Classical Marxism - Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels

For more details on this topic, see Friedrich Engels.

Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820, Wuppertal – August 5, 1895, London) was a nineteenth century German political philosopher. He developed communist theory alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx.

In 1842 his father sent the young Engels to England to help manage his cotton factory in Manchester. Shocked by the widespread poverty, Engels began writing an account which he published in 1845 as The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 .

In July 1845 Engels went to England. There he met an Irish working-class woman named Mary Burns (Crosby), with whom he lived until her death in 1863 (Carver 2003:19). Later he lived with her sister, Lizzie, marrying her the day before she died in 1877 (Carver 2003:42). These women may have introduced him to the Chartist movement, of whose leaders he met several, including George Harney.

Engels actively participated in the Revolution of 1848, taking part in the uprising at Elberfeld. Engels fought in the Baden campaign against the Prussians (June/July 1849) as the aide-de-camp of August Willich, who commanded a Free Corps in the Baden-Palatinate uprising.