See all facts

Did you know that a capitalist's son became the architect of socialism?
Remarkably, Friedrich Engels was born on November 28, 1820, into a wealthy German family who owned textile mills in England. #

Engels was initially schooled and groomed to take over his father's business. A profound change, however, occurred when Engels was sent to England in 1842 to work in the family's Manchester mill. The appalling conditions of the English working class ignited in Engels a fiery rage against the capitalist system his family profited from. This experience led him to co-author ‘The Communist Manifesto’ with Karl Marx in 1848 and then the ‘Das Kapital’, becoming foundational pillars of socialist thought. Engels used his own inherited wealth to support Marx's works, effectively funding the theoretical foundation of communism with the profits of capitalism. Isn't it fascinating that Engels, once a beneficiary of a system he came to detest, became a pivotal figure of an ideology quite contrary to his early upbringing? #

Tags: #FriedrichEngels #Socialism #IronyOfHistory #StartlingParadox