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The romantic revolutionary
MAYBE it’s the neat-trimmed side-parting. Click here to buy
Or the tight-fitting tweed suit? But conjure up a mental picture of Friedrich Engels and the grainy image of a fusty old Victorian springs inevitably to mind.
But the German philosopher who collaborated with Karl Marx spent his early years as a young revolutionary in the Bavarian mountains fighting guerilla warfare.
After seeing a photograph from those firebrand days, John Green, a film-maker, decided to give Engels a makeover to make him more accessible to young socialists in the 21st century.
Green’s new biography draws parallels with the Cuban socialist icon Che Guevara and reveals a fun-loving side to Engels, including boozy nights in the West End and raucous barbecues on Hampstead Heath.
He says: “The first time I saw the picture of young Engels what really struck me was the physical similarity with Che Guevara. But their lives were similar too – both were raised by middle-class backgrounds but gave it all up to join the struggle.”
Dozens of biographies have been written on Marx, but just two major works on Engels precede Green’s book.
“These were two serious academic books, with detailed histories, which nobody really read,” he says. “I wanted to do something like Francis Wheen did in his biography of Marx. That really inspired me”
Friedrich Engels lived in Regent’s Park Road, Primrose Hill for the last 25 years of his life and there is a small plaque outside his door.
His father owned a factory in Manchester.
Green says: “I think he became sensitive to poverty and illness and seeing children working in his father’s factory. He was so horrified by the conditions in Manchester. It confirmed to him that the only struggle was for working people.”
Green, who has for 20 years travelled the world as a cameraman documenting guerilla struggles in Latin America, also
represented workers for 15 years in the Camden headquarters of the trade union Unison.
His book brings out a human side to Engels, and his relationship with Marx: “The pair used to write letters to each other – sometimes two or three times a day,” says Green. “They would drink together in the West End and have barbecues on the Heath.”
So what would Engels have made of the current financial situation?
“Engels knew Marx could not finish Das Kapital unless he was financed, so he took a job as a businessman to help fund him. He hated every minute of it. When there was a crisis in the stock exchange, he would walk into the office with a big smile on his face – he thought at last it might be the collapse of capitalism.”
A story for our own times, then, and available at Housmans bookshop in Caledonian Road, where the book will be launched on Saturday from 5pm.
TOM FOOT
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