The November 28 of this year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Engels, one of the great masters of the world proletariat and co-founder, together with Marx, of the science of proletarian revolution, today known as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Inspired by the brilliant founders of scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, revolutionary proletarians of all countries have thrown themselves into the struggle and in its course have enriched the science of revolution by developing it: the important milestones of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, which opened the Era of the World Proletarian Revolution and the triumph of the Revolution in China which continued in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, endowed the proletariat with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, a unique and harmonious theory that will allow not only to conquer power through the revolutionary violence of the masses, today structured as People’s War, but also continue revolution during under the proletarian dictatorship and Socialism to prevent the restoration of capitalism.
Today, armed with this arsenal, the revolutionary proletarians of all countries are advancing in the construction of their Parties and striving in the struggle for unity in a new Communist International, crucial strategic instruments for the triumph of the World Proletarian Revolution, leading the struggles of the proletariat and the peoples of the world to defeat imperialism and reaction, sweeping from the face of the earth all forms of oppression and exploitation, advancing towards communism.
That is why the revolutionary proletarians celebrate with joy the bicentennial of the birth of Frederick Engels, and take up his memory and work, to propagate them among the masses of workers and peasants throughout the world.
Frederick Engels was born by a bourgeois family; but he dedicated his life to the struggle for the emancipation of the working class. Along with his comrade and friend, Karl Marx, they endowed humanity, especially the workers, with dialectical materialism, the world outlook and method of thought which allowed them and the proletariat to get a scientific understanding of the development of history. Historical materialism, and of the capitalist mode of production, Marxist political economics. A harmonious and correct doctrine which gave birth to scientific socialism, against the utopic dreams of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois “socialists”, who criticized and still criticize “savage capitalism” but only seek to reform, not to destroy it. On the contrary, Engels contributed to clarify the laws that rule the march of society towards socialism and communism, the laws that condemn capitalism to death and be defeated by the Proletarian Revolution, emphasizing that this is the historical mission of the international proletariat.
As theorist, Engels was the first to state that the proletariat is not only a class that suffers but, because of its condition in social production, is the most important class under capitalism, a fact that drives it uncontrollably forward and forces it to fight for the ultimate emancipation, abolishing private property on the means of production, for which he needs a political action that aims to establish socialism. Such ideas were put forward for the first time in 1845 in The Situation of the Working Class in England, a work that brilliantly describes not only the sufferings of the proletariat, but its social importance and historical mission.
Engels was also the first to publish in the Anales Franco-Alemanes, a critical study on political economics, where he analyzed the basic features of the capitalist economic regime, as an inevitable consequence of the domination of private ownership. He was who encouraged his friend and comrade Karl Marx to study this problem in depth, from which emerged the masterpiece The Capital, the completion of which was also carried out by Engels after Marx’s death.
Together, they wrote in 1844 The Sacred Family, or critique of critical criticism, A polemic work, mostly written by Marx, but result of a common understanding of social contradictions and the criticism to the Bauer brothers, “critical” contemplative philosophers who denied any practical activity to transform the world and described the proletariat as a mass lacking critical spirit without historical significance.
From this same period is The German Ideology, a joint work by Marx and Engels published in 1932, many years after their deaths. Although the purpose of this work was to settle accounts with their philosophical past, The German ideology acquired and continues having a great importance for the revolutionary proletariat, since with this passionate and vigorous polemic they unveil the miseries of the reactionary philosophers and socialists of Germany, defining the basic features of scientific communism. From that work it can be seen that Marx and Engels see in the class struggle of the proletarians and the revolution led them, the emerging of the communist regime: this revolution “is necessary not only because it is impossible to overthrow the ruling class in any other way, but because only through revolution the overthrowing class can rid itself of all rottenness and be able to create a new society”.
The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, was not only another common work, but is based on Engels’s essay, Principles of Communism. The Manifesto is a brilliant exposition of the understanding and method of the revolutionary proletariat; but also a masterful explanation of historical materialism where the laws that lead the proletariat to establish communism in all the earth are made clear, the program of the revolutionary proletariat that distinguishes it from all socialist sects and tendencies; a work whose validity remains intact, encouraging the struggle of the proletarians and peoples of the world against imperialism and all forms of reaction. The phrase with which that first workers’ program concludes continues resounding throughout the world; the final call is today the battle cry of the revolutionary proletarians who are preparing to take storm the heavens again:
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working Men of All Countries, Unite!”
In 1878 the well-known Anti-Dühring or The Revolution of Science by Mr. Eugen Dühring was published, a polemic work against a professor critical of Marxism, which became one of the best explanations of dialectical and historical materialism and the doctrine of socialism in all its aspects; a work to which his friend Marx also contributed in the part concerning political economics. One of the sections of the Anti-Dühring was published in 1880 as a pamphlet entitled From Utopian Socialism to Scientific Socialism, a popular work that brilliantly explains the progressive social development leading to of socialism, against the beliefs of the utopians.
Engels’s works regarding his research on the Dialectic of Nature was published for the first time in 1925, an unfinished study dating back to the years 1875-1883, where master of the working class highlights how the laws of materialism dialectical are also fulfilled in the phenomena of nature; In this work there are sharp ideas that anticipated later conclusions of the natural sciences.
The General Introduction to the Dialectic of Nature and The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, is a masterpiece of the revolutionary literature where the relationship between the development of humanity and the natural sciences is explained reaching the modern bourgeois society, deriving revolutionary conclusions that today are more valid than ever, when humanity is hit by the economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, product of the voracity and anarchy of imperialist capitalism:
“Only conscious organization of social production, in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can lift mankind above the rest of the animal world as regards the social aspect, in the same way that production in general has done this for men in their aspect as species. Historical evolution makes such an organization daily more indispensable, but also with every day more possible”.
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, published in 1884, is another work on historical materialism systematically explaining the evolution of those institutions that will be replaced by communism, a new and higher form of social organization, when after the abolishing of private property and classes, as a consequence, the State and the family as it has been known until now disappear. There is the scientific explanation of the discrimination and oppression of women that constitutes the strongest foundation for the proletarian women’s movement:
“The overthrow of mother-right was the world historical defeat of the female sex. The man took command in the home also; the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude, she became the slave of his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children […] The emancipation of woman will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims anything but an insignificant amount of her time.”.
In the essay Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1886), Engels makes a critical exposition of German philosophy from the dialectical materialist point of view, demonstrating the spiritual decline of the bourgeoisie, exalting the theoretical and scientific sense of the proletariat.
Gigantic was also his work in the study of military affairs that constitutes an important part of his written works. Very few works can be compared with Engels’ papers on the great military events of the 19th century such as Garibaldi’s war in Sicily, the Crimean War, the civil war in the United States, the great insurrections of 1848 or the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. And not only because of the rigor with which he dealt the facts, but also because of the brilliant forecasts of a great thinker in the art of war. A powerful arsenal of great value today, when the revolutionary proletariat prepares to develop the People’s War necessary to bring down its enemies in all countries.
In addition to the important scientific works and the huge journalistic work of Engels, his correspondence is invaluable, especially that with his dear comrade Marx, in which the joint work of the founders of scientific socialism can be observed in all aspects, both in the development of the science of revolution, or in other areas of knowledge, as the strategy and tactics of the fighting proletariat.
As political leader of the proletariat, Engels joined the labor movement in a very young age. Thanks to their contacts with proletarian organizations and leaders, together with Marx, they were able to relate with the German clandestine association, the League of Just later called the League of Communists, which they convinced of the new doctrine, and which in turn commissioned them to formulate the fundamental principles of socialism elaborated by them, a task materialized in the Communist Manifesto published in 1848.
Engels actively participated in the revolutionary wave that shook Europe from 1848 to 1850. Not only encouraging with his friend Marx the popular uprising in Germany with their words from the New Rhenish Gazette, but also participating in the armed insurrection of the people and fighting in the battles for freedom, where he played a prominent role which, together with his military writings, would make him worthy of the nickname “The General” among his comrades.
As a passionate revolutionary fighter, Engels was an uncompromising defender of the interests of the proletariat, a fierce critic of the errors of the false socialists, and a tireless teacher of the best sons of the working class with whom he always maintained close ties of friendship and to him they turned from all countries for guidance and support.
His loyalty to the working class made him the recognized chief of the international proletariat, not only playing a prominent role in the founding of the International Workers’ Association or First International but also as member of its General Council from 1870 until its dissolution in 1876, as well as in the foundation of the Second International after the Paris Workers’ Congress, which in 1889 laid the foundations for the new international organization of the proletariat of all countries.
His generosity and simplicity allowed Engels to give the right place to his friend and comrade, whom he supported financially until his last days to complete his work. But Frederick Engels shines with his own light and is therefore one of the masters of the proletariat.
Engels died on August 5, 1895 in England surrounded by the most prominent leaders of the workers movement from different countries, and messages from any corners of the world arrived at his funeral. Referring to Engels, Lenin wrote:
“After his friend Karl Marx (who died in 1883), Engels was the finest scholar and teacher of the modern proletariat in the whole civilized world. […] Marx and Engels were the first to explain that socialism is not the invention of dreamers, but the final aim and necessary result of the development of the productive forces in modern society. All recorded history hitherto has been a history of class struggle, of the succession of the rule and victory of certain social classes over others. And this will continue until the foundations of class struggle and of class domination – private property and anarchic social production – disappear. The interests of the proletariat demand the destruction of these foundations, and therefore the conscious class struggle of the organized workers must be directed against them.”
And against the calumnies and misrepresentations by the enemies of Marxism, who have tried in vain to separate Marx from Engels, the words uttered by the latter in the posthumous tribute to Karl Marx are perfectly applicable to himself:
“For Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival. “
Honor and Glory to Frederick Engels, Master of the World Proletariat!
Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Death to imperialism! The future must be of socialism and communism!
Proletarians and oppressed peoples, unite in proletarian internationalism!
Forward, now more than ever, in the international unity of communists around the world!
July 2020
