Engels, Friedrich

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) is perhaps best known for his collaboration with Karl Marx on The Communist Manifesto. Their collaboration also involved the publication of The German Ideology in 1846 and other less well-known works such as The Holy Family in 1845 and Wage Labour and Capital in 1849. The relationship between the two men was a complex one. It appears from their correspondence that they worked independently, primarily sharing political views. Many commentators, such as Leszek Kolakowski, suggest that Engels was more adept at relating theory to practice than was Marx. Others suggest that it is fiction that Marx and Engels worked in a perfect intellectual relationship and even suggest that Engels’s work was more influential than was traditionally thought in shaping Marxism.

Engels was born ...