Now some scholars have argued that Engels reworked Marx’s thought, and even that there were actually significant differences between Engels’ version of communism and that of Marx, such as in Norman Levine’s The Tragic Deception: Marx contra Engels (1975) (Hunt 2009: 301). To some extent some of these arguments are made by Marxists who want to whitewash Marx and exonerate him from the horrors of communism, but there seems to be some truth to the view that it was Engels who popularised Marx’s work in the 1880s (Hunt 2009: 282). Yet, at the same time, Marx seems to have fully endorsed the Anti-Dühring (1878) so that it accurately represented his mature thought (Hunt 2009: 301–302).
These important works of Engels are online as follows:
(1) The Housing Question (1872; 2nd edn. 1887):BIBLIOGRAPHYEngels, The Housing Question, 1872(2) Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science (1878)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/housing-question/
This work is often known simply as the Anti-Dühring and was first published in German serialised in a periodical. Three German editions appeared in 1878, 1886 and 1894. The first English translation appeared in 1907:Engels, Friedrich. Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science. (trans. Emile Burns from 1894 edn.). International Publishers, New York.(3) Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880):
https://archive.org/details/antidhringherr00enge
Engels, Friedrich. 1947. Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science (trans. Emile Burns from 1894 edn.). Progress Publishers.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/
This was first published in France in 1880 as an extract from Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science. An English translation appeared in 1892:Engels, Friedrich. 1910. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (trans. Edward Bibbins Aveling). C. H. Kerr, Chicago.(4) The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884):
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_6avaAAAAMAAJ
Engels, Friedrich. 1914. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (trans. Edward Bibbins Aveling). C. H. Kerr, Chicago.
https://archive.org/details/socialismutopian00enge
Engels, Friedrich. 1970. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (trans. Edward Aveling in 1892). Progress Publishers.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/Engels, Friedrich. 1909. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (trans. Ernest Untermann). C. H. Kerr & Company, Chicago.
https://archive.org/details/originoffamilypr00enge
Engels, Friedrich. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (trans. Alick West in 1942 but revised).
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/
Hunt, Tristram. 2009. The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels. Allen Lane, London.
Levine, Norman. 1975. The Tragic Deception: Marx contra Engels. Clio Books, Oxford and Santa Barbara.
Sperber, Jonathan. 2014. Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life. Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York.
What is "the myth of Marx"?
ReplyDeleteLet's see if I understand.
ReplyDelete(A)
"Engels’ presentation of Marxism in Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science (1878) and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880) was profoundly influential in shaping the myth of Marx and a version of his economics to later communists".
Okay. That's easy.
(B)
"Now some scholars have argued that Engels reworked Marx’s thought, and even that there were actually significant differences between Engels’ version of communism and that of Marx, such as in Norman Levine’s The Tragic Deception: Marx contra Engels (1975) (Hunt 2009: 301). To some extent some of these arguments are made by Marxists who want to whitewash Marx and exonerate him from the horrors of communism"
Well, this is still consistent with (A). Just one question: how did Engels know, in advance, about the "horrors of communism"?
Wikipedia says Engels died in 1895. That was 22 years before there was any "communism", let alone the "horrors of communism". Was he a clairvoyant, do you think?
"Yet, at the same time, Marx seems to have fully endorsed the Anti-Dühring (1878) so that it accurately represented his mature thought (Hunt 2009: 301–302)."
Now, this is weird. B says that Engels "reworked Marx's thought". Now Marx seems to have "fully endorsed the Anti-Dühring (1878". So, what was the "reworking" Engels did?
--------
Just out of curiosity: is English your mother tongue?
Engels’ vision of the transitional socialist/communist state is one that any reasonable person -- including Engels -- can foresee will be a nightmare:
Delete“A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?
Friedrich Engels, “On Authority,” 1874
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm