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112-716: Democratic Federation may refer to: The original name of the Social Democratic Federation , a former British political party The original name of Justice (newspaper) , published by the Social Democratic Federation Democratic Federation (Sardinia) , a former political party Democratic Federation of Burma , a political organization See also [ edit ] Democratic Federation of Labour (Morocco) Democratic Revolutionary Youth Federation (India) Topics referred to by
224-708: A Conservative Party agent named Maltman Barry . Despite this somewhat shady attempt of the Tories to split the opposition, the SDF fared extremely poorly, with John Burns receiving 598 votes in Nottingham while Jack Williams in Hampstead and John Fielding in Kensington netted a mere 27 and 32 votes, respectively. The SDF's foray into electoral politics had proven to be both controversial and wholly ineffective. It led to another split in
336-466: A refugee and eventually made it to safety in England. On 6 June 1849 Prussian authorities issued an arrest warrant for him which contained a physical description as "height: 5 feet 6 inches; hair: blond; forehead: smooth; eyebrows: blond; eyes: blue; nose and mouth: well proportioned; beard: reddish; chin: oval; face: oval; complexion: healthy; figure: slender. Special characteristics: speaks very rapidly and
448-623: A Critique of Political Economy . Engels met Marx for a second time at the Café de la Régence on the Place du Palais, on 28 August 1844. The two quickly became close friends and remained so their entire lives. Marx had read and was impressed by Engels's articles on The Condition of the Working Class in England in which he had written that "[a] class which bears all the disadvantages of the social order without enjoying its advantages, [...] Who can demand that such
560-617: A Socialist Unity Conference was held, bringing together representatives of the SDF, the left wing of the ILP, the network of clubs associated with The Clarion newspaper, and various local socialist societies. Together these groups formed a new organisation, the British Socialist Party . Hyndman was a leading figure in the early party, but a growing party split over which position to take in the First World War saw him leave to form in 1916
672-602: A class respect this social order?" Marx adopted Engels's idea that the working class would lead the revolution against the bourgeoisie as society advanced toward socialism, and incorporated this as part of his own philosophy. Engels stayed in Paris to help Marx write The Holy Family . It was an attack on the Young Hegelians and the Bauer brothers and was published in late February 1845. Engels's earliest contribution to Marx's work
784-574: A climax at Christmas 1884. On 23 December 1884, a meeting of the Executive Council of the SDF was held at which Hyndman was attacked for several alleged offences: defaming a comrade in Edinburgh by calling him an "anarchist" without cause, corresponding in the name of the organisation without authority and in defiance of the Council's decisions, and withholding correspondence meant for the organisation as
896-404: A considerable estate to Eduard Bernstein and Louise Freyberger (wife of Ludwig Freyberger ), valued for probate at £25,265 0s. 11d, equivalent to £3,686,193 in 2023. Engels's interests included poetry, fox hunting and hosting regular Sunday parties for London's left-wing intelligentsia where, as one regular put it, "no one left before two or three in the morning". His stated personal motto
1008-453: A couple in London and married on 11 September 1878, hours before Lizzie's death. Later in their lives, Marx and Engels came to argue that in some countries workers might be able to achieve their aims through peaceful means . In following this, Engels argued that socialists were evolutionists, although they remained committed to social revolution . Similarly, Tristram Hunt argues that Engels
1120-585: A course of development in Russia that would lead directly to the communist stage without the intervening bourgeois stage. This analysis was based on what Marx and Engels saw as the exceptional characteristics of the Russian village commune or obshchina . While doubt was cast on this theory by Georgi Plekhanov , Plekhanov's reasoning was based on the first edition of Das Kapital (1867) which predated Marx's interest in Russian peasant communes by two years. Later editions of
1232-460: A future communist society would allow people to make decisions about their relationships free of economic constraints. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy saw publication in 1886. On 5 August 1895, Engels died of throat cancer in London, aged 74. Following cremation at Woking Crematorium , his ashes were scattered off Beachy Head , near Eastbourne , as he had requested. He left
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#17328441822671344-595: A gay temperament, being able to "stutter in twenty languages". He had a great enjoyment of wine and other "bourgeois pleasures". Engels favoured forming romantic relationships with women of the proletariat and found a long-term partner in a working-class woman named Mary Burns , although they never married. After her death, Engels was romantically involved with her younger sister Lydia Burns . Historian and former Labour MP Tristram Hunt , author of The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels , argues that Engels "almost certainly was, in other words,
1456-477: A happy dialectical synthesis that freed him from the fixed oppositions of the pietist ethos of devout longing and estrangement. 'Through Strauss I have now entered on the straight road to Hegelianism... The Hegelian idea of God has already become mine, and thus I am joining the ranks of the "modern pantheists",' Engels wrote in one of his final letters to the soon-to-be-discarded Graebers [Wilhelm and Friedrich, priest trainees and former classmates of Engels]. Engels
1568-457: A manner which left the impression that he had become a proponent of a peaceful road to socialism. On 1 April 1895, four months before his death, Engels responded to Kautsky: I was amazed to see today in the Vorwärts an excerpt from my 'Introduction' that had been printed without my knowledge and tricked out in such a way as to present me as a peace-loving proponent of legality [at all costs]. Which
1680-639: A manufacturing centre where industrialisation was on the rise. He was to work in Weaste , Salford , in the offices of Ermen and Engels 's Victoria Mill, which made sewing threads. Engels's father thought that working at the Salford firm might make his son reconsider some of his radical opinions. On his way to Salford and Manchester, Engels visited the office of the Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne and met Karl Marx for
1792-564: A massive body of personnel to the Square, including some 4,000 constables, 300 mounted policemen, 300 soldiers from the Grenadier Guards , and 350 members of the Life Guards. This body of police and military forces used horses, batons, and rifle butts against an estimated 20,000 demonstrators out of the square, injuring hundreds and killing two in the process. Some 200 demonstrators were taken to
1904-543: A motion of censure on Hyndman was adopted, after which the majority of the Council, freshly victorious, promptly resigned from the SDF. The individuals leaving the party formed a new organisation called the Socialist League , supported financially by William Morris, who particularly objected to Hyndman's rigid control of the party press and what he considered his excessive personal influence. They considered Hyndman opportunistic and obsessed with parliamentary politics to
2016-587: A new political organization which he called the Democratic Federation and in June called its foundation convention, consisting of an assortment of radical grouplets and individuals. In preparation for the convention, Hyndman circulated among the delegates his book England for All, which paraphrased Marx's Capital without crediting the original author. Marx took great offence and broke off personal relations with his English epigone. Marx's distaste for Hyndman
2128-535: A poem entitled "The Bedouin", in the Bremisches Conversationsblatt No. 40. He also engaged in other literary work and began writing newspaper articles critiquing the societal ills of industrialisation . He wrote under the pseudonym "Friedrich Oswald" to avoid connecting his family with his provocative writings. In 1841, Engels performed his military service in the Prussian Army as a member of
2240-683: A readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of labour." To make this possible the Conference established a Labour Representation Committee (LRC). This committee included two members from the Social Democratic Federation and the Independent Labour Party, one member of the Fabian Society, and seven trade unionists. The LRC eventually evolved into
2352-719: A regular feature in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung under the heading "From the Theatre of War"; however, the newspaper was suppressed during the June 1849 Prussian coup d'état. After the coup, Marx lost his Prussian citizenship , was deported and fled to Paris, then London. Engels stayed in Prussia and took part in an armed uprising in South Germany as an aide-de-camp in the volunteer corps of August Willich . Engels also took two cases of rifle cartridges with him when he went to join
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#17328441822672464-658: A result of such accidents. Engels continued his involvement with radical journalism and politics. He frequented areas popular among members of the English labour and Chartist movements, whom he met. He also wrote for several journals, including The Northern Star , Robert Owen 's New Moral World , and the Democratic Review newspaper. Engels returned to Germany in 1844. On the way, he stopped in Paris to meet Karl Marx, with whom he had an earlier correspondence. Marx had been living in Paris since late October 1843, after
2576-459: A revolutionary seizure of power at a time when the historical circumstances favoured a parliamentary road to power that he predicted could bring " social democracy into power as early as 1898". Engels's stance of openly accepting gradualist, evolutionary and parliamentary tactics while claiming that the historical circumstances did not favour revolution caused confusion. Marxist revisionist Eduard Bernstein interpreted this as indicating that Engels
2688-407: A riot ensued, with smashed windows and fisticuffs. The party claimed a big boost in membership in the aftermath, with its official organ, Justice, selling 4,000 copies of each issue. The next autumn a protest of socialists and radicals was called for Trafalgar Square for 13 November 1887. This time, still smarting from the riot of the previous January, political and police officials had committed
2800-833: A rival "defencist" National Socialist Party . The Social Democratic Federation was also the name of a party led by Hyndman after 1919, when the National Socialist Party changed its name. The group enjoyed some short-term success but gradually faded into the Labour Party, being wound up in 1939. Data from Kendall, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain , pp. 310–311; supplemented by published report titles, per WorldCat. Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( / ˈ ɛ ŋ ɡ əl z / ENG -gəlz ; German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈʔɛŋl̩s] ; 28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895; in English also spelled as "Frederick Engels" )
2912-478: A second straight week, mounted police charged the crowd, supported by volunteer "special constables. One demonstrator, Alfred Linnell, was crushed by the horses and died of his injuries 12 days later. A massive demonstration of 120,000 Londoners turned out for his funeral." In the aftermath of these protests, the SDF assumed a place in the public imagination far beyond the role which the organisation's actual size and efficacy would ordinarily have merited. For some in
3024-479: A trading house in Bremen . His parents expected that he would follow his father into a career in the family business. Their son's revolutionary activities disappointed them. It would be some years before he joined the family firm. While at Bremen, Engels began reading the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , whose teachings dominated German philosophy at that time. In September 1838 he published his first work,
3136-475: A whole. Hyndman was additionally accused of stirring up strife between members of the Council and fabricating a provincial branch from thin air so as to ready himself to wield undeserved voting authority at a future convention of the organisation. Hyndman gathered his factional supporters for his defence, while his opponents, who included William Morris, Belfort Bax , Eleanor Marx, and Edward Aveling, mustered their own forces. After protracted debate, on 27 December
3248-563: Is all the more reason why I should like it to appear in its entirety in the Neue Zeit in order that this disgraceful impression may be erased. I shall leave Liebknecht in no doubt as to what I think about it and the same applies to those who, irrespective of who they may be, gave him this opportunity of perverting my views and, what's more, without so much as a word to me about it. After Marx's death, Engels devoted much of his remaining years to editing Marx's unfinished volumes of Das Kapital . He
3360-475: Is credited with preventing the work from being lost due to Marx's "incredibly difficult handwriting". He had to provide it with structure and develop its lines of thought, so that the second and third volumes of Capital are effectively joint in authorship and its content (except for the extensive forewords added by Engels) cannot be attributed exclusively to either author. Some scholars, notably Georges Labica [ fr ] , thought that Engels had altered
3472-594: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Social Democratic Federation The Social Democratic Federation ( SDF ) was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman , and had its first meeting on 7 June 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris , George Lansbury , James Connolly and Eleanor Marx . However, Friedrich Engels , Karl Marx 's long-term collaborator, refused to support Hyndman's venture. Many of its early leading members had previously been active in
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3584-536: Is short-sighted". As to his "short-sightedness", Engels admitted as much in a letter written to Joseph Weydemeyer on 19 June 1851 in which he says he was not worried about being selected for the Prussian military because of "my eye trouble, as I have now found out once and for all which renders me completely unfit for active service of any sort". Once he was safe in Switzerland, Engels began to write down all his memories of
3696-611: The Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher in 1844. Engels observed the slums of Manchester in close detail, and took notes of its horrors, such as child labour , the despoiled environment, and overworked and impoverished labourers. He sent a trilogy of articles to Marx. These were published in the Rheinische Zeitung and then in the Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher , chronicling the conditions among
3808-457: The Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904. The departing left wing particularly faulted the SDF's perceived failure to concentrate on work to radicalise the nation's trade unions, which was envisioned as being the key to the revolutionary transformation of society. While the SDF stagnated and split during the first decade of the 20th century, the various failures of those who departed paved
3920-564: The Communist League and First International . Engels also supported Marx financially for much of his life, enabling him to continue writing after he moved to London in 1849. After Marx's death in 1883, Engels edited from manuscript and completed Volumes II and III of his Das Kapital (1885 and 1894). Engels wrote several important works of his own, including The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), Anti-Dühring (1878), Dialectics of Nature (1878–1882), The Origin of
4032-503: The Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher requiring all to leave Paris within 24 hours. Marx was expelled from Paris by French authorities on 3 February 1845 and settled in Brussels with his wife and one daughter. Having left Paris on 6 September 1844, Engels returned to his home in Barmen to work on his The Condition of the Working Class in England , which was published in late May 1845. Even before
4144-527: The French Republican Calendar . Marx later incorporated this comically ironic characterisation of the coup into his essay about it. He called the essay The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte using Engels's suggested characterisation. Marx also borrowed Engels' characterisation of Hegel's notion of the World Spirit that history occurred twice, "once as a tragedy and secondly as a farce" in
4256-545: The Labour Party . Despite the formal unification of forces, many members of the party were uncomfortable with the Marxism of the SDF and Hyndman had very little influence over the development of this political group, eventually leaving the alliance in 1907. In addition to the loss of the party's right wing, the SDF experienced defections of some of its most radical members for different reasons. Hyndman's personalistic leadership and
4368-822: The Manhood Suffrage League . The SDF battled through defections of its right and left wings to other organisations in the first decade of the twentieth century before uniting with other radical groups in the Marxist British Socialist Party from 1911 until 1920. The British Marxist movement effectively began in 1880 when a businessman named Henry M. Hyndman read Karl Marx 's Communist Manifesto in French translation while crossing to America. Upon his return to London , Hyndman sought out Marx, then an exile living not far from his home. Hyndman, who had run for parliament earlier that year, decided to start
4480-441: The Neue Rheinische Zeitung included Karl Schapper , Wilhelm Wolff , Ernst Dronke , Peter Nothjung , Heinrich Bürgers , Ferdinand Wolff and Carl Cramer. Engels's mother gave unwitting witness to the effect of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung on the revolutionary uprising in Cologne in 1848. Criticising his involvement in the uprising she states in a 5 December 1848 letter to Friedrich that "nobody, ourselves included, doubted that
4592-468: The Rheinische Zeitung was banned in March 1843 by the Prussian government. Prior to meeting Marx, Engels had become established as a fully developed materialist and scientific socialist , independent of Marx's philosophical development. In Paris, Marx and Arnold Ruge were publishing the Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher , of which only one issue appeared (in 1844), and in which Engels wrote Outlines of
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4704-520: The unemployment problem in Great Britain. The SDF agitated for the "Right to Work" and made demands for the establishment of state-directed co-operative colonies on underutilised lands. The police forced the SDF-led demonstration out of the Square. John Burns led the protesters down Pall Mall en route to Hyde Park bearing a red flag. Along the way the marchers scuffled with jeering onlookers and
4816-558: The Communist League was an international society of proletarian revolutionaries with branches in various European cities. The Communist League also had contacts with the underground conspiratorial organisation of Louis Auguste Blanqui . Many of Marx's and Engels's current friends became members of the Communist League. Old friends like Georg Friedrich Herwegh , who had worked with Marx on the Rheinsche Zeitung , Heinrich Heine ,
4928-579: The Communist League. Joachim Lelewel , a prominent Polish historian and participant in the Polish uprising of 1830–1831, was also a frequent associate. The Communist League commissioned Marx and Engels to write a pamphlet explaining the principles of communism. This became the Manifesto of the Communist Party , better known as The Communist Manifesto . It was first published on 21 February 1848 and ends with
5040-421: The Communist League. One of the first was Wilhelm Wolff , who soon became one of Marx's and Engels's closest collaborators. Others were Joseph Weydemeyer and Ferdinand Freiligrath , a famous revolutionary poet. While most of the associates of Marx and Engels were German immigrants living in Brussels, some were Belgians. Phillipe Gigot , a Belgian philosopher and Victor Tedesco , a lawyer from Liège, both joined
5152-799: The English schooner, Cornish Diamond under the command of a Captain Stevens. The voyage across the western Mediterranean, around the Iberian Peninsula by sailing schooner took about five weeks. Finally, the Cornish Diamond sailed up the River Thames to London on 10 November 1849 with Engels on board. Upon his return to Britain, Engels re-entered the Manchester company in which his father held shares to support Marx financially as he worked on Das Kapital . Unlike his first period in England (1843), Engels
5264-731: The Family, Private Property and the State (1884), and Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1886). Friedrich Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen , Jülich-Cleves-Berg , Prussia (now Wuppertal , Germany), as the eldest son of Friedrich Engels Sr. (1796–1860) and of Elisabeth "Elise" Franziska Mauritia van Haar (1797–1873). The wealthy Engels family owned large cotton-textile mills in Barmen and Salford , England, both expanding industrial cities. Friedrich's parents were devout Calvinists and raised their children accordingly—he
5376-593: The Household Artillery (German: Garde-Artillerie-Brigade ). Assigned to Berlin, he attended university lectures at the University of Berlin and began to associate with groups of Young Hegelians . He anonymously published articles in the Rheinische Zeitung , exposing the poor employment and living conditions endured by factory workers. The editor of the Rheinische Zeitung was Karl Marx, but Engels would not meet Marx until late November 1842. Engels acknowledged
5488-494: The League participated in the 1839 rebellion fomented by the French utopian revolutionary socialist, Louis Auguste Blanqui ; as Ruge remained a Young Hegelian in his belief, Marx and Ruge soon split and Ruge left the Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher . Following the split, Marx remained friendly enough with Ruge that he sent Ruge a warning on 15 January 1845 that the Paris police were going to execute orders against him, Marx and others at
5600-504: The SDF felt that the Federation neglected trade union activities. This group believed that the SDF was obsessed with parliamentarian pursuits and should be instead more active in the industrial struggle. Hyndman disagreed, seeking a continued concentration on political activities. Hyndman's control of the party organisation and press proved pivotal and the SDF refused to change its politically-dominated strategy, causing Burns and Mann to leave
5712-709: The SDF for the ILP. Initially, there was progress towards a unification of the SDF with its rivals of the parliamentarian left. On 27 February 1900 Hyndman and the SDF met with the ILP, the Fabian Society and trade union leaders at the Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street, London . After a debate the 129 delegates decided to pass Hardie's motion to establish "a distinct Labour group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips, and agree upon their policy, which must embrace
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#17328441822675824-493: The SDF from the beginning. One key to his personal authority lay in his purse, which paid the bulk of its administrative expenses, and its weekly newspaper, Justice, lost money despite a healthy circulation of about 3,500. Some in the Federation were unhappy, regarding Hyndman as domineering in personal relations and sectarian in political thinking. Hyndman's detractors considered him politically ambitious and lacking in principle, and their ill will and personal antipathy came to
5936-492: The SDF was strongly progressive, calling for (amongst other measures) a 48-hour workweek, the abolition of child labour, compulsory and free and secular education, equality for women, and the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange by a democratic state. The party attracted to its banner a number of Britain's leading radicals, including William Morris , Edward Aveling and his partner Eleanor Marx , Karl's youngest daughter. Henry Hyndman dominated
6048-579: The SDF when a group around C. L. Fitzgerald formed the Socialist Union . In the winter of 1885/86 the SDF made its first appreciable advance in the public eye. With economic depression sweeping the country, a demonstration was planned to be held in Trafalgar Square in February 1886 to agitate against free trade and in favour of protectionist trade policies, a move which many believed would lessen
6160-532: The Socialist League in 1885 left the SDF a relatively more homogeneous unit than its new offshoot. While Hyndman and the SDF used scare tactics about some impending national catastrophe that would prove the catalyst for socialist revolution in the mid-1880s, his eyes remained on the parliamentary prize. In the general election of 1885 the SDF stood three candidates for office—subsidised by a £340 campaign contribution obtained by SDF leader Henry Hyde Champion from
6272-572: The autocratic Tsarist government in favour of a constitutional government had been provided by the Decembrist Revolt of 1825. Despite the unsuccessful revolt against the Tsarist government in favour of a constitutional government, both Engels and Marx anticipated a bourgeois revolution in Russia would occur, which would bring about a bourgeois stage in Russian development to precede a communist stage. By 1881, both Marx and Engels began to contemplate
6384-405: The charge, writing in a letter to Marx that Sibylle's "rage with me is unrequited love, pure and simple." While in Manchester between October and November 1843, Engels wrote his first critique of political economy , entitled "Umrisse zu einer Kritik der Nationalökonomie" ( Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy ). Engels sent the article to Paris, where Arnold Ruge en Marx published it in
6496-402: The conclusion of the conference SDF editor Harry Quelch commented upon the acrimony which had ensued from the programmatic efforts of the left wing, threatening that the dissidents "must either fall into line or fall out altogether." The 1903 annual conference, held 10–12 April at Shoreditch Town Hall , marked the final showdown. Before the proceedings began, George Yates was informed that he
6608-570: The conflict, with Hyndman going so far as to declare in July 1901 that further anti-war agitation was "a waste of time and money." Charges of reformism and chauvinism were made by left wing members, who began publishing their oppositional criticism in the official organ of the Socialist Labor Party of America . At the March 1902 annual conference of the SDF, held in Blackburn , the battle between
6720-506: The course of Marx's analysis, but the shift in focus from the exploitation of labourers to the accumulation of capital, and the introduction of the possibility that capitalism could survive the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is argued by van Holthoon to be already Marx's, with the latter notion present in the long unpublished Grundrisse . While the task of editing Capital forced Engels to abandon his unfinished Dialectics of Nature , he still completed two other works of his own in
6832-432: The detriment of trade union organisation. Hyndman retained the party publications Justice and To-Day and the 500 or so members of the SDF chose sides as one small organisation became two smaller ones. Friedrich Engels was jubilant about the split, declaring to Eduard Bernstein : "I have the satisfaction of having seen through the whole racket from the outset, correctly sized up all the people concerned, and foretold what
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#17328441822676944-400: The end would be." Unfortunately for Engels' best laid plans, it was the Socialist League that wound up "shipwrecked" by the split, while the SDF emerged from the factional strife with Hyndman and his followers in tighter control than before. The defection of assorted and sundry anti-parliamentary members from the Social Democratic Federation, including a fair number of anarchists , to form
7056-407: The executive to expel, without the right of appeal, anybody endorsing Yates' views. Those members of the left wing located in Scotland , who controlled the SDF apparatus there, could see little sense in remaining in the SDF further and they shortly left en bloc to launch the Socialist Labour Party , inaugurated at a conference held 7 June 1903. Others, tending to be based in London, left to form
7168-518: The famous poet, a young physician by the name of Roland Daniels , Heinrich Bürgers and August Herman Ewerbeck , all maintained their contacts with Marx and Engels in Brussels. Georg Weerth , who had become a friend of Engels in England in 1843, now settled in Brussels. Carl Wallau and Stephen Born (real name Simon Buttermilch ) were both German immigrant typesetters who settled in Brussels to help Marx and Engels with their Communist League work. Marx and Engels made many new important contacts through
7280-409: The first paragraph of his new essay. Meanwhile, Engels started working at the mill owned by his father in Manchester as an office clerk, the same position he held in his teens while in Germany where his father's company was based. Engels worked his way up to become a partner of the firm in 1864. Five years later, Engels retired from the business and could focus more on his studies. At this time, Marx
7392-447: The first time. Initially they were not impressed with each other. Marx mistakenly thought that Engels was still associated with the Young Hegelians of Berlin, with whom Marx had just broken off ties. In Manchester, Engels met Mary Burns , a fierce young Irish woman with radical opinions who worked in the Engels factory. They began a relationship that lasted 20 years until her death in 1863. The two never married, as both were against
7504-436: 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." According to Paul Kellogg , there is "some considerable controversy" regarding "the place of Frederick Engels in
7616-416: The following year. Marx's first London residence was a cramped flat at 28 Dean Street , Soho . From 1856, he lived at 9 Grafton Terrace, Kentish Town , and then in a tenement at 41 Maitland Park Road in Belsize Park from 1875 until his death in March 1883. Mary Burns died suddenly of heart disease in 1863, after which Engels became close with her younger sister Lydia (" Lizzie "). They lived openly as
7728-483: The hospital, 150 of whom needed surgical treatment. Three hundred demonstrators were arrested and 112 police officers injured. This demonstration and its forcible suppression became known as "Bloody Sunday" to a generation. The next week, 20 November 1887 the popular mood of protest continued to expand. Some 40,000 demonstrators turned out at Hyde Park to voice their outrage over the "Bloody Sunday" killings, while an additional large crowd gathered in Trafalgar Square. For
7840-414: The influence of German philosophy on his intellectual development throughout his career. In 1840, he also wrote: "To get the most out of life you must be active, you must live and you must have the courage to taste the thrill of being young." Engels developed atheistic beliefs and his relationship with his parents became strained. In 1842, his parents sent the 22-year-old Engels to Salford , England,
7952-451: The institution of marriage. While Engels regarded stable monogamy as a virtue, he considered the current state and church-regulated marriage as a form of class oppression. Burns guided Engels through Manchester and Salford , showing him the worst districts for his research. Engels was often described as a man with a very strong libido and not much restraint. He had many lovers and despite his condemnation of prostitution as "exploitation of
8064-406: The insurgent left wing and Hyndman's leadership group came to a head. A motion by the left wing to oppose continued unity negotiations with the ILP was roundly defeated, as were other motions to advance an explicitly radical programme, such as one proposal calling for establishment of socialist dual unions and another which would have banned SDF members from joining other political organisations. At
8176-624: The kind of man Stalin would have had shot". Hunt sums up the disconnect between Engels's personality and the Soviet Union which later utilised his works, stating: This great lover of the good life, passionate advocate of individuality, and enthusiastic believer in literature, culture, art and music as an open forum could never have acceded to the Soviet Communism of the 20th century, all the Stalinist claims of his paternity notwithstanding. As to
8288-524: The meetings at which you and your friends spoke, and also the language of (Neue) Rh.Z. were largely the cause of these disturbances." Engels's parents hoped that young Engels would "decide to turn to activities other than those which you have been pursuing in recent years and which have caused so much distress". At this point, his parents felt the only hope for their son was to emigrate to America and start his life over. They told him that he should do this or he would "cease to receive money from us"; however,
8400-897: The mill, Engels found time to write a book on Martin Luther , the Protestant Reformation and the 1525 revolutionary war of the peasants , entitled The Peasant War in Germany . He also wrote a number of newspaper articles including "The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution" which he finished in February 1850 and "On the Slogan of the Abolition of the State and the German 'Friends of Anarchy'" written in October 1850. In April 1851, he wrote
8512-642: The most liberal constitutions in Europe and functioned as refuge for progressives from other countries. From 1845 to 1848, Engels and Marx lived in Brussels , spending much of their time organising the city's German workers. Shortly after their arrival, they contacted and joined the underground German Communist League . The Communist League was the successor organisation to the League of the Just which had been founded in 1837 but had recently disbanded. Influenced by Wilhelm Weitling ,
8624-423: The movement to launch a Labour Party established outside of the existing two parties was begun in earnest. When these ideas were rejected by the SDF at its 1888 Annual Conference in favour of a limitation of party support to candidates endorsing the notion of class war, these advocates of an ameliorative Labour Party set out on their own, abandoning the SDF to its own fate. Many trade unionists who were members of
8736-578: The office in Manchester. In 1849, Engels travelled to Bavaria for the Baden and Palatinate revolutionary uprising , an even more dangerous involvement. Starting with an article called "The Magyar Struggle", written on 8 January 1849, Engels, himself, began a series of reports on the Revolution and War for Independence of the newly founded Hungarian Republic. Engels's articles on the Hungarian Republic became
8848-539: The old style', that is, insurrection: he does not renounce revolution. The reason for Engels' caution is clear: he candidly admits that ultimate victory for any insurrection is rare, simply on military and tactical grounds". In his introduction to the 1895 edition of Marx's The Class Struggles in France , Engels attempted to resolve the division between reformists and revolutionaries in the Marxist movement by declaring that he
8960-487: The pamphlet "Conditions and Prospects of a War of the Holy Alliance against France". Marx and Engels denounced Louis Bonaparte when he carried out a coup against the French government and made himself president for life on 2 December 1851. Engels wrote to Marx on 3 December 1851, characterising the coup as "comical" and referred to it as occurring on "the 18th Brumaire", the date of Napoleon I's coup of 1799 according to
9072-469: The party in 1890. At the turn of the century, the SDF optimistically claimed to have 96 branches with about 9,000 members. Many of these branches failed to pay their subscription to the organization, however, with the dues of a penny per member per month paid to the central office irregularly. One historian has estimated the actual strength of the organization in 1900 at approximately 50 functioning branches with an active membership of around 1,000. Despite
9184-406: The party itself, however, the futility of mass action to achieve positive results seemed clear. A renewed effort for working-class representation in parliament began to show itself. This trend was led by Keir Hardie , a Scot adhering to the intellectual tradition of ethical socialism rather than Marxism. Together with labour leaders Tom Mann , John Burns, and socialist activist Henry Hyde Champion,
9296-449: The policies of the organisation generated proved to be an ongoing inspiration for a river of internal criticism. One major source of contention surrounded the attitude of Hyndman and other party leaders towards the Boer War of 1899–1902. While the party adopted an anti-war stance, the rhetoric of the leadership seemed to these members to be far removed from a principled socialist opposition to
9408-453: The position of the revisionists. Engels's statements in the French newspaper Le Figaro , in which he wrote that "revolution" and the "so-called socialist society" were not fixed concepts, but rather constantly changing social phenomena, and argued that this made "us socialists all evolutionists", increased the public perception that Engels was gravitating towards evolutionary socialism. Engels also argued that it would be "suicidal" to talk about
9520-418: The problem in the relationship between Engels and his parents was worked out without Engels having to leave England or being cut off from financial assistance from his parents. In July 1851, Engels's father arrived to visit him in Manchester, England. During the visit, his father arranged for Engels to meet Peter Ermen of the office of Ermen & Engels , to move to Liverpool and to take over sole management of
9632-477: The proletariat by the bourgeoisie" he also occasionally paid for sex. In 1846 he wrote to Marx: "If I had an income of 5000 francs I would do nothing but work and amuse myself with women until I went to pieces. If there were no Frenchwomen, life wouldn't be worth living. But so long as there are grisettes , well and good!" At a Workers' Union meeting in Brussels, Engels's friend turned rival Moses Hess accused Engels of raping his wife Sibylle. Engels vehemently denied
9744-598: The publication of his book, Engels moved to Brussels in late April 1845, to collaborate with Marx on another book, German Ideology . While living in Barmen, Engels began making contact with Socialists in the Rhineland to raise money for Marx's publication efforts in Brussels; these contacts became more important as both Marx and Engels began political organising for the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany . The nation of Belgium, founded in 1830, had one of
9856-544: The recent military campaign against the Prussians. This writing eventually became the article published as "The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution". To help Marx with Neue Rheinische Zeitung Politisch-ökonomische Revue , the new publishing effort in London, Engels sought ways to escape the continent and travel to London. On 5 October 1849, Engels arrived in the Italian port city of Genoa. There, Engels booked passage on
9968-420: The religious persuasion attributable to Engels, Hunt writes: In that sense the latent rationality of Christianity comes to permeate the everyday experience of the modern world—its values are now variously incarnated in the family, civil society, and the state. What Engels particularly embraced in all of this was an idea of modern pantheism , or, rather, pandeism , a merging of divinity with progressing humanity,
10080-475: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Democratic Federation . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Democratic_Federation&oldid=1215376988 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Social Democratic Federation Hidden categories: Short description
10192-506: The text demonstrate Marx's sympathy for the argument of Nikolay Chernyshevsky , that it should be possible to establish socialism in Russia without an intermediary bourgeois stage provided that the peasant commune were used as the basis for the transition. In 1870, Engels moved to London where he and Marx lived until Marx's death in 1883. Engels's London home from 1870 to 1894 was at 122 Regent's Park Road . In October 1894 he moved to 41 Regent's Park Road, Primrose Hill , NW1, where he died
10304-594: The uprising in Elberfeld on 10 May 1849. Later when Prussian troops came to Kaiserslautern to suppress an uprising there, Engels joined a group of volunteers under the command of August Willich, who were going to fight the Prussian troops. When the uprising was crushed, Engels was one of the last members of Willich's volunteers to escape by crossing the Swiss border. Marx and others became concerned for Engels's life until they heard from him. Engels travelled through Switzerland as
10416-459: The way for new growth. Unhappiness with the Labour Party's performance in parliament, hampered as it was by electoral alliance with the Liberal Party, led to renewed calls for a reorganisation of socialist forces. In 1910, Victor Grayson named Hyndman, Robert Blatchford , and Keir Hardie as the political leaders most capable of forging a new alliance. In 1911 this idea came to realisation when
10528-517: The weakness of its adult organisation, the SDF was instrumental in the development of the movement of Socialist Sunday Schools for children, institutions which taught socialist ideas and ethical principles to youngsters in competition with various denominations' Sunday schools . During this interval the SDF experienced the atrophy of its ultra-parliamentary right wing to the Independent Labour Party (ILP). This party, led by Keir Hardie ,
10640-412: The working class in Manchester. He later collected these articles for his influential first book, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). Written between September 1844 and March 1845, the book was published in German in 1845. In the book, Engels described the "grim future of capitalism and the industrial age", noting the details of the squalor in which the working people lived. The book
10752-537: The world-famous phrase: "Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletariat have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working Men of All Countries, Unite!" Engels's mother wrote in a letter to him of her concerns, commenting that he had "really gone too far" and "begged" him "to proceed no further". She further stated: You have paid more heed to other people, to strangers, and have taken no account of your mother's pleas. God alone knows what I have felt and suffered of late. I
10864-409: The years following Marx's death. In The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), he made an argument using anthropological evidence of the time to show that family structures changed over history, and that the concept of monogamous marriage came from the necessity within class society for men to control women to ensure their own children would inherit their property. He argued
10976-532: Was "take it easy" while "jollity" was listed as his favourite virtue. Of Engels's personality and appearance, Robert Heilbroner described him in The Worldly Philosophers as "tall and rather elegant, he had the figure of a man who liked to fence and to ride to hounds and who had once swum the Weser River four times without a break" as well as having been "gifted with a quick wit and facile mind" and of
11088-590: Was a big tent party of the left, more heavily influenced by Christian Socialism than by the atheistic Marxism of the SDF. The ILP also had the advantage of having Hardie as a member of the House of Commons after winning the West Ham South seat in the 1892 General Election . This enabled the ILP to argue that it was a more effective vehicle for change than the SDF. Prominent figures such as Henry Hyde Champion , Ben Tillett , Jim Connell and George Lansbury , all left
11200-492: Was a polyglot and was able to write and speak in numerous languages, including Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Spanish, Polish, French, English, German and the Milanese dialect . In his biography of Engels, Vladimir 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 civilised world. [...] In their scientific works, Marx and Engels were
11312-499: Was a German philosopher, political theorist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist . He was also a businessman and Karl Marx 's lifelong friend and closest collaborator, serving as a leading authority on Marxism . Engels, the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer, met Marx in 1844. They jointly authored works including The Holy Family (1844), The German Ideology (written 1846), and The Communist Manifesto (1848), and worked as political organisers and activists in
11424-520: Was baptised in the Calvinist Reformed Evangelical Parish of Elberfeld . At the age of 13, Engels attended secondary school ( Gymnasium ) in the adjacent city of Elberfeld but had to leave at 17 due to pressure from his father, who wanted him to become a businessman and work as a mercantile apprentice in the family firm. After a year in Barmen, the young Engels was, in 1838, sent by his father to undertake an apprenticeship at
11536-404: Was in favour of short-term tactics of electoral politics that included gradualist and evolutionary socialist measures while maintaining his belief that revolutionary seizure of power by the proletariat should remain a goal. In spite of this attempt by Engels to merge gradualism and revolution, his effort only diluted the distinction of gradualism and revolution and had the effect of strengthening
11648-471: Was living in London but they were able to exchange ideas through daily correspondence. One of the ideas that Engels and Marx contemplated was the possibility and character of a potential revolution in Russia. As early as April 1853, Engels and Marx anticipated an "aristocratic-bourgeois revolution in Russia which would begin in "St. Petersburg with a resulting civil war in the interior". The model for this type of aristocratic-bourgeois revolution in Russia against
11760-432: Was moving towards accepting parliamentary reformist and gradualist stances, but he ignored that Engels's stances were tactical as a response to the particular circumstances and that Engels was still committed to revolutionary socialism . Engels was deeply distressed when he discovered that his introduction to a new edition of The Class Struggles in France had been edited by Bernstein and orthodox Marxist Karl Kautsky in
11872-414: Was now under police surveillance. He had "official" homes and "unofficial homes" all over Salford, Weaste and other inner-city Manchester districts where he lived with Mary Burns under false names to confuse the police. Little more is known, as Engels destroyed over 1,500 letters between himself and Marx after the latter's death so as to conceal the details of their secretive lifestyle. Despite his work at
11984-563: Was published in English in 1887. Archival resources contemporary to Engels's stay in Manchester shed light on some of the conditions he describes, including a manuscript (MMM/10/1) held by special collections at the University of Manchester. This recounts cases seen in the Manchester Royal Infirmary, where industrial accidents dominated, and which resonate with Engels's comments on the disfigured persons seen walking round Manchester as
12096-510: Was sceptical of "top-down revolutions" and later in life advocated "a peaceful, democratic road to socialism ". Engels also wrote in his introduction to the 1891 edition of Marx's The Class Struggles in France that "rebellion in the old style, street fighting with barricades, which decided the issue everywhere up to 1848, was to a considerable extent obsolete", although some such as David W. Lowell empashised their cautionary and tactical meaning, arguing that "Engels questions only rebellion 'in
12208-545: Was shared by Friedrich Engels , who succeeded his close friend as his literary executor at Marx's death on 14 March 1883. In 1884 the Democratic Federation was transformed into the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) when the group adopted an explicitly socialist platform . The Federation was strongly opposed to the Liberal Party which then claimed to represent the labour movement in parliament. The programme of
12320-412: Was to be expelled from the party for purportedly obstructing left unity, failing to sell Justice, and writing an editorial for The Socialist in which he declared that there was a "distinct tendency" of the SDF to alter their former revolutionary attitude in favour of "opportunist tactics of the worst kind." Delegates agreed to Yates' expulsion by a vote of 56 to 6, with the resolution further empowering
12432-536: Was trembling when I picked up the newspaper and saw therein that a warrant was out for my son's arrest. There was a revolution in France in 1848 that soon spread to other Western European countries . These events caused Engels and Marx to return to Cologne in their homeland of Prussia. While living there, they created and served as editors for a new daily newspaper called the Neue Rheinische Zeitung . Besides Marx and Engels, other frequent contributors to
12544-470: Was writing for the Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher , edited by both Marx and Arnold Ruge , in Paris in 1844. During this time in Paris, both Marx and Engels began their association with and then joined the secret revolutionary society called the League of the Just . The League of the Just had been formed in 1837 in France to promote an egalitarian society through the overthrow of the existing governments. In 1839,
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