SOURCE: “Engels' Military Studies and Their Revolutionary Purposes,” in his Engels, Armies, and Revolution, Archon Books, 1977, pp. 39-63.

In the following essay, Berger surveys Engels' military writings, arguing that Engels' interest in this area was driven by his desire to help the revolutionary cause. Berger assesses Engels' military writings as “good, but rather conventional.”

Since Engels' early career reveals no sign of an obsession with war and armies, how are we to explain the diligent study of military science which he began in the 1850s? The answer lies in Engels' willingness to do whatever he could to help the revolutionary cause. Military studies surely required less self-sacrifice than working as a capitalist exploiter in the offices of Ermen and Engels, but they were undertaken in the same spirit of service to the revolution that sent Engels to his hated desk each day for twenty years, in order that...