Last modified on February 2, 2022, at 18:47

Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820 – August 5, 1895) was a German philosopher who collaborated with Karl Marx to provide the intellectual foundations of Marxist Communism. Engels finished the work on the second and third volumes of Marx's Das Kapital ("Capital") after Marx died.

Like Marx, Engels lived most of his adult life in England.

Friedrich Engels’ Role in the Darwinian and Communist Revolutions

Engels wrote: "Nature works dialectically and not metaphysically . . . she does not move in the eternal oneness of a perpetually recurring circle, but goes through a real historical evolution. In this connection, Darwin must be named before all others. He dealt the metaphysical conception of Nature the heaviest blow by his proof that all organic beings, plants, animals, and man himself, are the products of a process of evolution going on through millions of years." [1] [2]

Ian Angus writes, “Anyone who seriously studies the works of Marx, Engels, and Darwin will understand . . . that Marx was both honest and exceptionally insightful when he wrote that On the Origin of Species ‘contains the basis in natural history for our view’” (Angus 2009, 29)[3] The reason Darwinism is so important to Marxism was explained by the evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr who wrote “in his scientific works he systematically demolished one after the other of the basic philosophical concepts of his time and replaced them with revolutionary new concepts” (quoted in Angus 2017, 44).[4] Angus opined as a result, “Darwin unwittingly contributed to and strengthened the most revolutionary social theories ever developed, the ideas we know today as Marxism. It is obviously possible . . . to be a Darwinian in biology while rejecting Marxism, but it is not possible to be a consistent Marxist and reject Darwin” (Angus 2017, 44).[5] [6]

Engels also shared Marx’s racist views reflecting evolution. "A proud Darwinian, he alleged that Paul Lafargue (Karl Marxs son-in-law) possessed, one-eighth or one-twelfth n----- blood. In 1887, Lafargue had been a political candidate for a council seat in a Paris district that contained a zoo. In an April 1887 letter to Paul’s wife, Engels cruelly opined, 'Being in his quality as a n-----, a degree nearer to the rest of the animal kingdom than the rest of us, he is undoubtedly the most appropriate representative of that district.'" (Kengor 2020). [7] [8](The racist word twice used by Friedrich Engels in this quote where he is referring to people with higher concentrations of melanin in their skin has been abbreviated.)

See Also

External Links

Friedrich Engels Introduced Darwin to Karl Marx and Changed the World | Answers Research Journal

Refrences

  1. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1975c. Marx-Engels Collected Works. Vol. 19. Moscow, Russia: Progress Publishers.
  2. Bergman, J. (2021). Friedrich Engels Introduced Darwin to Karl Marx and Changed the World. Answers Research Journal, 14, 463–472. https://answersresearchjournal.org/charles-darwin/engels-darwin-marx/.
  3. Angus, Ian. 2009. “Marx and Engels . . . and Darwin? The Essential Connection Between Historical Materialism and Natural Selection.” International Socialists Review, no. 65 (2 May). https://isreview.org/issue/65/marx-and-engelsand-darwin.
  4. Angus, Ian. 2017. A Redder Shade of Green: Intersections of Science and Socialism. New York, New York: Monthly Review Press.
  5. Angus, Ian. 2017. A Redder Shade of Green: Intersections of Science and Socialism. New York, New York: Monthly Review Press.
  6. Bergman, J. (2021). Friedrich Engels Introduced Darwin to Karl Marx and Changed the World. Answers Research Journal, 14, 463–472. https://answersresearchjournal.org/charles-darwin/engels-darwin-marx/.
  7. Kengor, Paul 2020 “Why Not Cancel Karl Marx? Racism and Anti-Semitism were Second Nature to Him, and Yet the Cancel Culture Gives Him a Free Pass Every Time.” The American Spectator. August 18. https://spectator.org/cancel-karl-marx/.
  8. Bergman, J. (2021). Friedrich Engels Introduced Darwin to Karl Marx and Changed the World. Answers Research Journal, 14, 463–472. https://answersresearchjournal.org/charles-darwin/engels-darwin-marx/.