The Life and Work of Friedrich Engels

Front matter

by ZELDA KAHAN-COATES

The COMMUNIST PARTY of GREAT BRITAIN 21a Maiden Lane, W.C. 1920

Contents

Chapter 1: Early Years

By ZELDA KAHAN-COATES

Early Years

FRIEDRICH ENGELS was born in Barmen, November 28, 1820, thus being two and a half years younger than Karl Marx. He was the son of a wealthy manufacturer and was brought up in a very conservative and orthodox religious atmosphere. After finishing the Realschule at Barmen, he went to the Gymnasium of Elberfeld, but a year before the final examination he entered his father's business. It is interesting to note that the Rhine province, the birthplace and home of Engels, was the most industrially and politically developed district of Germany, owing to its geographical position and to its wealth in coal and metals. Consequently, earlier than elsewhere in Germany there had arisen a powerful capitalist industry, a revolutionary bourgeoisie, the sworn enemy of the still existing feudalism, and the necessary complement of the capitalist bourgeoisie, a strong proletarian class. At the same time, Germany generally was undergoing a revolution in philosophy, the highwater mark of which was the Hegelian philosophy. Like Marx, and like the progressive intellectual German youth of the time, Engels, too, was deeply influenced by this philosophic revival, and became an enthusiastic young Hegelian. Although he showed himself to be a good business man whilst working in mercantile houses, first in Barmen and then in Bremen, yet his heart was never in it, and all his spare time and thoughts were given over to the study of philosophy. In letters written to school friends when he was about eighteen years old, he jokes about his vain poetic efforts, criticises literature, but not a word of business affairs. In these letters he also speaks feelingly of his religious doubts, and of his yearning to get back again to the faith in the God of his childhood. Finally, he broke through his religious fetters and embraced definitely the Hegelian philosophy.

From October, 1841, to October, 1842, Engels served in the Guard Artillery in Berlin, and, just as in his office he was a good business man, so in barracks he became a very good soldier. He studied military science, and subsequently this became one of his favourite studies, so much so that, much later, on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, Engels wrote a series of articles for the Pall Mall Gazette, in which he made some very apt and true forecasts as to the course of the war. Thus he prophesied that in the event of General MacMahon failing to break through with his army to Belgium, he would be forced to capitulate in the plain of Sedan—and two weeks later this really happened. These articles procured him henceforth the nickname of "General" amongst his friends.

During this year of military service he also worked on the Deutsche Jahrbücher and the Rheinische Zeitung, under the nom-de-plume F. Oswald. At the same time he also published some satirical verses in a Swiss paper, and a poem, describing himself and Marx, with whom he was as yet personally unacquainted.

Chapter 2: First Visit to Manchester

First Visit to Manchester

On the conclusion of his military service he returned to Barmen, and, in October, 1842, he went to Manchester as agent to the spinning factory of Ermen and Engels, of which his father was partner. On this journey Engels called at the editorial offices of the Rheinische Zeitung, in Cologne, and there met Marx for the first time. But this first meeting between them was very cool. Engels had been influenced against Marx by the brothers Bauer, with whom he was still intimate, whilst Marx had already fallen out with them and was then finally breaking his connection with the Berlin "free" school of philosophers, to whom Engels still paid allegiance. In addition to philosophy, Engels was even then keenly interested in economics, and here in Manchester, the industrial capital of the motherland of capitalism, he had a unique opportunity of studying economics and economic conditions at first hand, of which he was not slow to make use. The twenty-one months he spent in England on this occasion was of supreme importance to his and Marx's future life’s work. Studying at first hand the relations between employer and employed, observing the actual miserable conditions of the working class in a system of almost fully-fledged capitalism, his interest in the proletarian movement grew rapidly, and we soon find him taking an active part in the agitation of the Utopian Socialists, as also of the purely Labour and Chartist movement. Thus he was associated with both the Owenite paper, the New Moral World, and with the Chartist organ, the Northern Star. His philosophic insight and keen intellect very soon appreciated the true tendencies of capitalist production and the present role of the workers as well as the great historic future before the working class. In the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, he published a criticism of national economy which Marx characterised as a sketch of true genius, not because it did not contain many mistakes in detail and some errors in judgment, but because of the way in which he treated the feverish acceleration of capitalist production and the dehumanising effect of capitalist competition. This, and his views on Malthus’s theory of population, commercial crises, the wage laws, the progress of science, and so forth, already contained the fruitful germs of scientific communism. Already in this small sketch he showed that he had grasped what was best, what was most revolutionary in the Hegelian philosophy, and was using it as the master key for unravelling the mysteries of historic and economic development. In the same journal he published an interesting criticism of Carlyle's Past and Present, which he characterised as the only book in the English literature of the year 1843 that was worth reading.

Considering that he was then only twenty-two years old, that he himself was suffering from none of the disabilities of the workers' life, that he himself belonged by family, education, and profession to the bourgeoisie, it is not without interest to note the judgment he passes on the English classes and parties of the time.

After describing in vigorous language the spiritual emptiness of the English aristocracy and bourgeoisie, he characterises the educated Englishman, according to whom the English national character has generally been judged on the Continent, as the "most abject slave under the sun," and then continues: "Only the section of the English nation hitherto unknown on the Continent, only the workers, the pariahs of England, the poor, are really respectable in spite of all their rawness and all their demoralisation. It is they who will save England, they still present educational material. They have no education, but neither have they narrow prejudices. They still possess power for great national work, they still have a future before them." Of the two parties into which the educated classes were split, Engels finds the Tories, bad as they are, less objectionable than the Whigs, who looked upon everything in industry, which had given them power and wealth, as quite faultless, and regarded its extension as the only aim of all legislation.

Chapter 3: Meeting and Complete Agreement with Marx

Meeting and Complete Agreement with Marx

It is remarkable how Marx and Engels—quite independently, the one basing himself on a study of the French Revolution and on philosophy, the other, on the study of English industrial conditions—came practically to the same conclusions regarding the nature of bourgeois society. The materialist conception of history was already colouring both their writings, although at that time, perhaps, in a more finished form in Marx than in Engels.

Their writings in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher led to an exchange of correspondence between them, and in September, 1844, on his way back to Germany, Engels went to Paris for a few days to visit Marx. So complete was their agreement in their outlook upon philosophic and economic questions that they at once began a work in common—The Holy Family: or, a Review of the Critical Critique Against Bruno Bauer and his Followers.

It was published in 1845, and its aim was, according to the authors, to make plain to the larger public the illusions of speculative philosophy. In it they already adopt the proletarian standpoint, although it deals very little with the economic sphere direct.

Engels had written only a few sheets (printer's), but Marx expanded them to many times their number. When Engels received the copy of the whole book he was astounded at its length, but he was delighted with the way in which Marx had treated the subject—only he thought the whole book too big; the subject matter was not worth it; still, he consoled himself that it was better so, for at least it was coming out straightaway, whereas otherwise "who knows how long the material might have still lain in your desks."

Although himself a very careful and painstaking writer, many were the occasions when Engels urged Marx to hurry up with his work, and not to allow the possibility of making his work a little more perfect to interfere with rapid publication. We shall see later that this feverish haste of his to get things published was due to his belief in the imminence of the revolution. Thus he writes to Marx, January, 1845: "See to it that you complete quickly your work on national economy. Even if you yourself are not quite satisfied with much of it—that is no matter. The time is ripe and we must strike the iron while it is hot … it is now high time. So see that you are ready by April. Do as I do; give yourself a definite date by which you absolutely must finish and see about the immediate printing of it … It must come out at once."

With their meeting at Paris, and their joint writing of The Holy Family, there commenced a loyal friendship, such as is rarely met with in history between two great men, and which lasted to the end of their days. We shall have occasion to speak of this friendship many times again.

Although it is well-nigh impossible to treat of the work of one inseparably from that of the other, yet since we have already given a brief survey of their fundamental economic and philosophic principles in the booklet dealing with the life and teaching of Karl Marx, published two years ago, on the occasion of the Marx centenary, we shall endeavour to deal here only with that part of their work which was, as far as can be, specifically the work of Engels, or with such parts of their common work as were not treated in the Marx pamphlet.

Chapter 4: The Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844

The Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844

After their meeting and complete understanding in Paris, Engels went back to Barmen, there to complete and publish the results of his economic investigations in England—his historic Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844—a reprint of the English edition of which, we are glad to learn, has just appeared.

The first edition was published in German in the summer of 1845, and was very widely read and criticised. Its chief merit is not so much the actual description of the conditions of life of the English workers, good as it was, for this had to some extent also been done by others, but the marvellous acuteness with which the young author (Engels was then only twenty-four years old) grasped the true inwardness of capitalist production and the contradictions inherent in bourgeois society.

The central idea of the book was to show how capitalist industry produces the modern working class. How it breeds the miserable conditions under which they live. How it demoralises them, dehumanises them, and reduces them to a condition of slavery in all but name; indeed, to worse than slavery, for the worker under capitalism, whilst he has to sell his body, and at that time, before he had learned the true value of efficient organisation, also his soul, to the owner of the means of production—the capitalist—he is not even sure from day to day whether he will have the wherewithal to satisfy his most elementary bodily needs.

At the same time, and this is the most important point of all, the author saw in this very despairing condition of the workers, the germ of the new hope. He saw how the bringing together of great masses of workers into a collective form of industry (with, of course, individual ownership) would gradually develop a mass consciousness in the workers. How the mastery of man over nature (as illustrated in factory and town life) would breed confidence in the masses in their own power. How the workers would be forced by their very conditions of life to see that their only way out of their misery and degradation was by their combination as fellow workers against the exploiting class—the capitalists—and that in the horrible conditions of the present life of the workers there already existed, and was germinating, the hope of the future; the Communist working-class movement, which would finally deliver mankind from all forms of slavery, from all forms of domination of man by his fellow men. This work was thus the first to lay the foundation of scientific Socialism, and was but the earnest beginning of Engels' life-long work in the Socialist Labour movement.

The book shows how far he had emancipated himself from the intricacies, the useless parts, and the idealism (in a philosophic sense) of German philosophy, whilst yet holding fast and using with a sure hand all that was true and fruitful in the Hegelian philosophy.

In addition to his masterly analysis of capitalist industry and its economic and social results, Engels also investigates the various forms of the English labour movement of the time. He sees the significance, the importance of the Trade Union movement, and yet its inadequacy so long as it remains a purely professional organisation.

He therefore hails the Chartist movement as the compact political form of the proletarian opposition to the bourgeoisie. In Chartism, the workers, as a whole class, stand against the bourgeoisie in order to filch from it political power.

But whilst the Chartists rightly take an active part in all the social struggles of the Trade Unions (for higher wages, shorter hours and better conditions of work and so forth), they are not yet sufficiently imbued with Socialist ideals and ideas. All their strivings are directed to bettering the condition of the workers within the framework of capitalist society. The Chartists are theoretically backward, but, nevertheless, they are in the main real proletarians imbued with the living fighting spirit.

The Socialists of the time, on the other hand, are more far-sighted, but they come mostly from the bourgeoisie and are mainly pacifist, tame, and live on abstract ideals. They see and lament the demoralisation of the lower classes, but they do not realise that the germ of future progress lies in these classes, and that the real demoralisation of the possessing classes, induced by their private interests and hypocrisy, is far greater.

The Socialists do not recognise historical development. They deplore the bitterness displayed by the workers against the bourgeoisie, and they desire and hope to bring about their own Communist ideals by means of wholly fruitless moral suasion and philanthropy.

But if Socialism is to become a living part of the working-class movement, Engels maintains, it must adopt the revolutionary spirit of the Chartists, just as the Chartists need the far-sightedness and clear theoretical understanding of the Socialists. Or, in other words. Socialism must be essentially a proletarian movement, and the proletarian movement must be Socialist ere the working class can gain its emancipation from capitalism.

And although we have travelled far since then, although the workers have gained all the political aims of the Chartists, have indeed gained well-nigh all that there is to be gained within the framework of capitalist society by purely political means, and political action has become more a method of propaganda and agitation than a means of improving to any great extent the lot of the worker, yet it is truer than ever to-day that the working-class movement, unless imbued with Socialist ideals, unless it is consciously working for the overthrow of capitalism and the attainment of a Socialist system of society, will never accomplish its real aim: the emancipation of the worker from its slavery.

Conversely, not only will the Socialists who rely on the moral conversion, on a change of heart of the bourgeoisie as a class, never make any progress, but so long as the Socialist parties, who do rely on the working class, are not an integral part of the general labour movement, so long as they are content to stand outside, hugging their moral and intellectual superiority, and preaching to and at the workers instead of being within and part of the labour movement itself, so long will most of their work and their sacrifices be in vain.

In the conclusion of his book, Engels expresses the opinion that England is not far from an outbreak of revolution. And it was this prophecy which was most seized upon by the critics because, at any rate in the form in which Engels predicted it, it was not fulfilled. Of course, the fact that Engels made a mistake in the nearness or the exact form of the revolution does not in the least detract from the value of the book, and we may indeed rather wonder, as Engels himself did shortly before his death, not that some of the hopes and prophecies of his fiery youth had fallen wide of the mark, but that so many of them had, indeed, come to pass.

It may be noted that particularly in their early years both Marx and Engels were prone to overestimate at times the tempo of the revolutionary Labour movement. But we must remember it was the tempo not the course of the revolution that was sometimes overestimated.

Whilst things did not move as quickly as they sometimes thought they should do, their analysis of the past, present, and future course of development of society has proved remarkably apt and accurate.

But this was only because they saw the final course and aim so clearly themselves that the actual road to be traversed seemed to them shorter than it was. As Lange has said: "In general, what we foresee very clearly we are wont to imagine as being nearer than it really is." The only really valid criticism on the book is that passed by Engels himself in his Introduction to the 1892 edition:

"It will be hardly necessary to point out that the general theoretical standpoint of this book—philosophical, economical, political—does not exactly coincide with my standpoint to-day. Modern international Socialism, since fully-developed as a science chiefly and almost exclusively by the efforts of Marx, did not as yet exist in 1844. My book represents one of the phases of its embryonic development, and as the human embryo in its early stages still reproduces the gill-arches of our fish ancestors, so this book exhibits everywhere the traces of the descent of modern Socialism from one of its ancestors—German philosophy. Thus great stress is laid on the dictum that Communism is not a mere party doctrine of the working class, but a theory, compassing the emancipation of society at large, including the capitalist class, from its present narrow condition. This is true enough in the abstract, but absolutely useless and sometimes worse in practice. So long as the wealthy classes not only do not feel the want of any emancipation, but strenuously oppose the self-emancipation of the working class, so long will the social revolution have to be prepared and fought out by the working class alone." And the experience of the last few years in Russia, in Germany, Austria, and Hungary, and, aye, here in England, too, have proved the last few lines to be truer than ever to-day. Unless, which is not altogether impossible, although improbable, England becomes the China of Europe and remains capitalist after all the other European countries have gone through the fire of revolution and established Communism, then, and then only, the English capitalist classes may be convinced of the folly of the present system, themselves resign their power, and help the workers to emancipate the whole of society from the shackles of capitalist production for profit. But no one in their senses would set to work now on such an assumption.

The Conditions of the Working Classes was to have been only the first part of an all embracing history of the English people. At the same time Engels was planning a monthly Socialist paper, to be edited together with Moses Hess, and also the publication of an encyclopædia of Socialist literature abroad, the publication of a criticism of List, and so on. The latter work he left to Marx, who had also intended doing it. The stress of the coming years, however, did not allow of the completion of all these plans.

Chapter 5: Home Life and Early Communist Activities

Home Life and Early Communist Activities

The first letter Engels wrote Marx after returning from Paris to Barmen was at the end of September, 1844. It is full of the eagerness of youth and enthusiasm for their common work.

He describes the progress made by their Communist teaching in Cologne, and he says: "Our people are very active, but the lack of a proper foundation is very evident. So long as our principles have not been developed in a few works, historically and logically, from our prevailing philosophy (anschauungsweise) and history, and shown to be the necessary corollary of these, so long shall we continue for the most part to grope blindly in the dark. … Best of all I like my Elberfeld boys, in whom the human philosophy has, indeed, passed into their flesh and blood. These fellows have really begun to revolutionise their families economically, and they read their elders a lesson whenever these attempt to treat their servants or workers aristocratically. And this is, indeed, a great deal in patriarchal Elberfeld. …" He describes bourgeois society at home in Barmen and district, and points out that the discontent of the workers is growing and is manifesting itself by the increase of crime and individual terrorist acts, and says: "And if the proletariat of this country develops according to the same law as the English, they will soon become convinced that to protest against the social order in this violent way, as individuals, is quite useless, and they will learn to protest as human beings in their collective capacity through Communism. It only we could show them the way. But this is impossible"” (The Communists could not then work in the open for fear of arrest.) And he ends the letter thus:—"Well, now, see to it that the material you have collected is sent forth into the world as soon as possible—it is devilishly high time I, too, set to work in earnest. … And so let us work well and publish quickly. … Good-bye, dear fellow, and write soon. I have never since been in such a cheerful good-humoured mood as I was during the ten days I stopped with you."

This letter not only characterises the young Engels, but it also shows how close were already the relations existing between himself and Marx. In this letter they are already on quite familiar terms, Engels using the familiar "du" (thou) in addressing Marx. It way be as well to state here that the correspondence between Marx and Engels fills four fair-sized volumes. In these letters they discuss their economic and philosophical theories, the books they are reading and writing at the time, all the leading European events of the time, such as the commercial crises of 1857, the Crimean War, the French war against Austria, the war between the Northern and Southern States of America, and so on and so forth.

They also discuss the working-class movements and their leaders in Europe and America. They are keenly interested and exchange their views on all the discoveries of science, both practical and theoretical. In one letter Engels describes a discovery in electricity made by himself, and in a letter dated May 3,1873, Engels communicates to Marx and Schorlemmer some reflections of his own in physical science. Schorlemmer, an eminent chemist and professor of chemistry at that time in Manchester, was an intimate friend of theirs, and, judging by his remarks at the end of the various paragraphs of Engels' letter, thought highly of the points made by Engels.

To deal adequately with this correspondence would require quite a book to itself. We shall, therefore, make no attempt to discuss it, only taking such extracts from it as will serve to illustrate Engels' life and character.

Engels' family very much wanted him to take up commerce as a career, and, of course, to enter his father's business, but every fibre in young Friedrich's soul protested against such a fate. His ambitions lay in a quite different direction. Thus, in March, 1845, he writes to Marx: "I am leading now a veritable dog's life. On account of the affairs with the meetings, and the slovenliness of several of the Communists here, with whom I, of course, associate, all the old religious fanaticism of my old governor (his father) has been reawakened, and his ire has been increased still more by the declaration of my intention to give up definitely the office bench. Further, since my open appearance as a Communist"—(they had had some meetings at Barmen at which Friedrich had spoken)"—he has developed in addition a passionate bourgeois fanaticism.

"Now, just consider my position. As I am going away in about fourteen days or so, I cannot very well kick up a row. I let everything pass by without protest. They are not accustomed to this, and so their spirits rise. … If it were not for my mother, who really possesses a very fine personality, only cannot stand up against my father, and whom I really love, I would not dream for a moment of making the slightest concession to my fanatical and despotic governor. But my mother is in any case ill every now and again, and almost every time she is worried, especially about me, she gets an eight-days' headache. It is unbearable. I must get away, and hardly know how to hold out the few weeks I still have to remain here. Still, they will pass."

In 1845 Engels gave up mercantile life, left Barmen and went to Brussels. He did this partly because his family and friends hindered his Communist work in his native town, but chiefly because he wanted to work out together with Marx their common philosophic and economic principles. Here in Brussels they worked out together their scientific system of Socialism, whilst at the same time endeavouring to bring the existing working-class movement to class consciousness, and to place it on the foundation of their theoretical system.

Their first work here was a criticism of the later Hegelian philosophy, which was a definite break with the contemporary German philosophy. This book, in two volumes, which was never published on account of a literary boycott of Marx's works in Germany, served the useful purpose of clearing their own thoughts, and giving them a sure grasp of their theories. And this accomplished, they went to work practically as well as theoretically.

They established a German Labour Union in Brussels, and took a leading part in conducting the Deutschen-Brusseler Zeitung. At the same time they kept up a close and constant connection with the revolutionary elements of English Chartism and with the French Social-Democrats through the journal Reforme, to which Engels supplied news of the English and German movements. They also became associated with the "League of the Just," which ultimately, under the influence of Marx's and Engels' teaching, developed into the International Communist League.

Chapter 6: The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto

In the summer of 1847 the League met in congress in London to adopt a new constitution and program. Engels was present as the representative of the Paris group. In November of the same year the Congress met again to discuss the question of issuing a manifesto of its ideas and aims. The draft suggested by Marx and Engels was discussed very fully for ten days, and finally they were commissioned to prepare it for publication.

From a letter from Engels to Marx in November, 1847, we see that it was Engels who was responsible for the title of the manifesto. "Reflect a bit on the confession of faith," he writes. "I think we would do best to do away with the catechism form and entitle the thing 'Communist Manifesto.' Since a certain amount of history must be related therein, the form we have so far adopted is quite unsuitable. I am bringing along the copy I have drawn up; it is simply a statement, but wretchedly put together in very great haste. …" Then follows the headings of the various points with which the manifesto deals.

Under their influence the sentimental cry of the old Utopians—"All men are brothers’"—was replaced by the living battle-cry of "Workers of all countries unite." The manifesto was published in 1848, and it meant the public unfurling of the banner of modern Socialism. In the Marx pamphlet we have already dealt with this manifesto. We shall, therefore, not stop to analyse it again here—only one quotation we should like to give from the Introduction to it written by Engels for the 1888 edition, merely to show how the wheel of time, and the present revolutionary era through which we are passing, has, so far as of party names are concerned, brought us back very much to the position of 1848. After pointing out that at that time (1888) the manifesto was undoubtedly the most widespread, the most international production of all Socialist literature, Engels says: "Yet when it was written we could not have called it a Socialist manifesto. By Socialists, in 1847, were understood, on the one hand, the adherents of the various Utopian systems: Owenites in England, Fourierists in France, both of them already reduced to the position of mere sects and gradually dying out; on the other hand, the multifarious social quacks, who, by all manners of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profits, all sorts of social grievances; in both cases, men outside the working-class movement and looking rather to the educated classes for support.