634
PARTISAN REVIEW
FACES OF MARX
KARL MARX: HIS LIFE AND THOUGHT.
By David McLellan . Harper
&
Row . $7 .95.
GRUNDRISSE.
By Karl Marx . Translated with a foreword by Martin
Nicolaus. Random House. $15 .00 ($3.95 p.b .).
The trouble with McLellan's book is that, apart from a few mis–
prints, there is nothing negative
to
say about it. This is an excellent book in
many respects: learned yet very readable , comprehensive yet not too long,
clear yet not simplified. It should be one of the standard biographies of Marx
for years
to
come . But the subtitle,
His Life and Thought ,
should not lead
one to expect a detailed discussion of Marx's philosophical and political
theories. The author pretends neither to give a full account of the doctrine
nor to chart its vicissitudes through the ninety years following Marx's death .
However, Mr. McLellan does give succinct and clear accounts of all Marx 's
major works, weaving them into the life history.
Among those who in recent years made serious contributions to our
historical understanding ofMarx are three categories of writers : those who are
sympathetic yet critical of their subject (for example, Lichtheim , Fetscher,
Rubel, Avineri , Bottomore, Harrington) ; those strongly critical , sometimes
even hostile (for example, Wolfe, Jordan, Tucker, Kamenka, Plamenatz);
and some, though not many, orthodoxists of one kind or another (one might
quote Mandel's rich and illuminating study of the formation of Marx 's
economic thought and, not without some reservations, Vranicki's history of
Marxism). McLellan obviously belongs to the first category . He is an
admirer of Marx-not necessarily an easy task for a biographer, who ,
committed to examining the man as well as his work , is bound to study
the weaknesses of his hero: the outbursts of bad temper, the disloyal pole–
mics, the story of the illegitimate child which Marx 's maidservant bore him.
But though it contains abundant details of Marx's familial life , McLellan's
book is not a psychological portrait; it is an intellectual and political biogra–
phy. On every point it adheres to facts and sources, and it never strays into
literary essay, psychoanalytical inquest, accusation, or eulogy .
McLellan is undoubtedly one of the most competent Marxologists today .
That he achieved this at so young an age can be at least partially credited to his
exclusive concentration on the subject. All the books he has written to date
