Engels' life seems to be full of contradictions. He is a Prussian quartermaster, a fox hunter who despises landlords, and a miller whose greatest ambition is to lead the working class revolution. As a wealthy member of the bourgeoisie, he has provided economic support for nearly 40 years, so that his collaborator Karl Marx has been working on books that change the world, such as Capital. However, at least one biographer believes that although Marx and his aristocratic wife Yan Ni were eager to take Engels' money, they never really accepted Engels as their social equality. Four discoveries in radical magazines collected by the University of Kansas hide another mystery-Xie, which provides a new perspective for the life and thoughts of Marxist midwives. The mystery lies in: Why did Engels, who was sent to work in Manchester, a British industrial city, choose to lead a double life, maintaining a gentleman's residence in some parts of the city and renting a series of rooms in the workers' area? How did this well-dressed privileged descendant manage to cross the noisy slums of Manchester safely and collect information about the miserable life of the residents for his first masterpiece, The Situation of the Working Class in Britain? The strangest thing is that many years later, when asked about his favorite meal, why did a German like Engels answer "Irish stew" 1870? Engels left Manchester where he had lived for 28 years. It is the largest industrial town in Britain and a famous cotton trading center. (public domain)

To answer these questions, we need to see that Engels is not dying. He is a bearded old man of international socialism, but he has just started. Friedrich engels was a sociable young man in the 1940s. He has language skills, likes drinking and likes lively female companions. ("If I had 5000 francs," he once admitted to Marx, "I would do nothing but work and have fun with women until I collapsed." It was this Engels 1842 12 who came to England in February and was sent to help manage the part of the factory owned by his rich father, in order to protect their radicals from the Prussian police. It was this Engels who was frightened by his acquaintances. He met an Irish woman named Mary Burns, fell in love with her and lived with her secretly for more than 20 years.

In the past century, Burns's influence on Engels, municipal management and world history has been seriously underestimated. At best, she is fleeting in Engels' monographs, and hardly exists in any general works about socialism. Because she is illiterate, or almost illiterate, not to mention Irish, working class, female, she left only the weakest impression in contemporary records. Apart from the outstanding efforts of some Manchester historians, there is almost no exact information about who she is, how she lives and what she thinks. However, from Engels' works, we can see that she had a considerable influence on several major works of her lover. Lizzie lived with Engels after her sister died and married Engels the day before her death. No image of Mary is known. (public domain)

Let's begin to try to restore memory by sketching the main background of the story. I have to say that Manchester is a young man's exile choice, and his left-wing beliefs make his family very worried. This is the greatest and most terrible of all the products of the British industrial revolution: the large-scale experiment of liberal capitalism in the past decade has witnessed the wave of economic liberalism. * * * and enterprises take free trade and laissez-faire as their creed, which is accompanied by huge profits and bad treatment of workers. Factory workers work six days a week and every day 14 hours. This is Monday. Although many of them are very nice, we suggest that she and her sister Lizzie be servants for a while. A school-age "Mary Bourne" and a "Born in this parish" were recorded in the home of a painter named George Chadfield. As Belinda Weber said, Burns probably accepted the job because it provided an adaptation. Her mother 1835 died and her father remarried a year later, so she and her sister had to make up with their stepmother. Maybe they ran away from home for an urgent reason. Of course, domestic service will teach Mary and Lizzie the skills they need to support their families for Engels, and these skills have been working for Engels for many years since 1843.

Although not every historian believed that Mary was in the army during this period. Weber noticed Engels' description that she often hiked in Manchester for a long time. He thought that if Mary was a factory worker or servant, she would have little time as a tour guide in Manchester, but she might be a * * *. Weber pointed out that Burns is said to have sold oranges at the Manchester Science Museum, and "selling oranges" has always been a euphemism for participating in * * *(the * * *). Nell Gwen, King charles ii's Protestant, the famous drury lane Theatre sells fruits, and George Weiss, a radical poet who knows him, is one of Engels' closest partners. He wrote some puns and described a black-eyed Irish tramp named Mary who sold her "juicy fruit" to a "bearded acquaintance" at the Liverpool pier, and the relationship between Engels and Mary. Hearing that Engels was interested in physiology, the philosopher asked, "Are you studying … Mary?" ? "Engels didn't believe in marriage. His letters revealed many affairs, but he and Burns remained a couple for nearly 20 years. " There is no exact news about Mary's participation in Engels' political life, but many things can be guessed. Edmund and Ruth ·flo pointed out that Engels called the Manchester slum "Little Ireland" and described it in great detail. He must know. They argued that Mary, "as an Irish girl with a big family … I could have shown her around the slums …" If he were a middle-class foreigner, he would have appeared alive, of course, without clothes, which is doubtful. 1856, Engels and Mary Burns visited Ireland together, and almost every village was still affected. (public domain)

Engels' understanding of the worst slums in Manchester is of certain significance. Although Engels was born in a business district in Ruhr, and (as his biographer Gustav Meyer said) he "knew the true nature of the factory system from an early age", he was still shocked by the squalor and crowding he found in Manchester. He said, "I have never seen such a bad city." . Disease, poverty, inequality between the rich and the poor, lack of education and hope all make many people unable to stand city life. As for the factory owner, Engels wrote: "I have never seen a class so depressed, so hopelessly degraded by selfishness, so introverted, so unable to make progress." Engels wrote that once he went to town with such a person and "told him about the bad and unhealthy construction methods and the terrible environment in the workers' dormitory." "The man heard his voice quietly," said at the corner where we parted, "but there is still a lot of money to be made here: good morning, sir. "

The acquaintance with the Burns sisters also exposed Engels to some more disgraceful aspects of British imperialism in that period. Although Mary was born in England, her parents both immigrated from Tipperay in southern Ireland. Her father, Michael, worked as a weaver again and again, but he ended his life in poverty in the past 10 years. Jenny thinks Burns is "very arrogant". She said sarcastically, "When I face this abstract model myself, it looks very disgusting in my own eyes." Simon Bartmitch reported that when they attended a workers' meeting together, Marx "indicated with an important gesture and smile that his wife would never see Engels' Paignon under any circumstances.

It is against this background that Engels wrote to Marx and told his friend Mary about her death. "She went to bed early last night," he wrote. "When Lizzie went upstairs in the middle of the night, she was already dead. It was sudden. Heart attack or stroke. I got the news this morning, and she was fine on Monday night. I can't tell you how I feel. The poor girl loves me wholeheartedly. " It's hard for you, he wrote. She and Mary have a home, and you can get rid of all the scum at will. "But the rest of the letter is a long speech about Marx's pain, and finally it is a plea for money." All my friends, "Engels replied angrily," including those vulgar acquaintances, expressed deeper sympathy and friendship to me than I expected at the moment. You find that this moment just shows the superiority of your calmness and wisdom. 1895 died at the age of 74. (public domain)

Marx wrote again that he apologized, expressed more detailed condolences and blamed his first letter on his wife asking for money. He wrote: "What makes me particularly angry is that I didn't fully report our true situation to you." Mike Gunn and other writers suspect that Marx opposed Engels' love for working-class women, not because of class, but because this relationship was bourgeois, thus violating the principle of urbanism. Whatever the cause of the argument, Engels seemed very happy when it was over.

He and Mary's sister lived 15 years. It may be doubtful whether their relationship is as full of * * * as Engels and Mary enjoyed, but he really likes Liz Burns. Just before 1878 she was knocked down by some kind of tumor, he promised her last wish and married her. "She is a real Irish proletarian," he wrote. "Her passion for her class and natural feelings are more valuable to me, and I can benefit more from the education and culture of your educated and ascetic young ladies in times of crisis."

Historians are still divided on the importance of the sisterhood between Engels and Burns. Some biographers think that Mary and Liz are just * * *, and they also have their own houses, which Victorian gentlemen can hardly do for themselves. Terrell Carver thinks, "In love, Engels doesn't seem to be looking for his intellectual equality."

Others think Mary Burns is more important. Engels wrote in his first book "The British Working Class": "I want to see you in your own homes, observe your daily life, talk with you about your situation and dissatisfaction, and witness your struggle." Without a guide, he could never realize this ambition, of course, not during his first short stay in Britain. And achieving this goal is the symbol of his life. "Spending 20 months in Manchester and London," Henderson said-spending 10 or 15 months with Mary Burns-"changed Engels from an inexperienced young man to a young man who found a purpose in life."

come from

Roland Bohr. Engels' Contradiction: Answering Terry Strahm Hunt, International Socialism133 (2012); William Delaney. Revolutionary republicanism and socialism in Irish history. Lincoln: Writer Show, 20065438+0; Edmund and Ruth ·flo. Frederick Engels of Manchester and The Situation of the British Working Class; Salford: Library of the Working Class Movement,1995; Mike Gunn. harm