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Friedrich Engels | |
|---|---|
 Comrade Engels 1879 | |
| Born | 28 November 1820 Barmen, Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation |
| Died | 5 August 1895 (aged 74) London, England, Great Britain and Ireland |
| Nationality | German |
Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895), sometimes anglicized as Frederick Engels, was a German philosopher, historian, political scientist and revolutionary socialist. Together with his friend and long time collaborator Karl Marx, he developed the materialist scientific explanation of history and economics, which later became known as Marxism.
Engels was Marx’s dearest friend and inseparable comrade in arms, co-developer of dialectical materialism and scientific socialism and co-author with Marx of the Communist Manifesto; one of the founders of the Communist League and the International Association of Workingmen or First International.
Early Life
Barmen
On 28 November 1820 Engels was born in the city of Barmen in the Kingdom of Prussia, a town of less than 40,000 located in the Rhineland. Of nine children (four brothers, four sisters) he was the eldest son of Elise von Haar and capitalist, Friedrich Engels Sr, owner of a string of cotton mills. His childhood was privileged and his parents raised him in a supportive, loving but also conservative and devoutly Pietist Protestant environment. The only element of his parents values Engels inherited was that of philanthropy, he was the only one of his brothers to not willingly join the family business and adopt their narrow conservative viewpoint.[1]
In 1928 Engels begun school and attended the elementary school in Barmen until the age of 14, a pious school at which his father sat on the board of governors. In 1934 he was transferred to the evangelical Gymnasium (grammar school) in the neighbouring town of Elberfeld so he could be prepared for his future role of taking on the family firm. The school was one of the best in Prussia and whilst attending Engels was provided lodgings by the provisional headmaster Hantschke. In school Engels began to diverge away from his father's ideology and he was particularly interested in the sciences and works of the philosophers, whilst being very proficient in languages.[2]
Engels planned to complete the Abitur and continue on to university to read political economy or something similar, but to his dismay just nine months before his final exams his father decided to pull him out of school so he could start business training. In September 1837 Engels is placed as a junior clerk in his father's business where he shadows his father and enjoys accompanying him on business trips to London, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Engels Sr had grandiose plans for the family business of Ermen & Engels and wanted to groom Engels for leadership and have him learn not only general business skills, but study European textile production techniques and marketing. Engels' personal feelings of disinterest with business were disregarded by his father and he was forced to hide his fascination with poetry and his interest in the work of Ferdinand Freiligrath from him.[3]
Bremen
In July 1938 Engels is sent to Bremen in Northern Germany to complete an apprenticeship at a trading house owned by Consul Heinrich Leupold. He finds a lot of the work boring and entertains himself by sending humours letters to his friends and siblings and by engaging in literary pursuits. In Bremen Engels is exposed to the poverty of the city and his views continue to slowly develop with him displaying strong republican sentiments, hatred of the monarchy and a desire to break free of his religious upbringing. In 1939 he publishes his first journalistic work under a pseudonym in the Telegraph fiir Deutschland, where he critically reviews a work by philosopher Karl Gutzkow, which allowed him to continue writing articles for them.[4]
Engels was already very aware of existing social relations and would write an article about the uncertain position of the German peasantry in the Morgenblart fiir gebildete Leser. In 1839 Engels was already asking for revolutionary action and for the people to be involved in state power as well as doing away with censorship, special rights for the aristocracy and for there to be full rights for Jews. At the age of 20 Engels engaged fully with cultural pursuits and practiced sports, studied music with a particular fondness for Beethoven as well as learned a multitude of foreign languages, including English, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,[5] and Russian.[6]
As mandatory military service approached although Engels could have dodged service through his father's influence Engels was adamant he was going to serve like everyone else and reported punctually to the Barmen conscription office where he was placed in the artillery. Whilst waiting to be called up Engels continued accompanying his father on foreign business trips in between working on his apprenticeship. Engels has plenty of time for writing and reading alongside his official work and in this time he publishes his first book: The Life, Character and Philosophy of Horace — a Dialogue. At the end of March 1841 Engels finishes his apprenticeship and leaves Bremen but not before winning two duels in four weeks.[7]
Military service
At the end of September 1941 Engels travels to Berlin to report for his military service on 1 October where he was quartered in the barracks on the Kupfergraben, only a short walk from Berlin’s Friedrich Wilhelm’s University (today the Humboldt University) where Engels would spend much of his time.[8]
Manchester
Engels moved to Manchester, England in 1842 and observed the conditions of the proletariat, leading him to write The Conditions of the Working Class in England. In 1844, on the way back to Germany, he wrote The Holy Family with Marx, which criticized Bauer and his rejection of political activity. Engels lived in Brussels and Paris between 1845 and 1847.[6]
Later Life
Marx and Engels returned to Germany to fight in the revolutions of 1848. He fled to London through Switzerland after the revolution was defeated. He moved to Manchester, where he lived until 1870. After Marx's death in 1883, he prepared and published the second and third volumes of Capital. He planned to release a fourth volume but died in 1895 before it was finished.[6]
Library works
- (1844) The holy family
- (1845) The conditions of the working class in England
- (1846) The German ideology
- (1847) The principles of communism
- (1848) Manifesto of the Communist Party
- (1850) The peasant war in Germany
- (1861) The civil war in the United States
- (1872) On authority
- (1876) The part played by labour in the transition from ape to man
- (1878) Anti-Dühring
- (1880) Socialism: utopian and scientific
- (1884) The origin of the family, private property and the state
- (1886) Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy
- (1892) The Mark
- (1894) A contribution to the history of primitive Christianity
- (1896) Revolution and counter-revolution in Germany (Posthumous)
References
- ↑ John Green (2008). Engels: A Revolutionary Life: A Biography of Friedrich Engels: 'A wild seed' (pp. 14-18). Artery Publications. ISBN 978-0-9558228-0-3 [LG]
- ↑ John Green (2008). Engels: A Revolutionary Life: A Biography of Friedrich Engels: 'A wild seed; Early boyhood' (pp. 20-22). Artery Publications. ISBN 978-0-9558228-0-3 [LG]
- ↑ John Green (2008). Engels: A Revolutionary Life: A Biography of Friedrich Engels: 'A wild seed; Early boyhood' (pp. 22-24). Artery Publications. ISBN 978-0-9558228-0-3 [LG]
- ↑ John Green (2008). Engels: A Revolutionary Life: A Biography of Friedrich Engels: 'A wild seed; Flying the nest' (pp. 25-27). Artery Publications. ISBN 978-0-9558228-0-3 [LG]
- ↑ John Green (2008). Engels: A Revolutionary Life: A Biography of Friedrich Engels: 'A wild seed; Flying the nest' (pp. 28-30). Artery Publications. ISBN 978-0-9558228-0-3 [LG]
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Vladimir Lenin (1895). Frederick Engels. [MIA]
- ↑ John Green. Engels: A Revolutionary Life: A Biography of Friedrich Engels: 'A wild seed; Flying the nest' (pp. 31-34). Artery Publications. ISBN 978-0-9558228-0-3 [LG]
- ↑ John Green (2008). Engels: A Revolutionary Life: A Biography of Friedrich Engels: 'Soldiering for the King'. Artery Publications. ISBN 978-0-9558228-0-3 [LG]