Essays on Marx's Theory of Value

"Rubin was a Soviet economic theorist whose theory of Marx’s commodity fetishism was first published in Russian in 1924. A few years later, Rubin fell out of favor with the party and his books were removed from Soviet libraries. Rubin was arrested, imprisoned, and executed in 1937 during Stalin’s Great Purge. Fredy translated Rubin’s text with Miloš Samardžija, who had been Perlman’s professor and advisor in Yugoslavia. They worked off of Samardžija’s Serbo-Croatian version. They at-tempted to find an academic or trade publisher in the United States, but eventually decided to publish it through Black & Red.7 The translation of Rubin’s text for an English-speaking audience has been an important contribution to Marxist scholarship.Fredy wrote “Essay on Commodity Fetishism” as an introduction to the Rubin essays. It was republished on its own in several places and translated and published in Germany, Argentina, and Italy.8Rubin’s Essays was reprinted in 1973. Montreal–based publisher Black Rose Books proposed to publish the book for distribution in Canada. They asked Black & Red for the printed pages and planned to bind them in Canada with a cover that had the Black Rose Books logo on it. A funny episode is described in some detail in Having Little, Being Much. Dimitri Roussopoulos, the editor at Black Rose Books, asks that the Perlmans immediately send him 500 copies of the book in unbound signatures. This after having waited more than eight months to reply to some of the Perlmans’ clarifying questions about how exactly they wanted the books. Roussopoulos asks that the Perlmans package the books “in parcels of five. Separate the mailing of each parcel by a day or so” (in order to avoid customs fees). Roussopoulos also suggests that, alternatively they could drive over the border and mail the books from Canada.9Fredy responds in a humorous, angry letter: “Do you have any idea how much work that is? ... at no time did you volunteer to drive over the border and lug the cartons across; you gratuitously assumed that Lorraine and I would do the packing and marking, or the lifting and carrying, or else it would not get done at all.”10 He goes on to disparage Roussopoulos for assuming that their relationship consisted of Roussopoulos giving instructions for the Perlmans to follow. The book was eventually bound and published in Canada, despite these troubles, and this transla-tion is still in print and widely available." The Detroit Printing Co-op by Danielle Aubert.