The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels

Frock Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels 
by Tristram Hunt 

Marx and Engels are inextricable. Engels developed his own ideas independently but deferred to Marx as a far better communicator and theorist. After Marx died, Engels ensured that his works were completed, properly edited, published and promoted. It is fascinating and helpful to appreciate the separate contributions Engels did make without falling into the mistaken idea that he and Marx were in any important way divergent. They were rather each others’ best critics and stimulants. But it is also not correct to try and interpret Marxism without taking Engels into account.

Much of 20th century history can be traced to the impact and evolution of Marxism and of course reactions to Marxism. Obviously later “Marxists” wanted the credibility and status that goes with their association with Marx, cited Marx and Engels in support of their own proposals and actions, argued ad nauseam about who had the true inheritance, but that does not mean we have to accept their claims of authenticity. Why for example would we be required to believe the claims of a pathological liar and psychopath like Stalin? On reflection, how could that ever make sense? One answer is of course that it suits some sources to accept Stalin’s claims, for example, because that helps to discredit Marxism without proper scrutiny. It is worth discrediting Marxism because – and only because - it remains relevant to current circumstances.

Actually, many important works of Marx and Engels were not even available to read, let alone to influence anybody, until the third decade of the 20th Century, and so far as Marxism was influential this was largely through the medium of several short introductions written by Engels after Marx died. In a curious way, we are probably better placed today to appreciate what Marx and Engels really did say, and to evaluate their theories in a considered way in the light of evidence, than was possible throughout the last century.

To do this in a useful way, we need guides who are not overtly signed up to the Cold War camps of the past, either for or against. It is a task for a decent historian and on the whole Tristram Hunt has done a professional job of work here. He certainly points out some of the howling errors in Engels' writing, not least when Engels tries to fit Science and mathematics into his dialectical methodology, and he bewails the poisonous legacy – vicious as well as plain stupid - of this strand of thought in soviet science under Stalin. [I suppose it is best compared to the impact of creationism on attitudes to science in the modern USA]. He also describes with resigned distaste the enthusiasm with which Engels engaged in sectarian infighting among revolutionaries and their allies, and suggests that a major error of judgement in Engels' dealings with English socialists probably played a significant part in preventing Marxism from becoming established there [for better or worse is another debate, but I suspect this claim is excessive since Engels himself offered better explanations for the failure of British workers to sign up to the Marxist, revolutionary agenda].

He describes the extent to which Engels was a creature of his own times, but also the way Engels learned to challenge and radically transform some of the mistakes in his youthful thinking. A major example was in Engels' very racist references to supposedly inferior ethnic groups in his youth and his later appreciation and writing about the evils of racism and colonialism in capitalist values. A different example is the way Engels moved away from his early commitment to violent, revolutionary change, and increasingly advocated a gradualist, democratic process of social transformation, based on his long experience of witnessing failed and abortive revolutions around Europe and his realistic appreciation of the powerful resources available to the modern, reactionary state. In this and other examples, it becomes clear how important it is to place the writings of Marx and Engels in their historical context and to recognise the way their thinking changed over time, so that merely because there is a text to support one point of view, say to show their racism, this does not demonstrate that this was their final, considered judgement. [This is how ruffians can misuse scripture to perverse ends in every ideological system.]

Where Engels was right, though, his work is of lasting importance. He is appreciated by modern feminists, for example, because he analysed the position of women with reference to economic rather than biological determinism. He identified nationalism as a reactionary force that could totally undermine working class solidarity and he predicted that a major European war would destroy all prospects of socialist change for a generation. His prediction in the 1880s of what a modern war would look like turns out to be chillingly accurate and he developed a true horror for warfare, in contrast with his youthful practical engagement as well as theoretical fascination with it.

What emerges as the greatest strength in the work of Marx and Engels is not their prophecies nor their political machinations, but their thorough, systematic and evidence based critique of the way 19th Century Capitalism played out around them, and in their own time, with Engels of course offering a well informed, insider view as a practical industrialist, entrepreneur and financial speculator. It is even the one part of Marxism that really was successfully prophetic, as witnessed for example in the treatment of workers in the emerging capitalism of China and India and the impact of globalisation generally. It is because they were so perceptive in describing their own, contemporary environment – based on empirical evidence and observation, but also structured by an effective explanatory model - that their work has had such lasting value, and continues to be relevant today.

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