‘An Immense Accumulation of Research. (…) Marx never stopped the process of learning new subject areas and researching additional topics within the field of political economy widely interpreted. Hence, in the first half of the 1860s, he continued the process of gathering materials that might provide assistance to his long-term goals. In political terms, the early 1860s were a period of upturn in the fortunes of the socialist movement, with an insurrection in Poland in 1863 and the defeat of slavery in the USA. In relation to these events in 1861, Marx and Engels had both written numerous journalistic articles on the America civil war, and in 1863 Marx devoted considerable time to studying Polish history and politics. In the mid-1860s he also devoted a significant amount of time to his role as a leading figure in the First International Working Men’s Association, which was a successor (of sorts) to the defunct Communist League. In preparation for the formal creation of the First International in 1864, Marx composed an inaugural address and also a set of provisional rules for this association, which demonstrated clearly his views on the political organisation necessary in order to secure proletarian aims. In this period, therefore, continuing his more abstract research on economics topics was by no means the only possibility that was available, as this chapter will document, but work on ‘Capital’ was certainly his main theoretical focus’ (pag 135-136) [Vincent Barrett, Marx, Routledge, London, 2009] [Vincent Barnett has been research fellow on a wide variety of History, Russian Studies and Economics projects at various UK universities. His publications include ‘A History of Russian Economic Thought’ (2005), ‘The Revolutionary Russian Economy, 1890-1940′ (2004) and Kondratiev and the Dynamics of Economic Development’ (1998)]