November 28, 1997 was the 177th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Engels, the brilliant teacher and leader of the international proletariat, who together with Karl Marx, his closest friend and comrade, founded scientific socialism, the indispensable theory of the struggle of the working class for its emancipation. This genius, whose tremendous revolutionary activity spanned more than half a century, together with Karl Marx showed that the struggle for socialism is not a matter of a utopian dream, of some excellent "ideas" of which the rulers and governing classes only need to be convinced, but the inevitable consequence of the development of the productive forces of modern society and of the equally inevitable class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie which this development gives rise to. Frederick Engels was born in Barmen, in the Rhine province of the kingdom of Prussia, in 1820. While still at school, Engels developed a profound hatred for autocracy and political despotism. A follower of the revolutionary teachings of Hegel, like Marx he soon rejected Hegel's idealist views and used the dialectical approach in making a materialist analysis of the world. He used this outlook and approach in carrying out a comprehensive study of the conditions of the English working class after he settled in Manchester, in the heartland of British industry, in 1842 and saw firsthand the poverty and misery of the workers. The fruit of his studies and observations was a work of tremendous revolutionary and scientific value: The Conditions of the Working Class in England. In it, Engels was the first to point out the revolutionary side to the deplorable plight of the proletariat: this was that the conditions of the working class were irrevocably leading it to fight for its complete emancipation. The political movement of the working class would inevitably bring the workers to the conclusion that their interests demand the destruction of the very foundations of capitalist society and the rule of the tiny minority of exploiters, private property, and that there was no way out except in socialism. Engels also showed on the basis of the dialectical materialist analysis of human society that socialism would only become a force when it became the aim of the political struggle of the working class. It was in England, during this period, that Engels became a socialist. In 1844, he was to meet Marx, with whom he had already begun to correspond, for the first time, and to commence their revolutionary collaboration which was to provide the working class with the revolutionary science for its emancipation. That very year, they worked together to write The Holy Family, or a Criticism of Critical Criticism, in which are laid down the rudiments of revolutionary materialist socialism. In it they incisively criticized the philosophy of the Bauer brothers and their "critical" approach to the situation in the world, and pointed out that the issue was not contemplating the world but struggling for a better order of society. From 1845 to 1847, Engels continued his revolutionary work amongst German workers in Paris and Brussels where both he and Marx established contact with the secret German Communist League which commissioned them to enunciate the main principles of socialism as they had worked them out. In November 1847, having taken up this task, Engels completed the first draft of the Manifesto of the Communist Party. In this immortal work published in 1848, Marx and Engels brilliantly put forward the doctrine of scientific socialism, the programme for the emancipation of the working class and the building of the new communist society. They placed the proletariat at the centre of social development and as the leader, inspirer, organizer and mobilizer in the irreconcilable class struggle against the bourgeoisie, its grave-digger, pointing out, "its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable", that the working class must become the ruling class, that the violent revolution is necessary for the transformation of society and that the proletariat must establish its dictatorship to emancipate itself and all mankind. Marx and Engels issued the clarion call, Workers of All Countries, Unite! which embodies the principles of proletarian internationalism and showed the international character of its struggle for liberation from capitalist exploitation and wage-slavery so as to overthrow the capitalist order and its state power on the world scale. The revolutions of 1848 in countries throughout Europe brought both Marx and Engels back to Germany. In Cologne, in Rhenish Prussia, they put out the democratic newspaper Neue Rheinische Zeitung and became the central figures in the revolutionary democratic struggle against the forces of reaction there. Reaction gained the upper hand, the paper was suppressed, and while Engels continued to fight after Marx was deported, actively participating in the armed popular uprising in which he fought in three battles, he too was forced to leave the country following the defeat of the revolutionary forces. Shortly thereafter, he settled in England where Marx also settled, and their close revolutionary collaboration continued until Marx's death in 1883, yielding a wealth of revolutionary material which continues to be an indispensable guide to the revolutionary proletariat in its struggles to this day, having lost none of its validity and value. It was here that Marx was to write the greatest work ever done on political economy - Capital. While Marx carried out his tremendous work on the analysis of the complex phenomena of capitalist economy, Engels took up the elaboration of the revolutionary science and outlook on a wide range of questions, often writing simple, concise works in a polemical style. Amongst his major contributions to the theory of scientific socialism during this period are the famous polemical work Anti-Duhring, in which he deals with fundamental questions of philosophy, natural science and social science, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, The Housing Question and Ludwig Feuerbach. It was Engels too, who carried out the major task of preparing and publishing the second and third volumes of Capital, after Marx died leaving this work only in draft form. Engels' revolutionary work, however, went beyond this invaluable enunciation of the revolutionary theory of the proletariat. Like Marx, he, too, was active in the international working class movement, including his active participation in the International Working Men's Association founded by Marx in 1864. Even after the dissolution of the Internationale and the death of Marx, Engels continued to pay great attention to the development of the international working class movement. The correspondence which he conducted with communists and working class leaders throughout Europe and North America is amongst the treasures which he left the international proletariat, being rich in principles and in the enunciation of the revolutionary strategy and tactics of the proletariat. In all his work, the revolutionary essence of this brilliant fighter for the interests of the working class is always apparent. He never for a moment lost sight of the interests for which he was fighting, never lapsed into empty theorizing, but, on the contrary, repeatedly pointed out that "Marxism is not a dogma, but a guide to action". His writings to this day form an integral and essential part of the theory of scientific socialism - an indispensable and invaluable guide in the struggle of the working class for its emancipation, for socialism and communism. TML Weekly, 12/7/97 Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo [EMAIL PROTECTED]