Friedrich Engels

Biography

Friedrich Engels was a German philosopher, social theorist, and revolutionary socialist born on November 28, 1820, in Barmen, Prussia (now Wuppertal). As the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer, Engels turned away from his family's conservative pietistic values early on, gravitating towards radical philosophy. During his compulsory military service in Berlin, he encountered the Young Hegelian movement and began forming his materialist view of the world. In 1842, his father sent him to Manchester, England, to manage the family's cotton mill investments. This experience deeply influenced his views on industrial capitalism and the conditions of the working class.

Engels started his notable collaboration with Karl Marx in 1844 when they met in Paris. Their partnership spanned four decades and drastically changed political and economic theories. They developed what became known as Marxism, co-writing works such as The German Ideology and The Holy Family. Their most famous collaboration, The Communist Manifesto, was published in 1848 for the Communist League. Engels actively took part in the 1848 revolutionary movements, including armed combat in Germany, before having to go into exile.

From 1850 to 1870, Engels lived in Manchester, juggling his job as a cotton merchant at the family firm Ermen & Engels while secretly supporting Marx and his family in London. This support allowed Marx to concentrate on his theoretical work, like Das Kapital, without the pressure of making a living. Engels greatly contributed to their theoretical development, especially in military strategy, natural sciences, and economics. During this time, he wrote works such as Socialism: Utopian and Scientific and The Condition of the Working Class in England.

After retiring in 1870, Engels moved to London and became more involved in the International Workingmen's Association. After Marx died in 1883, Engels spent his remaining years editing and completing Marx's unfinished work, including the second and third volumes of Das Kapital. He also continued to develop socialist theory and kept in touch with socialist movements worldwide until he passed away on August 5, 1895, in London. Engels' contributions to political economy, historical materialism, and revolutionary strategy made him a key figure in socialist thought.