Engels, Friedrich

(1820–1895)

   Engels was Karl Marx’s closest friend and political collaborator. He co-authored a number of works including The Holy Family, German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto, and worked with him as a political organizer and activist in the Communist League and First International. Engels also assisted Marx financially for much of his life, allowing Marx to continue his writing. After Marx’s death Engels edited volumes two and three of Capital, helped to establish the Second International, and acted as the leading authority on Marx’s ideas. He also wrote numerous works of his own, most notably The Condition of the Working Class (1845), Anti-Dühring (1878), Dialectics of Nature (1878–1882), and Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1886). His wide-ranging interests took in philosophy (as evidenced in Anti-Dühring, Dialectics of Nature and Ludwig Feuerbach), science (see Anti-Dühring), anthropology (see Origins of the Family), history and military affairs. Engels’ distinctive contributions lie particularly in the area of philosophy where he wrote extensively on materialism, idealism, and dialectics, supplying Marxism with an ontological and metaphysical foundation. There has been some controversy over the extent to which the views of Marx and Engels were in accord, with some commentators suggesting that Engels oversimplified and distorted Marx’s views, giving an un-Marxian, positivist character to Marxism particularly as espoused by the Second International.