Nicola D’Elia

Independent Scholar, London, UK

ABSTRACT

After Karl Marx’s death in 1883, Friedrich Engels witnessed a resurgence of the labour movement, which roused his optimistic expectations of an imminent victory of socialism. This article focuses on the remarkable change that took place in Engels’ revolutionary perspective during the early 1890s, when he became convinced that the Social Democratic Party in Germany could move straight to power without having to pass through a transition period of bourgeois rule. This conclusion was influenced, above all, by the outstanding electoral performances of the German workers’ party. However, the impact that the developments in Britain and France had on Engels’ new approach ought not to be underestimated. In the last year of his life, he came to reject the idea that bourgeois political rule was a progressive stage on the road to socialism.

KEYWORDS

Friedrich Engels; bourgeois revolution; proletarian revolution; Germany; German Social Democratic Party

From: International Critical Thought 2020 10 (3)

Editor: Wang Yi