Colin Todhunter “And thus it renders more and more evident the great central fact that the cause of the miserable condition of the working class is to be sought, not in these minor grievances, but in the capitalistic system itself.” Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) (preface to the English …
Tribute to one of the greatest thinkers and characters in shaping the last millennium Today the world celebrates the bicentenary or two hundredth birthday of Freidrich Engels, one of the most outstanding figures or thinkers of the millenium.Without doubt but for Engels Marxism would not have come of being or taken shape..Had it not been for Engels support Marx would[Read More...]
One should not dismiss the odious statements from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its Sangh Parivar, and say that they are spewing venom.
The 200th anniversary of the birth of Marx has prompted The Economist to devote an article on Marx in its issue of May 5, 2018. Characteristically titled, “Reconsidering Marx. Second time farce. Two hundred years after his birth, Marx remains surprisingly relevant”!1 The article combines recognition that Marx was a genius with reactionary slandering that he was, after all, an evil genius and without him the world would certainly had been much better.
Marxism taught me what society was. I was like a blindfolded man in a forest, who doesn’t know where north or south is. If you don’t eventually come to truly understand the history of the class struggle, or at least have a clear idea that society is divided between the rich and the poor, and that some people subjugate and exploit other people, you’re lost in a forest, not knowing anything.
— Fidel Castro
According to Friedrich Engels, Anti-Duhring, “the only value known in economics is the value of commodities”.1 Commodities are products produced, not for individual consumption by their producers, but products produced for general public consumption.
It was a deary day in Washington, D.C. The rain was pouring down and thousands of people were gathered in a huddled mass, listening to speakers tell about their scientific work or scientific innovations. Others uttered platitudes or nationalistic sayings, declaring the US should be “number one” in science above the rest of the world. This was the March for Science in D.C. this past Earth Day, one of the many actions across the world.
In Chapter Two of State and Revolution Lenin discusses the lessons of the European revolutionary movement of 1848-51. There are three sections to this chapter. The first section is entitled:
1. The Eve of the Revolution
Lenin points out that the first “mature” works of the Marxist world view were created on the “eve” of the 1848 upheaval — namely Marx’s 1847 work The Poverty of Philosophy, and Marx and Engel’s joint work The Communist Manifesto. Every educated person has read the latter work but the former may not be so well known.
Lenin discusses these two topics in section four of chapter one of The State and Revolution (1917). This section begins with a long quote from Engels’ 1870’s work Anti-Dühring. The quote begins with “The proletariat seizes state power and turns the means of production into state property to begin with. But thereby it abolishes itself as the proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms and abolishes the state as state.”
