Class struggle is the life line that leads society further. Engels had said that every class struggle is political, and hence conscious and organized since it is directed against the exploitative system itself. This brings a shift with the end of class domination over the other. It also ends the private property and anarchic social production. These ideas of Engels and Marx were taken up by a large section of the populace. They were also involved in producing socialist literature.
As the social movements became wide spread, all of them were not scientifically oriented. Many of them were keen to change the society but failed to agree with the reality that there was a clash of interest between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. They also did not want to engage in violence as their understanding was that the ruling classes were unaware of the crisis the working class was facing. They were also horrified at the growth of the working class along with the capitalists. This led them to believe that industry must be stopped from developing further, and thus the wheels of history must be stopped. While clarifying these, Lenin said while writing about Engels that along with Marx, he put his efforts to make the working class aware of itself and its strength. Engels and Marx substantiated the dreams of the proletariat with science.
It was a time when Hegel dominated the world of philosophy. Engels also became his follower though not for long. Hegel had admired the prevailing autocracy, but his teachings were revolutionary. The basics of his ideas were that entire universe is constantly changing. There were some of those who implied these ideas of constant change, that was also explained as end of one and coming of the another, as a system of eternal change.
Hegel was idealist and considered idea as the source of entire reality, including human and social relations. Engels, along with Marx stood up against these formulations, and also the absolute idea. They believed in material forces that help evolve nature. It was at this time that Engels wrote the book called “The condition of the working class in England” in 1845. It was Engels who was the first to state that proletariat was not only suffering under acute deprivation, there is more to it. Their suffering forces them to rise against these adverse conditions and compels them to come up and fight for total emancipation.
The revolt against the rulers for total emancipation gives rise to political movement of the working class and ultimately makes them realize that socialism only could be the solution. Lenin said about the book written by Engels as “a Terrible indictment of capitalism and the bourgeoisie, and has created a profound impression”. Lenin also wrote that neither before 1845 nor after had there appeared so striking and truthful picture — a picture of the misery of the working class. Engels became a socialist after he came to England and in Manchester, he came in contact with labour movement leaders.
By this time Marx too had become socialist. Jointly they wrote “The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism”. This book contains the basics of revolutionary materialist socialism. From 1845 to 1847, Engels was in Brussels and Paris. Here they came in touch with secret German Communist League and were requested to write on the main principles of the socialism they had both worked out by then. Thus came the Manifesto of the Communist Party, with principles of communism.
Marx settled in London and Engels became a clerk and then a share holder in a Manchester Commercial firm. Both were jointly working on scientific socialism. Here soon they both together got engaged in joint intellectual work, as Engels shifted to London in 1870. Of Engels’s works, mostly polemical, were about the scientific issues, and written with materialist conception of history. They worked hard till 1883 when Marx died.
His greatest work, three volumes of Capital, which was edited and same time rewritten by Engels, was brought out. Marx had left the world even before he could manage the final touches. The other books written by Engels were Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, as Feuerbach had stressed on materialism, not on dialectics. He also wrote “On The History of early Christianity,” “Anti During”, with three component parts of Marxism, two great articles on housing question, Dialectics of Nature etc. Engels had also specialized on Natural sciences and military affairs . He was also founder of Second International! (IPA Service)
Decoding the Great Friedrich Engels on His 205th Birth Anniversary
His Association with Karl Marx Led to the Birth of Marxism in 19th Century
Krishna Jha - 2025-11-20 12:00 UTC
Friedrich Engels was the one without whom Marxism could not have been complete. Born on November 28, 1820in Barmen, in the Rhine province of the Kingdom of Prussia, Engels was inseparable from Marx. His father was a manufacturer. He was forced to leave his studies and join a commercial house in Barmen and yet he became one among the finest scholars and teachers of the modern proletariat. Lenin had written in his short biographical note on Engels, “From the time…the two friends came together, they devoted their life’s work to a common cause. And to understand what Engels had done for the proletariat one must have a clear idea of the significance of Marx’s teaching and work for the development of the contemporary working class movement.” In fact Marx and Engels were the pioneers of the working class movement, which they explained as a class struggle to liberate the proletariat from the evils that keep the exploitation alive in the modern society.