Page:Karl Kautsky - Frederick Engels - 1899.djvu/7

 against this. They held fast to the dialectic method of Hegel, but not to the dogmatic superstructure of his philosophy. They substituted materialism for ideology. They conceived the real world—nature and history—as it actually appears to each individual who comes to it without preconceived idealistic whims.

The first appearance of this new dialectical materialism was in a work entitled "The Holy Family; or, a Review of the Critical Critique Against Bruno Bauer and His Followers." This was written in Paris in 1844 and appeared in Frankfort a year later. The greater part was written by Marx, and is a reflection of the historical and philosophical studies they had carried on together. The economic sphere was little touched upon. The proletarian standpoint, however, was already prominent.

Meanwhile the publications of both assumed more of an economic character. Marx buried himself more and more in economic study. Engels also at that time wrote out the results of his economic investigations in a work entitled "The Condition of the Laboring Class in England," the importance of which even at the present time is shown by the fact that an English translation has just appeared.

Shorter economic articles of Engels' had already been published. Of first importance is an article in the German-French Yearbook, issued by Marx and Ruge in 1844, entitled "Outlines of a Critique on Political Economy." Its significance lies in the fact that here the first attempt was made to found socialism upon political economy. Engels was at this time only a superficial student of political economy (for example, he knew Ricardo only through his commentator MacCullough). Accordingly there were many errors in the early beginnings of scientific socialism, of which, next to Marx, Engels must always be considered the founder. It was impregnated with sympathy for the forms of socialism which Engels had come to know in England.

It was altogether different with "The Condition of the Laboring Class in England." Engels was in an attitude of hostile criticism to both Chartism and Owenism, and demanded that both should unite upon a higher plane; the labor movement must be the power to bring Socialism into birth; Socialism must be the goal the labor movement sets before itself.

The English Utopian Socialism—Owenism—knew nothing of the labor movement in general—nothing of strikes, of