The “Lesser Evil” as Argument and Tactic, from Marx to the Present

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Notes

*This article is revised and expanded from an entry originally published (in German translation, as “kleineres Übel”) in the Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus, vol. VII/1 (Hamburg: Argument, 2008). It is re-used here with the permission of HKWM editor Wolfgang Fritz Haug, to whom I am grateful for his encouragement.

For primary-source citations, I have kept the HKWM format, using, in order of appearance, the following abbreviations: K = Das Kapital (Marx); NRhZ= Neue Rheinische Zeitung (newspaper edited by Marx); MEW = Marx Engels Werke; CW = Collected Works (Lenin). Dates of primary-source citations are given, where applicable, in day/month/year format. All italics within quotations are as in the original texts.

1. For background on the various parties, see, e.g., Rabinowitch (2004).