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Very Short Introductions #091
Engels: A Very Short Introduction
It is by no means absurd to say that Engels invented Marxism. His work did more than Marx's to attract and make converts to the most influential political movement of modern times. He was not only the father of dialectical and historical materialism--the official philosophies of history and science in many communist countries--but was also the first Marxist historian, anthropologist, philosopher, and commentator on early Marx.
In his later years Engels developed his materialist interpretation of history, his chief intellectual legacy, which has had revolutionary effects on the arts and social sciences. Terrell Carver traces its source and its effect on the development of Marxist theory and practice, assesses its utility, and discusses the difficulties which Marxists have encountered in defending it.
About the Series : Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
In his later years Engels developed his materialist interpretation of history, his chief intellectual legacy, which has had revolutionary effects on the arts and social sciences. Terrell Carver traces its source and its effect on the development of Marxist theory and practice, assesses its utility, and discusses the difficulties which Marxists have encountered in defending it.
About the Series : Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
105 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
16 people are currently reading
778 people want to read
About the author
Terrell Carver
63 books8 followersTerrell Carver the professor of Political Theory at the University of Bristol. He deals particularly with Marxism.
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August 9, 2025
Engels: A Very Short Introduction — or, as it might as well have been titled, Marx’s Bestie: A Condensed Appreciation Post.
This isn’t history so much as a drive-by acknowledgment. It’s Engels, reduced, dehydrated, and vacuum-packed into 130 pages you could finish between switching the kettle on and it actually boiling.
The “Very Short Introduction” series prides itself on accessibility, but here “very short” feels less like an editorial choice and more like the author ran out of interest somewhere between Engels’ birth and his first beard hair.
The book skims his life like a Wikipedia summary with pretensions, footnoting furiously as if the sheer number of citations will distract you from the fact that nothing’s actually being explored in depth.
And oh, the sidekick problem. Engels here is Robin to Marx’s Batman, Chewbacca to Marx’s Han Solo, the guy who buys the drinks so the genius can keep talking. Every second page circles back to, “Also, he bankrolled Marx… again.”
We get it — Engels had deep pockets and a patient disposition, but surely a man who co-wrote The Communist Manifesto deserves more than being remembered as Karl’s Victorian ATM.
The tone keeps swerving between “towering intellectual in his own right” and “supporting character with occasional speaking lines.” One moment we’re told he was a revolutionary strategist, the next, he’s reduced to proofreading Marx’s latest polemic while writing the occasional hunting diary. It’s like the author can’t decide whether to cast Engels as a co-founder of modern socialism or a 19th-century intern who happened to own a factory.
Biographically, the book plays connect-the-dots — here’s his childhood, here’s his radicalisation, and here’s him and Marx making history. The problem is that it moves at such a clip, the dots never form a picture.
We never linger on how Engels reconciled his champagne tastes with his proletarian politics, how his military writings influenced 20th-century revolutionaries, or even the full scope of his ideological independence from Marx. It’s just: Engels was here, Engels paid for things, Engels agreed with Marx.
By the end, the portrait we’re left with is half-hearted: a loyal, slightly tragic figure whose greatest legacy might be that he outlived Marx long enough to edit and publish the man’s unfinished work.
Admirable? Sure. Worthy of more than 130 pages? Absolutely. Instead, the book feels like it’s nervously glancing at the page count, muttering, “Look, you’re not here for Engels; you’re here because you’ve already read the Marx one.”
Verdict: If Engels was history’s most famous understudy, this book is the equivalent of a playbill bio — technically informative, instantly forgettable, and mostly there so you don’t feel bad admitting you didn’t know who he was.
This isn’t history so much as a drive-by acknowledgment. It’s Engels, reduced, dehydrated, and vacuum-packed into 130 pages you could finish between switching the kettle on and it actually boiling.
The “Very Short Introduction” series prides itself on accessibility, but here “very short” feels less like an editorial choice and more like the author ran out of interest somewhere between Engels’ birth and his first beard hair.
The book skims his life like a Wikipedia summary with pretensions, footnoting furiously as if the sheer number of citations will distract you from the fact that nothing’s actually being explored in depth.
And oh, the sidekick problem. Engels here is Robin to Marx’s Batman, Chewbacca to Marx’s Han Solo, the guy who buys the drinks so the genius can keep talking. Every second page circles back to, “Also, he bankrolled Marx… again.”
We get it — Engels had deep pockets and a patient disposition, but surely a man who co-wrote The Communist Manifesto deserves more than being remembered as Karl’s Victorian ATM.
The tone keeps swerving between “towering intellectual in his own right” and “supporting character with occasional speaking lines.” One moment we’re told he was a revolutionary strategist, the next, he’s reduced to proofreading Marx’s latest polemic while writing the occasional hunting diary. It’s like the author can’t decide whether to cast Engels as a co-founder of modern socialism or a 19th-century intern who happened to own a factory.
Biographically, the book plays connect-the-dots — here’s his childhood, here’s his radicalisation, and here’s him and Marx making history. The problem is that it moves at such a clip, the dots never form a picture.
We never linger on how Engels reconciled his champagne tastes with his proletarian politics, how his military writings influenced 20th-century revolutionaries, or even the full scope of his ideological independence from Marx. It’s just: Engels was here, Engels paid for things, Engels agreed with Marx.
By the end, the portrait we’re left with is half-hearted: a loyal, slightly tragic figure whose greatest legacy might be that he outlived Marx long enough to edit and publish the man’s unfinished work.
Admirable? Sure. Worthy of more than 130 pages? Absolutely. Instead, the book feels like it’s nervously glancing at the page count, muttering, “Look, you’re not here for Engels; you’re here because you’ve already read the Marx one.”
Verdict: If Engels was history’s most famous understudy, this book is the equivalent of a playbill bio — technically informative, instantly forgettable, and mostly there so you don’t feel bad admitting you didn’t know who he was.
April 20, 2012
I cannot be sure that this book is actually a good book for the presumed target audience: those wanting an introduction to Engels. It is however a fantastic book for me, because it focused solely on the questions I wanted answered: what is the philosophical relationship between Engels and Marx, where do they agree, where do they disagree, and is Engel’s work responsible for “Marxism.” And if so, how accurate was the Engel’s reading of Marx, in the subsequent development of Marxism. Clearly these are not the questions someone is asking, if they are looking for a brief biography of Engels life and thought. Although both are included, they are not the crux of the book. For instance, one will miss out on all the juicy details of Engel’s sex life, his participation in revolution, his Christmas pudding, and his fights with Marx over money; where he’s always accepting Marx’s apologies, that don’t actually exist.
In regards to the questions I was concerned with, Terrell Carver (a fantastic author, whose Cambridge Companion to Marx is equally well written, and crystal clear) opens the book informing the reader those are exactly the questions he will be addressing. Thus, he dives right in and explains that Engels was the first Marxist. But Engels was different from Marx. He had a gift for “glossing” and/or “summarizing,” but absolutely lacked the original depth of Marx. Thus, if one wanted someone to summarize another’s views, Engels could do this well, but he could not come up with original questions of his own, nor give very good answers to original questions. While there’s nothing wrong with Engels lacking ability alongside “the master,” there is something wrong when people take his words as Marx’s words
There are few areas in the study of Marxism, and especially in 20th century Marxists regimes, where this has been done. Engels dialectics of nature, and the anti-duhring, were always seen as reflecting Marx’s views. Carver offers brilliant scholarship into this matter, and comes out with unequivocal: wrong. It turns out Engels wrote Marx letters asking if he liked his drafts of the anti-duhring, and his dialectics of nature, and Marx always replied that he did like them but never said he agreed with them. Moreover, sections regarding dialectics and motion, Marx passed along to his chemist friend –due to Marx’s own skepticism – and his friend replied that Engels was simply dead wrong. Marx concurred, but Engels published his “findings” on dialectics in motion, unaware of Marx’s disagreement, and later ascribed Marx’s faux agreement to the text in a preface written after Marx’s death.
Engels it seems was always obsessed with final causation, matter as the catalyst of all mind operation and phenomena, and determinism. His obsession with these philosophical matters, along with his glossy summaries of Marx’s views, led to the false notion that Engels materialism, causation, and determinism, were Marx’s, when in fact they were not. Marx was at pains to avoid laying down positive claims to any of these matters, whereas Engels was making positive claims on these matters throughout his entire life. Marx would work for years on a single problem, Engels summarized positions on many. Thus the rigid materialist determinism found in Marxism, the base as the final cause of all ideology and action, and the doctrine of historical materialism, along with the dialectics of motion, and dialectics as a new Science, are all Engels, and not Marx’s. Of course as independent pieces of work, Engels views ought to be treated with standard philosophical cunning, but their false ascription to Marx, and the horrors of myopic Marxists regimes, leads to a tarnishing of Marx’s reputation – for positions he never held – and an academic negligence to engage Engels on philosophical terms, and not ad hominem ones.
Ironically though, it was Engels who helped turn Marx on to communism and not the other way around. Additionally, at first Marx co-wrote books with Engels, utilizing Engels popularity to piggy back sales of his own works, whereas after Marx died, Engels cited Marx, to piggy back sales of his books. The two were a perfect match in their contemporary moment, but as thinkers, and theorist, it’s now time – especially since the fall of the Berlin wall - to divide their works, and redevelop what exactly is Marxism, what is Engel’s reading of Marxism, and what bits of either need to be kept or jettisoned; all the while employing ample caution in conflating either men.
In regards to the questions I was concerned with, Terrell Carver (a fantastic author, whose Cambridge Companion to Marx is equally well written, and crystal clear) opens the book informing the reader those are exactly the questions he will be addressing. Thus, he dives right in and explains that Engels was the first Marxist. But Engels was different from Marx. He had a gift for “glossing” and/or “summarizing,” but absolutely lacked the original depth of Marx. Thus, if one wanted someone to summarize another’s views, Engels could do this well, but he could not come up with original questions of his own, nor give very good answers to original questions. While there’s nothing wrong with Engels lacking ability alongside “the master,” there is something wrong when people take his words as Marx’s words
There are few areas in the study of Marxism, and especially in 20th century Marxists regimes, where this has been done. Engels dialectics of nature, and the anti-duhring, were always seen as reflecting Marx’s views. Carver offers brilliant scholarship into this matter, and comes out with unequivocal: wrong. It turns out Engels wrote Marx letters asking if he liked his drafts of the anti-duhring, and his dialectics of nature, and Marx always replied that he did like them but never said he agreed with them. Moreover, sections regarding dialectics and motion, Marx passed along to his chemist friend –due to Marx’s own skepticism – and his friend replied that Engels was simply dead wrong. Marx concurred, but Engels published his “findings” on dialectics in motion, unaware of Marx’s disagreement, and later ascribed Marx’s faux agreement to the text in a preface written after Marx’s death.
Engels it seems was always obsessed with final causation, matter as the catalyst of all mind operation and phenomena, and determinism. His obsession with these philosophical matters, along with his glossy summaries of Marx’s views, led to the false notion that Engels materialism, causation, and determinism, were Marx’s, when in fact they were not. Marx was at pains to avoid laying down positive claims to any of these matters, whereas Engels was making positive claims on these matters throughout his entire life. Marx would work for years on a single problem, Engels summarized positions on many. Thus the rigid materialist determinism found in Marxism, the base as the final cause of all ideology and action, and the doctrine of historical materialism, along with the dialectics of motion, and dialectics as a new Science, are all Engels, and not Marx’s. Of course as independent pieces of work, Engels views ought to be treated with standard philosophical cunning, but their false ascription to Marx, and the horrors of myopic Marxists regimes, leads to a tarnishing of Marx’s reputation – for positions he never held – and an academic negligence to engage Engels on philosophical terms, and not ad hominem ones.
Ironically though, it was Engels who helped turn Marx on to communism and not the other way around. Additionally, at first Marx co-wrote books with Engels, utilizing Engels popularity to piggy back sales of his own works, whereas after Marx died, Engels cited Marx, to piggy back sales of his books. The two were a perfect match in their contemporary moment, but as thinkers, and theorist, it’s now time – especially since the fall of the Berlin wall - to divide their works, and redevelop what exactly is Marxism, what is Engel’s reading of Marxism, and what bits of either need to be kept or jettisoned; all the while employing ample caution in conflating either men.
November 22, 2025
Young Engels the liberal
Engels was a very talented writer from a young age. By 17 he was a published poet, and by 18 he had become a journalist, writing under the pseudonym ‘Oswald’, with a decent following. The offspring of a long lineage of wealthy industrialists, Engels was educated in the best schools available. What he learned in these schools often clashed with the religious fundamentalism of his parents (Protestant fundamentalism had experienced a revival in reaction to the French Revolution). After reading works which subjected the Bible to historical enquiry and criticism, Engels rejected religion by the time he had graduated school. He joined up with German liberals in the ‘Young Germany’ movement and became a journalist and political commentator.
When Engels turned to Hegel, and then to his disciples Arnold Ruge, David Friedrich Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, his attraction was based on their critiques and deconstructions of Christianity. Because of them, Engels claimed “All the basic principles of Christianity, and even of what has hitherto been called religion itself, have fallen before the inexorable criticism of reason.”. Where Hegel had “opened up a new era of consciousness”, Feuerbach extended his critique in Essence of Christianity that became “a necessary complement to the speculative teaching on religion founded by Hegel”. According to Engels at the time he read Essence of Christianity (sometime in the early 1840s), Feuerbach's incredible thesis that religion was an alienated projection of man’s own attributes meant “Everything has changed”. Besides promoting rationalism over religion, Engel’s political journalism usually centered around liberal demands for a representative Prussian government and freedom of the press. His frustrations which the backward and autocratic characteristic of the Prussian monarchy began to radicalize him further, leading him to write in one article: “Prussia’s present situation closely resembles that of France before ... but I refrain from any premature conclusions”
Young Engels the communist
After multiple trips to London from 1838-1842, Engels was able to witness firsthand the poverty and degradation that the very factory system he was being groomed to run forced upon people. This filled him with righteous indignation, and he made a leftward turn similar to the trajectory many other followers of Hegel made. Often, this similar trajectory was influenced by their newfound ability to communicate with each other thanks to relaxed press censorship in Prussia. The pattern of political radicalism the Young Hegelians went through tended to be similar: “their political views moved from a defence of the rational state along more or less Hegelian lines to overt criticism of Hegel, a rejection of middle-class liberalism, and then advocacy of democracy, republicanism and social reform to benefit the poor.” (p. 13). One of the first German communists, Moses Hess, was the person who converted Engels himself to communism after having multiple discussions together. As part of a radical editorial Young Hegelian group, discussions of social revolution, liberation of mankind, modern industry and its correlation with poverty, and atheism were all swimming in Engels mind when he visited London. His educational development and experiences with the London poor inspired him to write his first masterpiece in 1845, The Condition of the Working Class in England.
The Condition of the Working Class in England was preceded by a series of articles Engels wrote between 1843-44. In these articles, Engels traced the developments of industry and technology in England while noting the effect these were having on society. In one article (The Position of England, The Eighteenth Century) he wrote, “This revolution through which British industry has passed is the foundation of every aspect of modern English life, the driving force behind all social development…
These [industrial] powers, which by right belong to mankind, became, owing to the influence of private property, the monopoly of a few rich capitalists and the means of the enslavement of the masses. Commerce absorbed industry into itself and thereby became omnipotent, it became the nexus of mankind; all personal and national intercourse was reduced to commercial intercourse, and – which amounts to the same thing – property, things, became master of the world.”. The most important effect of all this was the creation of an inherently downtrodden class, the proletariat. At the same time, the middle class was implementing a political system where “property rules”. The aristocracy was losing their power to the House of Commons, dominated by the bourgeoisie, and through this institution they implemented a system where the poor had no rights. The moral effects resulting from this were such that “The abolition of feudal servitude has made ‘cash-payment the sole relation of human beings’. Property, a natural, spiritless principle, as opposed to the human and spiritual principle, is thus enthroned, and ultimately, to complete this alienation, money – the alienated, empty abstraction of property – is made master of the world. Man has ceased to be the slave of men and has become the slave of things; the perversion of the human condition is complete”.
In The Condition of the Working Class in England Engels asserted that, due to the aforementioned conditions, the proletariat was bound to resist because they “cannot feel happy in this condition” and “must therefore strive to escape”. The first attempts at resistance were crime, the least effective form of rebellion. Machine breaking followed, then disorganized strikes and finally unionization. Unions were important because they were “the first attempt of the workers to abolish competition”, both amongst each other and competition in the economic system as a whole. Still, the efforts and strikes of the Chartists and the English Socialists were so far ineffective. Engels then formulated an early example of ‘the merger formula’ (Social Democracy = the labor movement plus socialism): “it is evident that the working-men’s movement is divided into two sections, the Chartists and the socialists. The Chartists are theoretically the more backward, the less developed, but they are genuine proletarians all over, the representatives of the class. The socialists are more far-seeing, propose practical remedies against distress, but, proceeding originally from the bourgeoisie, are for this reason unable to amalgamate completely with the working class. The union of socialism with Chartism, the reproduction of French communism in an English manner, will be the next step, and has already begun. Then only, when this has been achieved, will the working class be the true intellectual leader of England. Meanwhile, political and social development will proceed, and will foster this new party, this new departure of Chartism.”. Due to this merger, the workers would better understand their place within the historical capitalist system and therefore be better attuned to resist and, eventually, abolish it. Eventually, a “violent revolution, which cannot fail to take place” would occur.
Engels the Marxist
Engels first was acquainted with Marx in 1842 when he published articles for Marx’s Cologne paper. Engels was a much more experienced and well respected journalist than Marx, but Marx was the more advanced intellectual and philosopher. Engels gained the respect of Marx after he published the article Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy in 1844 in a journal co-edited by Marx. This article was crucial in Marx’s own intellectual development, and he held it in high esteem for most of his life. Marx, until he read the article, had been an anti-communist due to his view that communists had not engaged with research or convincing arguments in the real world. Engel’s critique of the leading political economists proved to Marx that some communists had developed such real-world criticisms. His article was therefore crucial to Marx’s own political development towards communism.
Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy asserted that the ‘science’ of political economy developed as a result of the expansion of trade. He then developed an explicitly moral critique of the dismal science. “The immediate consequence of private property is trade… buying and selling. This trade, like every activity, must under the dominion of private property become a direct source of gain for the trader; i.e., each must seek to sell as dear as possible and buy as cheap as possible. In every purchase and sale, therefore, two men with diametrically opposed interests confront each other. The confrontation is decidedly antagonistic, for each knows the intentions of the other – knows that they are opposed to his own. Therefore, the first consequence is mutual mistrust, on the one hand, and the justification of this mistrust – the application of immoral means to attain an immoral end – on the other. Thus, the first maxim in trade is secretiveness – the concealment of everything which might reduce the value of the article in question. The result is that in trade it is permitted to take the utmost advantage of the ignorance, the trust, of the opposing party, and likewise to impute qualities to one’s commodity which it does not possess. In a word, trade is legalized fraud. Any merchant who wants to give truth its due can bear me witness that actual practice conforms with this theory.”. Trade led to mistrust, fraud, and domination with subsequent moral justifications of these immoralities. The factory system, directly linked to this trade, created and then ideologically reinforced other immoralities. This immorality dissolved common interests even as deep and historical as that of the family: “It is a common practice for children, as soon as they are capable of work (i.e., as soon as they reach the age of nine), to spend their wages themselves, to look upon their parental home as a mere boarding-house, and hand over to their parents a fixed amount for food and lodging. How can it be otherwise? What else can result from the separation of interests, such as forms the basis of the free-trade system? Once a principle is set in motion, it works by its own impetus through all its consequences”. Private property had turned humans into commodities while competition had “penetrated all the relationships of our life”. All these perversities would eventually lead humanity towards “the abolition of this degradation of mankind through the abolition of private property, competition and opposing interests”; only after the abolition of private property and competition could production be carried out in a conscious manner so that “‘fluctuations of competition and its tendency to crisis would be impossible”. These themes were carried over into Marx’s Paris Manuscripts of 1844. After two joint authorships with Marx (The Holy Family and The German Ideology) Engels felt thoroughly surpassed by Marx when it came to understanding political economy, and thus consciously settled into the position as the junior partner in their intellectual relationship. In this way, Engels became the first Marxist.
Following the failed revolutions of 1848, throughout 1849 Engels would go on to write a series of articles titled The Peasant War in Germany. Throughout this series, he used Marx’s view that classes in society corresponded to the modes of production of said society, and that only the proletariat was in a historical position to revolutionarily abolish class itself. His summary of Germany paralleled lines in Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
Peasant War: “While in England and France the rise of commerce and industry had the effect of intertwining the interest of the entire country and thereby brought about political centralization, Germany had not got any further than grouping interests by provinces, around merely local centres, which led to political division… In step with the disintegration of the purely feudal Empire, the bonds of imperial unity became completely dissolved, the major vassals of the Empire became almost independent sovereigns, and the cities of the Empire, on the one hand, and the knights of the Empire, on the other, began entering into alliances either against each other or against the princes or the Emperor.”
Manifesto: “The various estates of the [German] Empire – princes, nobles, prelates, patricians, burghers, plebeians and peasants – formed an extremely confusing mass with their varied and highly conflicting needs.”
Following methodology used in The German Ideology, Engels related theological and religious controversies to real social, political, and material conflicts. He wrote “The revolutionary opposition to feudalism was alive throughout the Middle Ages. It took the shape of mysticism, open heresy, or armed insurrection, depending on the conditions of the time”. Three main camps existed in the German peasant wars of the Middle Ages: first, conservative Catholics: “all the elements interested in maintaining the existing conditions, i.e. the imperial authorities, the ecclesiastical and a section of the lay princes, the richer nobility, the prelates and the city patricians”; second, the Lutheran reformers made up of “the mass of the lesser nobility, the burghers, and even some of the lay princes who hoped to enrich themselves through confiscation of church estates”; finally, there were the peasants and plebeians who formed “a revolutionary party whose demands and doctrines were most forcefully set out by [Thomas] Münzer”. The book notes that “The two leaders, Luther and Münzer, truly ‘reflected’ the attitudes of their parties. Luther’s indecision corresponded to the hesitant policies of the burghers; Münzer’s revolutionary energy corresponded to the most advanced plebeians and peasants. Münzer, however, went far beyond their immediate demands and in so doing found himself in an impossible situation… Neither Münzer’s own movement nor the economic conditions in which he found himself were ready for the social changes he envisaged: community of property, the equal obligation to work, and the abolition of all authority.” (p. 40). Such an “unsolvable dilemma” led Engels to make the following famous remark: “The worst thing that can befall the leader of an extreme party is to assume power at a time when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class he represents… What he can do depends not upon his will but upon the sharpness of the clash of interests between the various classes, and upon the degree of development of the material means of existence, the relations of production and means of communication upon which the clash of interests of the classes is based every time. What he ought to do, what his party demands of him, again depends not upon him, or upon the degree of development of the class struggle and its conditions… What he can do is in contrast to all his actions as hitherto practised, to all his principles and to the present interests of his party; what he ought to do cannot be achieved. In a word, he is compelled to represent not his party or his class, but the class for whom conditions are ripe for domination.”. The Peasant War in Germany is the first Marxist work of history; the Marxist historiographer’s basic framework, pioneered by Engels in this work can be summed up like this: behind all political and ideological conflicts and struggles lay the deeper economic concerns of conflicting classes.
Engels was a very talented writer from a young age. By 17 he was a published poet, and by 18 he had become a journalist, writing under the pseudonym ‘Oswald’, with a decent following. The offspring of a long lineage of wealthy industrialists, Engels was educated in the best schools available. What he learned in these schools often clashed with the religious fundamentalism of his parents (Protestant fundamentalism had experienced a revival in reaction to the French Revolution). After reading works which subjected the Bible to historical enquiry and criticism, Engels rejected religion by the time he had graduated school. He joined up with German liberals in the ‘Young Germany’ movement and became a journalist and political commentator.
When Engels turned to Hegel, and then to his disciples Arnold Ruge, David Friedrich Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, his attraction was based on their critiques and deconstructions of Christianity. Because of them, Engels claimed “All the basic principles of Christianity, and even of what has hitherto been called religion itself, have fallen before the inexorable criticism of reason.”. Where Hegel had “opened up a new era of consciousness”, Feuerbach extended his critique in Essence of Christianity that became “a necessary complement to the speculative teaching on religion founded by Hegel”. According to Engels at the time he read Essence of Christianity (sometime in the early 1840s), Feuerbach's incredible thesis that religion was an alienated projection of man’s own attributes meant “Everything has changed”. Besides promoting rationalism over religion, Engel’s political journalism usually centered around liberal demands for a representative Prussian government and freedom of the press. His frustrations which the backward and autocratic characteristic of the Prussian monarchy began to radicalize him further, leading him to write in one article: “Prussia’s present situation closely resembles that of France before ... but I refrain from any premature conclusions”
Young Engels the communist
After multiple trips to London from 1838-1842, Engels was able to witness firsthand the poverty and degradation that the very factory system he was being groomed to run forced upon people. This filled him with righteous indignation, and he made a leftward turn similar to the trajectory many other followers of Hegel made. Often, this similar trajectory was influenced by their newfound ability to communicate with each other thanks to relaxed press censorship in Prussia. The pattern of political radicalism the Young Hegelians went through tended to be similar: “their political views moved from a defence of the rational state along more or less Hegelian lines to overt criticism of Hegel, a rejection of middle-class liberalism, and then advocacy of democracy, republicanism and social reform to benefit the poor.” (p. 13). One of the first German communists, Moses Hess, was the person who converted Engels himself to communism after having multiple discussions together. As part of a radical editorial Young Hegelian group, discussions of social revolution, liberation of mankind, modern industry and its correlation with poverty, and atheism were all swimming in Engels mind when he visited London. His educational development and experiences with the London poor inspired him to write his first masterpiece in 1845, The Condition of the Working Class in England.
The Condition of the Working Class in England was preceded by a series of articles Engels wrote between 1843-44. In these articles, Engels traced the developments of industry and technology in England while noting the effect these were having on society. In one article (The Position of England, The Eighteenth Century) he wrote, “This revolution through which British industry has passed is the foundation of every aspect of modern English life, the driving force behind all social development…
These [industrial] powers, which by right belong to mankind, became, owing to the influence of private property, the monopoly of a few rich capitalists and the means of the enslavement of the masses. Commerce absorbed industry into itself and thereby became omnipotent, it became the nexus of mankind; all personal and national intercourse was reduced to commercial intercourse, and – which amounts to the same thing – property, things, became master of the world.”. The most important effect of all this was the creation of an inherently downtrodden class, the proletariat. At the same time, the middle class was implementing a political system where “property rules”. The aristocracy was losing their power to the House of Commons, dominated by the bourgeoisie, and through this institution they implemented a system where the poor had no rights. The moral effects resulting from this were such that “The abolition of feudal servitude has made ‘cash-payment the sole relation of human beings’. Property, a natural, spiritless principle, as opposed to the human and spiritual principle, is thus enthroned, and ultimately, to complete this alienation, money – the alienated, empty abstraction of property – is made master of the world. Man has ceased to be the slave of men and has become the slave of things; the perversion of the human condition is complete”.
In The Condition of the Working Class in England Engels asserted that, due to the aforementioned conditions, the proletariat was bound to resist because they “cannot feel happy in this condition” and “must therefore strive to escape”. The first attempts at resistance were crime, the least effective form of rebellion. Machine breaking followed, then disorganized strikes and finally unionization. Unions were important because they were “the first attempt of the workers to abolish competition”, both amongst each other and competition in the economic system as a whole. Still, the efforts and strikes of the Chartists and the English Socialists were so far ineffective. Engels then formulated an early example of ‘the merger formula’ (Social Democracy = the labor movement plus socialism): “it is evident that the working-men’s movement is divided into two sections, the Chartists and the socialists. The Chartists are theoretically the more backward, the less developed, but they are genuine proletarians all over, the representatives of the class. The socialists are more far-seeing, propose practical remedies against distress, but, proceeding originally from the bourgeoisie, are for this reason unable to amalgamate completely with the working class. The union of socialism with Chartism, the reproduction of French communism in an English manner, will be the next step, and has already begun. Then only, when this has been achieved, will the working class be the true intellectual leader of England. Meanwhile, political and social development will proceed, and will foster this new party, this new departure of Chartism.”. Due to this merger, the workers would better understand their place within the historical capitalist system and therefore be better attuned to resist and, eventually, abolish it. Eventually, a “violent revolution, which cannot fail to take place” would occur.
Engels the Marxist
Engels first was acquainted with Marx in 1842 when he published articles for Marx’s Cologne paper. Engels was a much more experienced and well respected journalist than Marx, but Marx was the more advanced intellectual and philosopher. Engels gained the respect of Marx after he published the article Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy in 1844 in a journal co-edited by Marx. This article was crucial in Marx’s own intellectual development, and he held it in high esteem for most of his life. Marx, until he read the article, had been an anti-communist due to his view that communists had not engaged with research or convincing arguments in the real world. Engel’s critique of the leading political economists proved to Marx that some communists had developed such real-world criticisms. His article was therefore crucial to Marx’s own political development towards communism.
Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy asserted that the ‘science’ of political economy developed as a result of the expansion of trade. He then developed an explicitly moral critique of the dismal science. “The immediate consequence of private property is trade… buying and selling. This trade, like every activity, must under the dominion of private property become a direct source of gain for the trader; i.e., each must seek to sell as dear as possible and buy as cheap as possible. In every purchase and sale, therefore, two men with diametrically opposed interests confront each other. The confrontation is decidedly antagonistic, for each knows the intentions of the other – knows that they are opposed to his own. Therefore, the first consequence is mutual mistrust, on the one hand, and the justification of this mistrust – the application of immoral means to attain an immoral end – on the other. Thus, the first maxim in trade is secretiveness – the concealment of everything which might reduce the value of the article in question. The result is that in trade it is permitted to take the utmost advantage of the ignorance, the trust, of the opposing party, and likewise to impute qualities to one’s commodity which it does not possess. In a word, trade is legalized fraud. Any merchant who wants to give truth its due can bear me witness that actual practice conforms with this theory.”. Trade led to mistrust, fraud, and domination with subsequent moral justifications of these immoralities. The factory system, directly linked to this trade, created and then ideologically reinforced other immoralities. This immorality dissolved common interests even as deep and historical as that of the family: “It is a common practice for children, as soon as they are capable of work (i.e., as soon as they reach the age of nine), to spend their wages themselves, to look upon their parental home as a mere boarding-house, and hand over to their parents a fixed amount for food and lodging. How can it be otherwise? What else can result from the separation of interests, such as forms the basis of the free-trade system? Once a principle is set in motion, it works by its own impetus through all its consequences”. Private property had turned humans into commodities while competition had “penetrated all the relationships of our life”. All these perversities would eventually lead humanity towards “the abolition of this degradation of mankind through the abolition of private property, competition and opposing interests”; only after the abolition of private property and competition could production be carried out in a conscious manner so that “‘fluctuations of competition and its tendency to crisis would be impossible”. These themes were carried over into Marx’s Paris Manuscripts of 1844. After two joint authorships with Marx (The Holy Family and The German Ideology) Engels felt thoroughly surpassed by Marx when it came to understanding political economy, and thus consciously settled into the position as the junior partner in their intellectual relationship. In this way, Engels became the first Marxist.
Following the failed revolutions of 1848, throughout 1849 Engels would go on to write a series of articles titled The Peasant War in Germany. Throughout this series, he used Marx’s view that classes in society corresponded to the modes of production of said society, and that only the proletariat was in a historical position to revolutionarily abolish class itself. His summary of Germany paralleled lines in Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
Peasant War: “While in England and France the rise of commerce and industry had the effect of intertwining the interest of the entire country and thereby brought about political centralization, Germany had not got any further than grouping interests by provinces, around merely local centres, which led to political division… In step with the disintegration of the purely feudal Empire, the bonds of imperial unity became completely dissolved, the major vassals of the Empire became almost independent sovereigns, and the cities of the Empire, on the one hand, and the knights of the Empire, on the other, began entering into alliances either against each other or against the princes or the Emperor.”
Manifesto: “The various estates of the [German] Empire – princes, nobles, prelates, patricians, burghers, plebeians and peasants – formed an extremely confusing mass with their varied and highly conflicting needs.”
Following methodology used in The German Ideology, Engels related theological and religious controversies to real social, political, and material conflicts. He wrote “The revolutionary opposition to feudalism was alive throughout the Middle Ages. It took the shape of mysticism, open heresy, or armed insurrection, depending on the conditions of the time”. Three main camps existed in the German peasant wars of the Middle Ages: first, conservative Catholics: “all the elements interested in maintaining the existing conditions, i.e. the imperial authorities, the ecclesiastical and a section of the lay princes, the richer nobility, the prelates and the city patricians”; second, the Lutheran reformers made up of “the mass of the lesser nobility, the burghers, and even some of the lay princes who hoped to enrich themselves through confiscation of church estates”; finally, there were the peasants and plebeians who formed “a revolutionary party whose demands and doctrines were most forcefully set out by [Thomas] Münzer”. The book notes that “The two leaders, Luther and Münzer, truly ‘reflected’ the attitudes of their parties. Luther’s indecision corresponded to the hesitant policies of the burghers; Münzer’s revolutionary energy corresponded to the most advanced plebeians and peasants. Münzer, however, went far beyond their immediate demands and in so doing found himself in an impossible situation… Neither Münzer’s own movement nor the economic conditions in which he found himself were ready for the social changes he envisaged: community of property, the equal obligation to work, and the abolition of all authority.” (p. 40). Such an “unsolvable dilemma” led Engels to make the following famous remark: “The worst thing that can befall the leader of an extreme party is to assume power at a time when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class he represents… What he can do depends not upon his will but upon the sharpness of the clash of interests between the various classes, and upon the degree of development of the material means of existence, the relations of production and means of communication upon which the clash of interests of the classes is based every time. What he ought to do, what his party demands of him, again depends not upon him, or upon the degree of development of the class struggle and its conditions… What he can do is in contrast to all his actions as hitherto practised, to all his principles and to the present interests of his party; what he ought to do cannot be achieved. In a word, he is compelled to represent not his party or his class, but the class for whom conditions are ripe for domination.”. The Peasant War in Germany is the first Marxist work of history; the Marxist historiographer’s basic framework, pioneered by Engels in this work can be summed up like this: behind all political and ideological conflicts and struggles lay the deeper economic concerns of conflicting classes.
March 20, 2018
ممكن لأني مش مهتمة لدرجة كبيرة بالنظريات الاجتماعية والماركسية، بس الكتاب مستحوذش على اهتمامي ومقدرتش أكمله رغم صغره، وصلت إلى صفحة 60 قريبا وقررت أني اكتفيت.
الكتاب هو مقدمة قصيرة جدا كما يتضح من اسمه عن الفيلسوف الألماني إنجلز، صديق ماركس وله فضل كبير في نشأة الماركسية. كانت الفكرة اللي حطيتها في دماغي من قراءة الكتاب ده - أو سلسلة مقدمة قصيرة جدا بشكل عام - هي أنه إذا الموضوع عجبني أقدر أدور عليه بعد كده بتوسع، وإذا معجبنيش هكون عرفت عنه نبذة بسيطة جدا.
ترجمة هنداوي جيدة جدا، أنا كنت بدأت الكتاب بالانجليزي وقررت أقرأ الترجمة العربية ولقيتها سلسة وتساعد على فهم الموضوع. الكتاب مش سيئ، لكنه فعلا مش في نطاق اهتماماتي، ممكن يحالفني الحظ في كتاب تاني من السلسلة دي
الكتاب هو مقدمة قصيرة جدا كما يتضح من اسمه عن الفيلسوف الألماني إنجلز، صديق ماركس وله فضل كبير في نشأة الماركسية. كانت الفكرة اللي حطيتها في دماغي من قراءة الكتاب ده - أو سلسلة مقدمة قصيرة جدا بشكل عام - هي أنه إذا الموضوع عجبني أقدر أدور عليه بعد كده بتوسع، وإذا معجبنيش هكون عرفت عنه نبذة بسيطة جدا.
ترجمة هنداوي جيدة جدا، أنا كنت بدأت الكتاب بالانجليزي وقررت أقرأ الترجمة العربية ولقيتها سلسة وتساعد على فهم الموضوع. الكتاب مش سيئ، لكنه فعلا مش في نطاق اهتماماتي، ممكن يحالفني الحظ في كتاب تاني من السلسلة دي
February 26, 2023
اما عن حياته كانت متدينة و ملحدة وهيحيلية إشتراكية الا أنا أصبح مؤسس الشيوعية مثل ماركس
مثقف و أكاديمي وعائلته كانت من أصحاب الأملاك و هو من كان يصرف عن ماركس و أولاده
إنجلز
وصف التجارة بأنها تشبه السرقة، وتقوم على قانون القوي، وعلى حسد وطمع التجار ة وقال إن المزاعم القائلة بأن التجارة هي «. على جباههم الأنانية البغيضة للغاية » المرسومة
مؤلف الكتب يعتقد أن إنجلز ماركسي أكثر من كارل ماركس شخصياً😕
وهو كمان صاحب التفسيرُ المادي للتاريخ
مثقف و أكاديمي وعائلته كانت من أصحاب الأملاك و هو من كان يصرف عن ماركس و أولاده
إنجلز
وصف التجارة بأنها تشبه السرقة، وتقوم على قانون القوي، وعلى حسد وطمع التجار ة وقال إن المزاعم القائلة بأن التجارة هي «. على جباههم الأنانية البغيضة للغاية » المرسومة
مؤلف الكتب يعتقد أن إنجلز ماركسي أكثر من كارل ماركس شخصياً😕
وهو كمان صاحب التفسيرُ المادي للتاريخ
December 26, 2017
Good
Carver gives us a very brief but informative intellectual biography and assessment of Engels and his relationship to Marx as glosser, editor, and sponsor. Carver makes it clear that differences between the two are not as profound as some would paint (particularly because of embarrassment around the dialectics of nature) nor is Engels entirely in agreement with Marx (although he seems to have sincerely thought that any innovations he had were consistent with Marx's work). It is a good introduction to Engels but it is just an introduction. One who is interested should dig into more substantive intellectual and biographical work.
Carver gives us a very brief but informative intellectual biography and assessment of Engels and his relationship to Marx as glosser, editor, and sponsor. Carver makes it clear that differences between the two are not as profound as some would paint (particularly because of embarrassment around the dialectics of nature) nor is Engels entirely in agreement with Marx (although he seems to have sincerely thought that any innovations he had were consistent with Marx's work). It is a good introduction to Engels but it is just an introduction. One who is interested should dig into more substantive intellectual and biographical work.
January 13, 2019
كتاب ممل تمامآ كملل مناقشات الجدلية التاريخية الماركسية.
انتظرت نهاية الصفحات بفارغ الصبر وكنت سعيد عندما انتهي.
الكتاب لم يوضح لا الافكار الرئيسية لإنجلز ولا حتي تطور افكاره، فقط سرد للاحداث ورسائله مع ماركس وماذا حرر ومادا كتب وفي أي سنة. كأنه كتاب تاريخ مدرسي ممل.
November 26, 2015
A conversation I've had a couple of times this week: 'What are you reading?' - 'A book about Friedrich Engels' - 'Who's that?' - 'He co-wrote The Communist Manifesto with Marx' - 'Ah, OK...'
And that apparently, is all that needs to be said.
It isn't, of course. It never is. One might add that Engels made several significant contributions to Marxism in his own right - perhaps most famously his book The Condition of the Working Class in England. But it would be more accurate to say that - inspired by Marx, of course - he actually invented Marxism. He was much the superior writer of propaganda for a general audience, and he outlived Marx enough to deify his memory.
His chief legacy, though, is 'dialectical materialism', or the Marxist theory ofeverything history. Marx came up with this technique of analysis and used it, but Engels was the one who turned it into a theory in its own right. Since historical materialism is the one thing all Marxists of any kind have in common, it is safe to say this is where Engels' influence has been strongest. But consequently, it is also where it has been most pernicious. This is not to say that class antagonisms and relationships can never be drivers of history, for they clearly can. It is only to say that to rigorously apply it, as Marxists have, to the exclusion of all else, is at once to distort history, and to make it something uninteresting.
Chapter 1: Engels and Marx
Chapter 2: Journalist
Chapter 3: Communist
Chapter 4: Revolutionary
Chapter 5: Marxist
Chapter 6: Socialist
Chapter 7: Engels and Marxism
And that apparently, is all that needs to be said.
It isn't, of course. It never is. One might add that Engels made several significant contributions to Marxism in his own right - perhaps most famously his book The Condition of the Working Class in England. But it would be more accurate to say that - inspired by Marx, of course - he actually invented Marxism. He was much the superior writer of propaganda for a general audience, and he outlived Marx enough to deify his memory.
His chief legacy, though, is 'dialectical materialism', or the Marxist theory of
Chapter 1: Engels and Marx
Chapter 2: Journalist
Chapter 3: Communist
Chapter 4: Revolutionary
Chapter 5: Marxist
Chapter 6: Socialist
Chapter 7: Engels and Marxism
February 4, 2016
..البشر ا��حقيقيون الأحياء هم الذين يملكون وهم الذين يحاربون,
أما التاريخ فلا,
ليس التاريخ شيئًا إلا نشاط البشر الساعين لتحقيق أهدافهم..
.إنجلز.
فريدرك إنجلز أحد أعمدة الشيوعية, وهو رفيق كارل ماركس في الأفكار, ومؤمن بشدة بالماركسية حيث كتب ونشر العديد من الشروحات حول أعمال كارل ماركس, الكتاب غير شامل , لمحة بسيطة مختصرة عن حياة ومواقف إنجلز.
أما التاريخ فلا,
ليس التاريخ شيئًا إلا نشاط البشر الساعين لتحقيق أهدافهم..
.إنجلز.
فريدرك إنجلز أحد أعمدة الشيوعية, وهو رفيق كارل ماركس في الأفكار, ومؤمن بشدة بالماركسية حيث كتب ونشر العديد من الشروحات حول أعمال كارل ماركس, الكتاب غير شامل , لمحة بسيطة مختصرة عن حياة ومواقف إنجلز.
May 17, 2017
I enjoyed this book. Among the works I have read about Engels, this was one of the best.
However, I think that it can't be entitled as a short introduction since some background knowledge regarding the works of Marx and Hegel are needed to be known for full comprehension of the last three chapters. To avoid elongating the books, these background material were not discussed in this book, which is understandable, but without them, this book couldn't be a useful introduction for someone without any previous knowledge concerning Marx and Hegel.
In the last chapter of the book, the author has tried his best to clarify, from his point of view, which aspects of Marxism (at least in Orthodox or Leninist interpretations) were works of Engels, and which came from Marx. Although there could be a merit to discuss this issue in detail in a scholarly work, for a very short introduction, some parts of the last chapter were unnecessary.
In aggregate, what could be stated with certainty is that Marx writings were more complex and ambiguous than those of Engels. Therefore, there is more room for different interpretations of the former than the latter. Otherwise, since both men have died long ago, no one can really state that how much Marx approved or would approve Engels works regarding natural sciences or Engels descriptions of his works.
However, I think that it can't be entitled as a short introduction since some background knowledge regarding the works of Marx and Hegel are needed to be known for full comprehension of the last three chapters. To avoid elongating the books, these background material were not discussed in this book, which is understandable, but without them, this book couldn't be a useful introduction for someone without any previous knowledge concerning Marx and Hegel.
In the last chapter of the book, the author has tried his best to clarify, from his point of view, which aspects of Marxism (at least in Orthodox or Leninist interpretations) were works of Engels, and which came from Marx. Although there could be a merit to discuss this issue in detail in a scholarly work, for a very short introduction, some parts of the last chapter were unnecessary.
In aggregate, what could be stated with certainty is that Marx writings were more complex and ambiguous than those of Engels. Therefore, there is more room for different interpretations of the former than the latter. Otherwise, since both men have died long ago, no one can really state that how much Marx approved or would approve Engels works regarding natural sciences or Engels descriptions of his works.
September 21, 2019
دائما عندما يذكر كارل ماركس أو كتاب رأس المال , يذكر فريدريك إنجلز كمساعد و مرافق لمسيرة تطور الفكر الماركسي و أحيانا كثيرة يذكر على أنه كاتب أفكار ماركس و محررها لا أكثر , ولكن هذا الكتاب يأتي لفند هذه الادعاءات و يرجع لأنجلز مكانته كمحاور و فيلسوف و منظر فكر فريد من نوعه , بل و يقدم أنجلز كمبادر و صاحب رؤية للعديد من التطلعات الماركسية متقدما بذلك على ماركس في بعض المناح , فالكتاب يركز تماما على طبيعة العلاقة الفلسفية بين إنجلز وماركس وأين يتفقان وأين يختلفان و يتحدث عن مدى دقة قراءة إنجل لماركس و فرادة قدرة أنجلز على استخلاص افكار الاخرين وخاصة ماركس و صياغتها بصورة ملائمة للعامة دون أي انتقاص من قيمة افكاره الخاصة , أي إذا أراد أحدهم أن يلخص وجهات نظر الآخرين ، فيمكن لإنجلز أن يفعل ذلك بشكل جيد ، من جهة أخرى الكتاب في بعض الاحيان لمح إلى أن إنجلز كان الماركسي الأول وانها إبتدع بعض الافكار والمنطلقات الماركسية وربما قد يختلف الكثير على هذا , ولكن ما لا يمكن دحضه أن " كان إنجلز كريمًا في وقته وماله مثلما كان كريمًا في نصائحه لماركس فيما يخص أفكاره ويذكر إلى أن إحسانه إلى ماركس وأسرته أنقذهم في مرات عديدة من مصائر أشد بلاءً من الفقر والشقاء " في الختام الكتاب مميز جداً لكل من يعتريه الفضول عن شخصية إنجلز و مساهمتها في الفكر الماركسي وتقيمي للكتاب 3/5
مقتطفات من كتاب إنجلز للكاتب تيريل كارفر
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شهدَتِ الحياةُ المهنية لإنجلز بدايةً مشرقة؛ ففي سن السابعة عشرة، نُشِر له بعضُ الأعمال الشعرية، وفي سن الثامنة عشرة كان صحفيٍّا تتَّسِم مقالاتُه بالنقد اللاذع؛ الأمر الذي أدَّى إلى نفاد طبعة كاملة من إحدى صحف مدينة هامبورج التي كان يكتب لها
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تشكَّلَتْ معتقدات واهتمامات إنجلز الشاب على يد أسرته والمدارس التي تلقَّى العلمَ فيها، وكذلك من خلال مجتمعه، وكلها كيانات أظهر لها العداء الشديد في فترة المراهقة.
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الثورة التي حدثت في الصناعة البريطانية هي أساس كل جانب من جوانب الحياة الإنجليزية المعاصرة، وهي القوة المحركة وراء كل أشكال التطور الاجتماعي، وكانت أولى تبعاتها، كما أوضحنا بالفعل، أن وصلَتِ المصلحةُ الذاتية إلى مستوى السيطرة على الإنسان. لقد استولت المصلحة الذاتية على القوى الصناعية المكونة حديثًا واستغلتها لأغراضها الخاصة، وتلك القوى التي تخص الإنسان أصبحت حكرًا على قلةٍ من الرأسماليين الأثرياء ووسيلةً لاستعباد الأغلبية. واستحوذت التجارة على الصناعة، وهكذا أصبحت التجارة ذات سلطة مطلقة، وأصبحت الرابط بين بني البشر، واختزلت كل العلاقات الشخصية والقومية إلى علاقات تجارية، وهذا يؤدِّي إلى الأمر نفسه المتمثِّل في سيادة الملكية والأشياء على العالم
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إن المعركة من أجل الديمقراطية، كما قال إنجلز، هي تحوُّل إلى الاشتراكية؛ فمعركة الفقراء ضد الأغنياء لا يمكن خوضها على أساس الديمقراطية أو على أساس السياسة في مجملها في واقع الأمر فالثورة لا بد أن تكون اجتماعية وأن تنتقل من المؤسسات السياسية إلى الحياة الاقتصادية، وإلى القِيَم الحاكمة في المجتمع.
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توقَّعَ إنجلز أن العمال سوف يدركون بمزيد من الوضوح كيف تؤثِّر المنافسة عليهم؛ فلقد رأوا بوضوح أكبر من الطبقة البرجوازية أن المنافسة بين الرأسماليين تسبِّب أزماتٍ تجاريةً وأن هذا النوع من المنافسة أيضًا لا بد من وضع حد له
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اعتبر إنجلز أن الاقتصاد السياسي ما هو إلا علم للإثراء تطوَّرَ نتيجةً لتوسُّع التجارة
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فالملكية الخاصة قد حوَّلت الإنسانَ إلى سلعة، والمنافسة اخترقت كلَّ العلاقات في حياتنا وأكملت العبودية المتمثِّلة في المقايضة التي جعل الناسُ أنفسَهم عبيدًا لها في الوقت الراهن
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اعترف ماركس وإنجلز كلٌّ منهما على حدة بأن الفكرة الأساسية للبيان الشيوعي كانت من إنتاج ماركس وحده، وتمثَّلت في أن وجود الطبقات في المجتمع كان نتيجةَ مراحل معيَّنة في تطوُّر الإنتاج، وأن الطبقة المطحونة المعاصرة هي فقط التي بإمكانها تحقيق التحوُّل إلى مجتمع بلا طبقات
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كان إنجلز أول الماركسيين، وكان تأثيره على الماركسية كبيرًا؛ فقد كتب عددًا هائلًا من المقالات والكُتَيِّبات والمقالات النقدية، بالإضافة إلى عدد كبير من الكتب حولها طوال الفترة الممتدة من ١٨٤٩ وحتى وفاته عام ١٨٩٥ . وفي كثير من هذه الأعمال حاوَلَ تفسير فرضيات ووجهات نظرِ ماركس، التي أسهم فيها إلى حد كبير. علاوة على ذلك، فقد أصبح مراجعًا ومحررًا لأعمال ماركس
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كان إنجلز كريمًا في وقته وماله مثلما كان كريمًا في نصائحه. إن إحسانه إلى ماركس وأسرته أنقذهم في مرات عديدة من مصائر أشد بلاءً من الفقر والشقاء اللذين عاشوا فيهما؛ ففي عام ١٨٧٠ كان إنجلز قادرًا على مَنْحهم قدرًا من الاستقلال المادي، في الوقت نفسه الذي كان يوفِّر فيه لنفسه هذا الاستقلالَ، واستفاد كثير من المهاجرين والزائرين الاشتراكيين من كرم ضيافته ومساعداته، كما حصل أبناءُ ماركس وكذلك أحفاده الذين بقوا على قيد الحياة بعد وفاة إنجلز، على جزءٍ من تركته الكبيرة بعد وفاته . بسرطان الحنجرة في ٥ أغسطس ١٨
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إذا كان هناك معيار واحد للتفرقة بين الماركسي وغير الماركسي، فسيكون التفسيرُ المادي للتاريخ هو المنافِس الأقوى من بين هذه المعايير. ومع ذلك، فإن مجرد قبول ذلك التصوُّر لن يجعل أيَّ شخصماركسيٍّا على نحو قوي للغاية
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لقد ساعدت جهود ماركس وإنجلز كي يصبح كلٌّ منهما مرجعية سياسية في ضمان إمكانية قراءة أعمالهما في المستقبل، بغضالنظر عن فائدتها باعتبارها إسهامات في العلوم الاجتماعية. وفيما يتعلَّق بالفلسفة والتاريخ وعلم الاجتماع والفنون والعلوم الأخرى، فإن ماركس هو الذي قدَّمَ الإسهامات الأكثر إبداعًا، بينما إنجلز هو مَن قدَّمَ الإسهامات الأكثر تأثيرًا، لا سيما في أعماله الأخيرة
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على صعيد حياتنا الفكرية، لا سيما في مجال العلوم الاجتماعية. تنطوي العلوم الاجتماعية على المعرفة المتاحة لدينا عن المجتمع، وتُعَدُّ السياسة وسيلتَنا لتغيير ذلك المجتمع
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مقتطفات من كتاب إنجلز للكاتب تيريل كارفر
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شهدَتِ الحياةُ المهنية لإنجلز بدايةً مشرقة؛ ففي سن السابعة عشرة، نُشِر له بعضُ الأعمال الشعرية، وفي سن الثامنة عشرة كان صحفيٍّا تتَّسِم مقالاتُه بالنقد اللاذع؛ الأمر الذي أدَّى إلى نفاد طبعة كاملة من إحدى صحف مدينة هامبورج التي كان يكتب لها
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تشكَّلَتْ معتقدات واهتمامات إنجلز الشاب على يد أسرته والمدارس التي تلقَّى العلمَ فيها، وكذلك من خلال مجتمعه، وكلها كيانات أظهر لها العداء الشديد في فترة المراهقة.
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الثورة التي حدثت في الصناعة البريطانية هي أساس كل جانب من جوانب الحياة الإنجليزية المعاصرة، وهي القوة المحركة وراء كل أشكال التطور الاجتماعي، وكانت أولى تبعاتها، كما أوضحنا بالفعل، أن وصلَتِ المصلحةُ الذاتية إلى مستوى السيطرة على الإنسان. لقد استولت المصلحة الذاتية على القوى الصناعية المكونة حديثًا واستغلتها لأغراضها الخاصة، وتلك القوى التي تخص الإنسان أصبحت حكرًا على قلةٍ من الرأسماليين الأثرياء ووسيلةً لاستعباد الأغلبية. واستحوذت التجارة على الصناعة، وهكذا أصبحت التجارة ذات سلطة مطلقة، وأصبحت الرابط بين بني البشر، واختزلت كل العلاقات الشخصية والقومية إلى علاقات تجارية، وهذا يؤدِّي إلى الأمر نفسه المتمثِّل في سيادة الملكية والأشياء على العالم
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إن المعركة من أجل الديمقراطية، كما قال إنجلز، هي تحوُّل إلى الاشتراكية؛ فمعركة الفقراء ضد الأغنياء لا يمكن خوضها على أساس الديمقراطية أو على أساس السياسة في مجملها في واقع الأمر فالثورة لا بد أن تكون اجتماعية وأن تنتقل من المؤسسات السياسية إلى الحياة الاقتصادية، وإلى القِيَم الحاكمة في المجتمع.
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توقَّعَ إنجلز أن العمال سوف يدركون بمزيد من الوضوح كيف تؤثِّر المنافسة عليهم؛ فلقد رأوا بوضوح أكبر من الطبقة البرجوازية أن المنافسة بين الرأسماليين تسبِّب أزماتٍ تجاريةً وأن هذا النوع من المنافسة أيضًا لا بد من وضع حد له
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اعتبر إنجلز أن الاقتصاد السياسي ما هو إلا علم للإثراء تطوَّرَ نتيجةً لتوسُّع التجارة
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فالملكية الخاصة قد حوَّلت الإنسانَ إلى سلعة، والمنافسة اخترقت كلَّ العلاقات في حياتنا وأكملت العبودية المتمثِّلة في المقايضة التي جعل الناسُ أنفسَهم عبيدًا لها في الوقت الراهن
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اعترف ماركس وإنجلز كلٌّ منهما على حدة بأن الفكرة الأساسية للبيان الشيوعي كانت من إنتاج ماركس وحده، وتمثَّلت في أن وجود الطبقات في المجتمع كان نتيجةَ مراحل معيَّنة في تطوُّر الإنتاج، وأن الطبقة المطحونة المعاصرة هي فقط التي بإمكانها تحقيق التحوُّل إلى مجتمع بلا طبقات
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كان إنجلز أول الماركسيين، وكان تأثيره على الماركسية كبيرًا؛ فقد كتب عددًا هائلًا من المقالات والكُتَيِّبات والمقالات النقدية، بالإضافة إلى عدد كبير من الكتب حولها طوال الفترة الممتدة من ١٨٤٩ وحتى وفاته عام ١٨٩٥ . وفي كثير من هذه الأعمال حاوَلَ تفسير فرضيات ووجهات نظرِ ماركس، التي أسهم فيها إلى حد كبير. علاوة على ذلك، فقد أصبح مراجعًا ومحررًا لأعمال ماركس
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كان إنجلز كريمًا في وقته وماله مثلما كان كريمًا في نصائحه. إن إحسانه إلى ماركس وأسرته أنقذهم في مرات عديدة من مصائر أشد بلاءً من الفقر والشقاء اللذين عاشوا فيهما؛ ففي عام ١٨٧٠ كان إنجلز قادرًا على مَنْحهم قدرًا من الاستقلال المادي، في الوقت نفسه الذي كان يوفِّر فيه لنفسه هذا الاستقلالَ، واستفاد كثير من المهاجرين والزائرين الاشتراكيين من كرم ضيافته ومساعداته، كما حصل أبناءُ ماركس وكذلك أحفاده الذين بقوا على قيد الحياة بعد وفاة إنجلز، على جزءٍ من تركته الكبيرة بعد وفاته . بسرطان الحنجرة في ٥ أغسطس ١٨
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إذا كان هناك معيار واحد للتفرقة بين الماركسي وغير الماركسي، فسيكون التفسيرُ المادي للتاريخ هو المنافِس الأقوى من بين هذه المعايير. ومع ذلك، فإن مجرد قبول ذلك التصوُّر لن يجعل أيَّ شخصماركسيٍّا على نحو قوي للغاية
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لقد ساعدت جهود ماركس وإنجلز كي يصبح كلٌّ منهما مرجعية سياسية في ضمان إمكانية قراءة أعمالهما في المستقبل، بغضالنظر عن فائدتها باعتبارها إسهامات في العلوم الاجتماعية. وفيما يتعلَّق بالفلسفة والتاريخ وعلم الاجتماع والفنون والعلوم الأخرى، فإن ماركس هو الذي قدَّمَ الإسهامات الأكثر إبداعًا، بينما إنجلز هو مَن قدَّمَ الإسهامات الأكثر تأثيرًا، لا سيما في أعماله الأخيرة
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على صعيد حياتنا الفكرية، لا سيما في مجال العلوم الاجتماعية. تنطوي العلوم الاجتماعية على المعرفة المتاحة لدينا عن المجتمع، وتُعَدُّ السياسة وسيلتَنا لتغيير ذلك المجتمع
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June 19, 2016
I kinda lost my interest in the middle..
But it's rare to find a book that talks about Engels as the main study field and not Marx. And this was based on years of researches. So yeah.. Pretty well developed summary about Engels.
I would've loved it if more of his personal life was discussed.
But it's rare to find a book that talks about Engels as the main study field and not Marx. And this was based on years of researches. So yeah.. Pretty well developed summary about Engels.
I would've loved it if more of his personal life was discussed.
August 24, 2017
ش professional and easy way to summarize the career of Friedrich Engels
February 19, 2018
لا أدري هل كانت المساحة الصغيرة جدًا المتاحة للكاتب في هذه المقدمة القصيرة جدًا هي التي أت إلى هذا الاختصار المخل فيما يتعلق بالقسم الخاص بالمادية الديالكتيكية والمادية التاريخة تحديدًا، ولكن هذا القسم بدا لي مريعًا، على عكس بقية الكتاب، إلى الحد الذي جعلني لا أرشح الكتاب لأحد. الكتاب حتى يصل إلى "إنجلز العالم" جيد، يتتبع مراحل تطور إنجلز من اتباع هيجل حتى الانخراط في صفوف الهيجليين، ثم الاقتناع بالشيوعية والدفاع عنها، والكتاب المهم عن الطبقة العاملة الإنجليزية، ثم ارتباطه بماركس.
حتى هذا الفصل هو كتاب جيد، استغل المساحة الصغير المتاحة لتقديم نظرة شاملة لحياة إنجلس. ولكن في الجزء الخاص بالمادية الديالكتيكية والمادية التاريخية كان ذلك محبطًا. يتحدث كارفر عن أن إنجلز هو الذي أسس للمادية الديالكتيكية وبناءً عليها المادية التاريخية، حسنًا، ولكن الغريب هو ذهابه إلى أن هذه الأفكار هي على النقيض من أفكار ماركس، أو على الأقل ليست متسقة معها.
لدي هنا احتجاجان: الأول بخصوص ماركس نفسه، لماذا لم يفضح ماركس هذا "الافتئات" من قبل إنجلز؟ كان مبرر كارفر ردًا على هذا التساؤل مبررًا يذهب إلى برجماتية ماركس، فماركس - حسب كارفر- إما أنه رأى أن ذلك لم يكن ضارصا لأنه لم يكن راضيًا عن دوهرنج، وإما أنه لم يشأ أن يحرم نفسه بالهجوم على إنجلز من المساعدات الماديةالتي كان إنجلز يمنحه إياها.
والاحتجاج الثاني: هناك بالفعل بعض المفكرين الماركسيين الذي انتقدوا المادية الديالكتيكية في أوجه عدة، مثل إلتوسير، ولكن أطروحاتهم لها مبررات نابعة من ماركسيتهم نفسها، وهناك من شرح هذه الأطروحات أو انتقدها، فلم صمت كارفر صمت القبور عن شرح هذه الآراء؟
الكتاب غير تقليدي بخاصة في هذه النقطة، ولكن الأمانة العلمية على الأقل كانت تقتضي أن يناقشها باستفاضة بدلًا من أن يطرحها كتساؤلات عائمة.
حتى هذا الفصل هو كتاب جيد، استغل المساحة الصغير المتاحة لتقديم نظرة شاملة لحياة إنجلس. ولكن في الجزء الخاص بالمادية الديالكتيكية والمادية التاريخية كان ذلك محبطًا. يتحدث كارفر عن أن إنجلز هو الذي أسس للمادية الديالكتيكية وبناءً عليها المادية التاريخية، حسنًا، ولكن الغريب هو ذهابه إلى أن هذه الأفكار هي على النقيض من أفكار ماركس، أو على الأقل ليست متسقة معها.
لدي هنا احتجاجان: الأول بخصوص ماركس نفسه، لماذا لم يفضح ماركس هذا "الافتئات" من قبل إنجلز؟ كان مبرر كارفر ردًا على هذا التساؤل مبررًا يذهب إلى برجماتية ماركس، فماركس - حسب كارفر- إما أنه رأى أن ذلك لم يكن ضارصا لأنه لم يكن راضيًا عن دوهرنج، وإما أنه لم يشأ أن يحرم نفسه بالهجوم على إنجلز من المساعدات الماديةالتي كان إنجلز يمنحه إياها.
والاحتجاج الثاني: هناك بالفعل بعض المفكرين الماركسيين الذي انتقدوا المادية الديالكتيكية في أوجه عدة، مثل إلتوسير، ولكن أطروحاتهم لها مبررات نابعة من ماركسيتهم نفسها، وهناك من شرح هذه الأطروحات أو انتقدها، فلم صمت كارفر صمت القبور عن شرح هذه الآراء؟
الكتاب غير تقليدي بخاصة في هذه النقطة، ولكن الأمانة العلمية على الأقل كانت تقتضي أن يناقشها باستفاضة بدلًا من أن يطرحها كتساؤلات عائمة.
July 28, 2022
This book is not riveting, but it's okay if you have a very specific purpose for reading it. The book explicates differences between Marx and Engles' philosophies. As the author points out (much more nicely than I'm about to phrase it) this book is crucial for hard-core Marxists who treat Marx's ideas like divine inspiration, and want to know exactly what he said or didn't say. For the rest of us who just want to understand Marx's impact on world history, it really doesn't matter whether an idea is authentically Marx's or really just Engel's -- if political leaders thought the idea was important and acted on it, the idea became part of Marx's practical legacy.
June 9, 2021
Engles
A Very Short Introduction #91
Terrell Carver
An Introduction to Friedrich Engels as a man, philosopher, scientist, communist a step away between him and Marx; his relation with Marx and the with the communism ideology.
The book focuses all its attention on Engels as it should be and showing his ideas, the differences between him and Marx, showing him as an individual, not a sidekick.
A good book.
A Very Short Introduction #91
Terrell Carver
An Introduction to Friedrich Engels as a man, philosopher, scientist, communist a step away between him and Marx; his relation with Marx and the with the communism ideology.
The book focuses all its attention on Engels as it should be and showing his ideas, the differences between him and Marx, showing him as an individual, not a sidekick.
A good book.
June 1, 2017
This is kind of what you want from a 'short introduction' Carver examines the contributions of Fredrich Engels (the Tennille to Marx's captain), their differences and Engel's history and own contributions to their work. Notably, he points out that 'the methods and terms of Marxian historiography were largely set by Engels.'
September 26, 2021
Incredibly informative (but not quick) read on Engels. Learnt quite a lot about Engels, even though I considered myself a bit of an expert on the ideology of socialism.
My favourite part of the book was this sentence though: "On his deathbed in 1895 Engels revealed that Marx was the father of Frederick Demuth, the son of Marx's housemaid."
My favourite part of the book was this sentence though: "On his deathbed in 1895 Engels revealed that Marx was the father of Frederick Demuth, the son of Marx's housemaid."
July 18, 2022
"إننا نتصور العمل في شكل يجعله عملية بشرية حصرية؛ فالعنكبوت يقوم بعمليات تشبه العمليات التى يقوم بها النساج، والنحلة أيضًا تتفوق على كثير من المعماريين في تشييد خلاياها. أما ما يميز أسوأ المعماريين عن أفضل النحل، فهو أن المعماري يشيد البنيان في خياله قبل أن يبنيه في الواقع."
July 30, 2023
Informative yet lacking in structure, particularly for an introductory account
January 14, 2026
معقد بالنسبة للفقرات التي تتناول المادية التاريخية هيغل و الفلسفة الالمانية لأنني لست مطلعة عليها ،ولكنه جميل و ثري لم يسبق لي ان عرفت مدى عظمة انجلز و تأثيره في الماركسية .
June 25, 2012
Good if somehow uninspired introduction. Portrays Engels as Marx's 'glosser' and acutely shows the differences between the two. Although Carver acknowledges the problems with Engels's Marxism, he doesn't blame Engels for the interpretations that subsequent socialist/communist regimes made--a sometimes popular strategy by Marxists and critics both.
January 5, 2011
There are better sources to learn about Engels, but I guess this IS supposed to be a very short introduction. Still, I'm not sure this really would spur a neutral reader towards further research, as some of the better books of this kind do.
March 9, 2009
I have to admit that I had previously thought of Engels as ''Marx's sidekick'' (like many other people) but there is obviously a lot more to him than that, as this book explains.
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