations are probably not feasible as translation requires a very specific skill set, not just fluent speakers.

  3. Machine translations might be possible, but it’s crucial to not lose any specific terminology and not misconstrue the meanings of certain quotes and phrases. The translator (whether human or machine) needs to have a strong grasp on Marxist theory and history to not distort the meanings in the text.

I would really appreciate everyone’s thoughts and suggestions on this. Maybe I completely dropped the ball on this topic.

P.S.

This is not just in regards to “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”, it’s just the experience that inspired me to write this post.
I’m not unfamiliar with reading theory from that time period nor Marx and Engels’ writings in general. I’m also not completely unfamiliar with 19th century English, I’ve read plenty of fiction written in that time period as well.

  • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
    26·
    6 days ago

    I actually think Engels is fairly readable, all things considered. Some of the vocabulary and expressions are a bit antiquated but the sentence structure is not that bad (though as a speaker of German and (mediocre) French, i can see how some of his sentence structure is more natural in those languages than in English). There are much worse writers both in the 19th and 20th century, especially when you get into the realm of philosophy. It’s just the style of the time that you have to get used to. Once you do you can digest it faster.

    I don’t think it’s something you can translate away without losing some of the meaning and nuance of the original. That’s why summaries and commentaries on Marx and Engels exist, where more modern writers express their ideas in simpler language.

    For me the main difficulty when reading 19th century works comes from the large amount of references to their contemporary politics, to what for them would have been recent history but to us today falls in the realm of fairly obscure historical knowledge, and implicit assumptions that the reader would be familiar with the social and economic environment of that time. Reading old theory requires you to make an effort to acquaint yourself with what the world was like and what was happening at that point in history. This can be quite exhausting.

    At first it’s like you learn 70% history and 30% socialist theory. But this also gets easier over time the more you learn and the more you begin to be able to imagine yourself in that time. It will always feel a bit alien though.

    Personally i prefer reading Lenin over Marx and Engels, partly because he feels more modern and partly because, to me, the way Russians write feels more straightforward than French and German authors.

    • Nocturne Dragonite@lemmygrad.ml
      8·
      5 days ago

      For me the main difficulty when reading 19th century works comes from the large amount of references to their contemporary politics

      This is a big problem for me, especially cause I have ADHD and I just wanna get to the point. Bringing up references to events and things I have no context for is extremely distracting. It’s the biggest obstacle when reading theory cause I just get so bored of the tangents that I just get annoyed and do something else.

      There also needs to be a better medium for theory, I hardly have the energy to read a wall of text on here let alone something someone wrote over 100 years ago that I can’t even relate to.

    • NotMushroomForDebate@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
      5·
      6 days ago

      I definitely agree regarding the history aspect, and having to understand the context in which the works were written and the particular events and currents the authors were referring to.

      However, I would like to clarify that I do not mean simplifying the texts, that is, as you said, the job of summaries and commentaries. Here I am strictly talking about the language.

      As far as I know, you are German or at least a native German speaker, so I can only assume that you read Marx and Engels’ works in German. This I cannot comment on, since I have not read the original works as I do not speak the language. I’m not sure if any of the concerns I have expressed are applicable at all to the German and French editions (or any language other than English).

      My point is that if we were to take the original German text today, for example from “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” and translated it to English, it would be more legible to today’s English-speaking audience compared to Edward Aveling’s 1892 translation.

      • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
        6·
        6 days ago

        As far as I know, you are German or at least a native German speaker, so I can only assume that you read Marx and Engels’ works in German.

        I am neither actually, i just speak fluent German as a second language. I also have never read Marx and Engels in any other language than English (which is also not my native language) … though i probably should, just to see how it compares and which is easier.

        My point is that if we were to take the original German text today, for example from “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” and translated it to English, it would be more legible to today’s English-speaking audience compared to Edward Aveling’s 1892 translation.

        On this i have no doubt that you are correct.

        • NotMushroomForDebate@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
          4·
          6 days ago

          I am neither actually, i just speak fluent German as a second language.

          That’s my bad, I shouldn’t have assumed. Though in my defence I’ve seen you comment on events in Germany a few times and Gauss is German, lol.