Friedrich Engels Quote
The 'Manifesto' being our joint production, I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus belongs to . That proposition is: that in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolution in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and the oppressed class—the proletariat—cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class—the bourgeoisie—without, at the same time, and once for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.This proposition, which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what 's theory has done for biology, we, both of us, had been gradually approaching for some years before 1845.
The 'Manifesto' being our joint production, I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus belongs to . That proposition is: that in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolution in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and the oppressed class—the proletariat—cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class—the bourgeoisie—without, at the same time, and once for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.This proposition, which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what 's theory has done for biology, we, both of us, had been gradually approaching for some years before 1845.
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About Friedrich Engels
He met Marx in 1844, and they jointly authored a number of works, including The Holy Family (1844), The German Ideology (written 1846), and The Communist Manifesto (1848), and worked as political organisers and activists in the Communist League and First International. Engels also helped Marx financially, allowing him to continue his writing after moving to London in 1849. After Marx's death in 1883, Engels compiled Volumes II and III of Das Kapital (1885 and 1894), helped found the Second International, and was the leading authority on Marxism.
Engels's family was wealthy and owned large cotton-textile mills in Prussia and England. Engels also wrote wide-ranging works of his own, including The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), Anti-Dühring (1878), Dialectics of Nature (1878–1882), The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), and Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1886).
His philosophical writings on materialism, idealism, and dialectics supplied Marxism with an ontological and metaphysical foundation.