Antonio Labriola, professor of philosophy in Rome from 1874 to 1904, was the first Italian Marxist philosopher. He wrote little, but that little was widely publicized by two disciples, Georges Sorel and Benedetto Croce; he exercised his extensive influence through lectures and discussions. Trained as a Hegelian in Naples, he became a Herbartian, more interested in Johan Friedrich Herbart's ethics and pedagogy than in his metaphysics. He discovered Marxism around 1890 and began a correspondence with Friedrich Engels that lasted until the latter's death and was published in Lettere a Engels (Rome, 1949). This discovery of Marxism was a decisive event in Italian intellectual life, for from it dates the introduction of Marxist theory into Italy's academic culture, where it still occupies a prominent place.

Labriola's articles on Marxism, published in Italy by Croce and in France by Sorel, were first collected in French, as Essais sur la...