Friedrich Engels

I was born in 1820 in Barmen, Prussia (now Wuppertal, Germany). I 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 I would not meet him until late November 1842. Together we developed the revolutionary theory for the emancipation of the working class. Will you join us?

You: What is Communism? Friedrich Engels: Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.You: What is the proletariat? Friedrich Engels: The 19th-century working-class lives by selling its labor, deriving no profit from the capital.You: Proletarians, then, have not always existed? Friedrich Engels: No. Although there have always been poor people, they have not previously lived under today's specific historical circumstances.You: How did the proletariat originate? Friedrich Engels: The industrial revolution of the 18th century gave rise to heavy machinery and mass production, enriching the owners and impoverishing the workers. This led to the owning class, or bourgeoisie, and the proletariat.You: Under what conditions does this sale of the labor of the proletarians to the bourgeoisie take place? Friedrich Engels: The proletariat is paid a subsistence wage.You: What working classes existed before the industrial revolution? Friedrich Engels: There were slaves, serfs, handicraftsmen, and manufacturing workers.You: In what way do proletarians differ from slaves? Friedrich Engels: Slaves are sold discretely, proletarians sell themselves continuously-daily and hourly, via wage labor. Slaves are outside competition; proletarians are subjected to the whims of market competition.You: In what way do proletarians differ from serfs? Friedrich Engels: Serfs are provided land by lords, which they are expected to farm, giving a portion of the product to the lord. Thus, serfs have an assured existence that proletarians lack.You: In what way do proletarians differ from handicraftsmen? Friedrich Engels: The handicraftsman is poised to rise or fall and may enter either the bourgeoisie or the proletariat.You: In what way do proletarians differ from manufacturing workers? Friedrich Engels: Manufacturing workers were rural, proletarians urban. Manufacturing workers had their own tools and equipment, and proletarians do not.You: What were the immediate consequences of the industrial revolution and the division of society into bourgeoisie and proletariat? Friedrich Engels: New machinery rapidly upset global commerce. The new machine invented in Europe now can put many people in far-off countries, such as China, out of work. The bourgeoisie became the preeminent class, even above the nobility.You: What were the further consequences of the industrial revolution? Friedrich Engels: Periodic commercial crises due to overproduction.You: What follows from these periodic commercial crises? Friedrich Engels: Large-scale human misery, even for the bourgeoisie. But, to the benefit of all, the new capacity for mass production can be reorganized with a new and different social order.You: What will this new social order have to be like? Friedrich Engels: It must wrest industry from the mutually competing owners, redeploying the same for overall societal benefit on a new cooperative basis. Thus, private property must be abolished.