Today the world is celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Engles, renowned across the globe as one of the greatest revolutionaries and theorists to ever live. 
Engels, who along with Karl Marx founded the modern communist movement, was born on November 28, 1820 in what was then the Kingdom of Prussia. He dedicated his life to the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat to free itself from capitalism and usher in a new era of history.
Beyond the key documents he co-authored with Marx, Engels’ work has stood the test of time as an essential guide for successive generations of revolutionaries who want to understand the world in order to change it.
Take this passage from his 1883 work, Dialectics of Nature.
While Engels could not have foreseen the phenomenon of climate change, he displayed a prescient ability to identify the most important trends and tendencies governing the development of human society.
While Engels could not have foreseen the phenomenon of climate change, he displayed a prescient ability to identify the most important trends and tendencies governing the development of human society.
Engels did not simply write about revolution, he was an active and heroic participant in it. He noted in 1850, “The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation...
...of the social organization, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act.”
Engels knew that it was the working class that were the true makers of history, and needed to be equipped with revolutionary theory to win.
Engels knew that it was the working class that were the true makers of history, and needed to be equipped with revolutionary theory to win.
When the people took to the barricades and rose up against the ruling class, Engels was an active participant, not a commentator from the sidelines. When revolution swept his home country and much of the rest of Europe in 1848-49, Engels took up arms.
After one battle serving in the army of August Willich, who would go on to become a General in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War, Engels barely escaped with his life and managed to flee to Switzerland.
On the bicentenary of his birth, Friedrich Engels remains a towering figure in the history of the struggle for socialism.
Read more from the works of Friedrich Engels and his life-long collaborator Karl Marx here: marxists.org/archive/marx/w…
Read more from the works of Friedrich Engels and his life-long collaborator Karl Marx here: marxists.org/archive/marx/w…
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