Federico English, who would seek one’s conscience with respect to his social class, was born without it (1820) in the Barmen of old Prussia, since 1929 baptized Wuppertal, in western Germany. In that 1820, a “eureka!” Hans Christian Ørsted, Danish scientist, discovered the relationship between magnetism and electricity. Engels’ family wanted him a businessman. They longed for him as an entrepreneur. And even if he rebelled, they would get it in the middle of his life. But not yet. At that time he was sent to study in Bremen (1838), where the boy was more concerned with Hegel’s philosophy than with the textile factories owned by his wealthy parents. That effort does not prevent him from raising his head and checking the working conditions of his contemporaries. Similar concern is shared by Dickens. He masterfully reflects it in ‘Oliver Twist’ in three published volumes (1838) before finishing the serialization of the novel already underway in ‘Bentley’s Miscellany’. With the misadventures of the boy Twist, and the fears inscribed on the face of the evil Fagin, the writer denounces the horror contained in the most miserable of English society.
Everything in Engels is search and encounter: in the early forties of the 19th century he comes across two figures that will mark his life. The first in Cologne (1842): the philosopher Karl Marx, his editor at the ‘Rheinische Zeitung’. With him he will compose his work and they will tie his names to history. The second, the Irish Mary Burns. With it he will listen to the working conditions of English workers and he will feel identified with their hardships. He meets Mary in Manchester while she works for his parents’ textile business. The conflict for which the regent Espartero bombards Barcelona in 1842 also has to do with that industry and with the country where Federico resides: the lowering of tariffs for English producers rebels the Catalan city. The general makes the most radical decision and placates -for a while- the problem.
Engels’ experiences in the UK prompted him to publish ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England’ (1845). In the introduction, a tribute: «English workers! To you I dedicate a work in which I have tried to paint for my fellow Germans a true picture of your living conditions, your sorrows and your struggles, your hopes and your prospects. Marx is impressed by that work. At once (1845) in Russia bans night work for children under twelve years old. In a police report on a match factory in Moscow, it is said that 67 children between the ages of ten and fifteen were employed there. For hours and hours, they soaked the wooden sticks with sulfur in rooms without ventilation. Russian law did not establish penalties for violating that law. Just three years later, Engels will sign with his partner the ‘Communist Manifesto’. To explain, he uses the profound social changes that the mechanism of the Industrial Revolution has caused. Among them, those caused by the massification of the railway: the first line of the Iberian Peninsula was inaugurated in 1845 and connects Mataró with Barcelona.
So much time trying to escape from his family! After his participation in the failed uprising of the city of Elberfeld against Prussia, he gives in: he decides to settle in London (1849) and think about business. He will complete Marx’s ‘Capital’, which will mark the destiny of his friend as it marked ‘The Radetzky March’ that of Strauss father (1804-49). Starting in 1863, Engels says goodbye little by little. First, from his companion Mary (1821-63); later, of her sister, Lizzie (1827-78), with whom he will mate -they will marry a few hours before her death- of her; and, finally, of Marx (1818-83). Would these verses be worth Cavafis (1863-1933) to exemplify Federico’s personality: “And if you can’t make your life the way you want it,/ at least try this/ as much as you can: do not dishonor her/ in huddled contact with the world». He leaves the «we» in 1895. And in 1917 that Russian revolution that Marx and he predicted breaks out.
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