authorDiscover the Best Books Written by Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German philosopher, critic of political economy, historian, political theorist, and revolutionary socialist. He was also a businessman, journalist, and political activist whose father was an owner of large textile factories in Salford (Lancashire, England) and Barmen, Prussia (now Wuppertal, Germany).
Engels developed what is now known as Marxism together with Karl Marx. In 1845, he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research in English cities. In 1848, Engels co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Marx and also authored and co-authored (primarily with Marx) many other works. Later, Engels supported Marx financially, allowing him to do research and write Das Kapital.
After Marx's death, Engels edited the second and third volumes of Das Kapital. Additionally, Engels organized Marx's notes on the Theories of Surplus Value which were later published as the "fourth volume" of Das Kapital. In 1884, he published The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State on the basis of Marx's ethnographic research.
On 5 August 1895, aged 74, Engels died of laryngeal cancer in London. Following cremation, his ashes were scattered off Beachy Head, near Eastbourne. Friedrich Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen, Jülich-Cleves-Berg, Prussia (now Wuppertal, Germany), as eldest son of Friedrich Engels Sr. (1796–1860) and of Elisabeth "Elise" Franziska Mauritia von Haar (1797–1873).[10] The wealthy Engels family owned large cotton-textile mills in Barmen and Salford, both expanding industrial metropoles. Friedrich's parents were devout Pietist Protestants, and they raised their children accordingly.
At the age of 13, Engels attended grammar school (Gymnasium) in the adjacent city of Elberfeld but had to leave at 17 due to pressure from his father, who wanted him to become a businessman and start work as a mercantile apprentice in the family firm. After a year in Barmen, the young Engels was, in 1838, sent by his father to undertake an apprenticeship at a trading house in Bremen. His parents expected that he would follow his father into a career in the family business. Their son's revolutionary activities disappointed them. It would be some years before he joined the family firm.
Whilst at Bremen, Engels began reading the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whose teachings dominated German philosophy at that time. In September 1838, he published his first poem, "The Bedouin," in the Bremisches Conversationsblatt No. 40. He also engaged in other literary work and began writing newspaper articles critiquing the societal ills of industrialization. He wrote under the pseudonym "Friedrich Oswald" to avoid connecting his family with his provocative writings.
In 1841, Engels performed his military service in the Prussian Army as a member of the Household Artillery (German: Garde-Artillerie-Brigade). Assigned to Berlin, he attended university lectures at the University of Berlin and began to associate with groups of Young Hegelians. He anonymously published articles in the Rheinische Zeitung, exposing factory workers' poor employment and living conditions.
The editor of the Rheinische Zeitung was Karl Marx, but Engels would not meet Marx until late November 1842. Engels acknowledged the influence of German philosophy on his intellectual development throughout his career. In 1840, he also wrote: "To get the most out of life, you must be active, you must live, and you must have the courage to taste the thrill of being young." Engels developed atheistic beliefs, and his relationship with his parents became strained.
