SOURCE: “Engels on Germany's Classes,” in his The Bourgeois Epoch, University of North Carolina Press, 1991, pp. 122-70.

In the following essay, Hamilton examines Engels' writings on the German classes, comparing his various analyses on this topic and studying the logic and consistency of his conclusions. Hamilton finds that Engels' research and writings on the different classes in Germany contain flawed logic and numerous inconsistencies.

This chapter will compare four analyses by Engels of developments in Germany, along with the more familiar account of The Communist Manifesto. As will be seen, several positions appear in these less-known historical writings. Put differently, several divergent “Marxisms” are contained in the original work. To be considered are, first, an Engels essay written in 1847 (but not published until 1929), “The Status Quo in Germany”; second, Engels's Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolution, a series of articles written in 1851 and 1852; third, Engels's preface to the second edition...