The Life and Work of Friedrich Engels/Chapter 1
THE LIFE AND WORK OF
FRIEDRICH ENGELS
By
ZELDA KAHAN-COATES
Early Years
FRIEDRICH ENGELS was born in Barmen, November 28, 1820, thus being two and a half years younger than Karl Marx. He was the son of a wealthy manufacturer and was brought up in a very conservative and orthodox religious atmosphere. After finishing the Realschule[1] at Barmen, he went to the Gymnasium[2] of Elberfeld, but a year before the final examination he entered his father's business. It is interesting to note that the Rhine province, the birthplace and home of Engels, was the most industrially and politically developed district of Germany, owing to its geographical position and to its wealth in coal and metals. Consequently, earlier than elsewhere in Germany there had arisen a powerful capitalist industry, a revolutionary bourgeoisie, the sworn enemy of the still existing feudalism, and the necessary complement of the capitalist bourgeoisie, a strong proletarian class. At the same time, Germany generally was undergoing a revolution in philosophy, the highwater mark of which was the Hegelian philosophy. Like Marx, and like the progressive intellectual German youth of the time, Engels, too, was deeply influenced by this philosophic revival, and became an enthusiastic young Hegelian. Although he showed himself to be a good business man whilst working in mercantile houses, first in Barmen and then in Bremen, yet his heart was never in it, and all his spare time and thoughts were given over to the study of philosophy. In letters written to school friends when he was about eighteen years old, he jokes about his vain poetic efforts, criticises literature, but not a word of business affairs. In these letters he also speaks feelingly of his religious doubts, and of his yearning to get back again to the faith in the God of his childhood. Finally, he broke through his religious fetters and embraced definitely the Hegelian philosophy.
From October, 1841, to October, 1842, Engels served in the Guard Artillery in Berlin, and, just as in his office he was a good business man, so in barracks he became a very good soldier. He studied military science, and subsequently this became one of his favourite studies, so much so that, much later, on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, Engels wrote a series of articles for the Pall Mall Gazette, in which he made some very apt and true forecasts as to the course of the war. Thus he prophesied that in the event of General MacMahon failing to break through with his army to Belgium, he would be forced to capitulate in the plain of Sedan—and two weeks later this really happened. These articles procured him henceforth the nickname of "General" amongst his friends.
During this year of military service he also worked on the Deutsche Jahrbücher and the Rheinische Zeitung, under the nom-de-plume F. Oswald. At the same time he also published some satirical verses in a Swiss paper, and a poem, describing himself and Marx, with whom he was as yet personally unacquainted.