Friedrich Engels

It is alarming and deeply disturbing to see that some people, many of whom should know better, have swallowed George “high-vis” Osborne’s fantasy-speak about building a “Northern Powerhouse”. This is more amazing when you consider that ever since the Industrial Revolution there has always been a “Northern Powerhouse”, and it was the Conservative Party and Thatcher that destroyed it. Without the coal, iron and steel, shipbuilding, engineering and textiles of northern cities like Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and Newcastle (to which Scotland and South Wales must also be added), Britain...

Letters and debate from Workers' Liberty 25 Yes, I am a socialist! (Billy Hutchinson) Victor Serge was a revolutionary, but... Jail food is poison (Lauren Otter) But what is to be done about about Bosnia? (Amanda Sebestyan) Engels' Reflective materialism (Carl Rennet) Download PDF

To mark the Engels centenary, Tom Willis takes a look at the theoretical revolution carried through by both Marx and Engels in 1844-45 Download PDF

Introduction by Sean Matgamna "Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." V. I. Lenin A century and a half after the publication of the Communist Manifesto, Marxists are faced with redeveloping, virtually from the ground up, a mass working-class socialist movement of the sort which one hundred years ago our predecessors thought they could point to as the towering achievement of the previous 50 years. Of course, there are powerful labour movements, and not only in the old countries of capitalism such as Britain, where the trade unions possess a great latent power...

An indispensable contribution to the understanding of the role of the Negro in American history is a study of the period between 1830 and 1865. In this article we treat the subject up to 1860. The basic economic and social antagonisms of the period embraced the whole life of the country and were fairly clear then, far less today. The system of chattel slavery needed territorial expansion because of the soil exhaustion caused by the crude method of slave production. But as the North developed industrially and in population, the South found it ever more difficult to maintain its political...

We plough and sow—we're so very, very low That we delve in the dirty clay, Till we bless the plain—with the golden grain, And the vale with the fragrant hay Our place we know—we're so very low. 'Tis down at the landlord's feet: We're not too low—the bread to grow, But too low the bread to eat. Down, down we go—we're so very, very low, To the hell of the deep sunk mines, But we gather the proudest gems that glow Where the crown of a despot shines. And whenever he lacks,—upon our backs Fresh loads he deigns to lay: We're far too low to vote the tax, But not too low to pay. We're low—we're low...

The Marxists Internet Archive has said it will delete the entirety of the Marx and Engels Collected Works on its site by 1 May, which ironically is International Workers’ Day. The publishing company, Lawrence and Wishart, which was founded in 1936 through a merging of the Communist Party's press and a family-owned anti-fascist publisher, is claiming copyright infringement, stating that it cannot afford to have the collection still provided as a free resource. The very material that is being removed argues against private property in such matters. It is absurd to think that this company will...

Introduction. Afghanistan: the Russian Invasion and the Left "The Stalinist April 1978 Coup and the December 1979 Russian Invasion "Workers' Voice", the "CPGB's" Turkish Stalinist Mentors Conrad and Fisher on Afghanistan: The Tankies' Tankies -1 The Tankies' Tankies -2 The Tankies' Tankies -3 The Tankies' Tankies -4 The Tankies' Tankies -5 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -1 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -2 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether-3 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -4 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether-5

Introduction. Afghanistan: the Russian Invasion and the Left "Workers' Voice", the "CPGB's" Turkish Stalinist Mentors Conrad and Fisher on Afghanistan: The Tankies' Tankies -1 The Tankies' Tankies -2 The Tankies' Tankies -3 The Tankies' Tankies -4 The Tankies' Tankies -5 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -1 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -2 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether-3 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether -4 Stalinist Mind At End Of Its Tether-5

I made the acquaintance of Engels in 1867 – the year in which the first volume of “Capital” was published. “I must introduce you to Engels,” said Marx to me, “as you are engaged to my daughter”; and we went together to Manchester. Engels lived with his wife and her niece, who was then six or seven years old, in a little house in the suburbs of the town, only a little way from the open country. He was then partner in a firm which his father had established. Like Marx, he had fled to London from the Continent, after the failure of the revolution, and he still took a part in political agitation...