Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx in Manchester
Johnny James, Managing Editor
The fathers of communism, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, had deep connections with Manchester. Engels lived here, on and off, for 22 years, during which time Marx would stay with him for long periods. The remarkable tale of two men who changed the political world is told on this Jonathan Schofield tour, which explores the ways in which Manchester helped shape and reinforce their ideas.
In the 1840s, industrial Manchester appeared to confirm for both Engels and Marx the truth behind their ideas of how society was ordered and where it was inevitably headed. It seemed clear to them how the tensions between the ‘bourgeoisie’ and ‘proletariat’ would ultimately lead to the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of communism.
It would probably not have been clear to them that present commemorations in Greater Manchester would include a climbing wall in the shape of the face and beard of Engels.
Still, the fact they filtered their ideas as young men through the experience of Manchester was crucial. Your knowledgeable and experienced tour guide will hone in on this experience as you walk through the city, exploring significant locations including the neo-Gothic John Rylands Library, where the ideas that spawned The Communist Manifesto were developed.
As the well-known historian Asa Briggs wrote in Victorian Cities, “If Engels had lived not in Manchester…his conception of class and his theories of the role of class might have been very different. In this case Marx might have been not a communist but a currency reformer. The fact that Manchester was taken to be the symbol of the age in the 1840s was of central importance in modern world history.
