By MICHEL GOULART DA SILVA*
Engels contributed decisively to the initial formulations of historical and dialectical materialism
1.
Friedrich Engels, in partnership with Karl Marx, was responsible for systematizing philosophically, politically and tactically the tools that workers could use to understand the reality of capitalist society and, with that, make the revolution. This elaboration occurred through the dialectical overcoming of German idealist philosophy and utopian socialism, seeking to constitute the theoretical and political expression of organized workers in struggle.
Vladimir Lenin, who defined Friedrich Engels as the “teacher of the contemporary proletariat”, said in 1895: “Marx and Engels were the first to demonstrate that the working class and its demands are a necessary product of the present economic regime which, together with the bourgeoisie, inevitably creates and organizes the proletariat; they demonstrated that it is not the well-intentioned attempts of generous-hearted men that will free humanity from the evils that crush it today, but the class struggle of the organized proletariat. Marx and Engels were the first to explain in their scientific works that socialism is not an invention of dreamers, but the ultimate goal and the necessary result of the development of the productive forces of present-day society.”[I]
Although many of the best-known texts are those he wrote with Marx, such as the german ideology (1846) and the Communist Party Manifesto (1848), Friedrich Engels contributed decisively to the initial formulations of historical and dialectical materialism. Possibly his most important writing in his youth was The situation of the working class in England (1845)
In this work, Friedrich Engels carries out a detailed study of the conditions of workers in England, showing the constructions of the process of social transformation known as the industrial revolution. Engels states that “as industry and commerce develop in the large cities in the most complete way, it is precisely there that the consequences of such a development on the proletariat emerge most clearly and distinctly.”[ii] As a result, according to Friedrich Engels, in large cities there is only “a rich class and a poor class, with the petite bourgeoisie disappearing day by day”.[iii]
One factor that draws attention in this work by Friedrich Engels is the careful analysis of the sources – oral and printed – used, showing the concern with the careful analysis of reality, fundamental in the development of historical materialism. Friedrich Engels stated, at a certain point in this study on the working class in England, that “knowledge of the living conditions of the proletariat is, therefore, essential in order, on the one hand, to solidly substantiate socialist theories and, on the other, to support judgments about their legitimacy”.[iv]
Even in his period of political and theoretical formation, Friedrich Engels already showed the clarity that he should not start from abstract ideas, as idealist philosophers did, but from the concrete reality in which workers were inserted.
2.
Another notable aspect of this phase of Friedrich Engels's formation is the fact that, even without using them fully and developed, some of the main concepts of the critique of political economy appear in the article “Outline of a Critique of Political Economy”. Karl Marx referred to this text as a “brilliant outline of a critique of economic categories”.[v]
Published in February 1844, Friedrich Engels presents in embryo some notes that were later developed by Karl Marx in The capital (1867). In this text, Engels presents his objectives: “in criticizing political economy, therefore, we shall examine the fundamental categories, reveal the contradiction brought about by the free trade system, and trace the consequences of both sides of the contradiction”.[vi]
This outline contains both the idea of a critique of political economy and a dialectical understanding of the dynamics of capitalism. This relationship with the contributions developed later by Marx can also be seen when Engels discusses the concept of value in his early work. Friedrich Engels states: “Value is the ratio of costs of production to utility. The most accurate application of value is the decision whether something should be produced, that is, whether utility compensates for the costs of production. Only then can the application of value for exchange be discussed. Once the rates of production of two things have been equated, utility will be the decisive factor in determining their comparative value.”[vii]
The idea of use value and exchange value is outlined here, but still to be refined. Another example of Friedrich Engels' contribution is found in the passage where he discusses price, presented as the monetary equivalent of value: "The difference between real value and exchange value is based on one fact - namely, that the value of a thing is different from the so-called equivalent given to it in trade, that is, that this equivalent is not equivalent. This so-called equivalent is the price of the thing, and if the economist were honest he would use the word 'commercial value'. However, he still needs to maintain a certain appearance that price is in some way related to value, so that the unethicality of trade does not come to light."[viii]
3.
Although there are some limitations here, which were later resolved, such as the question of a moral understanding of capitalist forms, this text shows the fundamental role of Friedrich Engels in the development of historical materialism. This collaboration is also seen in the elaboration of works of a historical and political nature, written in the following decades, interspersed with Engels' intense political activity.
These works are, among others, The Peasant Wars in Germany (1850) and Revolution and counterrevolution in Germany (1851), as well as controversial texts with other currents that were active in the workers' movement, such as On the housing issue (1872), a clash with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and The Bakuninists in action (1873), about the actions of one of the most prominent currents of anarchism. During this period, he also produced with Marx a series of journalistic articles that were fundamental to understanding the Civil War in the United States (1861-1865).
Friedrich Engels also produced a set of reflections on the development of the various fields of scientific knowledge, in view of their gigantic advances in the 19th century, showing dialectical materialism as part of this process. In the work From utopian socialism to scientific socialism (1880), Engels states: “modern materialism summarizes and compiles the new advances of natural science, according to which nature also has its history in time, and the worlds, as well as the organic species that inhabit them under favorable conditions, are born and die, and the cycles, to the degree that they are admissible, assume infinitely greater dimensions”.[ix]
The theme is revisited, from a different perspective, in other works, one of the best known of which is the book dialectic of nature (1883). In this work, in the first lines of the preface, Engels states: “Modern research into Nature is the only one that has achieved scientific, systematic and multiple development, in contrast with the brilliant philosophical-naturalist intuitions of the ancients and with the discoveries, very important but sporadic and for the most part lacking results, made by the Arabs”.[X]
In the same work, Friedrich Engels relates the development of scientific knowledge to dialectics, in its modern form, systematized by Hegel. Engels states that the laws of dialectics are “drawn from the history of nature as well as from the history of human society. They are none other than the most general laws of both phases of historical development as well as of human thought.”[xi] In this work, Friedrich Engels also emphasizes the importance of dialectical understanding for development, stating that scientists “believe that they free themselves from philosophy by ignoring it or insulting it. However, they cannot make any progress without thinking; and in order to think, they need certain mental determinations.”[xii]
Friedrich Engels also demonstrates the development of modern socialism as part of this process, as well as its relationship with the bourgeois revolutions that occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries. At the beginning of the book From utopian socialism to scientific socialism, Engels states: “Modern socialism is, first of all, in its content, the fruit of the reflection in the mind, on the one hand, of the class antagonisms that prevail in modern society between the possessors and the dispossessed, capitalists and wage-workers, and, on the other hand, of the anarchy that reigns in production. In its theoretical form, however, socialism presents itself as a continuation, more developed and more consistent, of the principles proclaimed by the great French thinkers of the eighteenth century. Like every new theory, socialism, although it had its roots in material economic facts, had to link itself, at its inception, with existing ideas.”[xiii]
The theoretical expression of this process finds its highest point in the socialism developed by Marx and Engels, a dialectical synthesis between the practice of workers' struggle and its scientific expression. Thus, Engels understands that "the deep causes of all social transformations and all political revolutions are not to be sought in the minds of men or in their ideas of eternal truth or eternal justice, but in the transformations that have taken place in the mode of production and exchange; they are to be sought not in philosophy but in the economy of the period in question."[xiv]
The legacy of Friedrich Engels' career shows, on the one hand, the need to use the best of the theoretical and scientific arsenal to understand the reality that needs to be transformed, and, on the other, to fight for the organization of the revolutionary workers' party. The set of his theoretical formulations, developed in partnership with Marx, sought to provide workers with the tools to overthrow capitalism and fight for a socialist society.
*Michel Goulart da Silva He holds a PhD in history from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and a technical-administrative degree from the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina (IFC).
Notes
[I] Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Friedrich Engels. In: Selected works in six volumes. Moscow: Progress; Lisbon: Avante, 1984, vol. 1, p. 9.
[ii] Friedrich Engels. The situation of the working class in England. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2008, p. 65.
[iii] Friedrich Engels. The situation of the working class in England. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2008, p. 65.
[iv] Friedrich Engels. The situation of the working class in England. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2008, p. 41.
[v] Karl Marx. Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. São Paulo: Popular Expression, 2008, p. 49.
[vi] Friedrich Engels. Outline for a Critique of Political Economy and Other Youth Texts. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2021, p. 164.
[vii] Friedrich Engels. Outline for a Critique of Political Economy and Other Youth Texts. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2021, p. 168.
[viii] Friedrich Engels. Outline for a Critique of Political Economy and Other Youth Texts. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2021, p. 169.
[ix] Friedrich Engels. From utopian socialism to scientific socialism. São Paulo: Centauro, 2005, p. 64.
[X] Friedrich Engels. The dialectic of nature. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1991, p. 15.
[xi] Friedrich Engels. The dialectic of nature. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1991, p. 34.
[xii] Friedrich Engels. The dialectic of nature. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1991, p. 147.
[xiii] Friedrich Engels. From utopian socialism to scientific socialism. São Paulo: Centauro, 2005, p. 39.
[xiv] Friedrich Engels. From utopian socialism to scientific socialism. São Paulo: Centauro, 2005, p. 69.
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