Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
Friedrich Engels was a German
philosopher, social scientist and
political theorist born on November 28, 1820 in Barmen, Prussia, the
eldest son of a successful textile industrialist.
Along with Karl Marx,
Engels is considered the father of communist theory and together they
produced The Communist Manifesto.
Although he dropped out of high school and was sent to work as an
office clerk in Bremen in 1838, Engels got interested in, and began
reading the philosophy of Hegel. He also
engaged in literary and journalistic work and in September of the same
year he published his first work, a poem titled The Bedouin.
Later on when he moved to Berlin, while in the Prussian Army,
he
attended university lectures and began to associate with groups of
Young Hegelians.
In 1842, Engels was sent to Manchester, England to work for a textile
firm in which his father was a shareholder. During his time there, he
was appalled at the child labor, impoverished working conditions and
overworked laborers he encountered. His observations formed the basis
for his views on the "grim future of capitalism and the industrial age"
and were documented in his first book The Condition of the Working
Class in England (1844) - a masterpiece of social observation and
important historical record. Lenin described it as "a terrible
indictment of capitalism and the bourgeoisie...written in absorbing
style and filled with the most authentic and shocking pictures of the
misery of the English proletariat."
In 1844 Engels began contributing to a
radical journal called Franco-German Annals that was being edited by
Karl Marx in Paris. Later that year, Engels and Marx met and they
became good friends due to their common views on capitalism and,
according to Engels, in virtually "complete agreement in all
theoretical fields." Marx and Engels decided to work together. Where
Marx was best at dealing with abstract concepts, Engels was able to
write for a mass audience. Engels also financially supported the
strapped Marx and his family, giving Marx the royalties from his book,
and arranging for other supporters to make donations. This gave Marx
the time to study and develop his economic and political theories.
It is generally thought that it was Engels, not Marx, who developed
Hegel's idea that the universe is undergoing a constant process of
change and development into the doctrine of 'dialectical materialism.'
Contrary to Hegel's dialectic process of thesis, antithesis and
synthesis of ideas, Engel’s dialectic process was one of matter or
materialism. To Engels the social conditions of the working class were
so appalling that the dialectic process could have only one possible
outcome, that of socialism. He felt that the very condition of the
working class would drive it to realize that socialism is, and should
be, their political ideal.
After
the death of Karl Marx, Engels spent his time putting together
and editing the remaining three volumes of Das
Kapital. He also took the time to educate and
explain to the world the concept of Marxism, which he felt would govern
the affairs of men in the foreseeable future.
Another of Engels' interesting contributions was his argument, using
the then current anthropological evidence, to show how the structure of
the family had changed over history. He stated that the notion of
monogamous marriage originated from the necessity within societal class
structure for men to control women to ensure their own children would
inherit their property. He argued that a relationship based on property
rights and forced monogamy leads to the proliferation of immorality and
prostitution. In contrast, a future communist society would allow
people to make decisions about their relationships free from any such
economic constraints.
Ultimately, the social and political ideals of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels established them as the philosophical fathers of the communist revolution in a large part of the world. It is this reason alone that arguably positions them as the most influential philosophers of all time.
