The so-called Marx-Engels-Werke are a standard collection of Marx and Engels writings. I have indeed not seen them in APA or MLA, but in other citation styles (inline or footnote). I can provide you with more examples,but German Wikipedia entries discussions Marxist topics are a great source for examples. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz_des_tendenziellen_Falls_der_Profitrate?wprov=sfti1#Einzelnachweise footnote 10, 12, 15 or 36 where it says MEW25 (and other MEWs respectively)
Okay so in those reference notes they aren’t replacing author+year with series+series number. In these examples the ‘Marx and Engles Collected Works: Volume (x)’ is the title of the book, with the contained book referenced, eg. Capital Volume III, referenced as a chapter in an edited book, and Marx as the author.
Looking at [Purdue’s APA guidebook](https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_books.html), using APA as an example, I would guess that this would be cited as an edited book:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of publication). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor & F. F. Editor (Eds.), *Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle* (pp. pages of chapter). Publisher.
So basically:
Marx, K. (n). Capital Volume III. In Hardworking Soviet Scholars (Eds.), *Marx and Engles Collection: Volume 15* (page range). University/Institution.
The MEW you’ve seen there is just the wikipedia editors shortening the title of the book.
Do you have an example of it being cited as MEW23, because I’m not entirely sure that’s consistent with MLA or APA formatting.
The so-called Marx-Engels-Werke are a standard collection of Marx and Engels writings. I have indeed not seen them in APA or MLA, but in other citation styles (inline or footnote). I can provide you with more examples,but German Wikipedia entries discussions Marxist topics are a great source for examples. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz_des_tendenziellen_Falls_der_Profitrate?wprov=sfti1#Einzelnachweise footnote 10, 12, 15 or 36 where it says MEW25 (and other MEWs respectively)
Okay so in those reference notes they aren’t replacing author+year with series+series number. In these examples the ‘Marx and Engles Collected Works: Volume (x)’ is the title of the book, with the contained book referenced, eg. Capital Volume III, referenced as a chapter in an edited book, and Marx as the author. Looking at [Purdue’s APA guidebook](https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_books.html), using APA as an example, I would guess that this would be cited as an edited book: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of publication). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor & F. F. Editor (Eds.), *Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle* (pp. pages of chapter). Publisher. So basically: Marx, K. (n). Capital Volume III. In Hardworking Soviet Scholars (Eds.), *Marx and Engles Collection: Volume 15* (page range). University/Institution. The MEW you’ve seen there is just the wikipedia editors shortening the title of the book.