Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

NOTEBOOK “ο”

(“OMICRON”)


ENGELS ON THE WORKING CLASS IN ENGLAND

The same article contains the following quotation from Engels (apparently from the preface to the new edition of The Condition of the Working Class) (p. xxiii of The Condition, 2nd edition):

Engels
on the
working
class and
dominant
position
of England
 “During the period of England’s
industrial monopoly the
English working class have, to a certain
extent, shared in the benefits
of the monopoly
. These benefits
were very unequally parcelled out
amongst them: the privileged minority
pocketed most, but even the great mass
had, at least a temporary share
now and then. And that is the
reason why, since the dying-out of
Owenism, there has been no socialism
in England. With the break-
down of that
[industrial]
monopoly, the English working class
will lose that privileged position; it
will find itself generally—the privileged
and leading minority not excepted
—on
a level with its fellow-workers abroad.
And that is the reason why there will be
socialism again in England”.[1]
Engels
on
English
socialism

Notes

[1] See Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Moscow, 1962, Vol. II, pp. 405-19; Lenin quotes p. 417.


LENSCH ON THE MILITIA (1912) | BÜRKLI, “DEMOCRATISATION OF OUR ARMY SYSTEM”

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