Scientific Socialism: Engels Interprets the Oracle

The Hall of Science in Manchester:
- Imposing structure where Robert Owen's New Moral World adherents gathered.
- Friedrich Engels attended these gatherings in 1843.
Engels's observations:
- Meetings resembled church gatherings with social hymns.
- Lectures were humorous attacks on conventional religion, especially Christianity.
- Atheist pamphleteer John Watts's lectures appealed to Engels due to their basis in verifiable facts.
Engels's rebellion against his religious upbringing:
- Grew up in a Pietist center; family owned a textile business.
- Rebelled against devout faith and embraced communism.
- Father sent him to Manchester to tame his radicalism.
- Criticized industrial worker exploitation and Pietist hypocrisy in "Letters from Wuppertal".
Exposure to radical ideas in Berlin:
- Military service allowed him to explore cultural and political interests.
- Gravitated towards the "Young Hegelians" and their critique of religion.
- Influenced by David Friedrich Strauss's $The Life of Jesus$ and Ludwig Feuerbach's $The Essence of Christianity$ .
- Contributed to the Rheinische Zeitung and met Moses Hess, a communist.
Meeting Marx and shifting to communism:
- Met Marx in Cologne but the first encounter was not remarkable.
- Observed England and its socialist movements.
- Contributed to Owen's New Moral World, describing successful communist colonies.
Engels's critique of market economics:
- Sketched rudiments of what would be known as “Marxism” in "Outlines of a Critique on Political Economy".
- Ideas included private property as theft, capital's destruction of human bonds, and man's self-alienation.
- Argued competition leads to wealth concentration and impoverishment.
- Contradiction between production and purchasing power leads to overproduction and revolution.
Marx's background and views on Judaism:
- Descendant of distinguished rabbis.
- Father converted to Lutheranism to avoid career sacrifice.
- Marx viewed Jews as victims but blamed them for their own situation.
- Argued Jews' worldly cult was huckstering and their god was money.
- Called for society's emancipation from Judaism.
Collaboration with Marx:
- Second meeting in Paris was seminal; they decided to propagate their ideas together.
- Developed a polemic against Young Hegelians, $The Holy Family$ .
- Jointly worked on $The German Ideology$ , criticizing various philosophers.
Engels's "The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844":
- Detailed squalor, dirt, and disease in city slums.
- Combined theoretical indictment of capitalism with observations of working-class life.
- Book drew significant attention and was widely reviewed in Germany.
Engels's contributions to Marxism:
- Originated many key ideas later attributed to “Marxism”.
- Provided “raw components of a new theoretical structure”.
- Marx's dominance due to his perceived genius and Engels's own promotion of Marx's name.
Marx's personality and family relations:
- Hard, forbidding, and self-important, lacking self-doubt.
- Father expressed concern over whether his heart matched his talents.
- Did not support his mother and sisters financially and was resentful when his mother cut him off.
The Communist League:
- Marx and Engels joined the League of the Just, renamed the Communist League.
- Shifted the group's motto from “All men are brothers” to “Workers of the world, unite”.
- Engels prepared a draft "confession," which evolved into the $Communist Manifesto$ .
- Revised the socialist cause with the thrill of violence and the theory of “class struggle.”
Marx and Engels's view on class and violence:
- They were not from the working class but identified as leaders of the proletariat.
- They defined “proletarian” and “bourgeois” based on ideas, not class status.
- Advocated violence as a means to heighten proletarian sensitivities.
- Welcomed strife between states and destructive effects of war.
Engels's financial support for Marx:
- Engels took a job at the family firm to support Marx financially.
- Maintained two homes, one for business and one for his relationship with Mary Burns.
- Engels sent Marx earnings, allowing Marx to write.
- Marx wrote articles for the New York Tribune, which Engels ghostwrote.
Das Kapital
- Volume 1 was completed in 1867. Remainder of the volumes never came to fruition.
- The book was combination of economics, history, and a tract for the times.
- Critic Edmund Wilson notes that the book had a combination of diverse view points and a mix of German Metaphysics and Mysticism
- Volume 1 was not initially well received.
- Engels took on the task of having the book receive more attention by writing as many as ten different reviews for different outlets.
Marx's dependence on Engels:
- Marx was always in debt of some sort and was dependent on Engels for financial support.
The First International and conflict with Bakunin:
- The First International was not founded by Marx and Engels, but they were there to participate. The goal was to invite groups from all over Europe to engage different progressive causes, of which Marx got on a committee to draft a contitution. Marx managed to take charge here.
Engels's retirement and writings:
- After retiring, he advanced