SOURCE: “The Political Ideas of the Young Engels, 1842-1845: Owenism, Chartism, and the Question of Violent Revolution in the Transition from ‘Utopian’ to ‘Scientific’ Socialism,” in History of Political Thought, Vol. VI, No. 3, Winter, 1985, pp. 455-78.

In the following essay, Claeys attempts to explain Engels' theory of revolution by analyzing the political statements Engels made during his first stay in England from 1842 through 1844. Claeys traces Engels' development from the non-violent Owenite brand of socialism to Marxism, arguing that despite this transition, Engels still held that the violence of class conflict could be lessened through the employment of Owenite-type strategies.

Most accounts of early Marxist political thought have concentrated upon the development of the young Marx from the ‘Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right’ (1843) through the German Ideology (1845-46) and on to the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) and the seminal analysis in Class Struggles in France (1850). While a...