This weekend marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Engels, great thinker, dedicated revolutionary and the life-long friend and comrade of Karl Marx, with whom he co-authored of a number of seminal works.

During Engels’ childhood, Europe experienced a series of revolutionary events including, the 1830 July Revolution in France, the uprisings of weavers in Lyons in 1831 and 1834 and the development of Chartism in Britain. The young Engels, wrote many articles exposing the terrible suffering of workers during that period and on the socio-economic system in Britain and the condition of the working class.

Communist Manifesto

In collaboration with Marx, he demonstrated that the source of development, the motive force of all societies, is the class struggle. They developed their ideas on class struggle and revolution in their great and transformative publication The Communist Manifesto which explained the world-wide historic mission of the working class.

Together, they laid the theoretical foundations for the creation of a revolutionary party as the class conscious vanguard of the working class.

In the last years of his life Engels continued to work and produced a number of important publications, leading Lenin to say” It is impossible to understand Marxism and to propound it fully without taking into account all the works of Engels”.

On this 200th anniversary of his birth we celebrate the revolutionary life and rich theoretical legacy of Friedrich Engels from which we continue to learn and develop.  

Read full Party statement below: