The preface to the first French edition of this text was written by Karl Marx. It is a brief review of Engels’s theoretical works and revolutionary events he attended. These events include both academic conferences and active participation in the Baden Revolution and the February Revolution, two radical uprisings in 1848 and 1849. Marx describes Engels as “one of the foremost representatives of contemporary socialism” (4). He also states that this pamphlet is a series of Engels’s “most topical” contributions to the Vorwärts, a contemporary newspaper published by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

Like the remainder of this text, the preface to the first German edition is written by Engels. Unlike the biographical French introduction, this section is mainly concerned with the pamphlet’s publication history. Engels writes, “The following work is derived from three chapters of my book: Herrn E. Dürings Umwalzung der Wissenschaft, Leipzig, 1878” (7). The German translation was preceded by French and Polish versions.

The German version of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific came about when Engels granted the Zurich Sozialdemokrat’s editors use of this work to be published as propaganda pamphlets. He notes that this was not what the piece was written for, which meant significant changes needed to be made.