Friedrich Engels and histor Essay

If one is not historical, then it is unscientific. The historical process that has commenced for millennia in the development of societies is a product of scientific processes and vice versa. Friedrich Engels has greatly contributed to the exposition of historical dynamics, one that is ever changing, in constant contradiction with the forces within and without. As it has been definitely asserted, historical materialism, as a part of a dialectic philosophy is not just narrowly limited to a â€Å"study† but it is a scientific process wherein events were investigated, researched, a hypothesis is derived and tested or compared if that assertion applies to universal condition. History thereof is a result of contradictions, a making of man, not just simply a compilation of events that transpired in the past. Only in such a way can history become a science. Thus, a truly revolutionary of his time, Engels presented history according to the material basis of the existence of societies, discussed the evolution of such societies as subsequent effects of the past, constantly playing interconnected, interwoven stories, which without the other is simply incomplete, unscientific. Here he illustrated the formation of history as a result of humanity’s struggle to attain its aims, therefore its own creation, its own being. Engels’ history does not consider man simply a being with presupposed actions, knowledge or decisions, man is a becoming, moulds the society that he belongs to, inseparably intertwined with the progress of the economy, his propensity to survive, to all other aspects of social existence. Certainly, Engels’ life is no different from the society he intended to explain. What has moulded him to become such a great influence in socio-economic paradigms and in the formulation of Marxism surely has a basis in his past, interconnected with his identity, with everything that has gone through his age, internal and external, positive and negative. His own being a laboratory of man as a â€Å"becoming† and of contradictions where which a new form from the antagonisms of the old is drawn. Hence, his life and works were a result of scientific processes, a fruit of the reactions among the material conditions that he was exposed to, a synthesis of numerous theses and anti-theses. Facts and figures are simply not what history is. Facts and figures say something but not substantially anything. History is a correlation and interrelationships between and among facts and figures without finding those connections are mere ink and paper –insignificant. Hitherto, Engels’ works remains to be of great influence in the struggles of oppressed peoples and of the international proletariat. This came into reality because Engels’ works were connected to the material foundations of human existence, ideas and theories that are not alienated: theories that can be felt, ideas that are tangible and inseparable from the activities of societies. As it was, matter precedes consciousness; Engels’ historical and philosophical analysis did not surface out of mere conception of abstract economic and historical fables, but were a result of the effects of the economic and social conditions existing at that time; societies came into reality first and from those realities a consciousness was obtained enabling Engels to scientifically analyze the future of societies based on the reasons that has caused past societies to progress into what they are at present. Engels biography is a display of such scientific course. His early life has been the origin why he came about with his voluminous works on history, implications brought by the facts how he was raised and intended of him to become, his experiences, and his direct contact with the production process and later in complete absorption to the revolutionary struggle in the industrial West. Friedrich Engels was born in Barmen, Prussia to a family of bourgeois origins in September 28, 1820, time when Europe was at the height of the development of the industrial era and wars of conquest for the accumulation of market, labour and resources for the bourgeois economy. It was a time of rapid changes ensuing on all borders, expansion of industrial interests was grappling Europe and colonies in Asia, Africa and Latin America were continuously ransacked while the European continent was in a constant scrabble of migration from different nations in search of industrial work. Indeed an era of accumulation of wealth and technological advances to improve productivity . His nascent years have been vital for the development of his future philosophical pursuit. In his poem â€Å"To My Grandfather†, written December 20, 1833, Friedrich has shown his early acquaintances in history through stories in the Greek mythology which he described as â€Å"many a beautiful story† that his grandfather told him . Another untitled poem written 3 years after described characters in stories from all over Europe seen by young Friedrich as â€Å"pictures to delight† . He was an observer and the environment drew much attention from him. Once he wrote about the conditions in Wuppertal, one of his first attempts to explain the seemingly complicated miseries of the working class , that even the columns of a building and the style of architecture did not escape his watch. It was the beginning of his acquisition of his most powerful weapon in his revolutionary battle, the excellence in textual conveyance. Not only was it a peek to his future history inclinations but also his superb literary talent that has greatly manifested in his works. His father, a German textile mill owner wanted him to become an industrialist too like himself. Though, the environment in which Friedrich Engels lived was full of stark contradictions, external factors which greatly affected his inner resolve, so that a strained relationship developed between them. A supporter of the Prussian government, Friedrich’s father held conservative views in politics and religion which could be attributed to his Protestant Pietist devotion that he entered Friedrich in local Pietist schools, indoctrinating him of narrow fundamentalist views of society that were never acceptable to his broad interests. He was then sent to Bremen, a German port city, before he finished his high school studies to work as a clerk, and there he exhibited despise to autocracy and religion, enjoyed life at its fullest and studied literature, philosophy, theology and history . The democratic struggles gaining political momentum at that time was under a literary movement drawn Engels to participate under a pen name Friedrich Oswald. His first work, a poem titled â€Å"The Bedouin † was published in the Bremisches Conversationsblatt No. 40. In September 1838 and many other literary works and commentaries proceeded thereafter. When he moved to Berlin to join the Household Artillery of the Prussian Army, he already had attractions to the Young Hegelians . His contact with the radical group proved to be vital in Engels’ future philosophical treatises. Hegelian philosophy maintained an idealist core with the dialectic claims that everything, after they had come into being, will ultimately wither away, a constant reminder of change and development inherent in everything therein. Though Hegelian dialectics maintained that thought precedes matter, it still had some followers who were radicalized and reached the point of concluding that even the Prussian state and religion will pass. The most revolutionary of them, however, deviated from Hegel’s â€Å"consciousness precedes matter† and inclined towards materialism. These revolutionaries, among them the 22 year-old Friedrich Engels, asserted that it is the other way around based on Ludwig Feuerbach’s rejection of Hegelian idealism and turned the tables for materialism. He would later publish a pamphlet hailing Feuerbach’s â€Å"The Essence of Christianity† in 1841. The pamphlet echoed Feuerbach’s materialist basis of societal thought and finally debunked theological monopoly of reflection with a â€Å"pulverizing† blow, but later Feuerbach’s materialism would be wedded with Hegelian dialectics . There he was an active radical, wrote articles for the democratic movement while attending lectures at Berlin University with his military service all at the same time. Before he would be sent to England, Engels, travelled to Cologne to meet Moses Hess, the first Hegelian who called himself a communist and the man behind Rheinische Zeitung –a radical daily newspaper. It was possibly in this acquaintance that Engels was influenced with utopian socialism and his travel to England would be decisive in starting a proletarian revolution in the most advanced industrial nation . His experience in Manchester, England in his father’s factory from 1842 opened his eyes to the realities of the working class which he stated in his Conditions of the Working Class in England in 1844, his first book bourn out of his observations in his father’s firm. In his English travel desertion, Engels have had certain exchanges with other workers’ organizations, radical, utopian socialists and Chartists and wrote for Robert Owens’ Utopian socialist paper, the â€Å"New Moral Order† . Only on his way to Barmen did he meet Karl Marx, his lifelong revolutionary collaborator. They first met in Cologne in 1842 and Karl Marx was an editor in the Rheinische Zeitung but took no time to explore their philosophical similarities. That friendship would last for about four decades. Together, Marx and Engels paved the way for the synthesis of Dialectical Materialism, Historical Materialism and Scientific Socialism among many other works that were to become the foundations of the proletarian movement. Engels could never be considered as Marx’s side kick as others would usually portray him, nor must he be treated as above Mar’s intellect on many philosophical questions. Often they would consult each other on certain points of argumentation and Engels recognized Marx’s excellence and at the same manner, Engels displayed his virtuoso in historical and literary fields. They were, in the truest sense, partners in their lifelong struggle for the liberation of the working class. What Engels had become could be ascribed to the people who had played certain parts in his â€Å"becoming†. His grandfather introduced him to the world of history and literature, his father pounced on him that he would later hate everything that his father believed, Hegel on his dialectics (though Engels had broken away from the idealist sector), Feuerbach presented the materialist view for his and Marx’s philosophical synthesis of the Dialectical Materialism and the millions of the workers’ masses that have borne the weight of the whole capitalist production system were, presumably, the greatest influences on Engels’ philosophy. Thus cementing that Engels was really a man that is a â€Å"becoming†. An accumulation of experiences, observations and contact with nature was the reason for having such philosophical standpoint . Engels’ philosophical background could be that of a German philosophy that could be traced from Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel. Though Engels or Marx did not have any â€Å"original† philosophical theories, it is precisely the justification on what was commented on the Critique on Feuerbach that theirs was a philosophy that aimed direct to the point of changing the existing order in the world not just explain it. On many occasions, Engels has directly found the connection of matter and thought, of historical events that are quite apart in ages but were systematically an integral part of the totality of human history. Friedrich Engels’ first book was the Conditions of the Working Class in England in 1844, written when he was in Manchester England. On its preface, Engels explicitly stated the conditions of the working class at that particular time based on his direct acquaintances with the proletariat or twenty-one months, straight from his observations. These observations were directed for the German proletariat so intense their conditions that Engels wished to know the root causes of their misery . In his dedication to the British proletariat, Engels can be seen as a true revolutionary, never satisfied with documents, it was a close contact, an integration among the masses of British workers that has propelled his understanding of the conditions of the working class. It was on the streets, in the alleys, in the working places that true understanding can be derived. The whole of Manchester turned into a laboratory of revolution . Manchester in 1844 is the centre of the Industrial Revolution which he observed, made the conditions of the workers worse. Huge industrial cities such as Manchester and Liverpool had disease occurrences four times grater than in the countryside. Before mills were introduced in England, more than four thousand out of ten thousand children die of whooping cough, scarlet fever, measles, and smallpox and an addition of another three hundred after. While adult mortality numbered to a thousand out of ten thousand and another two hundred added to the previous respectively. In one of his contributed article to the New Moral World Engels concluded that this condition must soon be ended with a revolution that would rearrange the social order existing at that time in three countries in Europe (England, France and Germany) as there is a fast spread of suffering among the working men in the continent. There were existing socialist and communist movements in many parts of Europe, half a million communists in France alone, with some differences in minor points in principle but again, Engels asserted that the proletarian class has the power to rise and become masters of their own, enjoy the fruits of their own labour only if these communists would be united –that would later be named as â€Å"proletarian internationalism† – costing most of Eastern Europe after the Second World War, a little more than a hundred years, with the USSR’s campaign of socialist annexation . Engels described the state of the capitalist system in England, being the most advanced at that time. In the book’s 1892 preface, 52 years since it was first published, the author noted that the rising industrial nations such as France, Germany and America and starting to break Britain’s â€Å"industrial monopoly† and finally reached what has England reached in 1844 and the effects were not different. Same economic laws apply and the fight of English workers five decades ago is happening in the country. It is after all still a bourgeois mode of production, the same tendencies, characteristics and social classes and antagonism still exist. Such was what he had predicted in his first edition and, scientifically, it was indeed the same characteristic of the capitalist economy regardless of nations and cultures. The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 mirrored the condition of the working class not only in certain time frame but through the times as long as capitalism exists in a more or less varied intensity. Further expounding on the roots of the proletariat’s miserable place in the relations of production, Lenin commented that Engels was not the first to say that the working class is suffering from the ills of the capitalist mode of appropriation and expropriation, but it was Engels who said that the working class is being pushed to the very edges so that the proletariat had been left with no choice but to fight back and destroy the bonds of slavery. A power, so much moving this line had exuded that after seven decades Russian proletariat had risen to create the first proletarian state. In 1847, Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian anarchist was banned from Paris because of calling for the over of the Polish and Russian governments. Bakunin was one of the many revolutionaries that appearing in Europe. A revolutionary high tide is sweeping all over the continent and the great masses of workers are looking for the lead in the revolutionary struggle. Such was the condition when Engels wrote â€Å"The Principles of Communism† in 1847, a year before the Communist Manifesto was published. There was, however an earlier composition for the Communist League. In June of that year, the founding event of the Communist League, the Congress of the Just, the Principles of Communism was written to serve as a draft for a statement to be embraced by the proletarian revolutionary movement, the Communist Manifesto . The International Workingmen’s Association formed in 1864 was actively participated by Engels, and later joined Marx in the General Council in 1870, two after the IWA was organized. Historically, the IWA had a huge part in the uprising in Paris in 1871: the Paris Commune. In this event Engels’ writings defeated Bakunin’s Alliance for Social Democracy. IWA was considered to be the first International, and after the Paris Commune was quelled, after the commune died, Engels guided the formations of many socialist parties in Europe, especially in Germany which has been the movement that the whole European communist movement looked upon as bearer of the great socialist revolution. It was here that the term â€Å"manufacture†, denoting production by hand was conceived by Engels, such was to differentiate â€Å"production by hand† from production using a machine. This scheme was decisive in future historical annotations for the transition from guilds to factories of the primitive capitalist model. It is best too clarify that Marxist literature considers, based on historical materialism, that world history has not grown uniformly, some have advanced to capitalism, other nations remain in the feudal stage, and certain communities were even at the stage of primitive communalism. In the year 1884, Engels wrote â€Å"The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. It was this document that really showed Engels’ distinction in history. He wrote this manuscript in just two months to continue what Marx would have wanted him to do – a treatise on the evolution of the State. This book covers the history of many nations, the emergence of private property and classes, and the state and ultimately how this state would perish, mush like Hegelian concept on the dialectical process of societies. Engels’ works were immensely influenced by Hegelian thought, especially evident in his â€Å"Origin of the Family†¦ † which was a complete narration of the scientific evolution of the societies, brought about by the contradictions that were constantly the cause of development, of ending an old social order and beginning anew. Aside from that, Engels life as a revolutionary and his works were also influenced by Moses Hess’s utopian socialist ideas, which, together with Karl Marx, they arrived into concluding that the future of capitalism is a scientific socialism and the establishment of the proletarian state. He also viewed the economy as the social foundation that it gives rise to the conception of the state, and that material foundation is the essential ingredient of the thought or way of thinking that would be dominant in the society. It was the very core of the materialist belief that matter precedes consciousness. Which takes us to think that a worker can not have a consciousness of a proletariat if the society has not reached the stage of capitalism, because in the first place, a condition does not exist that would permit a capitalist relation of production (wage labour). Through his life, Engels never believed in marriage pointing out that the natural order of reproduction is not bound by the exclusivity of a woman to a single man. That only came into being when the concept of private property had materialized, so as women. Women held a high place in the primitive societies since they were the only means that tribes and communities would survive was only through continued human reproduction . Engels’ works were referred to by the revolutionary movement especially on the philosophical discourses on dialectics, historical materialism and some of his economic formulations. These influenced leaders of different socialist parties in Europe and around the globe. In autumn of 1985, the leader of the Russian proletarian socialist revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote about Engels saying that he was a great teacher of the world’s working class, and his life must be known to every workingman. Lenin further states that Engels did not let his bourgeois status to stop him from serving the cause of the revolution, study of philosophy and science and politics. The article published in Rabotnik, clarified certain principles in Engels’ philosophy, and asserted that although Engels followed Hegelian dialectics, he was nevertheless not an idealist but one who firmly believes in materialism. Engels, said Lenin, used scientific methods in answering the economic questions of the time. It also gave an insight into Engels political history that being said, Engels was a democrat before he became a socialist. Thus Engels taught that the liberation of the working class is in the hands of the working class. Lenin after 22 years would lead the Russian working class to a socialist victory, fulfilling Engels’ vision of a socialist state won by the proletarian themselves. Later in 1920, three years after the Russian socialist revolution had been won, a document was published showing that Lenin would again comment on Engels through â€Å"The Marx-Engels Correspondence† which he wrote in 1913. The letters contained many of the theoretical foundations of socialism, masterfully fighting through the ins and outs of the political struggle in Europe. It was an exposition of the revisionist renegades attempt to mislead the great masses of the proletariat to capitulate in the bourgeois political system. Through these letters, as Lenin pronounced, the socialist movement was kept in the right track. The tasks of the proletarian revolutionary were outlined to serve as a guide for many socialist parties that were waging underground warfare against their governments. The dialectical course of history was reaffirmed and from that principle, Russian revolution had drawn much of Engels’ guidance in the theoretical as well as in the practical recourse of the revolution. Mao Zedong, leader of the Chinese revolution from the 1920’s until after the Second World War had been a staunch Engels follower through his works with Marx. Chairman Mao had quoted the communist manifesto, stressing on the point that without the theories that Marx and Engels developed, the revolution will have no guide. Revolutionary theory as Mao had said would give the people a direction in waging a war for national liberation, to assure that there would be no resurgence of bourgeois state in liberated nations and ensure that new democratic revolutions will continue to the socialist stage . Again Mao on his article on Women, Engels was often quoted because of his contributions in the study of the status of women in the society, through his book â€Å"the Origin of the Family, Private Property and State†. The study of the women was a big issue in the Chinese revolution. China was then waging a war against traditions that existed for thousands of years that was the feudal relationships between husbands and wives, elderly and the young in Chinese culture. Engels’ views on the question of the equality of the sexes in the primitive communal stage of societies shed light on the history of the struggle of women. Women suffer exploitation twice. A female worker is exploited because she is a worker and she is a woman. She does not only suffer from capitalist exploitation but also from male domination. However, the struggle for women’s liberation is not a struggle against the opposite sex, but a struggle based on the economic class . Friedrich Engels was said to be the builder of socialist thought, the International Review issue no. 83 on the 4th quarter of 1995 stated that Engels had been persistent in his revolutionary career, truly of German tradition. Owing much to his perception of the workers’ movements tendencies and strengths that in the article his first book published was the book used by many revolutionaries through the years of struggle all over the world, from Russia to China. Thus Engels was a man defined by his becoming. Through his life, from the time he was born till the day he died, Europe was in the middle of an economic advancement, it was also a period of political changes. In the middle of those political and economic current, Friedrich Engels stood to face the challenges of his time. The blowing winds of free thought have set his mind to open to new ideas, seemingly the emergence of radical movements were just on the right time. When he became a part of the Young Hegelians, his philosophical inclinations were further developed. If we would look at this through an idealist perspective, it would be possible that Engels life had the right coincidences: Marx was born on the same era; the proletarian movement was on its fiery start. However, dialectically, the course of history would be just the same, it could have not been Engels, it could have not been Marx but still the truth of the development of societies will be there because it is science. History is a making of humanity not just one man, thus independent of anyone’s identity yet it identifies with everyone. It is the reality. Through Engels’ writing Marx was able to find himself a competent partner in his revolutionary theorization. Together they had formulated the socialist philosophy that soon changed the course of the modern society. Engels contributed much to humanity’s understanding of history, complete and thorough interpretation of the events, explained the mysteries that bind each and every event from the beginning of human civilization. History was view on another angle, from the toiling masses, thus, breaking the monopoly of the establishment’s monopoly of truth. Hitherto, societies were seen as dynamic, changing every second, quantitatively and qualitatively –change that was internally caused by those who are within the system, not by something that is detached, alienated, or abstract. Material basis was always at the fore of historical explanations. Engels’ historical insights gave the ruled power over the ruler, the oppressed over the oppressor. In time, the order of things will be changed, asserts Engels, which change will never end. History had become an integral part of the future, not confined to the records of the olden times; it has passed yet continues to take part in molding the future of societies. Without Engels history would still continue and take its path as we have it today. Without Engels to help Marx, the society will still change. Therefore, Engels did have a contribution to humanity’s history. Through his writings, Lenin foresaw the First World War as an imperialist war took advantage of it and made the revolution at home victorious. With the victory of the Russian proletariat, the course of struggles around the world suddenly changed course and had a farther perspective. Not only did these liberation movements aimed to free their nations from foreign domination but had decided to free them from the slavery brought about by the conception of private property. Movements did not only strive to destroy the existing political order perpetuated by tyrants, they had sought to destroy the economic foundation of tyranny. In the country from where he came from, Engels, too, caused much change. He became one of the contributors to the German philosophy, became an inspiration to German revolutionaries and paved the way for the advancement of the German proletariat. As Germany was inseparable from the conditions that what existing in Europe at that time, it too had been reached by the socialist movement that after the Second World War, Germany was divided into two. East Germany had a socialist economy and the, capitalist. Engels had his great deal of share in the development of Marxism and socialism. He was the brain behind the Communist manifesto and Historical Materialism. His studies in the field of history enlightened Marxists and revolutionaries in the course of the inevitable changes in the society. Bibliography (Section 1) Kenwood A. G. and A. L. Lougheed. The Growth of the International Economy 1820-2000: An Introductory Text. London: Routledge, 1999. Carver, Terrell. Engels. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2003. Engels, Friedrich. â€Å"Bedouin. † Young Engels, Marx & Engels Internet Archive. Available from www. marxist. org. Engels, Friedrich. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. New York: Pathfinder Press, 2000.