1820-1895. German social and political
philosopher, a friend of, and collaborator
with, Karl Marx on The Communist Manifesto
1848 and other key works. His later
interpretations of Marxism, and his own
philosophical and historical studies such as
Origins of the Family, Private Property, and
the State 1884 (which linked patriarchy with
the development of private property),
developed such concepts as historical
materialism. His use of positivism and
Darwinian ideas gave Marxism a scientific and
deterministic flavour which was to influence
Soviet thinking. In 1842 Engels's father sent
him to work in the cotton factory owned by
his family in Manchester, England, where he
became involved with Chartism. In 1844 his
lifelong friendship with Karl Marx began, and
together they worked out the materialist
interpretation of history and in 1847-48
wrote the Communist Manifesto. Returning to
Germany during the 1848-49 revolution, Engels
worked with Marx on the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung newspaper and fought on the
barricades in Baden. After the defeat of the
revolution he returned to Manchester, and for
the rest of his life largely supported the
Marx family. Engels's first book was The
Condition of the Working Classes in England
1845. The lessons of 1848 he summed up in The
Peasants' War in Germany 1850 and Revolution
and Counter-Revolution in Germany 1851. After
Marx's death Engels was largely responsible
for the wider dissemination of his ideas; he
edited the second and third volumes of Marx's
Capital 1885 and 1894. Although Engels
himself regarded his ideas as identical with
those of Marx, discrepancies between their
works are the basis of many Marxist debates.