By accepting a secondary role, Friedrich Engels (1820-95) had made possible the famous Marx-Engels intellectual partnership which allowed Marxism to emerge as a distinctive branch of socialist thought and action. As a creator of this philosophy of praxis, he reckoned that Marx was a genius while others like him were talented at best. He acknowledged Marx’s superior role in their relationship, and the fact remained that Marx was the originator and he was the populariser with the use of such expressions as materialistic interpretation of history, false consciousness and withering away of the state. He was a remarkable man with tremendous interests and insights into subjects as diverse as natural history, chemistry, botany, physics, philosophy, political economy and military tactics. Marx described him as the most learned man in Europe and Kautsky referred to his encyclopaedic knowledge. After the death of Marx, he helped in the editing and publication ofshing many of his works, including the Second and Third Volumes of Das Capital.
Engels made his mark as a historian making his contribution in three major aspects ~ analysis of the English working class in the mid-1840s, research into pre-history, and his efforts to define the principles of historical materialism in a systematic manner. He was riveted to the great towns such as London, Yorkshire and the industrial complex of Manchester with half a million people. He concluded that the condition of the working class varied from city to city, the best enjoying decent wages and the worst suffering from want, homelessness and starvation deaths. Many children died before they reached the age of five. Illiteracy resulted in alcoholism leading to sexual immorality and increasing crime rates. He highlighted other evils such as exploitation of women, child labour, and the lack of hygienic conditions of work. The increasing number of strikes was suggestive of the ‘decisive battle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie’ that was imminent. He discussed the attitude of the middle class towards the workers, emphasising their greed and hypocrisy as exemplified in the Poor Law. He concluded that only Communism could eliminate class antagonisms and minimise social conflicts.
Engels was only 24 when he wrote The Condition of the Working Class (1845). It combined geographical and sociological analyses. Much of the information was based on a first-hand account, drawn from his experience as a wealthy businessman and an active socialist. The book was focused on the English working class as a whole. The drawbacks related to its predictions. Engels spoke about the rapid collapse of society being ‘as certain as a mathematical or mechanical demonstration’ in the context of the worst slump of the 1840s. Ironically the slump was a prelude to the major boom in heavy industry mainly due to the expansion of the Railways.
Following the failure of the revolutions of 1848, Engels wrote many significant articles on The Peasant War in Germany (1850) drawing parallels between the role of nobles and burghers in the 16th century to crush the peasants’ revolt and the alliance between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy in 1848 against a newly emerging proletariat. This was the first Marxist work on history. He claimed that behind the religious struggles there were different interests, demands and requirements of the various classes. Similarly, the 1789 French Revolution was more than an intense debate on the advantages of constitutional monarchy over royal absolutism. The key issue involved the economic concerns of social classes. Engels’ historical interests were reflected in Anti Duhring. He refuted the claim made by Eugen von Duhring (1833-1921) that force was the fundamental factor in the development of history. He argued that force itself was dependent on the underlying economic conditions. He conceded to Duhring that Marxism relied heavily on Hegelianism as its laws of dialectics were universally valid. He also took considerable interest in military history and techniques and contributed articles on military matters to newspapers in America, Britain and Germany. In the Dialectics of Nature (1883), an unfinished work, Engels tried to integrate Hegelian insights with modern science and suggested three laws. These were transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa, unity and interpenetration of opposites, and negation of negation. He described these laws as causal and invariable laws of motion which underwent changes and could be observed in natural phenomena, human history and thought.
Engels regarded Communism as the general condition of modern civilisation and not specific to any particular country. It concerned humanity as a whole and not just the working class. It transcended all classes for it appealed to the rational instincts of all individuals with a capacity for insight into the social process. He projected Communism as the emancipation of the proletariat as a group which sold its labour in order to make a living. Communism meant independence and liberation for women and independence of children from their parents as private property was abolished. It would also overcome national boundaries and render religion obsolete. Under Communism, government of persons would l be replaced by the administration of things, a phrase used first by Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint Simon (1760-1825) and Engels borrowed it from Saint Simon.
He regarded the battle for democracy as a transition to socialism. He was convinced that the revolution would be social. It would go beyond political institutions to economic life and the prevalent value system within society. He observed that democracy or politics alone could be the battleground between the wealthy and the poor.
In 1895 while writing the Preface to the new edition of the History of Class Struggles in France, Engels mentioned the positive and successful effects of universal suffrage and envisaged it as an entirely new strategy for working class struggle. This assertion meant the abandonment of the French Revolution which was the model for the proletarian revolution and also an acknowledgement that both he and Marx had erred in assuming during the Revolutions of 1848 that the time was ripe for a socialist revolution. He called for revision of the old tactics and adoption of new ones to accelerate the progress towards socialism as capitalist development had reached its peak. He referred to the astonishing growth of the German SPD increasing from 102,000 in 1871 to 352,000 in 1874, 493,000 in 1877, 550,000 in 1884, 763,000 in 1887 and 1,427,000 in 1890 which was possible due to universal suffrage. As a result, the SPD could build itself as the strongest, disciplined and a rapidly growing socialist party.
Engels’ observations dispel the standard Leninist argument that it was Bernstein who was the first Revisionist. On the contrary it was Engels, according to Elliot, who was the first Revisionist or the first Social Democrat. Though Engels was hopeful of universal suffrage yet he cautioned against the total reliance on parliamentarism to the exclusion of the others. He envisioned a return to illegal and insurrectionary methods if necessary. He was critical of the SPD’s 1891 Erfurt Programme as opportunism as it attempted to concentrate more on immediate struggles for gaining concessions for the workers and postponed the most important struggle for capturing state power.
It is surprising that in spite of their lifelong partnership, Marx and Engels wrote only three books jointly. In the philosophical perception, there was a huge difference between the worldviews of Engels and Marx, as Marx moved from particular events and perceptions to a general framework, while Engels moved from the general to particular changing Marx’s Marxism of guiding threads to rigid general laws. During the 12 years that he was alive after Marx’s death, he made Marxism more rigid and deterministic. This left little or no ground for innovations and explorations thus resulting in a wide gap between German Marxism and Soviet Communism. Engels became the torch-bearer of Marx’s teachings but instead of buttressing the latter’s zeal and enthusiasm for new explorations, made it mechanical and lifeless.
(The writers are respectively former Professor of Political Science, University of Delhi, and Associate Professor of Political Science, Jesus and Mary College, New Delhi)