If Marx had not lived, I think Engels would be more lauded as a great revolutionary thinker. Though I am very happy that is not how it went, as I don’t believe Engels could have taken the theory to the same heights as Marx. Marx really was a genius of world-historical magnitude. Nevertheless, the brilliance of Engels is very evident from his numerous solo works and joint writings with Marx (e.g. The Holy Family and of course the Manifesto).
I’m reminded of Engels’ statement about his first encounters with Marx:
Excerpt
When I visited Marx in Paris in the summer of 1844, our complete agreement in all theoretical fields became evident and our joint work dates from that time. When, in the spring of 1845, we met again in Brussels, Marx had already fully developed his materialist theory of history in its main features form the above-mentioned basis and we now applied ourselves to the detailed elaboration of the newly-won mode of outlook in the most varied directions.
This discovery, which revolutionized the science of history and, as we have seen, is essentially the work of Marx — a discovery in which I can claim for myself only a very insignificant share — was, however, of immediate importance for the contemporary workers’ movement. Communism among the French and Germans, Chartism among the English, now no longer appeared as something accidental which could just as well not have occurred. These movements now presented themselves as a movement of the modern oppressed class, the proletariat, as the more or less developed forms of its historically necessary struggle against the ruling class, the bourgeoisie; as forms of the class struggle, but distinguished from all earlier class struggles by this one thing, that the present-day oppressed class the proletariat, cannot achieve its emancipation without at the same time emancipating society as a whole from division into classes and, therefore, from class struggles. And Communism now no longer meant the concoction, by means of the imagination, of an ideal society as perfect as possible, but insight into the nature, the conditions and the consequent general aims of the struggle waged by the proletariat.
I think the interesting thing to consider is that even without Marx socialism would happen because class struggle would happen without him anyway. Proles would rise against bourgeoisie and proles would establish themselves as the dominant class or eliminate bourgeoisie entirely and well there you have it, socialism.
If Marx hadn’t noticed this occurrence in the Paris Commune someone after him certainly would have in subsequent revolutionary efforts. Lenin perhaps.
The basic notions of class society and materialism I agree would have developed regardless. We are, however, very lucky to have had, in particular, an expert whose PhD thesis was on the question of free will in the context of materialism; that this expert also deeply understood the dialectic and popularized that as the theoretical foundation of the nascent capitalist world; and that this expert politically favored working-class socialism over bourgeois socialism (communism over socialism). Marx had a longitudinal view of the history of socialist thought and of economic thought. The sheer clarity of the ideas may have saved us from centuries of confusion and quasi-religious fighting over the precise formulation of these principles. Someone like Lenin might not have succeeded at combating liberal dogma without this clarification being handed down at the right moment in history.
If Marx had not lived, I think Engels would be more lauded as a great revolutionary thinker. Though I am very happy that is not how it went, as I don’t believe Engels could have taken the theory to the same heights as Marx. Marx really was a genius of world-historical magnitude. Nevertheless, the brilliance of Engels is very evident from his numerous solo works and joint writings with Marx (e.g. The Holy Family and of course the Manifesto).
I’m reminded of Engels’ statement about his first encounters with Marx:
Excerpt
I think the interesting thing to consider is that even without Marx socialism would happen because class struggle would happen without him anyway. Proles would rise against bourgeoisie and proles would establish themselves as the dominant class or eliminate bourgeoisie entirely and well there you have it, socialism.
If Marx hadn’t noticed this occurrence in the Paris Commune someone after him certainly would have in subsequent revolutionary efforts. Lenin perhaps.
The basic notions of class society and materialism I agree would have developed regardless. We are, however, very lucky to have had, in particular, an expert whose PhD thesis was on the question of free will in the context of materialism; that this expert also deeply understood the dialectic and popularized that as the theoretical foundation of the nascent capitalist world; and that this expert politically favored working-class socialism over bourgeois socialism (communism over socialism). Marx had a longitudinal view of the history of socialist thought and of economic thought. The sheer clarity of the ideas may have saved us from centuries of confusion and quasi-religious fighting over the precise formulation of these principles. Someone like Lenin might not have succeeded at combating liberal dogma without this clarification being handed down at the right moment in history.