I have already stated this many times; but precisely now is it necessary that it also stand in front of the Manifesto itself.
Frederick Engels
June 28, 1883, London
[1] 'This proposition,' I wrote in the preface to the English translation, 'which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what Darwin's theory has done for biology, we both of us, had been gradually approaching for some years before 1845. How far I had independently progressed towards it is best shown by my Conditions of the Working Class in England. But when I again met Marx at Brussels, in spring 1845, he had it already worked out and put it before me in terms almost as clear as those in which I have stated it here.' [Note by Engels to the German edition of 1890]