November 28, 1997 was the 177th anniversary of the birth of
Frederick Engels, the brilliant teacher and leader of the
international proletariat, who together with Karl Marx, his
closest friend and comrade, founded scientific socialism, the
indispensable theory of the struggle of the working class for its
emancipation. This genius, whose tremendous revolutionary
activity spanned more than half a century, together with Karl
Marx showed that the struggle for socialism is not a matter of a
utopian dream, of some excellent "ideas" of which the rulers and
governing classes only need to be convinced, but the inevitable
consequence of the development of the productive forces of modern
society and of the equally inevitable class struggle of the
proletariat against the bourgeoisie which this development gives
rise to.
Frederick Engels was born in Barmen, in the Rhine province of the
kingdom of Prussia, in 1820. While still at school, Engels
developed a profound hatred for autocracy and political
despotism. A follower of the revolutionary teachings of Hegel,
like Marx he soon rejected Hegel's idealist views and used the
dialectical approach in making a materialist analysis of the
world. He used this outlook and approach in carrying out a
comprehensive study of the conditions of the English working
class after he settled in Manchester, in the heartland of British
industry, in 1842 and saw firsthand the poverty and misery of the
workers. The fruit of his studies and observations was a work of
tremendous revolutionary and scientific value: The Conditions of
the Working Class in England. In it, Engels was the first to
point out the revolutionary side to the deplorable plight of the
proletariat: this was that the conditions of the working class
were irrevocably leading it to fight for its complete
emancipation. The political movement of the working class would
inevitably bring the workers to the conclusion that their
interests demand the destruction of the very foundations of
capitalist society and the rule of the tiny minority of
exploiters, private property, and that there was no way out
except in socialism. Engels also showed on the basis of the
dialectical materialist analysis of human society that socialism
would only become a force when it became the aim of the political
struggle of the working class. It was in England, during this
period, that Engels became a socialist.
In 1844, he was to meet Marx, with whom he had already begun
to correspond, for the first time, and to commence their
revolutionary collaboration which was to provide the working
class with the revolutionary science for its emancipation. That
very year, they worked together to write The Holy Family, or a
Criticism of Critical Criticism, in which are laid down the
rudiments of revolutionary materialist socialism. In it they
incisively criticized the philosophy of the Bauer brothers and
their "critical" approach to the situation in the world, and
pointed out that the issue was not contemplating the world but
struggling for a better order of society.
From 1845 to 1847, Engels continued his revolutionary work
amongst German workers in Paris and Brussels where both he and
Marx established contact with the secret German Communist League
which commissioned them to enunciate the main principles of
socialism as they had worked them out. In November 1847, having
taken up this task, Engels completed the first draft of the
Manifesto of the Communist Party. In this immortal work published
in 1848, Marx and Engels brilliantly put forward the doctrine of
scientific socialism, the programme for the emancipation of the
working class and the building of the new communist society. They
placed the proletariat at the centre of social development and as
the leader, inspirer, organizer and mobilizer in the
irreconcilable class struggle against the bourgeoisie, its
grave-digger, pointing out, "its fall and the victory of the
proletariat are equally inevitable", that the working class must
become the ruling class, that the violent revolution is necessary
for the transformation of society and that the proletariat must
establish its dictatorship to emancipate itself and all mankind.
Marx and Engels issued the clarion call, Workers of All
Countries, Unite! which embodies the principles of proletarian
internationalism and showed the international character of its
struggle for liberation from capitalist exploitation and
wage-slavery so as to overthrow the capitalist order and its
state power on the world scale.
The revolutions of 1848 in countries throughout Europe
brought both Marx and Engels back to Germany. In Cologne, in
Rhenish Prussia, they put out the democratic newspaper Neue
Rheinische Zeitung and became the central figures in the
revolutionary democratic struggle against the forces of reaction
there. Reaction gained the upper hand, the paper was suppressed,
and while Engels continued to fight after Marx was deported,
actively participating in the armed popular uprising in which he
fought in three battles, he too was forced to leave the country
following the defeat of the revolutionary forces.
Shortly thereafter, he settled in England where Marx also
settled, and their close revolutionary collaboration continued
until Marx's death in 1883, yielding a wealth of revolutionary
material which continues to be an indispensable guide to the
revolutionary proletariat in its struggles to this day, having
lost none of its validity and value. It was here that Marx was to
write the greatest work ever done on political economy - Capital.
While Marx carried out his tremendous work on the analysis of the
complex phenomena of capitalist economy, Engels took up the
elaboration of the revolutionary science and outlook on a wide
range of questions, often writing simple, concise works in a
polemical style. Amongst his major contributions to the theory of
scientific socialism during this period are the famous polemical
work Anti-Duhring, in which he deals with fundamental questions
of philosophy, natural science and social science, The Origin of
the Family, Private Property and the State, The Housing Question
and Ludwig Feuerbach. It was Engels too, who carried out the
major task of preparing and publishing the second and third
volumes of Capital, after Marx died leaving this work only in
draft form.
Engels' revolutionary work, however, went beyond this
invaluable enunciation of the revolutionary theory of the
proletariat. Like Marx, he, too, was active in the international
working class movement, including his active participation in the
International Working Men's Association founded by Marx in 1864.
Even after the dissolution of the Internationale and the death of
Marx, Engels continued to pay great attention to the development
of the international working class movement. The correspondence
which he conducted with communists and working class leaders
throughout Europe and North America is amongst the treasures
which he left the international proletariat, being rich in
principles and in the enunciation of the revolutionary strategy
and tactics of the proletariat.
In all his work, the revolutionary essence of this brilliant
fighter for the interests of the working class is always
apparent. He never for a moment lost sight of the interests for
which he was fighting, never lapsed into empty theorizing, but,
on the contrary, repeatedly pointed out that "Marxism is not a
dogma, but a guide to action". His writings to this day form an
integral and essential part of the theory of scientific socialism
- an indispensable and invaluable guide in the struggle of the
working class for its emancipation, for socialism and communism.
TML Weekly, 12/7/97
Shawgi Tell
Graduate School of Education
University at Buffalo
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
