One of the effects of the quarter century of victories of international
capitalism after 1979 was that it became significantly harder to obtain
Marxist works. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 the Collected
Works of Marx and Engels rose hugely in price and it took over a decade for
the series to be completed. The Collected Works of Lenin disappeared and
are expensive to acquire even second hand. Trotsky's works went up
significantly in price. The stream of publication and translation of lesser
known Marxist writers that had appeared from the late 1960s onwards largely
dried up.

For those who do not know it already therefore www.marxists.org represents a
superb achievement. An ongoing project it includes, at the time of writing,
internet versions of the first ten volumes of the Collected Works of Marx
and Engels plus many of their individual works, the great bulk of the
Collected Works of Lenin, large amounts of Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg, and a
host of more minor Marxist writers. A gratifying statistic is that for May
2006 there were over 1.4 million visits to the site.

This is an invaluable resource for readers of Socialist Action and it should
be supported in every way.