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Friedrich Engels

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Friedrich Engels
Comrade Engels 1879
Born28 November 1820
Barmen, Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation
Died5 August 1895 (aged 74)
London, England, Great Britain and Ireland
NationalityGerman

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 für 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 Morgenblatt für 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 left Bremen but not before winning two duels in four weeks.[7]

Military service

At the end of September 1941 Engels travelled 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. Engels disliked Berlin and although at first he resisted using the privileges allowed to him he eventually relented and moved into private accommodations using his father's money and took advantage of leave to continue his studies. Engels soon grew tired of the ceaseless marching around the Schlossplatz (ironically later renamed by the German Democratic Republic to ‘Marx-Engels Platz’), so much so that one of his highlights of the year was adopting a spaniel named Namenloser (Nameless) who he taught to growl when he said "there’s an aristocrat!"[8]

Despite his dislike for life in the military he accepted it diligently and took the opportunity to pick up important military knowledge that he used to great effect in later life. However what he learned the most from was the university, attending classes whenever he could get away despite not being a registered student and he diligently acquired notes from other students for lectures he could not attend. Engels was particularly excited by the ideas of Hegel for his theories on dialectics, but Engels fell into the category of Young Hegelians who rejected the Hegels' idealism and belief in God, a position influenced by Engels' reading of materialist philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach.[9]

Engels' understanding of the philosophy was very advanced for someone of his age and his anonymous brochures rebutting the idealist Schelling's criticism of Hegels won him much praise. His radical tendencies soon outstripped those of the Young Hegelians and he began writing for the Rheinische Zeitung which was increasingly taking a socialist position over time. In October 1942 Engels completed his military service and returned to Barmen but on his way he travelled to Cologne, the headquarters of the Rheinische Zeitung. There Engels meets Rave, Hess and Rutenberg, editors of the paper. Hess in particular is impressed by Engels and thanks partly to his influence Engels embraces communism. Back in Barmen his father has heard of Engels' radicalism and decided to send his son to Manchester, England, to continue his business training. Engels departed for Manchester in November 1942 but on the way there he stops in Cologne and offers to become the paper's English correspondent. Here is when Engels first meets Marx; the meeting was cold and Marx was unimpressed by Engels, wrongly believing him to still be a Young Hegelian.[10]

Young Socialist

Manchester

Engels arrived in Manchester 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

References

  1. ↑ 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]
  2. ↑ 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]
  3. ↑ 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]
  4. ↑ 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]
  5. ↑ 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. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Vladimir Lenin (1895). Frederick Engels. [MIA]
  7. ↑ John Green (2008). 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]
  8. ↑ John Green (2008). Engels: A Revolutionary Life: A Biography of Friedrich Engels: 'Soldiering for the King' (pp. 35-37). Artery Publications. ISBN 978-0-9558228-0-3 [LG]
  9. ↑ John Green (2008). Engels: A Revolutionary Life: A Biography of Friedrich Engels: 'Soldiering for the King' (pp. 37-43). Artery Publications. ISBN 978-0-9558228-0-3 [LG]
  10. ↑ John Green (2008). Engels: A Revolutionary Life: A Biography of Friedrich Engels: 'Soldiering for the King' (pp. 42-47). Artery Publications. ISBN 978-0-9558228-0-3 [LG]
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