Hace falta una revolución que transforme por completo el modo de producción existente hasta hoy día y, con él, el orden social vigente.”
“la teoría de los comunistas se puede resumir en una sola frase: Abolición de la propiedad privada”
Engels
Engels nació el 28 de noviembre de 1820 en Barmen, Alemania en una época atravesada por grandes transformaciones en donde la burguesía asciende al poder económico y político de Europa, pero también en la que el proletariado moderno empieza a configurar su organización y tareas revolucionarias.
Federico Engels, además de amigo de Marx, como lo dijera Lenin, “fue el más destacado sabio y maestro del proletariado contemporáneo de todo el mundo civilizado”; a tal punto que conjuntamente desarrollan obras de gran calado teórico y científico como “La Sagrada Familia”, “La Ideología Alemana”, y obviamente el “Manifiesto del Partido Comunista”, el texto con el que contribuyeron programáticamente a la formación de la Primera Internacional.
Engels, uno de los fundadores del marxismo, pensador y revolucionario, sin lugar a dudas ocupa un lugar histórico en la forja, luchas y propósitos del proletariado internacional.
Engels realizó un inconmensurable aporte a la elaboración de los problemas de la filosofía dialéctica materialista; a la economía política, a la teoría militar del proletariado y al comunismo científico.
A lo largo de más de 40 años, Engels, en concordancia al trabajo que venía desarrollando Marx, elaboró la teoría científica del socialismo; organizó y formó los destacamentos de vanguardia de la clase obrera.
Engels alternaba sus estudios científicos con las actividades revolucionarias prácticas. Junto a Marx dirigió la Liga de los Comunistas y la Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores, tomó parte en la revolución de los años 1848-1849 en Alemania, durante decenios fue consejero y dirigente del movimiento socialista internacional.
Engels –subrayó Lenin- fue el primero en afirmar que el proletariado no solo es una clase que sufre; que precisamente la ignominiosa situación económica en que se encuentra, lo impulsa con fuerza incontenible hacia adelante y le obliga a luchar por su emancipación definitiva”. Dedicó toda su vida a la lucha a la lucha por los magnos ideales del proletariado. “Quiero morir cuando ya nos sea capaz de luchar” señaló cuando cumplió setenta años, dando cuenta de que su vida era precisamente la revolución proletaria.
Engels gozaba de innegable prestigio, cariño y respeto entre los revolucionarios del mundo entero. Fue muy grande su influencia sobre los compañeros de lucha. A pesar de su autoridad política, era muy modesto, siempre presto a reconocer los méritos de sus camaradas y rehuía a cualquier manifestación de veneración.
Wilhelm Liebknecht, destacado líder del movimiento obrero internacional, dijo ante la tumba de Engels: “Engels nos señalaba el camino a seguir… Era guía y combatiente, la teoría y la práctica se fundieron en él formando un todo único…”
La clase obrera y todos los trabajadores explotados del mundo apreciamos muy en alto la herencia teórica-práctica de Engels; la historia de su vida y actividad, como preciosa fuente de experiencias y conocimientos, como ejemplo de proeza de un sabio proletario y revolucionario en aras del futuro luminoso de toda la humanidad. “El nombre y la vida de Engels –escribió Lenin- deben ser conocidos por todo obrero”
Hoy, a 200 años de su nacimiento, el proletariado y pueblo del Ecuador rinden un rojo homenaje a uno de los más insignes marxistas que ha generado la historia de la lucha de clases.
Lenin sostenía que “es imposible comprender el marxismo sin tener en cuenta todas las obras de Engels”. Hoy no es diferente, imposible entender el pensamiento Gonzalo, el maoísmo, el leninismo y de hecho, el marxismo, sin comprender la vida revolucionaria y obra científica de Engels como base de la ciencia del proletariado internacional.
¡HONOR Y GLORIA ETERNA PARA ENGELS!
¡VIVA EL 200 ANIVERSARIO DEL NATALICIO DE ENGELS!
¡VIVA EL MARXISMO-LENINISMO-MAOÍSMO PENSAMIENTO GONZALO!
¡VIVA LA GUERRA POPULAR EN EL PERÚ, INDIA, TURQUÍA Y FILIPINAS!
Con motivo del 200 aniversario del nacimiento de Friedrich Engels, los revolucionarios proletarios colgaron 200 banderas con la hoz y el martillo en todo el paisaje urbano de Wuppertal el sábado por la noche. Por la tarde, los revolucionarios participaron en una manifestación con motivo del 200 aniversario. Cuando la policía atacó el mitin de apertura de la manifestación para realizar una identificación personal, esto fue impedido por una acción resuelta y los atacados fueron liberados.
Para celebrar el 200 aniversario del nacimiento de Engels, la noche del 27 al 28 de noviembre se llevó a cabo una campaña de izamiento de 200 banderas. Especialmente en Wuppertal-Barmen, donde nació Engels y donde se iba a realizar la manifestación con motivo de su bicentenario, pero también en la antigua casa de Engels, en varios puntos emblemáticos de la ciudad y en distritos proletarios, se encontraron banderas con la hoz y el martillo en la mañana del sábado.
El mitin de apertura de la manifestación en su memoria comenzó a las 3:00 p.m., que había convocado una amplia alianza. Desde el principio, los policías presentes acosaron a los participantes de la manifestación con el pretexto de que los mástiles de las banderas eran demasiado gruesos o demasiado largos o que la distancia de la corona no se mantendría. A medida que más y más gente llegaba al lugar del acto previo al acto, la policía impidió que la manifestación se extendiera a la calle e imposibilitó que se mantuvieran distancias de corona de 1,5 m, pero al mismo tiempo no dejaron que comenzara la demostración, precisamente porque el Las distancias no se mantendrían. Mientras las manifestaciones de "pensadores laterales" recorren el país sin distancias mínimas, máscaras y cumplimiento de conceptos de seguridad sin ser atacados por la policía,
Calentada por el acoso y las tácticas dilatorias de los policías que no querían que comenzara la manifestación, la policía se sangró de la nariz el día en que, sin motivo alguno, dos participantes de la manifestación intentaron salir del mitin para identificarse personalmente. Mientras media docena de funcionarios, que evidentemente no esperaban una respuesta contundente, yacían en el suelo y gran parte del mitin se cerraba a su alrededor gritando "Animo la solidaridad internacional", los atacados pudieron ser liberados. Un intento posterior de llevar a cabo una identificación personal durante el último mitin se impidió cuando la policía se enfrentó a un grupo de decididos revolucionarios y decidió no realizar el control de identidad.
Communist Party of the Philippines, November 28: The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) joins the international proletariat in marking today the 200th birth anniversary of the great proletarian teacher and fighter Friedrich Engels. As lifelong friend and comrade-in-arms of Karl Marx, Engels made indubitable and indelible contributions to the development of Marxism as the ideology of the working class. We treasure the wealth of theory and practice that Engels bequeathed to the proletariat.
Marking Engels’ birth anniversary at this time cannot be more significant and relevant as the global capitalist system faces an unprecedented crisis. This is giving rise to intolerable conditions and untold sufferings on workers and toiling masses. Around the world, the exploited and oppressed classes are rising up in numbers against low wages, joblessness, social spending cuts, rising foreign debt and other measures under the neoliberal policy regime.
Let us use this occasion to promote the work that Engels did for the working class. Workers and class adherents of the proletariat must study the works of Engels alongside those of Marx to arm themselves ideologically in order to gain a profound understanding of the roots of the current crisis and the class solution for ending the insufferable conditions of the proletariat and toiling masses.
Together with Marx, Engels devoted a lifetime developing Marxism. As intellectual brothers, Engels and Marx wrote volumes of history-making books, essays and correspondence. The collection of their work, filling at least 50 thick volumes, have served as a veritable encyclopedia for the working class in their struggle across different continents to shape history and transform society. Their work has helped guide all the epochal struggles of the working class since the late 19th century.
The proletariat owes Engels and Marx the standpoint and system of thought which point them to the path towards their emancipation. For the first time in history, it was shown that liberation from all forms of oppression comes not as a result of the idealism of good-hearted people, but rather as a conscious historical act of class struggle by the proletariat. Tracing mankind’s history, they revealed how capitalism gave birth to the class who will not only dig the grave of the bourgeoisie, but will establish a society that will end the history of classes and class exploitation.
Engels was born in 1820 in Barmen, Rhine Province in the kingdom of Prussia (Wuppertal, Germany). His father was a manufacturer who compelled him to quit secondary school in order to work in the family corporation. This, however, did not prevent him to pursue philosophical, scientific and political studies, as well as participate in revolutionary struggles.
Engels and Marx were brought together by their common adherence to the then dominant philosophical teachings of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a professor at Berlin University. Hegel asserted the then revolutionary idea that everything in the universe is in a constant process of change and development. He gained radical adherents who were seeking a change in the situation under the autocracy. Hegel, however, was an idealist, who spoke of the development of the mind and ideas from which one deduces changes in nature and human society. Marx and Engels were materialists who understood that human society, as nature, is conditioned by the development of material forces.
Engels and Marx collaborated in the writing of philosophical and political treatises. They jointly wrote The German Ideology which developed the kernel of the historical materialist philosophy and their commitment to the working class. They also published The Holy Family, or Critique of the Critical Critique. This laid the ground for materialist socialism as distinct from the idealist or utopian socialism propounded by some philosophers or well-intentioned quarters seeking a change to the prevailing social conditions. Marx and Engels saw the proletariat as the material force that will bring about a new social order through struggle.
Moving to Manchester, England to work in a commercial firm, Engels deepened his understanding of the working class. Besides working with the English labor movement, he devoted time to studying the concrete conditions of workers in the industrial cities. He produced the volume Conditions of the Working Class in England where he described in detail the gross state of living of workers, their sleeping quarters, dwellings and crowded slums, their clothing, diet and their state of health. More importantly, Engels elucidated how the miserable conditions of the proletariat are pushing them forward to resist with the aim of ending their situation and how their emancipation rests on their participation in the political struggle for socialism.
Engels deepened his involvement in the German workers movement upon his return to Germany in 1845. It was during this time that he and Marx strengthened their ideological and political collaboration. In 1848, they were commissioned by the German Communist League to elucidate on the main principles of socialism and communism. That year, they wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party the publication of which shook the ramparts of the capitalist system. Since then, the Communist Manifesto would serve as the general declaration of principles of all communist parties. The exhortation “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.” has inspired generations of revolutionaries.
Their writings and participation in revolutionary struggles made Engels a target of state suppression forcing him to flee Germany and escape eventually to England, where he made his way back to Manchester. Marx, stripped of his Prussian citizenship, was forced to go on exile. He eventually resided in London with his family. In England, Engels and Marx continued their theoretical and practical work. While Marx devoted himself to the study of political economy and producing the world-shattering work Das Kapital, Engels continued to elaborate Marxist philosophy and its application in the study of natural sciences, anthropology, history, political economy and socialism.
In addition to the above, among the important works produced by Engels are Dialectics of Nature, Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science or Anti-Dühring), Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, and The Peasant War in Germany. He also wrote Synopsis of Capital and scores of others essays and small books in an effort to popularize Marxism to the working class. Lenin pointed out that Engels is, like Marx, “one of those rarest of authors whose every sentence in every one of their fundamental works contains a remarkably profound content.”
Engels also assisted Marx in getting the manuscripts prepared for publication of the first volume of Das Kapital before Marx died in 1883. He undertook the difficult task of organizing and publishing Das Kapital’s Volume II in 1885 and Volume III in 1894.
Engels played an active part in the International Workingmen’s Association which Marx founded in 1864 and led for ten years in an effort to plant the seeds of proletarian revolution in several countries. In his old age, Engels continued to serve as counsel of proletarian revolutionaries in their work.
The body of work of Engels and Marx comprising Marxism is a treasure of the international proletariat. More than a century hence, their writings remain valid and crucial element in the struggle of the working class to end capitalist exploitation and build the communist future.
Over the following decades, Marxism developed into a powerful material force in the form of victorious democratic and socialist revolutions led by the proletariat in Russia, China and scores of other countries. For some period of time, a fourth of humanity were free from the oppressive claws of imperialism.
Under proletarian dictatorship and inspired by the communist spirit, hundreds of millions of peoples moved mountains and transformed the face of the earth. They put an end to capitalist wage slavery. The proletariat took control of the forces of production and carried out the revolutionary transformation of the superstructure. There was full employment where workers owned and controlled production and enjoyed the fruits of their labor. Production developed with unprecedented speed. They ended misery and poverty. Schools and public health were provided by the state for everyone. Women were emancipated.For over seven decades, socialist revolution and construction advanced across the entire globe, bringing society from one level to a higher level of progress and emancipating humanity from want.
Marxism developed into Marxism-Leninism-Maoism integrating historical developments in theory and practice, including analysis of monopoly capitalism or imperialism, waging proletarian revolution in backward capitalist countries, waging people’s democratic revolutions in semicolonial and semifeudal countries, carrying out socialist revolution and construction, and waging continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship to fight modern revisionism, prevent the restoration of capitalism and bring socialism to higher levels.
Modern revisionism, however, gained the upper hand and eventually caused the defeat and retreat of socialist forces in the Soviet Union (since 1956) and China (since 1978). A new bourgeoisie emerged from within the bureaucracy and the Party. They seized political power from the proletariat and cast away the policies for socialist construction. To pave the way for the restoration of capitalism, they promoted modern revisionism by prematurely declaring the end of class struggle and asserting that building socialism entails primarily technical innovation or the development of productive forces. It brought down the militant guard of the proletariat and paved the way for the dismantling of the socialist superstructure. Power was taken from workers and petty ownership and production was restored leading to accumulation of privilege and wealth among managers and bureaucrats and accumulation of land by rich peasants and landlords.
Decades after the restoration of capitalism and dominance of neoliberal policies, the proletariat and toiling masses of China and the former Soviet Union now suffer from widespread economic dispossession, joblessness, high levels of exploitation, low wages, corruption of state bureaucrats, lack of access to health and education, homelessness, poverty and overall misery. Proletarian revolutionaries are suppressed. Fascism and ultra-right politics pervade to divide-and-rule the oppressed people and prevent them from forging class unity.
The grievous socio-economic conditions and political repression being suffered by the toiling people after the restoration of capitalism in the former socialist countries, as well as in the rest of the global capitalist system, are in direct contrast to the progress and freedom which the workers and broad masses enjoyed under the proletarian dictatorship. It validates the correctness and necessity of carrying out socialist revolution and construction.
Across the world, workers and toiling people are rising up in rebellion against increasingly ruthless forms of oppression and exploitation and against state repression. Suffering from the evils of restored capitalism, millions of workers and toiling people in Russia and China aspire to return to the path of socialist revolution and construction. In the centers of world capitalism, people are seeking more radical alternatives after decades upon decades of political rotation of bourgeois parties. In semicolonial and semifeudal countries, workers, peasants and toiling masses are waging all forms of resistance including armed resistance through people’s war.
In the face of widespread social restiveness and political unrest, there is great urgency for the proletarian revolutionaries to take up the cudgels of leadership to rouse the broad masses of toiling people and mobilize them under the red banner of revolution. To do so, it is of crucial importance for proletarian cadres in all countries to firmly grasp Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as guide in forging their own specific programs of action and in planning practical revolutionary activities.
As we mark Engels’ 200th birth anniversary, proletarian revolutionaries draw inspiration from his hard work and dedication to the working class and oppressed peoples. They are ever determined to study Engels’ works alongside those of Marx, Lenin, Mao and other great communist teachers in order to more firmly grasp the ideology of the proletariat, deepen their commitment to the workers and oppressed and exploited classes, more determinedly lead the struggles against imperialism and all forms of reaction and march along the road of democracy and socialist revolution.
Treasure the proletarian theory and revolutionary politics of Friedrich Engels!
Uphold Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Long live the proletariat and the proletarian revolution!
Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!
March forward along the path of new democratic and socialist revolutions!
Internacional. Partidos y organizaciones comunistas de diversas partes del mundo han emitido una importante declaración con motivo del Bicentenario del natalicio de Federico Engels, maestro y jefe indiscutibledel proletariadointernacional. En este documento, los comunistas destacan las imprescriptibles aportaciones de este titán del pensamiento enfatizando… “el gran Engels, quien desarrolló el marxismo, vive en las guerras populares en Perú, India, Turquía y Filipinas, que son bases estratégicas de la revolución proletaria mundial”. El texto pues consultarlo en alemán en el portal de los camaradas Dem Volke Dienen. Muy pronto estará traducido a otros idiomas.
Francia. Fuertes protestas y disturbios se registraron en diversas ciudades como rechazo a la ley de “seguridad global”, la cual, entre otras cosas, prohíbe que la gente pueda filmar la actuación de las fuerzas policíacas que suelen agredir con saña implacable al pueblo en lucha. Consignas como “baja tu arma y bajo mi cámara” fueron coreadas por cientos de miles de manifestantes en todo el país. Como era de esperarse, la policía antimotines se abalanzó contra la multitud, disparando gases lacrimógenos, balas de goma y golpes; en correspondencia el pueblo supo responder con energía montando barricadas y devolviendo golpe por golpe. En la Plaza de la Bastilla se registró el incendio de la fachada del Banco de Francia y una sucursal del BNP Paribas. Los heridos se cuentan por cientos; 46 manifestantes fueron detenidos y al menos 27 policías fueron retenidos por los activistas planteando el intercambio: manifestantes por policías.
Italia. El pasado miércoles 25 de noviembre la policía fascista llevó a cabo un violento desalojo contra el “Nouvo Cinema Palazzo”, un centro social en manos de activistas que desde hace diez años instalaron ahí una ocupación. Originalmente la gran burguesía y la mafia pretendían instalar en ese lugar un casino, pero la población de San Lorenzo y organizaciones antifascistas resolvieron impulsar un centro social para trabajo comunitario. Luego del desalojo y las escaramuzas, las masas lograron nuevamente recuperar el inmueble. Se reportan tres detenidos.
Chile. Nuevas protestas contra el fascista Piñera y nuevos enfrentamientos se registraron el pasado viernes 27 de noviembre en Santiago de Chile. Cañones de agua y gases lacrimógenos fueron utilizados por los carabineros para tratar de disolver la manifestación que contó al menos con 10 mil personas. Se habla de 25 activistas detenidos.
México. Coincidiendo con la fecha del Bicentenario de Federico Engels y el 109 aniversario de la firma del Plan de Ayala, decenas de organizaciones democráticas y revolucionarias se movilizaron en diversas partes del territorio nacional, enarbolando también la solidaridad hacia los camaradas del Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra y el Agua de Tlaxcala, Puebla y Morelos luego de desalojo del plantón de Apatlaco realizado por la Guardia Nacional (cuarto cuerpo de ejército reaccionario en la guerra contra el pueblo). Dentro de estas acciones, la Corriente del Pueblo Sol Rojo bloqueó las vías del ferrocarril en el Puerto de Salina Cruz en rechazo a la imposición del Corredor Interoceánico del Istmo (CIIT) realizando un nuevo llamado a la unidad en la acción y pronunciándose contra el hostigamiento y represión que lleva a cabo el viejo estado.
Oaxaca, México. La Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo y la Corriente del Pueblo Sol Rojo han dado a conocer una serie de actos de hostigamiento, acoso y vigilancia en su contra por parte de sujetos vestidos de civil y con porte policíaco en las oficinas de ambas organizaciones democráticas. Los hechos ocurren precisamente después de las declaraciones temerarias de AMLO en contra de ambas organizaciones, a quienes la 4T considera dentro de la “agenda de riesgos” para la seguridad nacional por su oposición digna a los megaproyectos imperialistas como el CIIT. En un breve comunicado, decenas de organizaciones locales, estatales y nacionales se pronunciaron en apoyo a ambas organizaciones, exigiendo alto a la campaña de acoso y hostigamiento en su contra.
Let’s celebrate the 200th anniversary of Frederick Engels, Master of the World Proletariat
The November 28 of this year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Engels, one of the great masters of the world proletariat and co-founder, together with Marx, of the science of proletarian revolution, today known as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Inspired by the brilliant founders of scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, revolutionary proletarians of all countries have thrown themselves into the struggle and in its course have enriched the science of revolution by developing it: the important milestones of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, which opened the Era of the World Proletarian Revolution and the triumph of the Revolution in China which continuied in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, endowed the proletariat with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, a unique and harmonious theory that will allow not only to conquer power through the revolutionary violence of the masses, today structured as People’s War, but also continue revolution during under the proletarian dictatorship and Socialism to prevent the restoration of capitalism.
Today, armed with this arsenal, the revolutionary proletarians of all countries are advancing in the construction of their Parties and striving in the struggle for unity in a new Communist International, crucial strategic instruments for the triumph of the World Proletarian Revolution, leading the struggles of the proletariat and the peoples of the world to defeat imperialism and reaction, sweeping from the face of the earth all forms of oppression and exploitation, advancing towards communism.
That is why the revolutionary proletarians celebrate with joy the bicentennial of the birth of Frederick Engels, and take up his memory and work, to propagate them among the masses of workers and peasants throughout the world.
Frederick Engels was born by a bourgeois family; but he dedicated his life to the struggle for the emancipation of the working class. Along with his comrade and friend, Karl Marx, they endowed humanity, especially the workers, withdialectical materialism, the world outlook and method of thought which allowed them and the proletariat to get a scientific understanding of the development of history. historical materialism, and of the capitalist mode of production, Marxistpolitical economics. A harmonious and correct doctrine which gave birth to scientific socialism, against the utopic dreams of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois «socialists», who criticized and still criticize «savage capitalism» but only seek to reform, not to destroy it. On the contrary, Engels contributed to clarify the laws that rule the march of society towards socialism and communism, the laws that condemn capitalism to death and be defeated by the Proletarian Revolution, emphasizing that this is the historical mission of the international proletariat.
As theorist, Engels was the first to state that the proletariat is not only a class that suffers but, because of its condition in social production, is the most important class under capitalism, a fact that drives it uncontrollably forward and forces it to fight for the ultimate emancipation, abolishing private property on the means of production, for which he needs a political action that aims to establish socialism. Such ideas were put forward for the first time in 1845 in The Situation of the Working Class in England, a work that brilliantly describes not only the sufferings of the proletariat, but its social importance and historical mission.
Engels was also the first to publish in the Anales Franco-Alemanes, a critical study on political economics, where he analyzed the basic features of the capitalist economic regime, as an inevitable consequence of the domination of private ownership. He was who encouraged his friend and comrade Karl Marx to study this problem in depth, from which emerged the masterpiece The Capital, the completion of which was also carried out by Engels after Marx’s death.
Together, they wrote in 1844 The Sacred Family, or critique of critical criticism, A polemic work, mostly written by Marx, but result of a common understanding of social contradictions and the criticism to the Bauer brothers, «critical» contemplative philosophers who denied any practical activity to transform the world and described the proletariat as a mass lacking critical spirit without historical significance.
From this same period is The German Ideology, a joint work by Marx and Engels published in 1932, many years after their deaths. Although the purpose of this work was to settle accounts with their philosophical past, The German ideologyacquired and continues having a great importance for the revolutionary proletariat, since with this passionate and vigorous polemic they unveil the miseries of the reactionary philosophers and socialists of Germany, defining the basic features of scientific communism. From that work it can be seen that Marx and Engels see in the class struggle of the proletarians and the revolution led them, the emerging of the communist regime: this revolution “is necessary not only because it is impossible to overthrow the ruling class in any other way, but because only through revolution the overthrowing class can rid itself of all rottenness and be able to create a new society”.
The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, was not only another common work, but is based on Engels’s essay, Principles of Communism. The Manifesto is a brilliant exposition of the understanding and method of the revolutionary proletariat; but also a masterful explanation of historical materialism where the laws that lead the proletariat to establish communism in all the earth are made clear, the program of the revolutionary proletariat that distinguishes it from all socialist sects and tendencies; a work whose validity remains intact, encouraging the struggle of the proletarians and peoples of the world against imperialism and all forms of reaction. The phrase with which that first workers’ program concludes continues resounding throughout the world; the final call is today the battle cry of the revolutionary proletarians who are preparing to take storm the heavens again: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working Men of All Countries, Unite!”
In 1878 the well-known Anti-Dühring or The Revolution of Science by Mr. Eugen Dühring was published, a polemic work against a professor critical of Marxism, which became one of the best explanation of dialectical and historical materialism and the doctrine of socialism in all its aspects; a work to which his friend Marx also contributed in the part concerning political economics. One of the sections of the Anti-Dühring was published in 1880 as a pamphlet entitled From Utopian Socialism to Scientific Socialism, a popular work that brilliantly explains the progressive social development leading to of socialism, against the beliefs of the utopians.
Engels’s works regarding his research on the Dialectic of Nature was published for the first time in 1925, an unfinished study dating back to the years 1875-1883, where master of the working class highlights how the laws of materialism dialectical are also fulfilled in the phenomena of nature; In this work there are sharp ideas that anticipated later conclusions of the natural sciences. The General Introduction to the Dialectic of Nature and The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, is a masterpiece of the revolutionary literature where the relationship between the development of humanity and the natural sciences is explained reaching the modern bourgeois society, deriving revolutionary conclusions that today are more valid than ever, when humanity is hit by the economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, product of the voracity and anarchy of imperialist capitalism: “Only conscious organisation of socialproduction, in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can lift mankind abovethe rest of the animal world as regards the social aspect, in the same way that production in general hasdone this for men in their aspect as species. Historical evolution makes such an organisation daily moreindispensable, but also with every day more possible”.
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, published in 1884, is another work on historical materialism systematically explaining the evolution of those institutions that will be replaced by communism, a new and higher form of social organization, when after the abolishing of private property and classes, as a consequence, the State and the family as it has been known until now disappear. There is the scientific explanation of the discrimination and oppression of women that constitutes the strongest foundation for the proletarian women’s movement: “The overthrow of mother-right was the world historical defeat of the female sex. The man tookcommand in the home also; the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude, she became theslave of his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children[…] The emancipation of woman will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims anything but an insignificant amount of her time.”.
In the essay Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1886), Engels makes a critical exposition of German philosophy from the dialectical materialist point of view, demonstrating the spiritual decline of the bourgeoisie, exalting the theoretical and scientific sense of the proletariat.
Gigantic was also his work in the study of military affairs, that constitutes an important part of his written works. Very few works can be compared with Engels’ papers on the great military events of the 19th century such as Garibaldi’s war in Sicily, the Crimean War, the civil war in the United States, the great insurrections of 1848 or the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. And not only because of the rigor with which he dealt the facts, but also because of the brilliant forecasts of a great thinker in the art of war. A powerful arsenal of great value today, when the revolutionary proletariat prepares to develop the People’s War necessary to bring down its enemies in all countries.
In addition to the important scientific works and the huge journalistic work of Engels, his correspondence is invaluable, especially that with his dear comrade Marx, in which the joint work of the founders of scientific socialism can be observed in all aspects, both in the development of the science of revolution, or in other areas of knowledge, as the strategy and tactics of the fighting proletariat.
As political leader of the proletariat, Engels joined the labor movement in a very young age. Thanks to their contacts with proletarian organizations and leaders, together with Marx, they were able to relate with the German clandestine association, the League of Just later called the League of Communists, which they convinced of the new doctrine, and which in turn commissioned them to formulate the fundamental principles of socialism elaborated by them, a task materialized in theCommunist Manifesto published in 1848.
Engels actively participated in the revolutionary wave that shook Europe from 1848 to 1850. Not only encouraging with his friend Marx the popular uprising in Germany with their words from the New Rhenish Gazette, but also participating in the armed insurrection of the people and fighting in the battles for freedom, where he played a prominent role which, together with his military writings, would make him worthy of the nickname «The General» among his comrades.
As a passionate revolutionary fighter, Engels was an uncompromising defender of the interests of the proletariat, a fierce critic of the errors of the false socialists, and a tireless teacher of the best sons of the working class with whom he always maintained close ties of friendship and to him they turned from all countries for guidance and support.
His loyalty to the working class made him the recognized chief of the international proletariat, not only playing a prominent role in the founding of the International Workers’ Association or First International but also as member of its General Council from 1870 until its dissolution in 1876, as well as in the foundation of the Second International after the Paris Workers’ Congress, which in 1889 laid the foundations for the new international organization of the proletariat of all countries.
His generosity and simplicity allowed Engels to give the right place to his friend and comrade, whom he supported financially until his last days to complete his work. But Frederick Engels shines with his own light and is therefore one of the masters of the proletariat.
Engels died on August 5, 1895 in England surrounded by the most prominent leaders of the workers movement from different countries, and messages from any corners of the world arrived at his funeral. Referring to Engels, 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. […] Marx and Engels were 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. And this will continue until the foundations of class struggle and of class domination – private property and anarchic social production – disappear. The interests of the proletariat demand the destruction of these foundations, and therefore the conscious class struggle of the organised workers must be directed against them. ”.
And against the calumnies and misrepresentations by the enemies of Marxism, who have tried in vain to separate Marx from Engels, the words uttered by the latter in the posthumous tribute to Karl Marx are perfectly applicable to himself: “For Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival. «
Honor and Glory to Frederick Engels, Master of the World Proletariat!
Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Death to imperialism! The future must be of socialism and communism!
Proletarians and oppressed peoples, unite in proletarian internationalism!
Forward, now more than ever, in the international unity of communists around the world!
28th november 2020
Communist Worker Union (MLM) – Colombia
Maoist Communist Party – Italy
El Kadehines Party – Tunisia
support
Committee for Building the Maoist Communist Party, Galicia, Spanish State
Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan
other signatures arriving… for signing this joint declaration – maoistroad@gmail.com
Im Folgenden dokumentieren wir einen Beitrag zum 200. Geburtstag von Friedrich Engels, den ihr ebenfalls in unserer aktuellen Ausgabe der „AfA“ finden könnt:
Friedrich Engels war gemeinsam mit Karl Marx der Begründer des Marxismus. Viele seiner Taten und Schriften sind bis heute breit bekannt und eine wichtige Grundlage für das Verständnis sowie den Kampf gegen den Kapitalismus.
Friedrich Engels wurde am 28. November 1820, vor 200 Jahren, in einer damals preußischen Provinz in Barmen (heute ein Stadtteil von Wuppertal) als Sohn eines Baumwollfabrikanten geboren. Trotz seiner bürgerlichen Herkunft hatte der junge Engels wenig Interesse die Geschäfte seines Vaters fortzusetzen und bewegte sich schon früh im Kreis von fortschrittlichen Denkern und Kämpfern des vorrevolutionären Deutschland. 1842 zog Engels nach England um zu Arbeiten und setzte sich dort mit der Lage der englischen Arbeiterklasse tiefgehend auseinander. Er war nicht der erste der über das Leid der Arbeiter berichtete, aber er war der der als erstes, gemeinsam mit Karl Marx, analysiert hat, „dass das Proletariat nicht nur eine leidende Klasse ist“, sondern die Lage „es dazu zwingt, für seine endgültige Befreiung zu kämpfen“ (W. I. Lenin). Friedrich Engels war aber niemand der sich nur der „Analyse der Armen“ gewidmet hat, er analysierte und schloss sich gleichzeitig fest mit den Arbeitern zusammen und scheute keine Anstrengungen in jeder Minute das Bewusstsein über die Klassenlage der Arbeiterschaft zu heben. Als Engels Karl Marx kennenlernte, entwickelte sich eine Kampfgemeinschaft zwischen ihnen, die die weitere Entwicklung der Arbeiterbewegung für immer veränderte, da sie die erste in sich geschlossene wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung der Arbeiterklasse hervorbrachte: den Marxismus.
Friedrich Engels widmete gemeinsam mit Karl Marx sein ganzes Leben den Interessen und dem Kampf der Arbeiter und der Unterdrückten. Er kämpfte als General in der bürgerlichen Revolution in Deutschland, verbrachte den Großteil seines Erwachsenenlebens im Exil, weil er wegen seiner revolutionären Arbeit verfolgt wurde und nahm an allen entscheidenden Entwicklungen der internationalen Arbeiterbewegung teil. Engels vereinte mit seinem Leben den unermüdlichen Kampf um das Voranschreiten der Arbeiterbewegung mit der Ausarbeitung der Theorie, die dafür notwendig war um dieser eine wissenschaftliche Perspektive zu geben. Deshalb wurde er hochgeschätzt und geliebt von den Arbeitern aller Länder und gleichzeitig verhasst bei den Kapitalisten und ihren bürgerlichen Theoretikern.
Engels, wie auch sein engster Kampfgefährte Karl Marx, setzte sich nicht aus dem eigenen Kopf heraus, mit den bisherigen Errungenschaften der Wissenschaft auseinander. Im Gegenteil, eignete er sich die höchsten Errungenschaften der bisherigen Wissenschaften an (in der Philosophie, der Naturwissenschaft, in der Ökonomie, usw.) und stellte sie gemeinsam mit Marx vom „Kopf auf die Füße“. Er zeigte, dass die Ideen und Anschauungen Produkt der gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse sind und deshalb die gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse geändert werden müssen, um die Ausbeutung zu beseitigen.
Die revolutionäre Errungenschaft dieser zwei großen Arbeiterführer war es zu zeigen, dass in der Klassengesellschaft immer eine Klasse das Neue repräsentiert, während die andere Klasse das Alte aufrechterhalten will. Daraus ergibt sich ein Gegensatz zwischen der Interessen der Arbeiter und Kapitalisten, der seine Grundlage in den wirtschaftlichen Verhältnissen hat. „Die Ökonomischen Verhältnisse einer gegebenen Gesellschaft stellen sich zunächst dar als Interessen.“
Die Arbeiterklasse, also das Proletariat, sieht seine Interessen nicht in der kapitalistischen Ausbeutung, sondern wird aufgrund seiner Lage diese Verhältnisse sprengen, um die Ausbeutung zu beseitigen. Somit ist klar, dass der Marxismus keine „tote Theorie“ ist, sondern eine kämpfende Wissenschaft: „Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert, es kommt darauf an, sie zu verändern.“ Deshalb arbeitete Engels seine Erkenntnisse nicht im „Studierzimmer“ aus, sondern indem er sich eng mit den Massen der Arbeiter und des Volkes verband, ihre Nöte, Leiden und Umstände kannte. Das ist auch heute wichtig, da es viele sogenannte „Arbeiterführer“ gibt, die jedoch nur groß reden, in ihrem Handeln aber nicht die Interessen der Arbeiter vertreten und sich nicht mit ihnen verbinden.
Doch das Leben und Wirken von Friedrich Engels ist auch heute noch aktuell: Ist es nicht auch heute genauso, dass die Interessen der Arbeiter jenen der Kapitalisten entgegenstehen? Dass eine hohe Arbeitslosigkeit, Lohnsenkung, Teuerungen, Arbeitsverdichtung für die Chefs eine gute Sache ist, während sich die Lage der Arbeiter und Angestellten damit verschlechtert? Engels widerlegte damals schon die Lüge die wir auch heute nur zu gut kennen: durch Wohlstand und Reichtum würde die Armut vermindert werden, der Kapitalismus bringe Wohlstand und würde über kurz oder lang die Armut abschaffen. Aber im Gegenteil sagte schon Friedrich Engels, dass „die Armut aus dem Überfluss selbst entspringt“, dass der Reichtum der einen das Elend der anderen schafft und gibt damit die Anleitung das es um die Aufhebung dieses Verhältnisses geht. Der Kommunismus, für den Friedrich Engels sein leben lang kämpfte, war aber keine bloße „Vorstellung von einer besseren Welt“, sondern eine reale Perspektive die aus den Verhältnissen des Kapitalismus hervorgeht: „Der Kommunismus ist die Lehre von den Bedingungen der Befreiung des Proletariats!“
Das Leben und Wirken von Friedrich Engels hatte noch weit über seinen Tod hinaus Bedeutung. Als Teil des Marxismus war es eine Grundlage für viele Kämpfe und Revolutionen und bis heute ist sein Wirken richtungweisend für die Unterdrückten und Ausgebeuteten in allen Kontinenten der Welt. Der 200. Geburtstag sollte als Anlass für alle fortschrittlich gesinnten Kräfte genommen werden, sich mit dieser Bedeutung auseinanderzusetzen!
"Hoje, armados com esse arsenal do proletariado revolucionário de todos os países, avançamos na construçom dos partidos e esforçamo-nos na luita pola unidade numha nova Internacional Comunista, instrumento estratégico imprescindível para o triunfo da Revoluçom Proletária Mundial, com a capacidade de guiar os combates do proletariado e os povos do mundo para derrotar ao imperialismo e a reaçom, varrendo da faze da terra toda forma de opressom e exploraçom, avançando cara o comunismo."
