The Future of Britain

HISTORY
Did Friedrich
Engels seriously
alter Marxism?
Sam Norman
Co-author of The
Communist Manifesto,
Friedrich Engels is often
overlooked, in favour of his
more famous partner, Karl
Marx,) when it comes to
the foundation of Marxism.
Yet, Engels himself had a significant
influence not only over the works of
Marx but over the ideology itself. His
writings, organisation of Marx’s ideas
and his own comments on the works of
Marx may well have altered the focus
of Marxism and changed the meanings
of many of Marx’s writings, if modern
historians are to be believed.
An area where this can clearly be seen
is in the Marxist interpretation of
history: historical materialism. This
term describes the Marxist view that all
history is based on the changing of the
dominant class- capitalists overthrowing
Friedrich Engels
aristocrats, the proletariat (workers)
overthrowing the capitalists, and so onnot
only this but also how humans must
work to produce the means of subsistence
(food and so forth). This interpretation
of history was put forward by Marx
himself but it was not until Engels’ 1878
work ‘Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution
in Science’, commonly known as ‘Anti-
Düring’, that this interpretation was
outlined clearly. Engels did attribute
the ideas of historical realism to Marx
himself, however, but it was Engels who
formalised them and make them clearer
– the ideas were gathered by Engels from
various writings by Marx and made into
one coherent interpretation of history.
Indeed, it was not until 1880, three
years after the death of Marx, that
Engels accepted the usage of the term
‘historical materialism’ to describe this
interpretation, again showing his role
in establishing what has come to be
known as the ‘Marxist interpretation of
history’, i.e. historical materialism.
It can therefore be seen that Engels was
incredibly important in the foundation
of the Marxist view of history. Even
in Marxist economic thought, Engels
was key. The publications of Marx’s
posthumous works were mainly done
by Engels, who organised the ideas and
commented on them, such as was the
case for the posthumous editions of
‘Das Kapital’, an incredibly influential
critical analysis of the capitalist system,
which became a key Marxist text.
But his influence was wider reaching,
although perhaps in more general terms.
Take, for example, ‘The Communist
Manifesto’, the most famous Marxist
work, which was written by both Marx
AND Engels. The fact that Engels coauthored
this key text shows that his
ideas were incredibly important to both
Marx and to the early followers of him.
His ideas became part of the foundations
of Marxism with his co-authoring of The
Communist Manifesto and while these
ideas may not have been drastically
different from those of Marx himself,
the fact remains that his ideas (or at
least a compromise between his ideas
and those of Marx) would have been
included within the manifesto, the most
well-known, perhaps most important,
work of Marxism.
In even more general terms, his influence
can be seen simply as a supporter and
financier of Marx. Engels came from a
wealthy background- his father was a
wealthy German cotton manufacturerand
as a result he provided financial
support to Marx for when he was writing,
such as in the years preceding Marx’s
1867 work ‘Das Kapital’. Because of this
financial support, Engels spent time
with Marx, checking his writings, and
sharing ideas and comments. While this
may well be speculative, it would not be
too surprising if he influenced Marx’s
ideas in this period.
Without delving too much into
speculation, it should be clear that
Engels’ ideas are integral to Marxism.
But those ideas did not alter Marxism
because they were a fundamental part of
it from the start, from the writing of The
Communist Manifesto itself- perhaps a
more accurate term for the ideology is
Marist-Engelism. Or perhaps that term
is just too difficult to say... ƒ
The Melting Pot:
Why the West is
in part to blame
for the woes of the
Middle East today
Euan Middleton
The Middle East has always
been a turbulent place,
from the rise of Islam, to
the Crusades and to the
political conflicts of the
20th and 21st centuries.
Today, however, we are in an even worse
situation than in past, in part down to
the greed of Britain and France at the
Treaty of Versailles over 90 years ago.
At the close of the Great War, Britain
and France were still the great Imperial
powers. For them imperialism was not
yet in decline; in fact, the British Empire
did not reach its peak until 1922, when
it annexed the majority of what few
colonies Germany had. Along with the
German land came mandates over large
areas of the Middle East. During the
Great War, British and Commonwealth
forces advanced north from British
controlled Egypt to fight the Turks, who
were at the time allied with Germany
and Austria-Hungary. They allied with
several Arab tribes, who were promised
independence if they assisted in the
fight against the Turks.
When the war came to its end in 1918,
the Allies promptly reneged on their
promises; the Arabs were not considered
advanced enough to run states along
the lines the West wished. Britain and
France essentially gave themselves vast
swathes as ‘mandates’. Britain took
Palestine, Jordan and Iraq, while the
French took charge in Lebanon and
Syria. These countries, still in existence
today, were drawn by European planners
so they would look neat on a map; they
did not take into account the people who
lived there.
Nearly a century on and the effects of
these partitions are beginning to be felt
in full force. Syria has been embroiled
in a vicious inner-conflict for over 3
years. It is home to diverse ethnic
and religious groups, including Kurds,
Armenians, Assyrians, Christians,
Druze, Alawite Shia and Arab Sunnis.
The country has been under the rule of
the Alawites Ba’ath party since 1963,
with presidents staying in some cases
for as long as 30 years. They represent
only 12% of the population. The sheer
number of different religions which
exist in Syria have shaped the civil war
there from a struggle for freedom to a
sectarian-orientated civil war. Arguably
the meddling of the West in places
they did not understand has led to an
increased ferocity in the nature of the
fighting in Syria today.
However, a much longer conflict has
engulfed the Middle East, that of the
creation of the state of Israel. Having
cut the state of Palestine out in 1919,
the West of 1945 decided that the
Jews really did need a home. Without
any consultation of the Arabs living
there, nor the wider community, they
redrew the lines; more than half the
land mass of Palestine became, in an
instant, an entirely separate nation. As
soon as the British withdrew in May
1948, the two sides were instantly at
war with each other. The Arab nations
stood by Palestine, particularly Syria,
Egypt, Jordan and Iraq. Two major wars
followed in 1967 and 1973, from which
Israel emerged victorious. In the present
day Israel has been expanding with
illegal settlements into what remains of
Palestine. The Western planners simply
did not foresee the social impact that the
changes they made would have on the
Middle East, with dire consequences.
The diverse social mix of peoples in what
are considered ‘nations’ in the middle
east do not allow them to have a single
identity and thus a “general will.” This
limits their ability to truly be nations. If
only the West had understood this, the
problem may have been averted.
“The west’s retreats...
have been a disaster
George Galloway, RESPECT MP
Fresh unrest has arrived in the Middle
East. An Al-Qaeda affiliated Sunni
militant group known as ISIS has taken
control of much of Northern Iraq, with
the demoralised army fleeing before
them. This has led to the vast majority
of northern Iraq being removed from
central government control. In the north
east, the Kurds have practically achieved
independence. All this turmoil, and the
massacres and fighting that surrounds
it, can invariably be traced back to the
rushed planning of the borders of the
Middle East post World War I. Fed by
oncoming ideals of socialism and antiimperialism,
the west’s quick retreats
from the Middle East since 1918 have
been nothing but a disaster. ƒ
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