Book cover for The Principles of Communism by Friedrich Engels

The Principles of Communism

2015 Released
36 Pages
0-1 Hours
Ebook Unavailable
Audiobook Unavailable
Createspace Independent Publishing PlatformISBN 9781519557230
Translated by Florence Kelley

Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820 - August 5, 1895) was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, working in close collaboration alongside Karl Marx. In 1845, he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research. In 1848, he produced with Marx The Communist Manifesto 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.
Engels is commonly known as a "ruthless party tactician", "brutal ideologue", and "master tactician" when it came to purging rivals in political organizations. However, another strand of Engels's personality was one of a "gregarious", "big-hearted", and "jovial man of outsize appetites", who was referred to by his son-in-law as "the great beheader of champagne bottles."

Friedrich Engels

Frederick Engels was born in 1820, in the German city of Barmen. Brought up as a devout Calvinist he moved to England in 1842 to work in his father's Manchester textile firm. After joining the fight against the counter revolution in Germany in 1848 he returned to Manchester and the family business, finally settling there in 1850. In subsequent years he provided financial support for Marx and edited the second and third volumes of Capital. He died whilst working on the fourth volume in 1895.

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