Friedrich Engels

Lore & Background

Friedrich Engels was born in Barmen, Prussia, to a prosperous mercantile family. He rejected his family's devout Pietist values from a young age and became involved with the Young Hegelians while performing military service in Berlin. In 1842, his father sent him to Manchester, England, to work in a cotton mill, where his experiences of the industrial working class led him to write his first major work, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845).

In 1844, Engels began a permanent partnership with Marx in Paris. Together they critiqued idealist philosophies and developed their materialist conception of history. They became active in the Communist League, which commissioned them to write The Communist Manifesto. Engels participated in the Revolutions of 1848, including armed combat, before being forced into exile in England. From 1850, he lived in Manchester and worked for the family firm of Ermen & Engels for two decades, leading a double life as a cotton merchant while providing financial support to Marx.

After retiring in 1870, Engels moved to London and took a central role in the International Workingmen's Association. Following Marx's death in 1883, he devoted his life to editing Marx's writings, completing the second and third volumes of Das Kapital. Engels's own works, including Anti-Dühring and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, were instrumental in popularizing Marxism. He died of cancer in London in 1895, and his ashes were scattered off Beachy Head.

Reader's Guide

Engels's significance lies in his role as co-founder of Marxism and as the primary popularizer and systematizer of Marx's ideas after Marx's death. His early work, The Condition of the Working Class in England, provided a foundational empirical critique of industrial capitalism. His later works, such as Anti-Dühring and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, shaped the ideology of the Second International and later socialist movements. Engels's application of dialectics to science in works like Dialectics of Nature was controversially developed into the state ideology of the Soviet Union. His financial support enabled Marx to write Das Kapital, and his editorial work ensured the completion of that project. Engels's legacy is thus both as a collaborator and as an independent thinker who helped define the Marxist tradition.

Did You Know?

• Engels wrote his first major work, The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on his experiences in Manchester.
• He participated in armed combat during the Revolutions of 1848.
• Engels worked for two decades as a cotton merchant in Manchester to support Marx financially.
• His ashes were scattered off Beachy Head in England.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"The Magyar Struggle in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849)." — Friedrich Engels "The Magyar Struggle in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849)." — Friedrich Engels "The Magyar Struggle in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (13 January 1849)." — Friedrich Engels "Referring to the Serb uprising of 1848–49, in which Serbs from Vojvodina fought against the previously victorious Hungarian revolution." — Friedrich Engels