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164-484: Friedrich Engels ( / ˈ ɛ ŋ ɡ əl z / ENG -gəlz ; German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈʔɛŋl̩s] ; 28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895; in English also spelled as "Frederick Engels") was a German philosopher, political theorist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist . He was also a businessman and Karl Marx 's lifelong friend and closest collaborator, serving as a leading authority on Marxism . Engels,
328-467: A coup d'état or putsch along the lines of Blanquism . Revolutionary socialists, particularly Trotskyists, argue that the Bolsheviks only seized power as the expression of the mass of workers and peasants, whose desires are brought into being by an organised force—the revolutionary party. Marxists such as Trotskyists argue that Lenin did not advocate seizing power until he felt that the majority of
492-470: A refugee and eventually made it to safety in England. On 6 June 1849 Prussian authorities issued an arrest warrant for him which contained a physical description as "height: 5 feet 6 inches; hair: blond; forehead: smooth; eyebrows: blond; eyes: blue; nose and mouth: well proportioned; beard: reddish; chin: oval; face: oval; complexion: healthy; figure: slender. Special characteristics: speaks very rapidly and
656-536: A spectrum of theistic probability —the likelihood that each assigns to the statement "God exists". Before the 18th century, the existence of God was so accepted in the Western world that even the possibility of true atheism was questioned. This is called theistic innatism —the notion that all people believe in God from birth; within this view was the connotation that atheists are in denial. Some atheists have challenged
820-476: A theistic naturalism . Nevertheless, Oppy argues that a strong naturalism favors atheism, though he finds the best direct arguments against theism to be the evidential problem of evil, and arguments concerning the contradictory nature of God were one to exist. Some atheists hold the view that the various conceptions of gods, such as the personal god of Christianity, are ascribed logically inconsistent qualities. Such atheists present deductive arguments against
984-637: A Critique of Political Economy . Engels met Marx for a second time at the Café de la Régence on the Place du Palais, on 28 August 1844. The two quickly became close friends and remained so their entire lives. Marx had read and was impressed by Engels's articles on The Condition of the Working Class in England in which he had written that "[a] class which bears all the disadvantages of the social order without enjoying its advantages, [...] Who can demand that such
1148-585: A Workers International states, "[w]e campaign for new workers' parties and for them to adopt a socialist programme. At the same time, the CWI builds support for the ideas of revolutionary socialism". In "The Case for Revolutionary Socialism", Alex Callinicos from the Socialist Workers Party in Britain argues in favour of it. Revolutionary socialist discourse has long debated the question of how
1312-614: A class respect this social order?" Marx adopted Engels's idea that the working class would lead the revolution against the bourgeoisie as society advanced toward socialism, and incorporated this as part of his own philosophy. Engels stayed in Paris to help Marx write The Holy Family . It was an attack on the Young Hegelians and the Bauer brothers and was published in late February 1845. Engels's earliest contribution to Marx's work
1476-402: A considerable estate to Eduard Bernstein and Louise Freyberger (wife of Ludwig Freyberger ), valued for probate at £25,265 0s. 11d, equivalent to £3,686,193 in 2023. Engels's interests included poetry, fox hunting and hosting regular Sunday parties for London's left-wing intelligentsia where, as one regular put it, "no one left before two or three in the morning". His stated personal motto
1640-453: A couple in London and married on 11 September 1878, hours before Lizzie's death. Later in their lives, Marx and Engels came to argue that in some countries workers might be able to achieve their aims through peaceful means . In following this, Engels argued that socialists were evolutionists, although they remained committed to social revolution . Similarly, Tristram Hunt argues that Engels
1804-593: A course of development in Russia that would lead directly to the communist stage without the intervening bourgeois stage. This analysis was based on what Marx and Engels saw as the exceptional characteristics of the Russian village commune or obshchina . While doubt was cast on this theory by Georgi Plekhanov , Plekhanov's reasoning was based on the first edition of Das Kapital (1867) which predated Marx's interest in Russian peasant communes by two years. Later editions of
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#17327808159071968-405: A divine mandate is not true ethical behavior but merely blind obedience. Baggini argues that atheism is a superior basis for ethics, claiming that a moral basis external to religious imperatives is necessary to evaluate the morality of the imperatives themselves—to be able to discern, for example, that "thou shalt steal" is immoral even if one's religion instructs it—and that atheists, therefore, have
2132-459: A future communist society would allow people to make decisions about their relationships free of economic constraints. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy saw publication in 1886. On 5 August 1895, Engels died of throat cancer in London, aged 74. Following cremation at Woking Crematorium , his ashes were scattered off Beachy Head , near Eastbourne , as he had requested. He left
2296-593: A gay temperament, being able to "stutter in twenty languages". He had a great enjoyment of wine and other "bourgeois pleasures". Engels favoured forming romantic relationships with women of the proletariat and found a long-term partner in a working-class woman named Mary Burns , although they never married. After her death, Engels was romantically involved with her younger sister Lydia Burns . Historian and former Labour MP Tristram Hunt , author of The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels , argues that Engels "almost certainly was, in other words,
2460-418: A god either leads to moral relativism and leaves one with no moral or ethical foundation, or renders life meaningless and miserable. Blaise Pascal argued this view in his Pensées . There is also a position claiming that atheists are quick to believe in God in times of crisis, that atheists make deathbed conversions , or that " there are no atheists in foxholes ". There have, however, been examples to
2624-476: A happy dialectical synthesis that freed him from the fixed oppositions of the pietist ethos of devout longing and estrangement. 'Through Strauss I have now entered on the straight road to Hegelianism... The Hegelian idea of God has already become mine, and thus I am joining the ranks of the "modern pantheists",' Engels wrote in one of his final letters to the soon-to-be-discarded Graebers [Wilhelm and Friedrich, priest trainees and former classmates of Engels]. Engels
2788-454: A label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577. The term atheism was derived from the French athéisme , and appears in English about 1587. Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god . In the 20th century, globalization contributed to the expansion of
2952-416: A lost Attic drama that featured Sisyphus , which has been attributed to both Critias and Euripides , claims that a clever man invented "the fear of the gods" in order to frighten people into behaving morally. Does then anyone say there are gods in heaven? There are not, there are not, if a man is willing not to give foolish credence to the ancient story. Consider for yourselves, don't form an opinion on
3116-461: A manner which left the impression that he had become a proponent of a peaceful road to socialism. On 1 April 1895, four months before his death, Engels responded to Kautsky: I was amazed to see today in the Vorwärts an excerpt from my 'Introduction' that had been printed without my knowledge and tricked out in such a way as to present me as a peace-loving proponent of legality [at all costs]. Which
3280-656: A manufacturing centre where industrialisation was on the rise. He was to work in Weaste , Salford , in the offices of Ermen and Engels 's Victoria Mill, which made sewing threads. Engels's father thought that working at the Salford firm might make his son reconsider some of his radical opinions. On his way to Salford and Manchester, Engels visited the office of the Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne and met Karl Marx for
3444-615: A means of explanation, and opposed arguments from religious authority . Other critics of religion and the Church during this time included Niccolò Machiavelli , Bonaventure des Périers , Michel de Montaigne , and François Rabelais . Historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote that the Reformation had paved the way for atheists by attacking the authority of the Catholic Church, which in turn "quietly inspired other thinkers to attack
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#17327808159073608-482: A number of openly atheistic followers, such as atheistic or humanistic Judaism and Christian atheists . Atheism is accepted as a valid philosophical position within some varieties of Hinduism , Jainism , and Buddhism . Ideas that would be recognized today as atheistic are documented from the Vedic period and the classical antiquity . Atheistic schools are found in early Indian thought and have existed from
3772-467: A persistent feature of political if not so much philosophical debate. Moral precepts such as "murder is wrong" are seen as divine laws , requiring a divine lawmaker and judge. However, many atheists argue that treating morality legalistically involves a false analogy , and that morality does not depend on a lawmaker in the same way that laws do. Philosophers Susan Neiman and Julian Baggini among others assert that behaving ethically only because of
3936-552: A poem entitled "The Bedouin", in the Bremisches Conversationsblatt No. 40. He also engaged in other literary work and began writing newspaper articles critiquing the societal ills of industrialisation . He wrote under the pseudonym "Friedrich Oswald" to avoid connecting his family with his provocative writings. In 1841, Engels performed his military service in the Prussian Army as a member of
4100-722: A proposal by Trotsky to avoid an immediate split with the Second International. Though initially opposed to it, Lenin voted for Trotsky's resolution to avoid a split among anti-war socialists. In December 1915 and March 1916, eighteen Social Democratic representatives, the Haase - Ledebour Group, voted against war credits and were expelled from the Social Democratic Party. Liebknecht wrote Revolutionary Socialism in Germany in 1916, arguing that this group
4264-424: A proposition; they instead place noncognitivism in its own category. Most atheists lean toward ontological monism : the belief that there is only one kind of fundamental substance. The philosophical materialism is a view that matter is the fundamental substance in nature. This omits the possibility of a non-material divine being. According to physicalism , only physical entities exist. Philosophies opposed to
4428-599: A punishable offense. During the Early Middle Ages , the Islamic world experienced a Golden Age . Along with advances in science and philosophy, Arab and Persian lands produced rationalists who were skeptical about revealed religion, such as Muhammad al Warraq (fl. 9th century), Ibn al-Rawandi (827–911), and Abu Bakr al-Razi ( c. 865 –925), as well as outspoken atheists such as al-Maʿarri (973–1058). Al-Ma'arri wrote and taught that religion itself
4592-513: A reasonable expectation of public punishment. Although Voltaire is widely considered to have strongly contributed to atheistic thinking during the Revolution, he also considered fear of God to have discouraged further disorder, having said "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." The philosopher David Hume developed a skeptical epistemology grounded in empiricism , and Immanuel Kant 's philosophy has strongly questioned
4756-793: A regular feature in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung under the heading "From the Theatre of War"; however, the newspaper was suppressed during the June 1849 Prussian coup d'état. After the coup, Marx lost his Prussian citizenship , was deported and fled to Paris, then London. Engels stayed in Prussia and took part in an armed uprising in South Germany as an aide-de-camp in the volunteer corps of August Willich . Engels also took two cases of rifle cartridges with him when he went to join
4920-612: A result of such accidents. Engels continued his involvement with radical journalism and politics. He frequented areas popular among members of the English labour and Chartist movements, whom he met. He also wrote for several journals, including The Northern Star , Robert Owen 's New Moral World , and the Democratic Review newspaper. Engels returned to Germany in 1844. On the way, he stopped in Paris to meet Karl Marx, with whom he had an earlier correspondence. Marx had been living in Paris since late October 1843, after
5084-459: A revolutionary seizure of power at a time when the historical circumstances favoured a parliamentary road to power that he predicted could bring " social democracy into power as early as 1898". Engels's stance of openly accepting gradualist, evolutionary and parliamentary tactics while claiming that the historical circumstances did not favour revolution caused confusion. Marxist revisionist Eduard Bernstein interpreted this as indicating that Engels
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5248-480: A trading house in Bremen . His parents expected that he would follow his father into a career in the family business. Their son's revolutionary activities disappointed them. It would be some years before he joined the family firm. While at Bremen, Engels began reading the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , whose teachings dominated German philosophy at that time. In September 1838 he published his first work,
5412-401: Is a political philosophy , doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for transitioning from a capitalist to a socialist mode of production . Revolution is not necessarily defined as a violent insurrection; it
5576-482: Is a justified and rational true belief, but offers no extended epistemological justification because current theories are in a state of controversy. Martin instead argues for "mid-level principles of justification that are in accord with our ordinary and scientific rational practice." Other arguments for atheism that can be classified as epistemological or ontological , assert the meaninglessness or unintelligibility of basic terms such as "God" and statements such as "God
5740-686: Is a type of incandescent stone", an affirmation with which he tried to deny the divinity of the celestial bodies. In the late fifth century BCE, the Greek lyric poet Diagoras of Melos was sentenced to death in Athens under the charge of being a "godless person" (ἄθεος) after he made fun of the Eleusinian Mysteries , but he fled the city to escape punishment. In post-classical antiquity, philosophers such as Cicero and Sextus Empiricus described Diagoras as an "atheist" who categorically denied
5904-567: Is all the more reason why I should like it to appear in its entirety in the Neue Zeit in order that this disgraceful impression may be erased. I shall leave Liebknecht in no doubt as to what I think about it and the same applies to those who, irrespective of who they may be, gave him this opportunity of perverting my views and, what's more, without so much as a word to me about it. After Marx's death, Engels devoted much of his remaining years to editing Marx's unfinished volumes of Das Kapital . He
6068-405: Is all-powerful." Theological noncognitivism holds that the statement "God exists" does not express a proposition, but is nonsensical or cognitively meaningless. It has been argued both ways as to whether such individuals can be classified into some form of atheism or agnosticism. Philosophers A. J. Ayer and Theodore M. Drange reject both categories, stating that both camps accept "God exists" as
6232-744: Is another revolutionary socialist tradition. Emerging from the Communist International but critical of the post-1924 Soviet Union , the Trotskyist tradition in Western Europe and elsewhere uses the term "revolutionary socialism". In 1932, the first issue of the first Canadian Trotskyist newspaper, The Vanguard , published an editorial entitled "Revolutionary Socialism vs Reformism". Today, many Trotskyist groups advocate revolutionary socialism instead of reformism and consider themselves revolutionary socialists. The Committee for
6396-473: Is credited with preventing the work from being lost due to Marx's "incredibly difficult handwriting". He had to provide it with structure and develop its lines of thought, so that the second and third volumes of Capital are effectively joint in authorship and its content (except for the extensive forewords added by Engels) cannot be attributed exclusively to either author. Some scholars, notably Georges Labica [ fr ] , thought that Engels had altered
6560-688: Is defined as a seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the state is directly controlled or abolished by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests. Revolutionary socialists believe such a state of affairs is a precondition for establishing socialism and orthodox Marxists believe it is inevitable but not predetermined. Revolutionary socialism encompasses multiple political and social movements that may define "revolution" differently from one another. These include movements based on orthodox Marxist theory such as De Leonism , impossibilism and Luxemburgism , as well as movements based on Leninism and
6724-657: Is fragmentary, based largely on criticism of the ideas by other schools: "Though materialism in some form or other has always been present in India, and occasional references are found in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature, the Epics, as well as in the later philosophical works we do not find any systematic work on materialism, nor any organized school of followers as the other philosophical schools possess. But almost every work of
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6888-445: Is inconsistent with theism. For example, Oppy says arguing for naturalism is an argument for atheism since naturalism and theism "cannot both be true". Fiona Ellis describes the "expansive naturalism" of John McDowell , James Griffin , and David Wiggins while also asserting there are things in human experience which cannot be explained in such terms, such as the concept of value, leaving room for theism. Christopher C. Knight asserts
7052-584: Is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" Similar arguments have been made in Buddhist philosophy . Vasubandhu (4th/5th century) outlined numerous Buddhist arguments against God . Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud have argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , influenced by
7216-430: Is not compatible with a world where there is evil and suffering , and where divine love is hidden from many people. Epicurus is credited with first expounding the problem of evil. David Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) cited Epicurus in stating the argument as a series of questions: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he
7380-403: Is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. In early ancient Greek , the adjective átheos ( ἄθεος , from the privative ἀ- + θεός "god") meant "godless". It was first used as a term of censure roughly meaning "ungodly" or "impious". In the 5th century BCE, the word began to indicate more deliberate and active godlessness in
7544-629: Is positively correlated with irreligion. He found that there are much lower concentrations of atheism and secularity in poorer, less developed nations (particularly in Africa and South America) than in the richer industrialized democracies. His findings relating specifically to atheism in the US were that compared to religious people in the US, "atheists and secular people" are less nationalistic , prejudiced , antisemitic , racist , dogmatic , ethnocentric , closed-minded, and authoritarian, and in US states with
7708-545: Is short-sighted". As to his "short-sightedness", Engels admitted as much in a letter written to Joseph Weydemeyer on 19 June 1851 in which he says he was not worried about being selected for the Prussian military because of "my eye trouble, as I have now found out once and for all which renders me completely unfit for active service of any sort". Once he was safe in Switzerland, Engels began to write down all his memories of
7872-597: Is the conscious rejection of belief. It is usual to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism. For the purposes of his paper on "philosophical atheism", Ernest Nagel contested including the mere absence of theistic belief as a type of atheism. Graham Oppy classifies as innocents those who never considered the question because they lack any understanding of what a god is, for example one-month-old babies. Philosophers such as Antony Flew and Michael Martin have contrasted positive (strong/hard) atheism with negative (weak/soft) atheism. Positive atheism
8036-602: Is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Negative atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is not a theist is either a negative or a positive atheist. Michael Martin, for example, asserts that agnosticism entails negative atheism. Agnostic atheism encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. However, many agnostics see their view as distinct from atheism. According to atheists' arguments, unproven religious propositions deserve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions. Atheist criticism of agnosticism says that
8200-418: Is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would also include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved, but who is still unaware of those issues. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist." Implicit atheism is "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it" and explicit atheism
8364-617: The Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher in 1844. Engels observed the slums of Manchester in close detail, and took notes of its horrors, such as child labour , the despoiled environment, and overworked and impoverished labourers. He sent a trilogy of articles to Marx. These were published in the Rheinische Zeitung and then in the Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher , chronicling the conditions among
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#17327808159078528-638: The Blanquist view emphasised the overthrow by force of the ruling elite in government by an active minority of revolutionaries, who then proceeded to implement socialist change, disregarding the state of readiness of society as a whole and the mass of the population in particular for revolutionary change. In 1875, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) published a somewhat reformist Gotha Program , which Marx attacked in Critique of
8692-509: The Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher requiring all to leave Paris within 24 hours. Marx was expelled from Paris by French authorities on 3 February 1845 and settled in Brussels with his wife and one daughter. Having left Paris on 6 September 1844, Engels returned to his home in Barmen to work on his The Condition of the Working Class in England , which was published in late May 1845. Even before
8856-542: The French Republican Calendar . Marx later incorporated this comically ironic characterisation of the coup into his essay about it. He called the essay The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte using Engels's suggested characterisation. Marx also borrowed Engels' characterisation of Hegel's notion of the World Spirit that history occurred twice, "once as a tragedy and secondly as a farce" in
9020-440: The Neue Rheinische Zeitung included Karl Schapper , Wilhelm Wolff , Ernst Dronke , Peter Nothjung , Heinrich Bürgers , Ferdinand Wolff and Carl Cramer. Engels's mother gave unwitting witness to the effect of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung on the revolutionary uprising in Cologne in 1848. Criticising his involvement in the uprising she states in a 5 December 1848 letter to Friedrich that "nobody, ourselves included, doubted that
9184-470: The Rheinische Zeitung was banned in March 1843 by the Prussian government. Prior to meeting Marx, Engels had become established as a fully developed materialist and scientific socialist , independent of Marx's philosophical development. In Paris, Marx and Arnold Ruge were publishing the Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher , of which only one issue appeared (in 1844), and in which Engels wrote Outlines of
9348-597: The Roman Empire , Christians were executed for their rejection of the Roman gods in general and the Imperial cult of ancient Rome in particular. There was, however, a heavy struggle between Christians and pagans, in which each group accused the other of atheism, for not practicing the religion which they considered correct. When Christianity became the state religion of Rome under Theodosius I in 381, heresy became
9512-411: The existence of deities . Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism , which is the belief that at least one deity exists. Historically, evidence of atheistic viewpoints can be traced back to classical antiquity and early Indian philosophy. In
9676-573: The Communist League was an international society of proletarian revolutionaries with branches in various European cities. The Communist League also had contacts with the underground conspiratorial organisation of Louis Auguste Blanqui . Many of Marx's and Engels's current friends became members of the Communist League. Old friends like Georg Friedrich Herwegh , who had worked with Marx on the Rheinsche Zeitung , Heinrich Heine ,
9840-592: The Communist League. Joachim Lelewel , a prominent Polish historian and participant in the Polish uprising of 1830–1831, was also a frequent associate. The Communist League commissioned Marx and Engels to write a pamphlet explaining the principles of communism. This became the Manifesto of the Communist Party , better known as The Communist Manifesto . It was first published on 21 February 1848 and ends with
10004-421: The Communist League. One of the first was Wilhelm Wolff , who soon became one of Marx's and Engels's closest collaborators. Others were Joseph Weydemeyer and Ferdinand Freiligrath , a famous revolutionary poet. While most of the associates of Marx and Engels were German immigrants living in Brussels, some were Belgians. Phillipe Gigot , a Belgian philosopher and Victor Tedesco , a lawyer from Liège, both joined
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#173278081590710168-827: The English schooner, Cornish Diamond under the command of a Captain Stevens. The voyage across the western Mediterranean, around the Iberian Peninsula by sailing schooner took about five weeks. Finally, the Cornish Diamond sailed up the River Thames to London on 10 November 1849 with Engels on board. Upon his return to Britain, Engels re-entered the Manchester company in which his father held shares to support Marx financially as he worked on Das Kapital . Unlike his first period in England (1843), Engels
10332-488: The Epicureans was to attain ataraxia ("peace of mind") and one important way of doing this was by exposing fear of divine wrath as irrational. The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife and the need to fear divine punishment after death. Euhemerus ( c. 300 BCE ) published his view that the gods were only the deified rulers and founders of the past. Although not strictly an atheist, Euhemerus
10496-519: The Gotha Program , where he reiterated the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat . The reformist viewpoint was introduced into Marxist thought by Eduard Bernstein , one of the leaders of the SPD. From 1896 to 1898, Bernstein published a series of articles entitled "Probleme des Sozialismus" ("Problems of Socialism"). These articles led to a debate on revisionism in the SPD and can be seen as
10660-576: The Greek Cyrenaic school . This branch of Indian philosophy is classified as heterodox due to its rejection of the authority of Vedas and hence is not considered part of the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy . It is noteworthy as evidence of a materialistic movement in ancient India. Satischandra Chatterjee and Dhirendramohan Datta explain in An Introduction to Indian Philosophy that our understanding of Chārvāka philosophy
10824-535: The Greek word into the Latin átheos . The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists , with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other. The term atheist (from the French athée ), in the sense of "one who ... denies the existence of God or gods", predates atheism in English, being first found as early as 1566, and again in 1571. Atheist as
10988-606: The Household Artillery (German: Garde-Artillerie-Brigade ). Assigned to Berlin, he attended university lectures at the University of Berlin and began to associate with groups of Young Hegelians . He anonymously published articles in the Rheinische Zeitung , exposing the poor employment and living conditions endured by factory workers. The editor of the Rheinische Zeitung was Karl Marx, but Engels would not meet Marx until late November 1842. Engels acknowledged
11152-497: The League participated in the 1839 rebellion fomented by the French utopian revolutionary socialist, Louis Auguste Blanqui ; as Ruge remained a Young Hegelian in his belief, Marx and Ruge soon split and Ruge left the Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher . Following the split, Marx remained friendly enough with Ruge that he sent Ruge a warning on 15 January 1845 that the Paris police were going to execute orders against him, Marx and others at
11316-588: The Reichstag voted for the government's war budget, while the French and Belgian socialists publicly supported and joined their governments. The Zimmerwald Conference in September 1915, attended by Lenin and Leon Trotsky , saw the beginning of the end of the uneasy coexistence of revolutionary socialists and reformist socialists in the parties of the Second International . The conference adopted
11480-705: The Third International) was founded following the October Revolution . This International became widely identified with communism but also defined itself in terms of revolutionary socialism. However, in 1938 Trotskyists formed the Fourth International because they thought that the Third International turned to Marxism–Leninism —this latter International became identified with revolutionary socialism. Luxemburgism
11644-591: The Western world, atheism declined after Christianity gained prominence. The 16th century and the Age of Enlightenment marked the resurgence of atheistic thought in Europe. Atheism achieved a significant position worldwide in the 20th century. Estimates of those who have an absence of belief in a god range from 500 million to 1.1 billion people . Atheist organizations have defended the autonomy of science , freedom of thought , secular ethics and secularism . Arguments for atheism range from philosophical to social approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities include
11808-860: The Working Class in England (1845), Anti-Dühring (1878), Dialectics of Nature (1878–1882), The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), and Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1886). Friedrich Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen , Jülich-Cleves-Berg , Prussia (now Wuppertal , Germany), as the eldest son of Friedrich Engels Sr. (1796–1860) and of Elisabeth "Elise" Franziska Mauritia van Haar (1797–1873). The wealthy Engels family owned large cotton-textile mills in Barmen and Salford , England, both expanding industrial cities. Friedrich's parents were devout Calvinists and raised their children accordingly—he
11972-488: The advantage of being more inclined to make such evaluations. Some prominent atheists—most recently Christopher Hitchens , Daniel Dennett , Sam Harris , and Richard Dawkins , and following such thinkers as Bertrand Russell , Robert G. Ingersoll , Voltaire , and novelist José Saramago —have criticized religions, citing harmful aspects of religious practices and doctrines. The 19th-century German political theorist and sociologist Karl Marx called religion "the sigh of
12136-456: The ambiguity involved in defining atheism arises from the definitions of words like deity and god . The variety of wildly different conceptions of God and deities lead to differing ideas regarding atheism's applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities. Gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity. With respect to
12300-459: The authority of the new Protestant churches". Deism gained influence in France, Prussia, and England. In 1546, French scholar Etienne Dolet was executed upon accusation of being an atheist. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza was "probably the first well known 'semi-atheist' to announce himself in a Christian land in the modern era", according to Blainey. Spinoza believed that natural laws explained
12464-584: The autocratic Tsarist government in favour of a constitutional government had been provided by the Decembrist Revolt of 1825. Despite the unsuccessful revolt against the Tsarist government in favour of a constitutional government, both Engels and Marx anticipated a bourgeois revolution in Russia would occur, which would bring about a bourgeois stage in Russian development to precede a communist stage. By 1881, both Marx and Engels began to contemplate
12628-415: The basis of my words! Protagoras has sometimes been taken to be an atheist, but rather espoused agnostic views, commenting that "Concerning the gods I am unable to discover whether they exist or not, or what they are like in form; for there are many hindrances to knowledge, the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life." The Athenian public associated Socrates ( c. 470–399 BCE ) with
12792-482: The canon of ' classical Marxism '". While some such as Terrell Carver dispute "Engels' claim that Marx agreed with the views put forward in Engels' major theoretical work, Anti-Dühring ", others such as E. P. Thompson "identified a tendency to make 'old Engels into a whipping boy, and to impugn him any sign that once chooses to impugn subsequent Marxsisms ' ". Revolutionary socialist Revolutionary socialism
12956-402: The charge, writing in a letter to Marx that Sibylle's "rage with me is unrequited love, pure and simple." While in Manchester between October and November 1843, Engels wrote his first critique of political economy , entitled "Umrisse zu einer Kritik der Nationalökonomie" ( Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy ). Engels sent the article to Paris, where Arnold Ruge en Marx published it in
13120-467: The charges of atheism at his trial. From a survey of these 5th-century BCE philosophers, David Sedley has concluded that none of them openly defended radical atheism, but since Classical sources clearly attest to radical atheist ideas Athens probably had an "atheist underground". Religious skepticism continued into the Hellenistic period , and from this period the most important Greek thinker in
13284-474: The conquest of political power as a theory of Blanquist violence, has the misfortune of labeling as a Blanquist error that which has always been the pivot and the motive force of human history. From the first appearance of class societies, having class struggle as the essential content of their history, the conquest of political power has been the aim of all rising classes. Here is the starting point and end of every historic period. [...] In modern times, we see it in
13448-484: The consequent prejudice that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error." In Great Britain, William Hammon and physician Mathew Turner authored a pamphlet in response to Joseph Priestley 's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever . Theirs was the first work in English to openly defend atheism, and implied that established sentiment of Christianity made speaking up in defense of atheism an act with
13612-412: The contrary, among them examples of literal "atheists in foxholes". There exist normative ethical systems that do not require principles and rules to be given by a deity. According to Plato's Euthyphro dilemma , the role of the gods in determining right from wrong is either unnecessary or arbitrary. The argument that morality must be derived from God , and cannot exist without a wise creator, has been
13776-505: The course of Marx's analysis, but the shift in focus from the exploitation of labourers to the accumulation of capital, and the introduction of the possibility that capitalism could survive the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is argued by van Holthoon to be already Marx's, with the latter notion present in the long unpublished Grundrisse . While the task of editing Capital forced Engels to abandon his unfinished Dialectics of Nature , he still completed two other works of his own in
13940-509: The criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo." Sam Harris criticizes Western religion's reliance on divine authority as lending itself to authoritarianism and dogmatism . Multiple studies have discovered there to be a correlation between religious fundamentalism and extrinsic religion (when religion is held because it serves ulterior interests) and authoritarianism, dogmatism, and prejudice. These arguments—combined with historical events that are argued to demonstrate
14104-693: The dangers of religion, such as the Crusades , inquisitions , witch trials , and terrorist attacks —have been used in response to claims of beneficial effects of belief in religion. Believers counter-argue that some regimes that espouse atheism , such as the Soviet Union , have also been guilty of mass murder. In response to those claims, atheists such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have stated that Stalin's atrocities were influenced not by atheism but by dogmatic ideology, and that while Stalin and Mao happened to be atheists, they did not do their deeds in
14268-504: The development of atheism was the philosopher Epicurus ( c. 300 BCE ). Drawing on the ideas of Democritus and the Atomists, he espoused a materialistic philosophy according to which the universe was governed by the laws of chance without the need for divine intervention (see scientific determinism ). Although Epicurus still maintained that the gods existed, he believed that they were uninterested in human affairs. The aim of
14432-495: The divine essence could not be intuitively or rationally apprehended by human intellect. Sects deemed heretical such as the Waldensians were also accused of being atheistic. The resulting division between faith and reason influenced later radical and reformist theologians. The Renaissance did much to expand the scope of free thought and skeptical inquiry. Individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci sought experimentation as
14596-516: The existence of God, which assert the incompatibility between certain traits, such as perfection, creator-status, immutability , omniscience , omnipresence , omnipotence , omnibenevolence , transcendence , personhood (a personal being), non-physicality, justice , and mercy . Theodicean atheists believe that the world as they experience it cannot be reconciled with the qualities commonly ascribed to God and gods by theologians. They argue that an omniscient , omnipotent , and omnibenevolent God
14760-535: The existence of gods but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism. Writers disagree on how best to define and classify atheism , contesting what supernatural entities are considered gods, whether atheism is a philosophical position or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection; however, the norm is to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism. Atheism has been regarded as compatible with agnosticism , but has also been contrasted with it. Some of
14924-464: The existence of gods, recommending that one should suspend judgment regarding the matter. His relatively large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers. The meaning of "atheist" changed over the course of classical antiquity. Early Christians were widely reviled as "atheists" because they did not believe in the existence of the Graeco-Roman deities. During
15088-505: The existence of the gods, but in modern scholarship Marek Winiarczyk has defended the view that Diagoras was not an atheist in the modern sense, in a view that has proved influential. On the other hand, the verdict has been challenged by Tim Whitmarsh , who argues that Diagoras rejected the gods on the basis of the problem of evil , and this argument was in turn alluded to in Euripides' fragmentary play Bellerophon . A fragment from
15252-518: The famous poet, a young physician by the name of Roland Daniels , Heinrich Bürgers and August Herman Ewerbeck , all maintained their contacts with Marx and Engels in Brussels. Georg Weerth , who had become a friend of Engels in England in 1843, now settled in Brussels. Carl Wallau and Stephen Born (real name Simon Buttermilch ) were both German immigrant typesetters who settled in Brussels to help Marx and Engels with their Communist League work. Marx and Engels made many new important contacts through
15416-406: The first paragraph of his new essay. Meanwhile, Engels started working at the mill owned by his father in Manchester as an office clerk, the same position he held in his teens while in Germany where his father's company was based. Engels worked his way up to become a partner of the firm in 1864. Five years later, Engels retired from the business and could focus more on his studies. At this time, Marx
15580-506: The first time. Initially they were not impressed with each other. Marx mistakenly thought that Engels was still associated with the Young Hegelians of Berlin, with whom Marx had just broken off ties. In Manchester, Engels met Mary Burns , a fierce young Irish woman with radical opinions who worked in the Engels factory. They began a relationship that lasted 20 years until her death in 1863. The two never married, as both were against
15744-435: The first to explain that socialism is not the invention of dreamers, but the final aim and necessary result of the development of the productive forces in modern society. All recorded history hitherto has been a history of class struggle, of the succession of the rule and victory of certain social classes over others." According to Paul Kellogg , there is "some considerable controversy" regarding "the place of Frederick Engels in
15908-474: The following year. Marx's first London residence was a cramped flat at 28 Dean Street , Soho . From 1856, he lived at 9 Grafton Terrace, Kentish Town , and then in a tenement at 41 Maitland Park Road in Belsize Park from 1875 until his death in March 1883. Mary Burns died suddenly of heart disease in 1863, after which Engels became close with her younger sister Lydia (" Lizzie "). They lived openly as
16072-425: The forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. Twenty-four years after The Communist Manifesto , first published in 1848, Marx and Engels admitted that in developed countries, "labour may attain its goal by peaceful means". Marxist scholar Adam Schaff argued that Marx, Engels, and Lenin had expressed such views "on many occasions". By contrast,
16236-411: The highest percentages of atheists, the murder rate is lower than average. In the most religious states, the murder rate is higher than average. Joseph Baker and Buster Smith assert that one of the common themes of atheism is that most atheists "typically construe atheism as more moral than religion". One of the most common criticisms of atheism has been to the contrary: that denying the existence of
16400-411: The influence of German philosophy on his intellectual development throughout his career. In 1840, he also wrote: "To get the most out of life you must be active, you must live and you must have the courage to taste the thrill of being young." Engels developed atheistic beliefs and his relationship with his parents became strained. In 1842, his parents sent the 22-year-old Engels to Salford , England,
16564-448: The institution of marriage. While Engels regarded stable monogamy as a virtue, he considered the current state and church-regulated marriage as a form of class oppression. Burns guided Engels through Manchester and Salford , showing him the worst districts for his research. Engels was often described as a man with a very strong libido and not much restraint. He had many lovers and despite his condemnation of prostitution as "exploitation of
16728-640: The kind of man Stalin would have had shot". Hunt sums up the disconnect between Engels's personality and the Soviet Union which later utilised his works, stating: This great lover of the good life, passionate advocate of individuality, and enthusiastic believer in literature, culture, art and music as an open forum could never have acceded to the Soviet Communism of the 20th century, all the Stalinist claims of his paternity notwithstanding. As to
16892-405: The lack of evidence , the problem of evil , the argument from inconsistent revelations , the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified , and the argument from nonbelief . Nonbelievers contend that atheism is a more parsimonious position than theism and that everyone is born without beliefs in deities; therefore, they argue that the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to disprove
17056-708: The materialism or physicalism include idealism , dualism and other forms of monism. Naturalism is also used to describe the view that everything that exists is fundamentally natural, and that there are no supernatural phenomena. According to naturalist view, science can explain the world with physical laws and through natural phenomena. Philosopher Graham Oppy references a PhilPapers survey that says 56.5% of philosophers in academics lean toward physicalism; 49.8% lean toward naturalism. According to Graham Oppy, direct arguments for atheism aim at showing theism fails on its own terms, while indirect arguments are those inferred from direct arguments in favor of something else that
17220-522: The meetings at which you and your friends spoke, and also the language of (Neue) Rh.Z. were largely the cause of these disturbances." Engels's parents hoped that young Engels would "decide to turn to activities other than those which you have been pursuing in recent years and which have caused so much distress". At this point, his parents felt the only hope for their son was to emigrate to America and start his life over. They told him that he should do this or he would "cease to receive money from us"; however,
17384-944: The mill, Engels found time to write a book on Martin Luther , the Protestant Reformation and the 1525 revolutionary war of the peasants , entitled The Peasant War in Germany . He also wrote a number of newspaper articles including "The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution" which he finished in February 1850 and "On the Slogan of the Abolition of the State and the German 'Friends of Anarchy'" written in October 1850. In April 1851, he wrote
17548-400: The modern sense was extremely rare in ancient Greece. Pre-Socratic Atomists such as Democritus attempted to explain the world in a purely materialistic way and interpreted religion as a human reaction to natural phenomena, but did not explicitly deny the gods' existence. Anaxagoras , whom Irenaeus calls "the atheist", was accused of impiety and condemned for stating that "the sun
17712-654: The most liberal constitutions in Europe and functioned as refuge for progressives from other countries. From 1845 to 1848, Engels and Marx lived in Brussels , spending much of their time organising the city's German workers. Shortly after their arrival, they contacted and joined the underground German Communist League . The Communist League was the successor organisation to the League of the Just which had been founded in 1837 but had recently disbanded. Influenced by Wilhelm Weitling ,
17876-417: The name of atheism. People who self-identify as atheists are often assumed to be irreligious , but some sects within major religions reject the existence of a personal, creator deity . It has been said that atheism is not mutually exclusive with respect to some religious and spiritual belief systems, including modern Neopagan movements. In recent years, certain religious denominations have accumulated
18040-402: The need for the term "atheism". In his book Letter to a Christian Nation , Sam Harris wrote: In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non- astrologer " or a "non- alchemist ". We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism
18204-535: The office in Manchester. In 1849, Engels travelled to Bavaria for the Baden and Palatinate revolutionary uprising , an even more dangerous involvement. Starting with an article called "The Magyar Struggle", written on 8 January 1849, Engels, himself, began a series of reports on the Revolution and War for Independence of the newly founded Hungarian Republic. Engels's articles on the Hungarian Republic became
18368-494: The old style', that is, insurrection: he does not renounce revolution. The reason for Engels' caution is clear: he candidly admits that ultimate victory for any insurrection is rare, simply on military and tactical grounds". In his introduction to the 1895 edition of Marx's The Class Struggles in France , Engels attempted to resolve the division between reformists and revolutionaries in the Marxist movement by declaring that he
18532-436: The oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people ". He goes on to say, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo,
18696-818: The orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee under the leadership of Trotsky in October, also termed the Revolutionary Military Committee in Lenin's collected works. Trotsky mobilized the Military Revolutionary Committee to seize power on the advent of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies , which began on 25 October 1917. The Communist International (also known as
18860-495: The origins of a reformist trend within Marxism. In 1900, Rosa Luxemburg wrote Social Reform or Revolution? , a polemic against Bernstein's position. The work of reforms, Luxemburg argued, could only be carried on "in the framework of the social form created by the last revolution". In order to advance society to socialism from the capitalist 'social form', a social revolution will be necessary: Bernstein, thundering against
19024-472: The other schools states, for refutation, the materialistic views. Our knowledge of Indian materialism is chiefly based on these." Other Indian philosophies generally regarded as atheistic include Classical Samkhya and Purva Mimamsa . The rejection of a personal creator "God" is also seen in Jainism and Buddhism in India. Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy , but atheism in
19188-492: The pamphlet "Conditions and Prospects of a War of the Holy Alliance against France". Marx and Engels denounced Louis Bonaparte when he carried out a coup against the French government and made himself president for life on 2 December 1851. Engels wrote to Marx on 3 December 1851, characterising the coup as "comical" and referred to it as occurring on "the 18th Brumaire", the date of Napoleon I's coup of 1799 according to
19352-421: The point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat. [...] The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; [...] The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by
19516-641: The population, represented in the soviets , demanded revolutionary change and no longer supported the reformist government of Alexander Kerensky established in the earlier revolution of February 1917. In the Lessons of October , Leon Trotsky wrote: Lenin, after the experience of the reconnoiter, withdrew the slogan of the immediate overthrow of the Provisional Government. But he did not withdraw it for any set period of time, for so many weeks or months, but strictly in dependence upon how quickly
19680-452: The position of the revisionists. Engels's statements in the French newspaper Le Figaro , in which he wrote that "revolution" and the "so-called socialist society" were not fixed concepts, but rather constantly changing social phenomena, and argued that this made "us socialists all evolutionists", increased the public perception that Engels was gravitating towards evolutionary socialism. Engels also argued that it would be "suicidal" to talk about
19844-418: The preordained revolution moment would originate, i.e., the extent to which revolt needs to be concertedly organized and by whom. Rosa Luxemburg, in particular, was known for her theory of revolutionary spontaneity. Critics argued that Luxemburg overstated the role of spontaneity and neglected the role of party organization. Atheistic Atheism , in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in
20008-417: The problem in the relationship between Engels and his parents was worked out without Engels having to leave England or being cut off from financial assistance from his parents. In July 1851, Engels's father arrived to visit him in Manchester, England. During the visit, his father arranged for Engels to meet Peter Ermen of the office of Ermen & Engels , to move to Liverpool and to take over sole management of
20172-477: The proletariat by the bourgeoisie" he also occasionally paid for sex. In 1846 he wrote to Marx: "If I had an income of 5000 francs I would do nothing but work and amuse myself with women until I went to pieces. If there were no Frenchwomen, life wouldn't be worth living. But so long as there are grisettes , well and good!" At a Workers' Union meeting in Brussels, Engels's friend turned rival Moses Hess accused Engels of raping his wife Sibylle. Engels vehemently denied
20336-612: The publication of his book, Engels moved to Brussels in late April 1845, to collaborate with Marx on another book, German Ideology . While living in Barmen, Engels began making contact with Socialists in the Rhineland to raise money for Marx's publication efforts in Brussels; these contacts became more important as both Marx and Engels began political organising for the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany . The nation of Belgium, founded in 1830, had one of
20500-662: The range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anything from the existence of a deity, to the existence of any spiritual , supernatural , or transcendental concepts. Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist. Atheism has been defined as the absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God." Similarly, George H. Smith suggested that: "The man who
20664-552: The recent military campaign against the Prussians. This writing eventually became the article published as "The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution". To help Marx with Neue Rheinische Zeitung Politisch-ökonomische Revue , the new publishing effort in London, Engels sought ways to escape the continent and travel to London. On 5 October 1849, Engels arrived in the Italian port city of Genoa. There, Engels booked passage on
20828-427: The reformist wing of social democracy and other evolutionary approaches to socialism. Revolutionary socialism is opposed to social movements that seek to gradually ameliorate capitalism's economic and social problems through political reform. In The Communist Manifesto , Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote: The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without
20992-420: The religious persuasion attributable to Engels, Hunt writes: In that sense the latent rationality of Christianity comes to permeate the everyday experience of the modern world—its values are now variously incarnated in the family, civil society, and the state. What Engels particularly embraced in all of this was an idea of modern pantheism , or, rather, pandeism , a merging of divinity with progressing humanity,
21156-550: The revolt of the masses against the conciliationists would grow. For these Marxists, the fact that the Bolsheviks won a majority (in alliance with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries ) in the second all-Russian congress of Soviets—democratically elected bodies—which convened at the time of the October revolution, shows that they had the popular support of the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers,
21320-418: The sense of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods". The term ἀσεβής ( asebēs ) then came to be applied against those who impiously denied or disrespected the local gods, even if they believed in other gods. Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render átheos as "atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης ( atheotēs ), "atheism". Cicero transliterated
21484-713: The son of a wealthy textile manufacturer, met Marx in 1844. They jointly authored works including The Holy Family (1844), The German Ideology (written 1846), and The Communist Manifesto (1848), and worked as political organisers and activists in the Communist League and First International . Engels also supported Marx financially for much of his life, enabling him to continue writing after he moved to London in 1849. After Marx's death in 1883, Engels edited from manuscript and completed Volumes II and III of his Das Kapital (1885 and 1894). Engels wrote several important works of his own, including The Condition of
21648-465: The struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. In 1902, Vladimir Lenin attacked Bernstein's position in his What Is to Be Done? When Bernstein first put forward his ideas, the majority of the SPD rejected them. The 1899 congress of the SPD reaffirmed the Erfurt Program , as did the 1901 congress. The 1903 congress denounced "revisionist efforts". On 4 August 1914, the SPD members of
21812-450: The term to refer to disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to describe atheism as "disbelief in God". Skepticism , based on the ideas of David Hume , asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know for sure whether or not a god exists. Hume, however, held that such unobservable metaphysical concepts should be rejected as "sophistry and illusion". Michael Martin argues that atheism
21976-503: The text demonstrate Marx's sympathy for the argument of Nikolay Chernyshevsky , that it should be possible to establish socialism in Russia without an intermediary bourgeois stage provided that the peasant commune were used as the basis for the transition. In 1870, Engels moved to London where he and Marx lived until Marx's death in 1883. Engels's London home from 1870 to 1894 was at 122 Regent's Park Road . In October 1894 he moved to 41 Regent's Park Road, Primrose Hill , NW1, where he died
22140-460: The theory of vanguardist -led revolution such as the Stalinism , Maoism , Marxism–Leninism and Trotskyism . Revolutionary socialism also includes other Marxist , Marxist-inspired and non-Marxist movements such as those found in democratic socialism , revolutionary syndicalism , anarchism and social democracy . Revolutionary socialism is contrasted with reformist socialism , especially
22304-520: The times of the historical Vedic religion . Among the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, Samkhya , the oldest philosophical school of thought, does not accept God, and the early Mimamsa also rejected the notion of God. The thoroughly materialistic and anti-theistic philosophical Chārvāka (or Lokāyata ) school that originated in India around the 6th century BCE is probably the most explicitly atheistic school of philosophy in India, similar to
22468-452: The trends in pre-Socratic philosophy towards naturalistic inquiry and the rejection of divine explanations for phenomena. Aristophanes ' comic play The Clouds (performed 423 BCE) portrays Socrates as teaching his students that the traditional Greek deities do not exist. Socrates was later tried and executed under the charge of not believing in the gods of the state and instead worshipping foreign gods. Socrates himself vehemently denied
22632-572: The unprovability of a god's existence does not imply an equal probability of either possibility. Australian philosopher J.J.C. Smart argues that "sometimes a person who is really an atheist may describe herself, even passionately, as an agnostic because of unreasonable generalized philosophical skepticism which would preclude us from saying that we know anything whatever, except perhaps the truths of mathematics and formal logic." Consequently, some atheist authors, such as Richard Dawkins , prefer distinguishing theist, agnostic, and atheist positions along
22796-600: The uprising in Elberfeld on 10 May 1849. Later when Prussian troops came to Kaiserslautern to suppress an uprising there, Engels joined a group of volunteers under the command of August Willich, who were going to fight the Prussian troops. When the uprising was crushed, Engels was one of the last members of Willich's volunteers to escape by crossing the Swiss border. Marx and others became concerned for Engels's life until they heard from him. Engels travelled through Switzerland as
22960-538: The vast majority of Russian society. In his pamphlet Lessons of October , first published in 1924, Trotsky argued that military power lay in the hands of the Bolsheviks before the October Revolution was carried out, but this power was not used against the government until the Bolsheviks gained mass support. The mass of soldiers began to be led by the Bolshevik party after July 1917 and followed only
23124-595: The very possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Both philosophers undermined the metaphysical basis of natural theology and criticized classical arguments for the existence of God . One goal of the French Revolution was a restructuring and subordination of the clergy with respect to the state through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy . Attempts to enforce it led to anti-clerical violence and
23288-464: The whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air. Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie. In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to
23452-690: The work of Feuerbach, argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppress the working class. According to Mikhail Bakunin , "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory, and practice." He reversed Voltaire 's aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him." Sociologist Phil Zuckerman analyzed previous social science research on secularity and non-belief and concluded that societal well-being
23616-409: The working class in Manchester. He later collected these articles for his influential first book, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). Written between September 1844 and March 1845, the book was published in German in 1845. In the book, Engels described the "grim future of capitalism and the industrial age", noting the details of the squalor in which the working people lived. The book
23780-450: The workings of the universe. In 1661, he published his Short Treatise on God . Criticism of Christianity became increasingly frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and England. Some Protestant thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes , espoused a materialist philosophy and skepticism toward supernatural occurrences. By the late 17th century, deism came to be openly espoused by intellectuals. The first known explicit atheist
23944-535: The world-famous phrase: "Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletariat have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working Men of All Countries, Unite!" Engels's mother wrote in a letter to him of her concerns, commenting that he had "really gone too far" and "begged" him "to proceed no further". She further stated: You have paid more heed to other people, to strangers, and have taken no account of your mother's pleas. God alone knows what I have felt and suffered of late. I
24108-408: The years following Marx's death. In The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), he made an argument using anthropological evidence of the time to show that family structures changed over history, and that the concept of monogamous marriage came from the necessity within class society for men to control women to ensure their own children would inherit their property. He argued
24272-547: Was "take it easy" while "jollity" was listed as his favourite virtue. Of Engels's personality and appearance, Robert Heilbroner described him in The Worldly Philosophers as "tall and rather elegant, he had the figure of a man who liked to fence and to ride to hounds and who had once swum the Weser River four times without a break" as well as having been "gifted with a quick wit and facile mind" and of
24436-496: Was a polyglot and was able to write and speak in numerous languages, including Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Spanish, Polish, French, English, German and the Milanese dialect . In his biography of Engels, Vladimir Lenin wrote: "After his friend Karl Marx (who died in 1883), Engels was the finest scholar and teacher of the modern proletariat in the whole civilised world. [...] In their scientific works, Marx and Engels were
24600-420: Was a "fable invented by the ancients" and that humans were "of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains". Despite the fact that these authors were relatively prolific writers, little of their work survives, mainly being preserved through quotations and excerpts in later works by Muslim apologists attempting to refute them. In Europe, the espousal of atheistic views
24764-493: Was a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment who is best known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being The System of Nature (1770) but also Christianity Unveiled . "The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence,
24928-532: Was baptised in the Calvinist Reformed Evangelical Parish of Elberfeld . At the age of 13, Engels attended secondary school ( Gymnasium ) in the adjacent city of Elberfeld but had to leave at 17 due to pressure from his father, who wanted him to become a businessman and work as a mercantile apprentice in the family firm. After a year in Barmen, the young Engels was, in 1838, sent by his father to undertake an apprenticeship at
25092-404: Was in favour of short-term tactics of electoral politics that included gradualist and evolutionary socialist measures while maintaining his belief that revolutionary seizure of power by the proletariat should remain a goal. In spite of this attempt by Engels to merge gradualism and revolution, his effort only diluted the distinction of gradualism and revolution and had the effect of strengthening
25256-406: Was later criticized by Plutarch for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods". In the 3rd century BCE, the Hellenistic philosophers Theodorus Cyrenaicus and Strato of Lampsacus were also reputed to deny the existence of the gods. The Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus ( c. 200 CE ) compiled a large number of ancient arguments against
25420-470: Was living in London but they were able to exchange ideas through daily correspondence. One of the ideas that Engels and Marx contemplated was the possibility and character of a potential revolution in Russia. As early as April 1853, Engels and Marx anticipated an "aristocratic-bourgeois revolution in Russia which would begin in "St. Petersburg with a resulting civil war in the interior". The model for this type of aristocratic-bourgeois revolution in Russia against
25584-431: Was moving towards accepting parliamentary reformist and gradualist stances, but he ignored that Engels's stances were tactical as a response to the particular circumstances and that Engels was still committed to revolutionary socialism . Engels was deeply distressed when he discovered that his introduction to a new edition of The Class Struggles in France had been edited by Bernstein and orthodox Marxist Karl Kautsky in
25748-475: Was not a revolutionary socialist group despite their refusal to vote for war credits, further defining in his view what was meant by a revolutionary socialist. Many revolutionary socialists argue that the Russian Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin follows the revolutionary socialist model of a revolutionary movement guided by a vanguard party . By contrast, the October Revolution is portrayed as
25912-412: Was now under police surveillance. He had "official" homes and "unofficial homes" all over Salford, Weaste and other inner-city Manchester districts where he lived with Mary Burns under false names to confuse the police. Little more is known, as Engels destroyed over 1,500 letters between himself and Marx after the latter's death so as to conceal the details of their secretive lifestyle. Despite his work at
26076-580: Was published in English in 1887. Archival resources contemporary to Engels's stay in Manchester shed light on some of the conditions he describes, including a manuscript (MMM/10/1) held by special collections at the University of Manchester. This recounts cases seen in the Manchester Royal Infirmary, where industrial accidents dominated, and which resonate with Engels's comments on the disfigured persons seen walking round Manchester as
26240-550: Was rare during the Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages (see Medieval Inquisition ). There were, however, movements within this period that furthered heterodox conceptions of the Christian god, including differing views of the nature, transcendence, and knowability of God. William of Ockham inspired anti-metaphysical tendencies with his nominalist limitation of human knowledge to singular objects, and asserted that
26404-507: Was sceptical of "top-down revolutions" and later in life advocated "a peaceful, democratic road to socialism ". Engels also wrote in his introduction to the 1891 edition of Marx's The Class Struggles in France that "rebellion in the old style, street fighting with barricades, which decided the issue everywhere up to 1848, was to a considerable extent obsolete", although some such as David W. Lowell empashised their cautionary and tactical meaning, arguing that "Engels questions only rebellion 'in
26568-516: Was the German critic of religion Matthias Knutzen in his three writings of 1674. He was followed by two other explicit atheist writers, the Polish ex-Jesuit philosopher Kazimierz Łyszczyński (who most likely authored the world's first treatise on the non-existence of God ) and in the 1720s by the French priest Jean Meslier . In the course of the 18th century, other openly atheistic thinkers followed, such as Baron d'Holbach , Jacques-André Naigeon , and other French materialists . Baron d'Holbach
26732-544: Was trembling when I picked up the newspaper and saw therein that a warrant was out for my son's arrest. There was a revolution in France in 1848 that soon spread to other Western European countries . These events caused Engels and Marx to return to Cologne in their homeland of Prussia. While living there, they created and served as editors for a new daily newspaper called the Neue Rheinische Zeitung . Besides Marx and Engels, other frequent contributors to
26896-473: Was writing for the Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher , edited by both Marx and Arnold Ruge , in Paris in 1844. During this time in Paris, both Marx and Engels began their association with and then joined the secret revolutionary society called the League of the Just . The League of the Just had been formed in 1837 in France to promote an egalitarian society through the overthrow of the existing governments. In 1839,
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