Friedrich Engels

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Friedrich Engels bigraphy, stories - German political philosopher

Friedrich Engels : biography

28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895

Friedrich Engels ( 28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a German social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research. In 1848 he co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx, and later he supported Marx financially to do research and write Das Kapital. After Marx’s death Engels edited the second and third volumes. Additionally, Engels organized Marx’s notes on the "Theories of Surplus Value" and this was later published as the "fourth volume" of Capital.The "Theories of Surplus Value" are contained in theCollected Works of Marx and Englels: Volumes 30, 31 and 32 (International Publishers: New York, 1988). He has also made important contributions to family economics.

Biography

Early years

Friedrich (Frederick) Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen, Prussia (now Wuppertal, Germany).A copy of Frederick Engels’ birth certificate is located on page 577 of the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 2 (New York: International Publishers, 1975). At the time, Barmen was an expanding industrial metropole and Frederick was the eldest son of a wealthy German cotton manufacturer. His father, Friederich, Sr., was an evangelical.de Accordingly, Engels was raised Christian Pietist. As he grew up, his relationship with his parents became strained because of his atheist beliefs. Parental disapproval of his revolutionary activities is recorded in an October 1848 letter from his mother, Elizabeth Engels.Elisabeth Engels’ letter contained at No. 6 of the Appendix in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 38 (International Publishers: New York, 1982) pp. 540–541. In this letter his mother berates him for having "really gone too far" and "begged" him "to proceed no further.".Elisabeth Engels’ letter contained at No. 6 of the Appendix in the Collected forks of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 38, pp.540–541. "You have paid more heed to other people, to strangers, and have taken no account of your mother’s pleas. God alone knows what I have felt and suffered of late. I was trembling when I picked up the newspaper and saw therein that a warrant was out for my son’s arrest."Elisabeth Engels’letter contained at No. 6 of the Appendix of the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 38, p. 541. At the time this letter was written, Frederick Engels was in hiding in Brussels, Belgium, soon to make his way to Switzerland and then, in 1849, back into Germany for participation in the Baden and Palatinate revolutionary uprising.

When he was 17 years of age, young Frederick had dropped out of high school due to family circumstances. He spent a year at Barmen, and in 1838, was sent by his father to work as a nonsalaried office clerk at a commercial house in Bremen.Tucker, Robert C. The Marx-Engels Reader, p.xv His parents expected that he would begin a career in business like his father therefore Frederick’s revolutionary activities were a definite disappointment to them.

Whilst at Bremen, Engels began reading the philosophy of Hegel, whose teachings had dominated German philosophy at the time. In September 1838, he published his first work, a poem entitled The Bedouin, in the Bremisches Conversationsblatt No. 40. He also engaged in other literary and journalistic work.

In 1841, Engels joined the Prussian Army as a member of the Household Artillery. This position moved him to Berlin where he attended university lectures and began to associate with groups of Young Hegelians. He anonymously published articles in the Rheinische Zeitung exposing the employment and living conditions that factory workers had to endure. Editor of the Rheinische Zeitung was Karl Marx. However, Engels never met Karl Marx until they had a brief encounter near the end of November 1842.Heinrich Gemkow et al., Frederick Engels: A Biography (Verlag Zeit im Bild: Dresden, Germany, 1972) p. 53. Throughout his lifetime, Engels would point out that he was indebted to German philosophy because of its effect on his intellectual development. A quotation of his from that period states: "To get the most out of life you must be active, you must live and you must have the courage to taste the thrill of being young … " (1840)