Friedrich Engels

Modern socialism is not a doctrine, Engels explains, but a working-class movement growing out of the establishment of large-scale capitalist industry and its social consequences.

Socialism, Utopian and Scientific

"An eternal being created human society as it is today, and submission to ?superiors? and ?authority? is imposed on the ?lower? classes by divine will." This suggestion, coming from the pulpit, platform and press, has hypnotized the minds of men and proves to be one of the strongest pillars of exploitation. The history of the family dates from 1861, the year of the publication of Bachofen?s "Mutterrecht" (maternal law) Engles makes the following propositions: *That in the beginning people lived in unrestricted sexual intercourse, which he dubs, not very felicitously, hetarism. *That such an intercourse excludes any absolutely certain means of determining parentage; that consequently descent could only be traced by the female line in compliance with maternal law -- and that this was universally practiced by all the nations of antiquity. *That consequently women as mothers, being the only well known parents of younger generations, received a high tribute of respect and deference, amounting to a complete woman?s rule (gynaicocracy), according to Bachofen?s idea. *That the transition to monogamy, reserving a certain woman exclusively to one man, implied the violation of the primeval religious law (i.e., practically a violation of the customary right of all other men to the same woman), which violation had to be atoned for its permission purchased by the surrender of the women to the public for a limited time.

The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State

Karl Marx

The revolutionary summons to workers transformed the modern world and still shapes millions of lives today.

The Communist Manifesto

In 1847 Engels wrote two draft programmes for the Communist League in the form of a catechism, one in June and the other in October.At the June 1847 Congress of the League of the Just, which was also the founding conference of the Communist League, it was decided to issue a draft "confession of faith" to be submitted for discussion to the sections of the League. The document which has now come to light is almost certainly this draft. Comparison of the two documents shows that Principles of Communism is a revised edition of this earlier draft. In Principles of Communism, Engels left three questions unanswered, in two cases with the notation "unchanged" (bleibt); this clearly refers to the answers provided in the earlier draft.The new draft for the programme was worked out by Engels on the instructions of the leading body of the Paris circle of the Communist League. The instructions were decided on after Engles' sharp criticism at the committee meeting, on October 22, 1847, of the draft programme drawn up by the "true socialist" Moses Hess, which was then rejected.

The Principles of Communism

This forceful polemic explores the staggering human cost of the Industrial Revolution in Victorian England. Engels paints an unforgettable picture of daily life in the new industrial towns, and for miners and agricultural workers in a savage indictment of the greed of the bourgeoisie. His later preface, written for the first English edition of 1892 and included here, brought the story up to date in the light of forty years' further reflection.

The Condition of the Working Class in England

Tucker, Robert C.

The Marx-Engels Reader

The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and the Communist Manifesto (Great Books in Philosophy)

مبادئ الشيوعية

Se muestra tanto la cronología como el desarrollo temático de los dos grandes pensadores. Abarca desde la historia, la sociedad y la economía, hasta la política, la filosofía, y la estrategia y táctica de la revolución social. Se presenta los escritos del joven Marx, las obras que despertaron tanto interés y provocó tanto debate en los últimos años. Se esboza, la estrategia y las tácticas del movimiento revolucionario. Incluye escritos sobre sociedad y política en el siglo XIX, no solo europeos, sino también asiáticos y rusos. Se presenta los últimos escritos de Engels, en los que el marxismo fue popularizado y sistematizado en beneficio de las masas. El lector de Marx-Engels contiene una introducción general interpretativa que rastrea y analiza el desarrollo de la filosofía marxista.

Martin Puchner

Largely ignored when it was first published in 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's "The Communist Manifesto" has become one of the most widely read and discussed social and political testaments ever written. Its ideas and concepts have not only become part of the intellectual landscape of Western civilization: They form the basis for a movement that has, for better or worse, radically changed the world. The Manifesto argues that history is a record of class struggle between the bourgeoisie, or owners, and the proletariat, or workers. In order to succeed, the bourgeoisie must constantly build larger cities, promote new products, and secure cheaper commodities, while eliminating large numbers of workers in order to increase profits without increasing production -a scenario that is perhaps even more prevalent today than in 1848. Calling upon the workers of the world to unite, the Manifesto announces a plan for overthrowing the bourgeoisie and empowering the proletariat. This volume also includes Marx's "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" (1852), one of the most brilliant works ever written on the philosophy of history, and "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845), Marx's personal notes about new forms of social relations and education. -- From publisher's description.

The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings

On Authority

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft) is an extract from Anti-Dühring, a polemic against philosopher Eugen Dühring published by Friedrich Engels in 1878. Composed of the introduction and Part 3, Chapter 2 of Anti-Duhring, it was first published in France in 1880. The title Socialism: Utopian and Scientific was adopted for the English publication in 1892.Show Excerptuestion, why in the great astronomer's Mécanique céleste the Creator was not even mentioned, proudly replied: Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse. But nowadays, in our evolutionary conception of the universe, there is absolutely no room for either a Creator or a Ruler; and to talk of a Supreme Being shut out from the whole existing world, implies a contradiction in terms, and, as it seems to me, a gratuitous insult to the feelings of religious people.Again, our agnostic admits that all our knowledge is based upon the information imparted to us by our senses. But, he adds, how do we know that our senses give us correct representations of the objects we perceive through them? And he proceeds to inform us that, whenever he speaks of objects or their qualities, he does in reality not mean these objects and qualities, of which he cannot know anything for certain, but merely the impressions which they have produced on his senses. Now, this line of reasoning seems

Utopian and Scientific

Socialism

Komünist Manifesto

"Wage Labour and Capital" (German: "Lohnarbeit und Kapital") is an essay on economics by Karl Marx, written in 1847 and first published in articles in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in April 1849. This essay has been widely acclaimed as the precursor to Marx's important treatise Das Kapital. The ideas that are expressed in the essay have a very thorough economic contemplation about them as he put aside some of his materialist conceptions of history for the time being. This essay did, however, start to show an increased scientific rationale on his ideas of "alienated labor," which in Marx's perspective would eventually lead to the proletarian revolution. Wage-Labor and Capital is considered by Marxists as an "in-depth economic and scientific observation on how capitalist economy works, why it was exploitative, and ultimately why it would eventually implode from within." Some of the main topics that the essay examines are about labour power and labour, and how labour power becomes a commodity. It also presents the Labour Theory of Value that further develops the distinct differences between labour and labour power. The essay also examines the commodity and how the economic principles of supply and demand affect the pricing of certain commodities. Beyond that the essay explores how capital and capitalism do not service any purpose other than to gain more of it, which Marx presents as an illogical method of living one's life.

Wage-Labor and Capital

Manifeste du parti communiste

O Manifesto Comunista

1890-94

Letters on Historical Materialism

Communism as a political movement attained global importance after the Bolsheviks toppled the Russian Czar in 1917. After that time the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, especially the influential Communist Manifesto (1848), enjoyed an international audience. The world was to learn a new political vocabulary peppered with "socialism," "capitalism," "the working class," "the bourgeoisie," "labor theory of value," "alienation," "economic determinism," "dialectical materialism," and "historical materialism." Marx's economic analysis of history has been a powerful legacy, the effects of which continue to be felt world-wide. Serving as the foundation for Marx's indictment of capitalism is his extraordinary work titled Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, written in 1844 but published nearly a century later. Here Marx offers his theory of human nature and an analysis of emerging capitalism's degenerative impact on man's sense of self and his creative potential. What is man's true nature? How did capitalism gain such a foothold on Western society? What is alienation and how does it threaten to undermine the proletariat? These and other vital questions are addressed as the youthful Marx sets forth his first detailed assessment of the human condition.

Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

In 1847 Engels wrote two draft programmes for the Communist League in the form of a catechism, one in June and the other in October. The latter, which is known as Principles of Communism, was first published in 1914. The earlier document "Draft of the Communist Confession of Faith", was only found in 1968. It was first published in 1969 in Hamburg, together with four other documents pertaining to the first congress of the Communist League, in a booklet entitled Gründungs Dokumente des Bundes der Kommunisten (Juni bis September 1847) [Founding Documents of the Communist League]. At the June 1847 Congress of the League of the Just, which was also the founding conference of the Communist League, it was decided to issue a draft "confession of faith" to be submitted for discussion to the sections of the League. The document which has now come to light is almost certainly this draft. Comparison of the two documents shows that Principles of Communism is a revised edition of this earlier draft. In Principles of Communism, Engels left three questions unanswered, in two cases with the notation "unchanged" (bleibt); this clearly refers to the answers provided in the earlier draft. The new draft for the programme was worked out by Engels on the instructions of the leading body of the Paris circle of the Communist League. The instructions were decided on after Engels' sharp criticism at the committee meeting, on October 22, 1847, of the draft programme drawn up by the "true socialist" Moses Hess, which was then rejected. Still considering Principles of Communism as a preliminary draft, Engels expressed the view, in a letter to Marx dated November 23-24 1847, that it would be best to drop the old catechistic form and draw up a programme in the form of a manifesto. At the second congress of the Communist League (November 29-December 8, 1847) Marx and Engels defended the fundamental scientific principles of communism and were trusted with drafting a programme in the form of a manifesto of the Communist Party. In writing the manifesto the founders of Marxism made use of the propositions enunciated in Principles of Communism. Engels uses the term Manufaktur, and its derivatives, which have been translated "manufacture", "manufacturing", etc., Engels used this word literally, to indicate production by hand, not factory production for which Engels uses "big industry". Manufaktur differs from handicraft (guild production in mediaeval towns), in that the latter was carried out by independent artisans. Manufacktur is carried out by homeworkers working for merchant capitalists, or by groups of craftspeople working together in large workshops owned by capitalists. It is therefore a transitional mode of production, between guild (handicraft) and modern (capitalist) forms of production.

Friedrich Engels

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