Marx's Concept of Man

E. Fromm’s work titled “Marx’s Concept of Man” (“Marx's Concept of Man”) was published in 1961 as a separate collection. Along with Fromm’s article, it also included Marx’s early writings. This publication was prompted by the fact that, at that time, Fromm had joined the Socialist Party of the United States and was trying to create for it a new program oriented toward a “humanist” Marx. And it turned out that in America during the “Cold War” period and the general anti-communist climate, there was no English translation of Marx’s early works at all (only in 1959 did England publish a translation made in the Soviet Union). Thus, in his collection "Marx's Concept of Man," Fromm carried out the first publication of the most important parts from the “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844” and “The German Ideology” (1845–1846). The translation was done by T. B. Bottomore (born 1920), an English sociologist of a neo-Marxist orientation, with whom Fromm was close friends. The impact of this publication in the United States was enormous, and Fromm became a major figure for American neo-Marxists.