At the following site titled "Teach yourself Marx's Capital" you will find Otto Ruhle's abridgement of Volume 1 of _Capital_ allegedly prepared in collaboration with Leon Trotsky: http://www.workersliberty.org/wlmags/wl58/capital1.htm This raises a # of questions: ===================== 1) what are the pitfalls of teaching *yourself* _Capital_ rather than being part of a study group and/or class that jointly reads _Capital_? 2) the presumption is that you can understand _Capital_ by understanding Volume 1? Isn't this an unwarranted and misleading presumption? 3) what are the pitfalls of reading an *abridgement* of Volume 1 rather than the entire work? 4) Of the various abridgements of Volume 1 which are the better ones and which are the worst ones? Why? 5) How would you evaluate the Ruhle abridgement? 6) What role did Trotsky play in the preparation of this abridgement? Did he only write the introductory essay "Marxism in our time": http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1939/1939-cri.htm or did he have a greater role as suggested in the "workersliberty" introduction? 7) How would you evaluate Trotsky's essay? Did it really belong in an abridgement of Volume 1? Might it not prejudice an introductory reader to _Capital_ in terms of interpretations of that work? If it _had_ to be included, wouldn't it have been be better to have placed it *after* the abridgement? In solidarity, Jerry
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