Engels Today: An Introduction

Engels today is a very large archive of texts, which generate many significant puzzles. However, most factual accounts of his life, his partnership with Marx, and his political activities are actually answers to questions that are very seldom posed directly. This article poses searching questions about the Marx-centric formation of the Engels archive, the meaning of senior/junior roles in the partnership, the nature of Marxism in relation to Marx and Engels as independent thinkers, and the commonplace presumptions of consistency and certainty characteristic of historical commentary. It reviews the five articles in this collection in order to suggest a novel “Engels-centric” approach to intellectual biography and scholarly evaluation. An “Engels-centric” approach requires a fresh look at the materials we have, as well as a search for further contextual documentation, in particular from “third party” connections. The result would be a different view of Engels’s life and activities prior to his collaboration with Marx, of the wider political context in which he collaborated with Marx, and of his independent intellectual achievements understood in a less Marx-centric way. An “Engels-centric” approach would give this important figure a new lease of after-life.