Friedrich Engels

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Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895), also known as Frederick Engels, was Karl Marx's closest collaborator in developing and influential in promoting Marxism.[1] Engels gave Marx money, they coauthored The Communist Manifesto (1848), Engels wrote other texts and introductions to Marx's writings, and after Marx's death Engels completed volumes 2 and 3 of Das Kapital, on the basis of Marx’s uncompleted manuscripts and rough notes.

Life

Friedrich Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen, Provinz of Jülich-Cleves-Berg (renamed, together with the province of the Grand Duchy of the Lower Rhine, to Rhine Province in 1882), Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation, as the eldest son of Friedrich Engels Sr. (1796–1860) and of Elisabeth "Elise" Franziska Mauritia van Haar (1797–1873). The wealthy Engels family owned large cotton-textile mills in Barmen and Salford, England, both expanding industrial cities. Friedrich's parents were devout Calvinists and raised their children accordingly—he was baptised in the Calvinist Reformed Evangelical Parish of Elberfeld.

At the age of 13, Engels attended secondary school (Gymnasium) in the adjacent city of Elberfeld but had to leave at 17 due to pressure from his father, who wanted him to become a businessman and 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. 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.

While at Bremen, Engels began reading the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 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 Guard Artillery (German: Garde-Artillerie-Brigade). Assigned to Berlin, he attended university lectures at the University of Berlin and began to associate with groups of Young Hegelians. He anonymously published articles in the Rheinische Zeitung, 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 beliefs and his relationship with his parents became strained. Engels was also a successful businessman, never allowing his communist principles and criticism of capitalist ways to interfere with the profitable operations of his firm. He also received money from his father, a factory owner.[1] Therefore, Engels and Marx presumably personally were part of the supposed exploitation they criticized in their writings. Similarly to Marx, Engels was influenced by the Jewish Moses Hess, who later would be one of the founders of Zionism.[1]

Death

On 5 August 1895, Engels died of throat cancer in London, aged 74. Following cremation at Woking Crematorium, his ashes were scattered off Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, 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 £3,686,193 in 2023.

Quotes

  • There is no country in Europe which does not have in some corner or other one or several ruined fragments of peoples (völkerabfall), the remnant of a former population that was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation which later became the main vehicle of historical development. These relics of a nation mercilessly trampled under foot in the course of history, as Hegel says, these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution. Such, in Scotland, are the Gaels, the supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to 1745. Such, in France, are the Bretons, the supporters of the Bourbons from 1792 to 1800. Such, in Spain, are the Basques, the supporters of Don Carlos. Such, in Austria, are the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but the residual fragment of peoples [alternative translation: "racial trash"], resulting from an extremely confused thousand years of development. That this residual fragment, which is likewise extremely confused, sees its salvation only in a reversal of the whole European movement, which in its view ought to go not from west to east, but from east to west, and that for it the instrument of liberation and the bond of unity is the Russian knout — that is the most natural thing in the world. – Engels, 8 January 1849.[2]}}

Publications

Engels

  • The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1844)
  • The Peasant War in Germany (1850)
  • Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany (1852)
  • Anti-Dühring (1878), Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880)
  • Dialectics of Nature (1883)
  • The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884)
  • Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1886)

Marx and Engels

See also

External links

Encyclopedias

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Friedrich Engels https://www.britannica.com/biography/Friedrich-Engels
  2. ↑ Friedrich Engels (10 May 2013). "The Magyar Struggle". 
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