Friedrich Engels
German philosopher and social scientist (1820 to 1895); co-author of The Communist Manifesto.
Friedrich Engels did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
What they believe
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The history of every society so far has been a history of class struggles
The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.
gutenberg.orgSaid c. 1848This on korrents
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The industrial revolution made England the classic land of the proletariat
England is the classic soil of this transformation, which was all the mightier, the more silently it proceeded; and England is, therefore, the classic land of its chief product also, the proletariat.
gutenberg.orgSaid c. 1845This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 38 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
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The history of every society so far has been a history of class struggles
The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
The executive of the modern state manages the shared affairs of the capitalist class
The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Capitalism cannot survive without constantly overturning production and the whole of social relations
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
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Machinery and division of labour make factory work monotonous and reduce the worker to an appendage of the machine
Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Capitalism produces its own grave-diggers, and its fall and the workers' victory are equally inevitable
What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Communist theory can be summed up as the abolition of private property
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Private property already does not exist for nine-tenths of people, and exists for the few because of that
But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Communism removes only the power to command others' labour through ownership, not the power to own what society produces
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Workers have no country, so communists cannot take one from them
The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
The dominant ideas of every age have always been the ideas of its ruling class
The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Once in power, the working class will gradually take all capital and centralise production in the state
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Political power in the proper sense is the organised power of one class to oppress another
Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Class society will give way to an association where each person's free development is the condition for everyone's
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Christian Socialism merely sanctifies the grievances of the aristocracy
Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Bourgeois socialists want existing society without its revolutionary elements, a bourgeoisie without a proletariat
They desire the existing state of society minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
As class struggle develops, utopian socialism's standing apart from it loses all practical value and justification
In proportion as the modern class struggle develops and takes definite shape, this fantastic standing apart from the contest, these fantastic attacks on it, lose all practical value and all theoretical justification.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Communist aims can be reached only by forcibly overthrowing all existing social conditions
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.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Workers have nothing to lose but their chains and a world to win
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
The industrial revolution made England the classic land of the proletariat
England is the classic soil of this transformation, which was all the mightier, the more silently it proceeded; and England is, therefore, the classic land of its chief product also, the proletariat.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
Pre-industrial domestic weavers lived a life not worthy of human beings
They were comfortable in their silent vegetation, and but for the industrial revolution they would never have emerged from this existence, which, cosily romantic as it was, was nevertheless not worthy of human beings.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
The workers' wrath against the rich must erupt in a revolution dwarfing the French one
Hence also the deep wrath of the whole working-class, from Glasgow to London, against the rich, by whom they are systematically plundered and mercilessly left to their fate, a wrath which before too long a time goes by, a time almost within the power of man to predict, must break out into a Revolution in comparison with which the French Revolution, and the year 1794, will prove to have been child’s play.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
Large-scale manufacture created the working class and annihilated the old petty middle class
Manufacture, on a small scale, created the middle-class; on a large scale, it created the working-class, and raised the elect of the middle-class to the throne, but only to overthrow them the more surely when the time comes. Meanwhile, it is an undenied and easily explained fact that the numerous, petty middle-class of the “good old times” has been annihilated by manufacture, and resolved into rich capitalists on the one hand and poor workers on the other.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
In great towns the war of each against all is open, and the strong trample the weak
Hence it comes, too, that the social war, the war of each against all, is here openly declared. Just as in Stirner’s recent book, people regard each other only as useful objects; each exploits the other, and the end of it all is, that the stronger treads the weaker under foot, and that the powerful few, the capitalists, seize everything for themselves, while to the weak many, the poor, scarcely a bare existence remains.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
Manchester is arranged so the wealthy can cross workers' districts without seeing their misery
And the finest part of the arrangement is this, that the members of this money aristocracy can take the shortest road through the middle of all the labouring districts to their places of business, without ever seeing that they are in the midst of the grimy misery that lurks to the right and the left.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
The proletarian is in law and in fact the slave of the bourgeoisie
The proletarian is, therefore, in law and in fact, the slave of the bourgeoisie, which can decree his life or death.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
Surplus population is produced by the workers' competition among themselves
Surplus population is engendered rather by the competition of the workers among themselves, which forces each separate worker to labour as much each day as his strength can possibly admit.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
English manufacture needs an unemployed reserve army of workers to meet peak demand
From this it is clear that English manufacture must have, at all times save the brief periods of highest prosperity, an unemployed reserve army of workers, in order to be able to produce the masses of goods required by the market in the liveliest months.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
Irish immigration, 'the pressure of this race', has done much to depress wages and lower the English working class
Such occupations are therefore especially overcrowded with Irishmen: hand-weavers, bricklayers, porters, jobbers, and such workers, count hordes of Irishmen among their number, and the pressure of this race has done much to depress wages and lower the working-class.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
Society in England commits social murder against its workers
I have now to prove that society in England daily and hourly commits what the working-men’s organs, with perfect correctness, characterise as social murder, that it has placed the workers under conditions in which they can neither retain health nor live long; that it undermines the vital force of these workers gradually, little by little, and so hurries them to the grave before their time.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
For someone who owns nothing, the sacredness of property dies out of itself
It is all very pretty and very agreeable to the ear of the bourgeois to hear the “sacredness of property” asserted; but for him who has none, the sacredness of property dies out of itself.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
Brutal treatment turns the worker into a thing without volition, past which freedom ceases
Under the brutal and brutalising treatment of the bourgeoisie, the working-man becomes precisely as much a thing without volition as water, and is subject to the laws of nature with precisely the same necessity; at a certain point all freedom ceases.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
Every improvement in machinery throws workers out of work and brings want and crime
Every improvement in machinery throws workers out of employment, and the greater the advance, the more numerous the unemployed; each great improvement produces, therefore, upon a number of workers the effect of a commercial crisis, creates want, wretchedness, and crime.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
The real importance of unions and strikes is as the workers' first attempt to abolish competition
But what gives these Unions and the strikes arising from them their real importance is this, that they are the first attempt of the workers to abolish competition.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
With the propertied class so blind, only a violent revolution can solve England's social question
When such insanity prevails in the property-holding class, when it is so blinded by its momentary profit that it no longer has eyes for the most conspicuous signs of the times, surely all hope of a peaceful solution of the social question for England must be abandoned. The only possible solution is a violent revolution, which cannot fail to take place.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
Of the classes observed, the English bourgeoisie is the most demoralised by selfishness
I have never seen a class so deeply demoralised, so incurably debased by selfishness, so corroded within, so incapable of progress, as the English bourgeoisie; and I mean by this, especially the bourgeoisie proper, particularly the Liberal, Corn Law repealing bourgeoisie.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
The manufacturer's relation to his workers has nothing human in it and is purely economic
The relation of the manufacturer to his operatives has nothing human in it; it is purely economic.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
Philanthropy by the rich gives the plundered back a hundredth of what is theirs
As though you rendered the proletarians a service in first sucking out their very life-blood and then practising your self-complacent, Pharisaic philanthropy upon them, placing yourselves before the world as mighty benefactors of humanity when you give back to the plundered victims the hundredth part of what belongs to them!
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
The war of the poor against the rich will become direct and universal, too late for peace
But this I maintain, the war of the poor against the rich now carried on in detail and indirectly will become direct and universal. It is too late for a peaceful solution.
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845; Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky translation) Said c. 1845
Beliefs others hold too
The history of every society so far has been a history of class struggles 2 hold this
The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
The executive of the modern state manages the shared affairs of the capitalist class 2 hold this
The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
Capitalism cannot survive without constantly overturning production and the whole of social relations 2 hold this
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848; English edition of 1888) Said c. 1848
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