Frederich Engels
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Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
''
Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary'' is a large American dictionary, first published in 1966 as ''The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: The Unabridged Edition''. Edited by Editor-in-chief Jess Stein, it contained 315, ...
''.
; 28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a German philosopher, critic of political economy, historian,
political theorist A political theorist is someone who engages in constructing or evaluating political theory, including political philosophy. Theorists may be Academia, academics or independent scholars. Here the most notable political theorists are categorized b ...
and
revolutionary socialist Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revoluti ...
. He was also a businessman, journalist and political activist, whose father was an owner of large textile factories in
Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
(Lancashire, England) and Barmen,
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
(now
Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and tow ...
, Germany). Engels developed what is now known as
Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
together with
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
. In 1845, he published ''
The Condition of the Working Class in England ''The Condition of the Working Class in England'' (german: Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England) is an 1845 book by the German philosopher Friedrich Engels, a study of the industrial working class in Victorian England. Engels' first book, ...
'', based on personal observations and research in English cities. In 1848, Engels co-authored ''
The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Commu ...
'' with Marx and also authored and co-authored (primarily with Marx) many other works. Later, Engels supported Marx financially, allowing him to do research and write ''
Das Kapital ''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...
''. After Marx's death, Engels edited the second and third volumes of ''Das Kapital''. Additionally, Engels organised Marx's notes on the ''
Theories of Surplus Value ''Theories of Surplus Value'' (german: Theorien über den Mehrwert) is a draft manuscript written by Karl Marx between January 1862 and July 1863. It is mainly concerned with the Western European theorizing about ''Mehrwert'' (added value or sur ...
'' which were later published as the "fourth volume" of ''Das Kapital''. In 1884, he published '' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State'' on the basis of Marx's ethnographic research. On 5 August 1895, aged 74, Engels died of laryngeal cancer in London. Following cremation, his ashes were scattered off
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, near
Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...
.


Biography


Early life

Friedrich Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen, Jülich-Cleves-Berg,
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
(now
Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and tow ...
, Germany), as eldest son of Friedrich Engels Sr. (1796–1860) and of Elisabeth "Elise" Franziska Mauritia von Haar (1797–1873). The wealthy Engels family owned large cotton-textile mills in Barmen and
Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
, both expanding industrial metropoles. Friedrich's parents were devout
Pietist Pietism (), also known as Pietistic Lutheranism, is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christianity, Christian life, including a social concern for ...
Protestants and they raised their children accordingly. At the age of 13, Engels attended grammar school ('' Gymnasium'') in the adjacent city of
Elberfeld Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929. History The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was in a doc ...
but had to leave at 17, due to pressure from his father, who wanted him to become a businessman and start work as a mercantile apprentice in the family firm. After a year in Barmen, the young Engels was in 1838 sent by his father to undertake an apprenticeship at a trading house in Bremen.Tucker, Robert C. ''The Marx-Engels Reader'', p. xv His parents expected that he would follow his father into a career in the family business. Their son's revolutionary activities disappointed them. It would be some years before he joined the family firm. Whilst at Bremen, Engels began reading the philosophy of
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
, whose teachings dominated German philosophy at that time. In September 1838 he published his first work, a poem entitled "The Bedouin", in the ''Bremisches Conversationsblatt'' No. 40. He also engaged in other literary work and began writing newspaper articles critiquing the societal ills of industrialisation. He wrote under the pseudonym "Friedrich Oswald" to avoid connecting his family with his provocative writings. In 1841, Engels performed his military service in the Prussian Army as a member of the Household Artillery (german: link=no, Garde-Artillerie-Brigade). Assigned to Berlin, he attended university lectures at the
University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...
and began to associate with groups of
Young Hegelians The Young Hegelians (german: Junghegelianer), or Left Hegelians (''Linkshegelianer''), or the Hegelian Left (''die Hegelsche Linke''), were a group of German intellectuals who, in the decade or so after the death of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ...
. He anonymously published articles in the ''
Rheinische Zeitung The ''Rheinische Zeitung'' ("Rhenish Newspaper") was a 19th-century German newspaper, edited most famously by Karl Marx. The paper was launched in January 1842 and terminated by Prussian state censorship in March 1843. The paper was eventually su ...
'', exposing the poor employment- and living-conditions endured by factory workers. The editor of the ''Rheinische Zeitung'' was Karl Marx, but Engels would not meet Marx until late November 1842. Engels acknowledged the influence of German philosophy on his intellectual development throughout his career. In 1840, he also wrote: "To get the most out of life you must be active, you must live and you must have the courage to taste the thrill of being young." Engels developed
atheistic Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
beliefs and his relationship with his parents became strained.


Manchester and Salford

In 1842, his parents sent the 22-year-old Engels to
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, England, a manufacturing centre where industrialisation was on the rise. He was to work in Weaste,
Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
, in the offices of Ermen and Engels's Victoria Mill, which made sewing threads. Engels's father thought that working at the Manchester firm might make his son reconsider some of his radical opinions. On his way to Manchester, Engels visited the office of the ''
Rheinische Zeitung The ''Rheinische Zeitung'' ("Rhenish Newspaper") was a 19th-century German newspaper, edited most famously by Karl Marx. The paper was launched in January 1842 and terminated by Prussian state censorship in March 1843. The paper was eventually su ...
'' in Cologne and met Karl Marx for the first time. Initially they were not impressed with each other. Marx mistakenly thought that Engels was still associated with the Berliner
Young Hegelians The Young Hegelians (german: Junghegelianer), or Left Hegelians (''Linkshegelianer''), or the Hegelian Left (''die Hegelsche Linke''), were a group of German intellectuals who, in the decade or so after the death of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ...
, with whom Marx had just broken off ties. In Manchester, Engels met Mary Burns, a fierce young Irish woman with radical opinions who worked in the Engels factory. They began a relationship that lasted 20 years until her death in 1863. The two never married, as both were against the institution of marriage. While Engels regarded stable monogamy as a virtue, he considered the current state and church-regulated marriage as a form of class oppression. Burns guided Engels through Manchester and
Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
, showing him the worst districts for his research. Engels was often described as a man with a very strong libido and not much restraint. He had numerous affairs with a string of lovers and despite his condemnation of prostitution as "exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie" he also occasionally paid for sex. In 1846 he wrote to Marx: "If I had an income of 5000 francs I would do nothing but work and amuse myself with women until I went to pieces. If there were no Frenchwomen, life wouldn't be worth living. But so long as there are grisettes, well and good!" His most controversial relationship was with the wife of his rival
Moses Hess Moses (Moritz) Hess (21 January 1812 – 6 April 1875) was a German-Jewish philosopher, early communist and Zionist thinker. His socialist theories led to disagreements with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He is considered a pioneer of Labor Zi ...
, Sibylle, who later accused him of rape. While in Manchester between October and November 1843, Engels wrote his first
critique of political economy Critique of political economy or critique of economy is a form of social critique that rejects the various social categories and structures that constitute the mainstream discourse concerning the forms and modalities of resource allocation and ...
, entitled "
Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy ''Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy'' is an article by Friedrich Engels, first published in German in 1843 for the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.https://tilde.town/~xat/rt/pdf/engels_1843_outline_political_economy.pdf The article ...
". Engels sent the article to Paris, where Marx published it in the '' Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher'' in 1844. While observing the slums of Manchester in close detail, Engels took notes of its horrors, notably child labour, the despoiled environment, and overworked and impoverished labourers. He sent a trilogy of articles to Marx. These were published in the ''Rheinische Zeitung'' and then in the ''Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher'', chronicling the conditions among the working class in Manchester. He later collected these articles for his influential first book, ''
The Condition of the Working Class in England ''The Condition of the Working Class in England'' (german: Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England) is an 1845 book by the German philosopher Friedrich Engels, a study of the industrial working class in Victorian England. Engels' first book, ...
'' (1845). Written between September 1844 and March 1845, the book was published in German in 1845. In the book, Engels described the "grim future of capitalism and the industrial age", noting the details of the squalor in which the working people lived. The book was published in English in 1887. Archival resources contemporary to Engels's stay in Manchester shed light on some of the conditions he describes, including a manuscript (MMM/10/1) held by special collections at the University of Manchester. This recounts cases seen in the Manchester Royal Infirmary, where industrial accidents dominated and which resonate with Engels's comments on the disfigured persons seen walking round Manchester as a result of such accidents. Engels continued his involvement with radical journalism and politics. He frequented areas popular among members of the English
labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
and Chartist movements, whom he met. He also wrote for several journals, including ''
The Northern Star ''The Northern Star'' is a daily newspaper serving Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. The newspaper is owned by News Corp Australia. ''The Northern Star'' is circulated to Lismore and surrounding communities, from Tweed Heads to the nort ...
'', Robert Owen's '' New Moral World,'' and the '' Democratic Review'' newspaper.


Paris

Engels decided to return to Germany in 1844. On the way, he stopped in Paris to meet Karl Marx, with whom he had an earlier correspondence. Marx had been living in Paris since late October 1843, after the ''Rheinische Zeitung'' was banned in March 1843 by Prussian governmental authorities. Prior to meeting Marx, Engels had become established as a fully developed materialist and scientific socialist, independent of Marx's philosophical development. In Paris, Marx was publishing the '' Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher''. Engels met Marx for a second time at the
Café de la Régence The Café de la Régence in Paris was an important European centre of chess in the 18th and 19th centuries. All important chess masters of the time played there. The Café's masters included, but are not limited to: * Paul Morphy * François ...
on the Place du Palais, 28 August 1844. The two quickly became close friends and remained so their entire lives. Marx had read and was impressed by Engels's articles on ''The Condition of the Working Class in England'' in which he had written that " class which bears all the disadvantages of the social order without enjoying its advantages, ..Who can demand that such a class respect this social order?" Marx adopted Engels's idea that the working class would lead the revolution against the bourgeoisie as society advanced toward socialism, and incorporated this as part of his own philosophy. Engels stayed in Paris to help Marx write '' The Holy Family''. It was an attack on the
Young Hegelians The Young Hegelians (german: Junghegelianer), or Left Hegelians (''Linkshegelianer''), or the Hegelian Left (''die Hegelsche Linke''), were a group of German intellectuals who, in the decade or so after the death of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ...
and the Bauer brothers, and was published in late February 1845. Engels's earliest contribution to Marx's work was writing for the ''Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher'', edited by both Marx and
Arnold Ruge Arnold Ruge (13 September 1802 – 31 December 1880) was a German philosopher and political writer. He was the older brother of Ludwig Ruge. Studies in university and prison Born in Bergen auf Rügen, he studied in Halle, Jena and Heidelberg. ...
, in Paris in 1844. During this time in Paris, both Marx and Engels began their association with and then joined the secret revolutionary society called the
League of the Just The League of the Just (German: ''Bund der Gerechten'') or League of Justice was a Christian communist international revolutionary organization. It was founded in 1836 by branching off from its ancestor, the League of Outlaws (German: ''Bund der ...
. The League of the Just had been formed in 1837 in France to promote an egalitarian society through the overthrow of the existing governments. In 1839, the League of the Just participated in the 1839 rebellion fomented by the French utopian revolutionary socialist,
Louis Auguste Blanqui Louis Auguste Blanqui (; 8 February 1805 – 1 January 1881) was a French socialist and political activist, notable for his revolutionary theory of Blanquism. Biography Early life, political activity and first imprisonment (1805–1848) Bl ...
; however, as Ruge remained a Young Hegelian in his belief, Marx and Ruge soon split and Ruge left the ''Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher''. Nonetheless, following the split, Marx remained friendly enough with Ruge that he sent Ruge a warning on 15 January 1845 that the Paris police were going to execute orders against him, Marx and others at the ''Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher'' requiring all to leave Paris within 24 hours. Marx himself was expelled from Paris by French authorities on 3 February 1845 and settled in Brussels with his wife and one daughter. Having left Paris on 6 September 1844, Engels returned to his home in Barmen, Germany, to work on his ''The Condition of the Working Class in England'', which was published in late May 1845. Even before the publication of his book, Engels moved to Brussels in late April 1845, to collaborate with Marx on another book, '' German Ideology''. While living in Barmen, Engels began making contact with Socialists in the
Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...
to raise money for Marx's publication efforts in Brussels; however, these contacts became more important as both Marx and Engels began political organizing for the
Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany The Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, SDAP) was a Marxist socialist political party in the North German Confederation during unification. Founded in Eisenach in 1869, the SDAP e ...
.


Brussels

The nation of Belgium, founded in 1830, was endowed with one of the most liberal constitutions in Europe and functioned as refuge for progressives from other countries. From 1845 to 1848, Engels and Marx lived in
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, spending much of their time organising the city's German workers. Shortly after their arrival, they contacted and joined the underground German Communist League. The Communist League was the successor organisation to the old League of the Just which had been founded in 1837, but had recently disbanded. Influenced by
Wilhelm Weitling Wilhelm Christian Weitling (October 5, 1808 – January 25, 1871) was a German tailor, inventor, radical political activist and one of the first theorists of communism. Weitling gained fame in Europe as a social theorist before he emigrated t ...
, the Communist League was an international society of proletarian revolutionaries with branches in various European cities. The Communist League also had contacts with the underground conspiratorial organisation of
Louis Auguste Blanqui Louis Auguste Blanqui (; 8 February 1805 – 1 January 1881) was a French socialist and political activist, notable for his revolutionary theory of Blanquism. Biography Early life, political activity and first imprisonment (1805–1848) Bl ...
. Many of Marx's and Engels's current friends became members of the Communist League. Old friends like Georg Friedrich Herwegh, who had worked with Marx on the ''Rheinsche Zeitung'', Heinrich Heine, the famous poet, a young physician by the name of Roland Daniels, Heinrich Bürgers and August Herman Ewerbeck all maintained their contacts with Marx and Engels in Brussels.
Georg Weerth Georg Ludwig Weerth (17 February 1822 – 30 July 1856) was a German writer and poet. Weerth's poems celebrated the solidarity of the working class in its fight for liberation from exploitation and oppression. He was a friend and companio ...
, who had become a friend of Engels in England in 1843, now settled in Brussels. Carl Wallau and Stephen Born (real name Simon Buttermilch) were both German immigrant typesetters who settled in Brussels to help Marx and Engels with their Communist League work. Marx and Engels made many new important contacts through the Communist League. One of the first was Wilhelm Wolff, who was soon to become one of Marx's and Engels's closest collaborators. Others were
Joseph Weydemeyer Joseph Arnold Weydemeyer (February 2, 1818, Münster – August 26, 1866, St. Louis, Missouri) was a military officer in the Kingdom of Prussia and the United States as well as a journalist, politician and Marxist revolutionary. At first a supp ...
and Ferdinand Freiligrath, a famous revolutionary poet. While most of the associates of Marx and Engels were German immigrants living in Brussels, some of their new associates were Belgians. Phillipe Gigot, a Belgian philosopher and Victor Tedesco, a lawyer from Liège, both joined the Communist League. Joachim Lelewel a prominent Polish historian and participant in the Polish uprising of 1830–1831 was also a frequent associate. The Communist League commissioned Marx and Engels to write a pamphlet explaining the principles of communism. This became the ''
Manifesto of the Communist Party ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Comm ...
'', better known as ''The Communist Manifesto''. It was first published on 21 February 1848 and ends with the world-famous phrase: "Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletariat have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working Men of All Countries, Unite!" Engels's mother wrote in a letter to him of her concerns, commenting that he had "really gone too far" and "begged" him "to proceed no further".Elisabeth Engels's letter contained at No. 6 of the Appendix, ''Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Volume 38'' (International Publishers: New York, 1982) pp. 540–541. She further stated:
You have paid more heed to other people, to strangers, and have taken no account of your mother's pleas. God alone knows what I have felt and suffered of late. I was trembling when I picked up the newspaper and saw therein that a warrant was out for my son's arrest.


Return to Prussia

There was a revolution in France in 1848 that soon spread to other Western European countries. These events caused Engels and Marx to return to their homeland of the Kingdom of Prussia, specifically to the city of
Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
. While living in Cologne, they created and served as editors for a new daily newspaper called the ''
Neue Rheinische Zeitung The ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung: Organ der Demokratie'' ("New Rhenish Newspaper: Organ of Democracy") was a German daily newspaper, published by Karl Marx in Cologne between 1 June 1848 and 19 May 1849. It is recognised by historians as one of the ...
''. Besides Marx and Engels, other frequent contributors to the ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung'' included
Karl Schapper Karl Friedrich Schapper (December 30, 1812, Weinbach – April 28, 1870, London) was a German socialist and labour leader. He was one of the pioneers of the labour movement in Germany and an early associate of Wilhelm Weitling and Karl Marx. You ...
, Wilhelm Wolff,
Ernst Dronke Ernst Andreas Dominicus Dronke (17 August 1822, Koblenz – 2 November 1891, Liverpool) was a German writer and journalist. Because of his philosophical beliefs, Dronke became a "true socialist". Later he became a member of the Communist League a ...
, Peter Nothjung, Heinrich Bürgers,
Ferdinand Wolff Ferdinand Wolff (7 November 1812 – 8 March 1895) was a German journalist by profession and a proletarian revolutionary. He joined the Communist League and became an editor of the ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung'' in 1848 and 1849. He was a close frie ...
and Carl Cramer. Friedrich Engels's mother, herself, gives unwitting witness to the effect of the ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung'' on the revolutionary uprising in Cologne in 1848. Criticising his involvement in the uprising she states in a 5 December 1848 letter to Friedrich that "nobody, ourselves included, doubted that the meetings at which you and your friends spoke, and also the language of ''(Neue) Rh.Z.'' were largely the cause of these disturbances."Elisabeth Engels's letter to Friedrich Engels contained at No. 8 of the Appendix in the ''Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Volume 38'', p. 543. Engels's parents hoped that young Engels would "decide to turn to activities other than those which you have been pursuing in recent years and which have caused so much distress". At this point, his parents felt the only hope for their son was to emigrate to America and start his life over. They told him that he should do this or he would "cease to receive money from us"; however, the problem in the relationship between Engels and his parents was worked out without Engels having to leave England or being cut off from financial assistance from his parents. In July 1851, Engels's father arrived to visit him in Manchester, England. During the visit, his father arranged for Engels to meet Peter Ermen of the office of ''Ermen & Engels'', to move to Liverpool and to take over sole management of the office in Manchester. In 1849, Engels travelled to the Kingdom of Bavaria for the Baden and Palatinate revolutionary uprising, an even more dangerous involvement. Starting with an article called "The Magyar Struggle", written on 8 January 1849, Engels, himself, began a series of reports on the Revolution and War for Independence of the newly founded Hungarian Republic. Engels's articles on the Hungarian Republic became a regular feature in the ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung'' under the heading "From the Theatre of War"; however, the newspaper was suppressed during the June 1849 Prussian coup d'état. After the coup, Marx lost his Prussian
citizenship Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
, was deported and fled to Paris and then London. Engels stayed in Prussia and took part in an armed uprising in South Germany as an aide-de-camp in the volunteer corps of
August Willich August Willich (November 19, 1810 – January 22, 1878), born Johann August Ernst von Willich, was a military officer in the Prussian Army and a leading early proponent of communism in Germany. In 1847 he discarded his title of nobility. He later ...
. Engels also brought two cases of rifle cartridges with him when he went to join the uprising in
Elberfeld Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929. History The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was in a doc ...
on 10 May 1849. Later when Prussian troops came to Kaiserslautern to suppress an uprising there, Engels joined a group of volunteers under the command of August Willich, who were going to fight the Prussian troops. When the uprising was crushed, Engels was one of the last members of Willich's volunteers to escape by crossing the Swiss border. Marx and others became concerned for Engels's life until they finally heard from him. Engels travelled through Switzerland as a refugee and eventually made it to safety in England. On 6 June 1849 Prussian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Engels which contained a physical description as "height: 5 feet 6 inches; hair: blond; forehead: smooth; eyebrows: blond; eyes: blue; nose and mouth: well proportioned; beard: reddish; chin: oval; face: oval; complexion: healthy; figure: slender. Special characteristics: speaks very rapidly and is short-sighted". As to his "short-sightedness", Engels admitted as much in a letter written to Joseph Weydemeyer on 19 June 1851 in which he says he was not worried about being selected for the Prussian military because of "my eye trouble, as I have now found out once and for all which renders me completely unfit for active service of any sort". Once he was safe in Switzerland, Engels began to write down all his memories of the recent military campaign against the Prussians. This writing eventually became the article published under the name "The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution".


Back in Britain

To help Marx with '' Neue Rheinische Zeitung Politisch-ökonomische Revue'', the new publishing effort in London, Engels sought ways to escape the continent and travel to London. On 5 October 1849, Engels arrived in the Italian port city of Genoa. There, Engels booked passage on the English schooner, ''Cornish Diamond'' under the command of a Captain Stevens. The voyage across the western Mediterranean, around the Iberian Peninsula by sailing schooner took about five weeks. Finally, the ''Cornish Diamond'' sailed up the River Thames to London on 10 November 1849 with Engels on board. Upon his return to Britain, Engels re-entered the Manchester company in which his father held shares to support Marx financially as he worked on ''
Das Kapital ''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...
''. Unlike his first period in England (1843), Engels was now under police surveillance. He had "official" homes and "unofficial homes" all over Salford, Weaste and other inner-city Manchester districts where he lived with Mary Burns under false names to confuse the police. Little more is known, as Engels destroyed over 1,500 letters between himself and Marx after the latter's death so as to conceal the details of their secretive lifestyle. Despite his work at the mill, Engels found time to write a book on
Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...
, the
Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and ...
and the 1525 revolutionary war of the peasants, entitled ''
The Peasant War in Germany ''The Peasant War in Germany'' (German: ''Der deutsche Bauernkrieg'') by Friedrich Engels is a short account of the early-16th-century uprisings known as the German Peasants' War (1524–1525). It was written by Engels in London during the sum ...
''. He also wrote a number of newspaper articles including "The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution" which he finished in February 1850 and "On the Slogan of the Abolition of the State and the German 'Friends of Anarchy'" written in October 1850. In April 1851, he wrote the pamphlet "Conditions and Prospects of a War of the Holy Alliance against France". Marx and Engels denounced
Louis Bonaparte Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (born Luigi Buonaparte; 2 September 1778 – 25 July 1846) was a younger brother of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. He was a monarch in his own right from 1806 to 1810, ruling over the Kingdom of Holland (a French cl ...
when he carried out a coup against the French government and made himself president for life on 2 December 1851. In condemning this action, Engels wrote to Marx on 3 December 1851, characterising the coup as "comical"Friedrich Engels's letter to Karl Marx dated 3 December 1851 contained in the "Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Volume 38", p. 503. and referred to it as occurring on "the 18th Brumaire", the date of Napoleon I's coup of 1799 according to the French Republican Calendar. Marx was later to incorporate this comically ironic characterisation of Louis Bonaparte's coup into his essay about the coup. Indeed, Marx even called the essay ''
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte ''The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon'' (german: italic=yes, Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon) is an essay written by Karl Marx between December 1851 and March 1852, and originally published in 1852 in ''Die Revolution'', a German mo ...
'' again using Engels's suggested characterisation. Marx also borrowed Engels' characterisation of Hegel's notion of the World Spirit that history occurred twice, "once as a tragedy and secondly as a farce" in the first paragraph of his new essay. Meanwhile, Engels started working at the mill owned by his father in Manchester as an office clerk, the same position he held in his teens while in Germany where his father's company was based. Engels worked his way up to become a partner of the firm in 1864. Five years later, Engels retired from the business and could focus more on his studies. At this time, Marx was living in London but they were able to exchange ideas through daily correspondence. One of the ideas that Engels and Marx contemplated was the possibility and character of a potential revolution in the Russias. As early as April 1853, Engels and Marx anticipated an "aristocratic-bourgeois revolution in Russia which would begin in "St. Petersburg with a resulting civil war in the interior". The model for this type of aristocratic-bourgeois revolution in Russia against the autocratic Tsarist government in favour of a constitutional government had been provided by the
Decembrist Revolt The Decembrist Revolt ( ru , Восстание декабристов, translit = Vosstaniye dekabristov , translation = Uprising of the Decembrists) took place in Russia on , during the interregnum following the sudden death of Emperor Al ...
of 1825. Although an unsuccessful revolt against the Tsarist government in favour of a constitutional government, both Engels and Marx anticipated a bourgeois revolution in Russia would occur which would bring about a bourgeois stage in Russian development to precede a communist stage. By 1881, both Marx and Engels began to contemplate a course of development in Russia that would lead directly to the communist stage without the intervening bourgeois stage. This analysis was based on what Marx and Engels saw as the exceptional characteristics of the Russian village commune or obshchina. While doubt was cast on this theory by Georgi Plekhanov, Plekhanov's reasoning was based on the first edition of ''
Das Kapital ''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...
'' (1867) which predated Marx's interest in Russian peasant communes by two years. Later editions of the text demonstrate Marx's sympathy for the argument of
Nikolay Chernyshevsky Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky ( – ) was a Russian literary and social critic, journalist, novelist, democrat, and socialist philosopher, often identified as a utopian socialist and leading theoretician of Russian nihilism. He was ...
, that it should be possible to establish socialism in Russia without an intermediary bourgeois stage provided that the peasant commune were used as the basis for the transition. In 1870, Engels moved to London where he and Marx lived until Marx's death in 1883. Engels's London home from 1870 to 1894 was at 122 Regent's Park Road. In October 1894 he moved to 41 Regent's Park Road,
Primrose Hill Primrose Hill is a Grade II listed public park located north of Regent's Park in London, England, first opened to the public in 1842.Mills, A., ''Dictionary of London Place Names'', (2001) It was named after the natural hill in the centre of ...
, NW1, where he died the following year. Marx's first London residence was a cramped apartment at 28
Dean Street Dean Street is a street in Soho, central London, running from Oxford Street south to Shaftesbury Avenue. Historical figures and places In 1764 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then a young boy, gave a recital at 21 Dean Street. Admiral Nelson stayed ...
,
Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...
. From 1856, he lived at 9 Grafton Terrace,
Kentish Town Kentish Town is an area of northwest London, England in the London Borough of Camden, immediately north of Camden Town. Less than four miles north of central London, Kentish Town has good transport connections and is situated close to the open ...
, and then in a tenement at 41 Maitland Park Road in
Belsize Park Belsize Park is an affluent residential area of Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden (the inner north-west of London), England. The residential streets are lined with mews houses and Georgian and Victorian villas. Some nearby localities ar ...
from 1875 until his death in March 1883. Mary Burns suddenly died of heart disease in 1863, after which Engels became close with her younger sister Lydia ("
Lizzie Lizzie or Lizzy is a nickname for Elizabeth or Elisabet, often given as an independent name in the United States, especially in the late 19th century. Lizzie can also be the shortened version of Lizeth, Lissette or Lizette. People * Elizabeth I ...
"). They lived openly as a couple in London and married on 11 September 1878, hours before Lizzie's death.


Later years

Later in their life, both Marx and Engels came to argue that in some countries workers might be able to achieve their aims through peaceful means. In following this, Engels argued that socialists were evolutionists, although they remained committed to social revolution. Similarly,
Tristram Hunt Tristram Julian William Hunt, (born 31 May 1974) is a British historian, broadcast journalist and former politician who has been Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum since 2017. He served as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Sto ...
argues that Engels was sceptical of "top-down revolutions" and later in life advocated "a peaceful, democratic road to socialism". Engels also wrote in his introduction to the 1891 edition of Marx's '' The Class Struggles in France'' that " bellion in the old style, street fighting with barricades, which decided the issue everywhere up to 1848, was to a considerable extent obsolete",Kellogg, Paul (Summer 1991). "Engels and the Roots of 'Revisionism': A Re-Evaluation". ''Science & Society''. Guilford Press. 55 (2): 158–174. . although some such as David W. Lowell empashised their cautionary and tactical meaning, arguing that "Engels questions only rebellion 'in the old style', that is, insurrection: he does not renounce revolution. The reason for Engels' caution is clear: he candidly admits that ultimate victory for any insurrection is rare, simply on military and tactical grounds". In his introduction to the 1895 edition of Marx's ''The Class Struggles in France'', Engels attempted to resolve the division between
reformists Reformism is a political doctrine advocating the reform of an existing system or institution instead of its abolition and replacement. Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can e ...
and
revolutionaries A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...
in the Marxist movement by declaring that he was in favour of short-term tactics of electoral politics that included
gradualist Gradualism, from the Latin ''gradus'' ("step"), is a hypothesis, a theory or a tenet assuming that change comes about gradually or that variation is gradual in nature and happens over time as opposed to in large steps. Uniformitarianism, incrementa ...
and evolutionary socialist measures while maintaining his belief that revolutionary seizure of power by the proletariat should remain a goal. In spite of this attempt by Engels to merge gradualism and revolution, his effort only diluted the distinction of gradualism and revolution and had the effect of strengthening the position of the revisionists.Steger, Manfred B. (1999). "Friedrich Engels and the Origins of German Revisionism: Another Look". In Carver, Terrell; Steger, Manfred B. (eds.). ''Engels After Marx''. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University. p. 182. . Engels's statements in the French newspaper ''Le Figaro'', in which he wrote that "revolution" and the "so-called socialist society" were not fixed concepts, but rather constantly changing social phenomena, and argued that this made "us socialists all evolutionists", increased the public perception that Engels was gravitating towards evolutionary socialism. Engels also argued that it would be "suicidal" to talk about a revolutionary seizure of power at a time when the historical circumstances favoured a parliamentary road to power that he predicted could bring "
social democracy Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote s ...
into power as early as 1898". Engels's stance of openly accepting gradualist, evolutionary and parliamentary tactics while claiming that the historical circumstances did not favour revolution caused confusion. Marxist revisionist Eduard Bernstein interpreted this as indicating that Engels was moving towards accepting parliamentary reformist and gradualist stances, but he ignored that Engels's stances were tactical as a response to the particular circumstances and that Engels was still committed to
revolutionary socialism Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolut ...
. Engels was deeply distressed when he discovered that his introduction to a new edition of ''The Class Struggles in France'' had been edited by Bernstein and
orthodox Marxist Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged after the death of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and which became the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the Firs ...
Karl Kautsky Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels i ...
in a manner which left the impression that he had become a proponent of a peaceful road to socialism. On 1 April 1895, four months before his death, Engels responded to Kautsky:
I was amazed to see today in the ''Vorwärts'' an excerpt from my 'Introduction' that had been printed without my knowledge and tricked out in such a way as to present me as a peace-loving proponent of legality
t all costs T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is deri ...
Which is all the more reason why I should like it to appear in its entirety in the ''Neue Zeit'' in order that this disgraceful impression may be erased. I shall leave Liebknecht in no doubt as to what I think about it and the same applies to those who, irrespective of who they may be, gave him this opportunity of perverting my views and, what's more, without so much as a word to me about it.
After Marx's death, Engels devoted much of his remaining years to editing Marx's unfinished volumes of ''
Das Kapital ''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...
''; however, he also contributed significantly in other areas. Engels made an argument using
anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
evidence of the time to show that family structures changed over history, and that the concept of monogamous marriage came from the necessity within class society for men to control women to ensure their own children would inherit their property. He argued a future communist society would allow people to make decisions about their relationships free of economic constraints. One of the best examples of Engels's thoughts on these issues are in his work '' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State''. On 5 August 1895, Engels died of throat cancer in London, aged 74. Following cremation at
Woking Crematorium Woking Crematorium is a crematorium in Woking, a large town in the west of Surrey, England. Established in 1878, it was the first custom-built crematorium in the United Kingdom and is closely linked to the history of cremation in the UK. Loc ...
, his ashes were scattered off
Beachy Head Beachy Head is a chalk headland in East Sussex, England. It is situated close to Eastbourne, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. Beachy Head is located within the administrative area of Eastbourne Borough Council which owns the land, formi ...
, near
Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...
, as he had requested. He left a considerable estate to Eduard Bernstein and Louise Freyberger (wife of Ludwig Freyberger), valued for probate at £25,265 0s. 11d, equivalent to £ in .


Personality

Engels's interests included poetry, fox hunting and hosting regular Sunday parties for London's left-wing intelligentsia where, as one regular put it, "no one left before two or three in the morning". His stated personal motto was "take it easy" while "jollity" was listed as his favourite virtue. Of Engels's personality and appearance,
Robert Heilbroner Robert L. Heilbroner (March 24, 1919 – January 4, 2005) was an American economist and historian of economic thought. The author of some 20 books, Heilbroner was best known for ''The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great ...
described him in ''The Worldly Philosophers'' as "tall and rather elegant, he had the figure of a man who liked to fence and to ride to hounds and who had once swum the Weser River four times without a break" as well as having been "gifted with a quick wit and facile mind" and of a gay temperament, being able to "stutter in twenty languages". He had a great enjoyment of wine and other "bourgeois pleasures". Engels favoured forming romantic relationships with that of the proletariat and found a long-term partner in a working-class woman named Mary Burns, although they never married. After her death, Engels was romantically involved with her younger sister
Lydia Burns Lydia "Lizzie" Burns (6 August 1827 – 12 September 1878 in London) was a Working class, working-class Irish people, Irish woman, the wife of Friedrich Engels. Lizzie Burns was a daughter of Michael Burns or Byrne, a Dyeing, dyer in a cotton m ...
. Historian and former
Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
MP
Tristram Hunt Tristram Julian William Hunt, (born 31 May 1974) is a British historian, broadcast journalist and former politician who has been Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum since 2017. He served as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Sto ...
, author of ''The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels'', argues that Engels "almost certainly was, in other words, the kind of man Stalin would have had shot". Hunt sums up the disconnect between Engels's personality and the Soviet Union which later utilised his works, stating: As to the religious persuasion attributable to Engels, Hunt writes: Engels was a
polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Eu ...
and was able to write and speak in numerous languages, including Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Spanish, Polish, French, English, German and the
Milanese dialect Milanese (endonym in traditional orthography , ') is the central variety of the Western dialect of the Lombard language spoken in Milan, the rest of its metropolitan city, and the northernmost part of the province of Pavia. Milanese, due to t ...
.


Legacy

In his biography of Engels,
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
wrote: "After his friend Karl Marx (who died in 1883), Engels was the finest scholar and teacher of the modern proletariat in the whole civilised world. ..In their scientific works, Marx and Engels were the first to explain that socialism is not the invention of dreamers, but the final aim and necessary result of the development of the productive forces in modern society. All recorded history hitherto has been a history of class struggle, of the succession of the rule and victory of certain social classes over others." According to
Paul Kellogg Paul Underwood Kellogg (September 30, 1879 – November 1, 1958) was an American journalist and social reformer. He died at 79 in New York on November 1, 1958. Life He was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1879. After working as a journalist he m ...
, there is "some considerable controversy" regarding "the place of Frederick Engels in the canon of '
classical Marxism Classical Marxism refers to the economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Marxism–Leninism. Karl Marx Karl Marx (5 May 1818, ...
'". While some such as
Terrell Carver Terrell Foster Carver (born 4 September 1946) is a Professor of Political Theory at the University of Bristol. Career Carver was born in Boise, Idaho. After receiving his B.A. from Columbia University in 1968, Carver went on to study in Engla ...
dispute "Engels' claim that Marx agreed with the views put forward in Engels' major theoretical work, ''Anti-Dühring''", others such as E. P. Thompson "identified a tendency to make 'old Engels into a whipping boy, and to impugn him any sign that once chooses to impugn subsequent Marxsisms'".
Tristram Hunt Tristram Julian William Hunt, (born 31 May 1974) is a British historian, broadcast journalist and former politician who has been Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum since 2017. He served as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Sto ...
argues that Engels has become a convenient scapegoat, too easily blamed for the state crimes of
Communist regime A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...
s such as China, the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and those in Africa and Southeast Asia, among others. Hunt writes that "Engels is left holding the bag of 20th century ideological extremism" while
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
"is rebranded as the acceptable, post–political seer of
global capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
". Hunt largely exonerates Engels, stating that " no intelligible sense can Engels or Marx bear culpability for the crimes of historical actors carried out generations later, even if the policies were offered up in their honor". Andrew Lipow describes Marx and Engels as "the founders of modern revolutionary democratic socialism". While admitting the distance between Marx and Engels on one hand and
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
on the other, some writers such as Robert Service are less charitable, noting that the anarchist
Mikhail Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (; 1814–1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, socialist and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major founder of the revolutionary s ...
predicted the oppressive potential of their ideas, arguing that " is a fallacy that Marxism's flaws were exposed only after it was tried out in power. .. arx and Engelswere centralisers. While talking about 'free associations of producers', they advocated discipline and hierarchy". Paul Thomas, of the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, claims that while Engels had been the most important and dedicated facilitator and diffuser of Marx's writings, he significantly altered Marx's intents as he held, edited and released them in a finished form and commentated on them. Engels attempted to fill gaps in Marx's system and extend it to other fields. In particular, Engels is said to have stressed
historical materialism Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
, assigning it a character of scientific discovery and a doctrine, forming
Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
as such. A case in point is '' Anti-Dühring'' which both supporters and detractors of socialism treated as an encompassing presentation of Marx's thought. While in his extensive correspondence with German socialists Engels modestly presented his own secondary place in the couple's intellectual relationship and always emphasised Marx's outstanding role, Russian communists such as Lenin raised Engels up with Marx and conflated their thoughts as if they were necessarily congruous. Soviet Marxists then developed this tendency to the state doctrine of dialectical materialism. Since 1931, Engels has had a Russian city named after him—
Engels, Saratov Oblast Engels ( rus, Э́нгельс, p=ˈɛnɡʲɪlʲs), formerly known as Pokrovsk and Kosakenstadt, is a city in Saratov Oblast, Russia. It is a port located on the Volga River across from Saratov, the administrative center of the oblast, and is co ...
. It served as the capital of the
Volga German Republic The Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (german: Autonome Sozialistische Sowjetrepublik der Wolgadeutschen; russian: Автономная Советская Социалистическая Республика Немцев По ...
within
Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
and as part of
Saratov Oblast Saratov Oblast (russian: Сара́товская о́бласть, ''Saratovskaya oblast'') is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in the Volga Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Saratov. As of the 2010 Cen ...
. A town named
Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
is located northeast. In 2014, Engels's "magnificent beard" inspired a
climbing wall A climbing wall is an artificially constructed wall with grips for hands and feet, usually used for indoor climbing, but sometimes located outdoors. Some are brick or wooden constructions, but on most modern walls, the material most often used i ...
sculpture in Salford. The beard statue, described as a "symbol of wisdom and learning", was planned to stand on the campus of the
University of Salford , caption = Coat of ArmsUniversity of Salford , mottoeng = "Let us seek higher things" , established = 1850 - Pendleton Mechanics Institute 1896 – Royal Technical Institute, Salford 1967 – gained ...
. Engine, the arts company behind the piece, stated that "the idea came from a 1980s plan to relocate an Eastern Bloc statue of the thinker to Manchester". In the summer of 2017, as part of the
Manchester International Festival The Manchester International Festival is a biennial international arts festival, with a specific focus on original new work, held in the English city of Manchester and run by Factory International. The festival is a biennial event, first taking ...
, a Soviet-era statue of Engels was installed by sculptor Phil Collins at Tony Wilson Place in
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. It was transported from the village of Mala Pereshchepina in
Eastern Ukraine Eastern Ukraine or east Ukraine ( uk, Східна Україна, Skhidna Ukrayina; russian: Восточная Украина, Vostochnaya Ukraina) is primarily the territory of Ukraine east of the Dnipro (or Dnieper) river, particularly Khar ...
, after the statue had been deposed from its central position in the village in the wake of laws outlawing communist symbols in Ukraine introduced in 2015. In recognition of the important influence Manchester had on his work, the 3.5 metre statue now stands in Tony Wilson Place, a prominent eatery district on Manchester's First Street. The installation of what was originally an instrument of propaganda drew criticism from Kevin Bolton in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''. The
Friedrich Engels Guards Regiment The Friedrich Engels Guards Regiment (also known as NVA Guard Regiment 1) was a special guard unit of the Land Forces of the National People's Army. The regiment was named after Friedrich Engels, the German socialist that collaborated with Karl ...
(also known as NVA Guard Regiment 1) was a special guard unit of the
East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
National People's Army The National People's Army (german: Nationale Volksarmee, ; NVA ) were the armed forces of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1956 to 1990. The NVA was organized into four branches: the (Ground Forces), the (Navy), the (Air Force) a ...
(NVA). The guard regiment was established in 1962 from parts of the Hugo Eberlein Guards Regiment but wasn't given the title "Friedrich Engels" until 1970.


Influences

In spite of his criticism of the
utopian socialists Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...
, Engels's own beliefs were nonetheless influenced by the French socialist
Charles Fourier François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical ...
. From Fourier, he derives four main points that characterize the social conditions of a communist state. The first point maintains that every individual would be able to fully develop their talents by eliminating the specialization of production. Without specialization, every individual would be permitted to exercise any vocation of their choosing for as long or as little as they would like. If talents permitted it, one could be a baker for a year and an engineer the next. The second point builds upon the first as with the ability of workers to cycle through different jobs of their choosing, the fundamental basis of the social division of labour is destroyed and the social division of labour will disappear as a result. If anyone can employ himself at any job that he wishes, then there are clearly no longer any divisions or barriers to entry for labour, otherwise such fluidity between entirely different jobs would not exist. The third point continues from the second as once the social division of labour is gone, the division of social classes based on property ownership will fade with it. If labour division puts a man in charge of a farm, that farmer owns the productive resources of that farm. The same applies to the ownership of a factory or a bank. Without labour division, no single social class may claim exclusive rights to a particular means of production since the absence of labour division allows all to use it. Finally, the fourth point concludes that the elimination of social classes destroys the sole purpose of the state and it will cease to exist. As Engels stated in his own writing, the only purpose of the state is to abate the effects of class antagonisms. With the elimination of social classes based on property, the state becomes obsolete and a communist society, at least in the eyes of Engels, is achieved.


Major works


''The Holy Family'' (1844)

This book was written by Marx and Engels in November 1844. It is a critique on the
Young Hegelians The Young Hegelians (german: Junghegelianer), or Left Hegelians (''Linkshegelianer''), or the Hegelian Left (''die Hegelsche Linke''), were a group of German intellectuals who, in the decade or so after the death of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ...
and their trend of thought which was very popular in academic circles at the time. The title was suggested by the publisher and is meant as a sarcastic reference to the Bauer Brothers and their supporters. The book created a controversy with much of the
press Press may refer to: Media * Print media or news media, commonly called "the press" * Printing press, commonly called "the press" * Press (newspaper), a list of newspapers * Press TV, an Iranian television network People * Press (surname), a fam ...
and caused Bruno Bauer to attempt to refute the book in an article published in ''Vierteljahrsschrift'' in 1845. Bauer claimed that Marx and Engels misunderstood what he was trying to say. Marx later replied to his response with his own article published in the journal ' in January 1846. Marx also discussed the argument in chapter 2 of ''
The German Ideology ''The German Ideology'' (German: ''Die deutsche Ideologie'', sometimes written as ''A Critique of the German Ideology'') is a set of manuscripts originally written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels around April or early May 1846. Marx and Engels ...
''.


''The Condition of the Working Class in England'' (1845)

A study of the deprived conditions of the working class in Manchester and Salford, based on Engels's personal observations. The work also contains seminal thoughts on the state of socialism and its development. Originally published in German and only translated into English in 1887, the work initially had little impact in England; however, it was very influential with historians of British industrialisation throughout the twentieth century.


''The Peasant War in Germany'' (1850)

An account of the early 16th-century uprising known as the German Peasants' War, with a comparison with the recent revolutionary uprisings of 1848–1849 across Europe.


''Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science'' (1878)

Popularly known as ''Anti-Dühring'', this book is a detailed critique of the philosophical positions of
Eugen Dühring Eugen Karl Dühring (12 January 1833, Berlin21 September 1921, Nowawes in modern-day Potsdam-Babelsberg) was a German philosopher, positivist, economist, and socialist who was a strong critic of Marxism. Life and works Dühring was born in Be ...
, a German philosopher and critic of Marxism. In the course of replying to Dühring, Engels reviews recent advances in science and mathematics seeking to demonstrate the way in which the concepts of dialectics apply to natural phenomena. Many of these ideas were later developed in the unfinished work, ''
Dialectics of Nature ''Dialectics of Nature'' (german: Dialektik der Natur) is an unfinished 1883 work by Friedrich Engels that applies Marxist ideas – particularly those of dialectical materialism – to nature. History and contents Engels wrote most ...
''. Three chapters of ''Anti-Dühring'' were later edited and published under the separate title, ''Socialism: Utopian and Scientific''.


''Socialism: Utopian and Scientific'' (1880)

One of the best selling socialist books of the era. In this work, Engels briefly described and analyzed the ideas of notable utopian socialists such as
Charles Fourier François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical ...
and Robert Owen, pointed out their strongpoints and shortcomings, and provides an explanation of the scientific socialist framework for understanding of capitalism, and an outline of the progression of social and economic development from the perspective of
historical materialism Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
.


''Dialectics of Nature'' (1883)

''Dialectics of Nature'' (German: "Dialektik der Natur") is an unfinished 1883 work by Engels that applies Marxist ideas, particularly those of dialectical materialism, to science. It was first published in the Soviet Union in 1925.


''The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State'' (1884)

In this work, Engels argues that the family is an ever-changing institution that has been shaped by capitalism. It contains a historical view of the family in relation to issues of class, female subjugation and private property.


References


Sources

* * * * Fedoseyev, P.N.; Bakh, I.; Golman, L.I.; Kolpinksy, L.Y.; Krylov, B.A.; Kuzminov, I.I.; Malysh, A.I.; Mosolov, V.G. & Stepanova, Y. (1977).
Karl Marx: A Biography
', prepared by the Institute of Marxism–Leninism of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee, Moscow: Progress Publishers * Green, John (2008). ''Engels: A Revolutionary Life'', London: Artery Publications, * Henderson, W.O. (1976). ''The life of Friedrich Engels'', London: Cass, * Hunt, Tristram (2009). ''The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels'', London: Allen Lane. *


Further reading

* Royle, Camilla (2020), ''A Rebel's Guide to Engels'', London: Bookmarks. **


External links


Marx/Engels Biographical Archive


by
Maximilien Rubel Maximilien Rubel (10 October 1905, in Chernivtsi – 28 February 1996, in Paris) was a famous Marxist historian and council communist. Rubel was born in western Ukraine and was educated in law and philosophy in Vienna and Chernivtsi National Un ...

Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science

Engels: The Che Guevara of his Day


* ttp://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/EngelsFriedrich/index.html German Biography from dhm.de* * * *
''Frederick Engels: A Biography''
(Soviet work)
''Frederick Engels: A Biography''
(East German work)
Engels was Right: Early Human Kinship was Matriliineal
* Archive o
Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels Papers
at the
International Institute of Social History The International Institute of Social History (IISH/IISG) is one of the largest archives of labor and social history in the world. Located in Amsterdam, its one million volumes and 2,300 archival collections include the papers of major figu ...
* * * *
Libcom.org/library Friedrich Engels archive

Works by Friedrich Engels
(in German) at
Zeno.org Zeno.org () is a digital library with German texts and other content such as pictures, facsimile, etc., which has been started by the Directmedia Publishing, Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, a German Publishing, publishing house and sister enterpri ...

Pathfinder Press
* Friedrich Engels
"On Rifled Cannon"
articles from the New York ''Tribune'', April, May and June 1860, reprinted in ''Military Affairs'' 21, no. 4 (Winter 1957) ed. Morton Borden, 193–198.
Marx and Engels in their native German languageEngels in Eastbourne - Commemorating the life, work and legacy of Friedrich Engels in Eastbourne
{{DEFAULTSORT:Engels, Friedrich 1820 births 1895 deaths 19th-century atheists 19th-century German economists 19th-century German male writers 19th-century German non-fiction writers 19th-century German philosophers 19th-century Prussian people Atheist philosophers European democratic socialists German industrialists German Communist writers Cultural critics Deaths from throat cancer German anti-capitalists German atheism activists German atheist writers German emigrants to England German journalists German political philosophers German revolutionaries Karl Marx Marxist theorists German Marxist writers Materialists Members of the International Workingmen's Association Orthodox Marxists People from the Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg People from the Rhine Province Businesspeople from Wuppertal People of the Revolutions of 1848 Philosophers of culture Philosophers of economics Philosophers of history Prussian Army personnel German social commentators Social critics Social philosophers Socialist economists Theoretical historians Theorists on Western civilization Urban theorists 19th-century German businesspeople Writers from Wuppertal Critics of political economy Deaths from cancer in England