V.I. Lenin writes about Engels: "A great fighter and teacher of the proletariat!"

  By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

 

Written in autumn 1895, First published in 1896 in the miscellany Rabotnik, No. 1-2.

Source: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 via Marxists Internet Archives.

What a torch of reason ceased to burn, 

What a heart has ceased to beat!

On August 5 (new style), 1895, Frederick Engels died in London. After his friend Karl Marx (who died in 1883), Engels was the finest scholar and teacher of the modern proletariat in the whole civilised world. From the time that fate brought Karl Marx and Frederick Engels together, the two friends devoted their life’s work to a common cause. And so to understand what Frederick Engels has done for the proletariat, one must have a clear idea of the significance of Marx’s teaching and work for the development of the contemporary working-class movement. 

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Part IV "Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties"

Manifesto of the Communist Party.

By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

First Published: February 1848.

Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137.

IV. POSITION OF THE COMMUNISTS IN RELATION TO THE VARIOUS EXISTING OPPOSITION PARTIES.

Section II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the existing working-class parties, such as the Chartists in England and the Agrarian Reformers in America. 

The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement. In France, the Communists ally with the Social-Democrats# against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however, the right to take up a critical position in regard to phases and illusions traditionally handed down from the great Revolution. 

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Part III "Socialist and Communist Literature"

Manifesto of the Communist Party.

By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

First Published: February 1848.

Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137.

III. SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST LITERATURE.

1. REACTIONARY SOCIALISM.

A. Feudal Socialism.

Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society. In the French Revolution of July 1830, and in the English reform agitation, these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political struggle was altogether out of the question. A literary battle alone remained possible. But even in the domain of literature the old cries of the restoration period had become impossible.*

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Part II "Proletarians and Communists"

Manifesto of the Communist Party.

By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

First Published: February 1848.

Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137.

II. PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS.

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?

The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties. 

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. 

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. 

The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. 

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Part I "Bourgeois and Proletarians"

Manifesto of the Communist Party.

By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

First Published: February 1848.

Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137.

Preface to The 1872 German Edition.

The Communist League, an international association of workers, which could of course be only a secret one, under conditions obtaining at the time, commissioned us, the undersigned, at the Congress held in London in November 1847, to write for publication a detailed theoretical and practical programme for the Party. Such was the origin of the following Manifesto, the manuscript of which travelled to London to be printed a few weeks before the February [French] Revolution [in 1848]. First published in German, it has been republished in that language in at least twelve different editions in Germany, England, and America. It was published in English for the first time in 1850 in the Red Republican, London, translated by Miss Helen Macfarlane, and in 1871 in at least three different translations in America. The French version first appeared in Paris shortly before the June insurrection of 1848, and recently in Le Socialiste of New York. A new translation is in the course of preparation. A Polish version appeared in London shortly after it was first published in Germany. A Russian translation was published in Geneva in the sixties#. Into Danish, too, it was translated shortly after its appearance.