Engels and the English Working Class

Although there are constant attempts to distinguish Marx’s intellectual legacy from Engels’s “Marxism” (the so-called “Marx-Engels opposition theory”), both those who regard Marx and Engels as an inseparable unity and those who insist that there were serious divergences in the worldviews of the two friends almost universally hold Engels’s *The Condition of the Working Class in England* in high regard. For instance, while Terrell Carver and Paul Thomas try to treat Engels’s mature works as a failed attempt to reduce Marxism to a pseudo-scientific system, they nonetheless still regard *The Condition of the Working Class in England* as Engels’s masterpiece. This is a contradictory situation, because it is evident that the thread of thought from *The Condition of the Working Class in England* through *The German Ideology* and *The Communist Manifesto* is consistent, and the same holds true for the mature works of Marx and Engels. Thus, the praise for *The Condition of the Working Class in England* stands in stark contrast to the criticism of Engels’s mature works.

尽管不断有人试图将马克思的思想遗产与恩格斯的“马克思主义”相区分（即所谓的“马恩对立论”），但不论是那些把马克思恩格斯视为密不可分的统一体的人，还是那些坚持认为这两位友人的世界观存在严重分歧的人，几乎都对恩格斯的《英国工人阶级状况》这一著作给予高度评价。例如，尽管特雷尔·卡弗（Terrell Carver）和保罗·托马斯（Paul Thomas）试图将恩格斯思想成熟时期的著作视为将马克思主义降格为一种伪科学体系的失败尝试，但他们也依然将《英国工人阶级状况》视为恩格斯的杰作。这是一种自相矛盾的状况，因为显而易见的是，从《英国工人阶级状况》到《德意志意识形态》和《共产党宣言》，其中的思想线索是一以贯之的，同样的情况在马克思恩格斯思想成熟时期的著作中也是如此。因此，那些对《英国工人阶级状况》的赞扬与对恩格斯思想成熟时期著作的批评形成了鲜明的对比。

I believe the above divergence in views reflects the lens through which Engels’s critics tend to view his mature works. The criticism of Engels’s mature thought seems to be blinded by a distorted interpretation of Engels’s account of the historical relationship between society and nature. Compared to my questioning of this blind distortion elsewhere, I further propose here that when we read Engels’s self-criticism of *The Condition of the Working Class in England* from his mature period together with his letters expounding historical materialism, we can clarify the profound problems involved in attempts to draw a line between Marx’s and Engels’s thought.

我认为上述观点分歧反映了恩格斯的批评者倾向于通过何种视角来看待恩格斯思想成熟时期的作品。那些对恩格斯思想成熟时期思想的批评，似乎是受到了一种歪曲恩格斯关于社会与自然之历史关系的诠释的蒙蔽。相较于我在其他地方对这种盲目歪曲的行为所提出的质疑，在此我要进一步提出，当我们将恩格斯思想成熟时期对《英国工人阶级状况》所作的自我批评与他阐释唯物史观的信件一起阅读时，就可以厘清试图给马克思与恩格斯的思想划界线时所面对的深刻问题。

I. Critics and Defenders

一、批评者与辩护者

Both Engels’s critics and researchers regard *The Condition of the Working Class in England* as a direct critique of nineteenth-century British capitalism. To some extent, the appreciation of Engels’s early work by these individuals is entirely understandable, because critics of Engels such as Carver tend to view Engels’s 1859 review of Marx’s *Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy* as a turning point in Engels’s thought, moving from Marx’s ideas toward “absorbing the causal laws of physics and using them as a model for obscure academic research on history.”

不论是恩格斯的批评者还是研究者，都认为《英国工人阶级状况》是对19世纪英国资本主义的直接批判。在某种程度上，这些人对恩格斯早期著作的欣赏是完全可以理解的，因为对恩格斯持批评态度的卡弗等人倾向于将恩格斯在1859年对马克思《〈政治经济学批判〉序言》的评论视为恩格斯思想的转向，从马克思的思想转向“吸收物理学因果律，并将其作为对历史进行晦涩学术研究的模型”。

The key problem with the above argument is not that Engels believed he was defending, constructing, and expanding the framework he and Marx had jointly established immediately after the publication of *The Condition of the Working Class in England* and *The Holy Family* in works such as *Anti-Dühring*, *Dialectics of Nature*, and *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*. More importantly, the questions Engels raised in his mature works directly stem from the questions he and Marx began to pose in the mid-1840s. As Sven-Eric Liedman notes, the questions about science and method that Engels studied in his mature works were “almost the same question” that Marx considered when he began writing *Capital*. And Engels’s attempt in his mature works to study nature and society using a unitary method undoubtedly resonates with the view in *The German Ideology* that “we know only a single science, the science of history. History can be examined from two sides, it can be divided into the history of nature and the history of mankind. But these two sides are inseparable.”

上述论点的关键问题不在于恩格斯认为他在《反杜林论》《自然辩证法》《费尔巴哈与古典德国哲学的终结》中捍卫、建构和拓展了他与马克思在《英国工人阶级状况》《神圣家族》出版后立即共同制定的框架，更重要的是，恩格斯在其思想成熟时期的著作中提出的问题直接源于他与马克思在1840年代中期开始提出的问题。正如斯文-埃里克·利德曼(Sven-Eric Liedman)所述，恩格斯在其思想成熟时期的著作中所研究的关于科学和方法的问题，与马克思在开始写作《资本论》时考虑的问题“几乎是同一个问题”。而恩格斯在其思想成熟时期的著作中，试图用一种一元方法来研究自然和社会，这无疑与《德意志意识形态》中的观点产生了共鸣，即“我们仅仅知道一门唯一的科学，即历史科学。历史可以从两方面来考察，可以把它划分为自然史和人类史。但这两方面是不可分割的”。

Marx once described the process by which he and Engels formed their common concepts: “Since Friedrich Engels’s brilliant outline on the critique of economic categories (published in the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher*) appeared, I have been in constant correspondence with him exchanging ideas, and he arrived at the same result as I by a different path (see his *The Condition of the Working Class in England*). When he also settled in Brussels in the spring of 1845, we decided to jointly clarify our views in opposition to the ideological views of German philosophy, in effect to settle accounts with our former philosophical conscience. This intention was realized in the form of a critique of post-Hegelian philosophy. The manuscript, two thick octavo volumes, had long since reached the publisher in Westphalia when we were informed that due to changed circumstances it could not be printed. Since we had achieved our main purpose—self-clarification—we willingly left the manuscript to the gnawing criticism of the mice.”

马克思曾描述了他与恩格斯形成共同概念的过程：“自从弗里德里希·恩格斯批判经济学范畴的天才大纲（在《德法年鉴》上）发表以后，我同他不断通信交换意见，他从另一条道路（参看他的《英国工人阶级状况》）得出同我一样的结果。当1845年春他也住在布鲁塞尔时，我们决定共同阐明我们的见解与德国哲学的意识形态的见解的对立，实际上是把我们从前的哲学信仰清算一下。这个心愿是以批判黑格尔以后的哲学的形式来实现的。两厚册八开本的原稿早已送到威斯特伐利亚的出版所，后来我们才接到通知说，由于情况改变，不能付印。既然我们已经达到了我们的主要目的——自己弄清问题，我们就情愿让原稿留给老鼠的牙齿去批判了。”

There is no doubt that Engels’s *The Condition of the Working Class in England* constitutes the foundation of this new worldview. In this sense, the response of William O. Henderson and William H. Chaloner to *The Condition of the Working Class in England* can only be understood from the perspective of an apologist for capitalism. They argue that although “for a long time, socialists and communists have regarded this work as a great socialist classic,” in reality Engels “is not a historian” but rather retells historical myths about “the Hungry Forties” and the “Golden Age” of Britain, while simultaneously creating his own myth of the working class. They further contend that Engels was wrong about economic crises, child labor, and the possibility of realizing the People’s Charter; that he was an unreliable witness who often substituted “vivid imagination … for facts.” Overall, they view Engels as “a bad-tempered young man, venting his anger by vehemently condemning the British factory system as he saw it in England at the time.”

毫无疑问，恩格斯的《英国工人阶级状况》构成了这一新世界观的基础。从这个意义上说，只有从资本主义辩护者的角度才能理解威廉·奥托·亨德森（William O. Henderson）和威廉·亨利·查洛纳（William H. Chaloner）对《英国工人阶级状况》的回应。他们认为，尽管“长久以来，社会主义者和共产主义者都将这部著作视为一部伟大的社会主义经典著作”，但根据实际情况来看，恩格斯“并非历史学家”，而是重述了关于“饥饿的四十年代”（The Hungry Forties）和“黄金时代”英国的历史神话，同时又创造了自己的工人阶级神话。他们还认为，恩格斯在经济危机、童工问题以及实现人民宪章的可能性方面的理解都是错的，他是一个不可靠的见证人，常常以“生动的想象力……代替事实”。总的来说，他们将恩格斯视为“一个脾气不好的年轻人，强烈谴责英国工厂体制以宣泄他的怒火，正如他当时在英国所见到的那样”。

Eric Hobsbawm considers criticism of Engels to be “nonsense,” not only viewing *The Condition of the Working Class in England* as a text that meets the “standard” of this period, but also calling it “the best monograph on the working class of this period to date.” Tristram Hunt believes that “the strength of *The Condition of the Working Class in England* lies both in its rigorous logic and in its rich argumentation,” and that it “presents a spectacular and terrifying picture of urban industry.” Similarly, Hans Frambach regards *The Condition of the Working Class in England* as “a pioneering work of empirical social research,” while Steven Marcus sees it as “a new model of conceptual reflection and analysis.” At the same time, Dill Hunley and David McLellan point out that Engels’ use of government publications prefigured Marx’s citation of the Blue Books in *Capital*. McLellan views *The Condition of the Working Class in England* as “a concise and coherent masterpiece, the only flaw being the absurdly idyllic picture of 18th-century English rural life painted at the beginning, a pastoral existence long since submerged by the industrial tide.” In a more general sense, McLellan regards *The Condition of the Working Class in England* as “a pioneering work in modern urban geography and sociology, and although Engels was only 24 at the time, he was fully capable of writing this book.” John Rex adds that what makes Engels’ work stand out is not only his keen observation of concrete details, but more importantly his method of grasping these details. Carver, in his earlier praise of *The Condition of the Working Class in England*, also adds: “Engels’ scholarly level is beyond doubt and worthy of praise. At that time, hardly any university could have fully undertaken a project to investigate the condition of the working class, whether in terms of social history or human geography, or by employing the distinctly non-philosophical, even anti-philosophical method that Engels adopts here.”

艾瑞克·霍布斯鲍姆（Eric Hobsbawm）认为对恩格斯的批评是“无稽之谈”，他不仅视《英国工人阶级状况》为达到这一时期“水准”的文本，还称之为“迄今为止关于该时期工人阶级的最好的专著”。特里斯特兰·亨特（Tristran Hunt）认为，“《英国工人阶级状况》的优点既在于其严谨的思路，又在于其丰富的论证”，它“呈现出城市工业壮观而恐怖的景象”。与之相似，汉斯·弗兰巴赫（Hans Frambach）将《英国工人阶级状况》视为“一部具有开创性的、对社会进行实证研究的著作”，史蒂文·马库斯（Steven Marcus）则将其视为“概念反思和分析的新模式”。与此同时，迪尔·亨利（Dill Hunley）和戴维·麦克莱伦（David McLellan）指出，恩格斯对政府出版物的运用，预演了马克思在《资本论》中引用蓝皮书（Blue Books）的方式。麦克莱伦将《英国工人阶级状况》视为“一部简明而连贯的力作，美中不足之处是开头所描绘的18世纪英国乡村生活的荒谬的田园诗般的画面，这种田园生活早已淹没在工业浪潮中”。在更一般的意义上，麦克莱伦将《英国工人阶级状况》视为“现代城市地理学和社会学领域的一部开创性著作，尽管当时恩格斯年仅24岁，但却有足够的能力写出这本书”。约翰·雷克斯（John Rex）补充说，令恩格斯的这部著作脱颖而出的，不仅仅在于他对具体细节的敏锐观察，更重要的是他把握这些细节的方法。卡弗也在其之前对《英国工人阶级状况》的赞扬中补充道：“恩格斯的学术水平无可置疑，值得称赞。当时几乎没有任何大学能够完全承担调查工人阶级状况的项目，无论是承担关于社会历史或人类地理学部分，还是运用恩格斯在此采用的明显非哲学的、甚至反哲学的方法。”

This is a very important point. However, Carver opposes the teleology that the thought of the young Engels was destined to converge with that of Marx, to the extent that Carver overlooks the real and profound continuity between the themes of the young Engels’ work and the “world outlook” of Marx and Engels in *The German Ideology*. In this sense, the appendix Engels wrote in 1892 for the American edition of *The Condition of the Working Class in England* is even more illustrative. Engels points out: “This book of mine represents but one of the phases of a germ which has been developed. Just as the embryo in its early stages still reproduces the gill-arches of our fish-ancestors, so in this book are to be found everywhere traces of the origin of modern socialism from one of its ancestors—German classical philosophy.”

这是很重要的一个观点。然而卡弗反对那种目的论，即认为青年恩格斯的思想注定会与马克思的思想交汇，以致卡弗忽视了青年恩格斯著作的主题与《德意志意识形态》中的马克思恩格斯“世界观”存在真实而深刻的连续性。从这个意义上说，恩格斯在1892年所写的《英国工人阶级状况》美国版附录更能说明情况。恩格斯指出：“我这本书只是体现了它的胚胎发展的一个阶段。正如人的胚胎在其发展的最初阶段还要再现出我们的祖先鱼类的鳃弧一样，在本书中到处都可以发现现代社会主义从它的祖先之一即德国古典哲学起源的痕迹。”

The brilliance of *The Condition of the Working Class in England* is obvious, or should be obvious. Although Engels was not the first commentator to notice the English Industrial Revolution, he was the first to write a book analyzing its truly revolutionary impact. Engels was the first to recognize that what was happening in England, especially the rise of the working-class movement against capitalism, was both unique and universal. He believed that the English Industrial Revolution created something new in world history for the proletariat: industrialization was a contradictory unity, bringing suffering and degradation to the working class, yet also “laying the foundation for a newer, truly humanized social form” based on the growing class consciousness of this new class. Although Engels in *The Condition of the Working Class in England* leans toward “true socialism,” the following argument is central to his and Marx’s exposition in *The German Ideology*: that socialism is not an abstract ideology transmitted to workers from outside, but rather their own “real movement which abolishes the present state of things.”

《英国工人阶级状况》的精彩之处显而易见，或者理应显而易见。尽管恩格斯并非是第一个注意到英国工业革命的评论家，但他却是著书分析工业革命的真正革命性影响的第一人。恩格斯最先认识到,英国正在发生的事情，尤其是反对资本主义的工人阶级运动的兴起，既是独一无二的，又具有普遍意义。他认为，英国的工业革命为无产阶级创造了世界历史中独一无二的新东西：工业化是一个矛盾的统一体，它给工人阶级带来了苦难和堕落，又为“一种更新的、真正人性化的社会形式奠定了基础，这种社会形式基于”这个新阶级日益增长的阶级意识。尽管恩格斯在《英国工人阶级状况》中倾向于“真正的社会主义”（true socialism），但下述论点是他与马克思在《德意志意识形态》中论述的核心部分，即：社会主义不是从外部传输给工人的抽象意识形态，而是他们自身的“消灭现存状况的现实的运动”。

Alan Gilbert, in *Marx’s Politics*, points out several contradictions in Engels’ *The Condition of the Working Class in England*: first, his view that trade unions cannot forcibly raise wages above subsistence level conflicts with his support for trade unions; second, his acceptance of the deliberate disparagement of England by Irish immigrants; third, his recognition that class struggle tends toward violent revolution conflicts with his opposition to violence; fourth, his view that women are politically passive conflicts with his opposition to capitalist enslavement of women.

阿伦·吉尔伯特（Alan Gilbert）在《马克思的政治学》（Marx’s Politics）一书中指出恩格斯在《英国工人阶级状况》中存在几个矛盾之处：一是他认为工会不能强制实现工资高于维持生计的水平，这与他对工会的支持相冲突；二是他接受了那些爱尔兰移民对英国的刻意贬低；三是他意识到阶级斗争倾向于暴力革命的认识，这与他反对暴力的立场相冲突；四是他认为女性在政治上是被动的，这与他反对资本主义奴役女性的立场相左。

Gilbert argues that, despite this, *The Condition of the Working Class in England* remains important because it outlines the key stages of the new working class’s movement against capitalism:

吉尔伯特认为，尽管如此，《英国工人阶级状况》仍然很重要，因为它勾勒出新工人阶级反对资本主义运动的重要阶段：

Theft as a form of resistance against exploitation is the most primitive form of worker resistance, considered the least successful, as it leaves the individual worker entirely at the mercy of the government. Therefore, workers turned to a second, more collective form of resistance: machine-breaking in the manner of Luddism. Although this erupted in different trades and localities, it always resulted in severe punishment. Engels believed that with the repeal of the Combination Acts in 1824, a third stage emerged: workers organizing trade unions in specific industries to resist capitalists.

以盗窃反抗剥削是工人最原始的反抗形式，被认为是最不成功的，它使个体工人完全受政府支配。因此，工人转向了第二种更加集体的抵抗形式，即以卢德主义的方式去破坏机器。虽然这在不同的行业和地方爆发，但结果总是遭受严厉的惩罚。恩格斯认为，随着1824年《结社法》(Combination Acts)的废除，出现了第三个阶段：即工人在特定行业组织工会来反抗资本家。

This logical (though not necessarily historical) picture of the development of forms of working-class struggle means that Engels was the first to recognize that “strikes are a continuous protest against capitalist oppression and a training ground for revolution.” In this sense, as Hal Draper and Eric Wolf respectively point out, *The Condition of the Working Class in England* can be regarded as a “treasure trove of later Marxist germs” and a “milestone” in social history.

这种关于工人阶级斗争形式的合乎逻辑的（尽管不一定是历史性的）发展图景，意味着恩格斯是第一个认识到“罢工是对资本主义高压的持续抗议，也是革命的训练场”的人。从这个意义上说，正如哈尔·德雷珀（Hal Draper）和埃里克·沃尔夫（Eric Wolf）分别指出的那样，可以将《英国工人阶级状况》视为“后来的马克思主义萌芽的宝库”和社会历史的“里程碑”。

II. *The Condition of the Working Class in England*

二、《英国工人阶级状况》

*The Condition of the Working Class in England* is not an academic work; its target audience is German left-wing intellectuals, and its purpose is to provide internal strategic reference for the German socialist movement. In the preface to the book, Engels points out: “The condition of the working class is the real basis and point of departure of all social movements of the present, because it is the sharpest and most naked manifestation of the social misery that currently exists. French and German worker communism is its direct product, while Fourierism and English socialism, as well as the communism of the educated German bourgeoisie, are its indirect products.” Therefore, if left-wing intellectuals want to provide a solid theoretical foundation for socialism and also provide a basis for its legitimacy, studying the condition of the proletariat is absolutely necessary. More specifically, the condition of the English working class is of particular importance, because it is in England that these conditions take on their typical form. Conversely, the theoretical nature of German socialism and communism shows that the German left “knows too little about the real world.”

《英国工人阶级状况》并不是一部学术著作，它的目标读者是德国左翼知识分子，其目的是为德国社会主义运动提供内部战略参考。恩格斯在该书序言中指出：“工人阶级的状况是当代一切社会运动的真正基础和出发点，因为它是我们目前存在的社会灾难最尖锐、最露骨的表现。法国和德国的工人共产主义是它的直接产物，傅立叶主义和英国的社会主义以及德国有教养的资产阶级的共产主义是它的间接产物。”因此，如果左翼知识分子想要为社会主义提供坚实的理论基础，又想要为其合法性提供依据，那么研究无产阶级的状况是十分必要的。更具体地说，英国工人阶级的状况具有特别重要的意义，因为正是在英国，这些状况才呈现出典型的形式。相反，德国社会主义和共产主义的理论性质表明，德国左翼“对现实世界了解得太少”。

Interestingly, in the original 1845 edition of *The Condition of the Working Class in England*, only the dedication “To the Working Classes of Great Britain” was written in English. Engels wrote in it: “I forsook the company and the dinner-parties, the port-wine and champagne of the middle classes, and devoted my leisure hours almost exclusively to the intercourse with plain working men.”

有趣的是，在《英国工人阶级状况》一书1845年的原版中，唯有“致大不列颠工人阶级”的献词是英文。恩格斯在其中写道：“我放弃了资产阶级的社交活动和宴会、波尔图酒和香槟酒，把自己的空闲时间几乎全部用来和普通工人交往。”这样做他感到既“高兴”又“骄傲”，因为与“你们国家当权的资产阶级极端自私自利的政策和全部行为”形成鲜明对比的是，工人阶级的确是“认识到自己的利益和全人类的利益相一致的人，是伟大的人类大家庭的成员”。这些文字透露出青年恩格斯所秉持的道德主义，一种带有阶级倾向的道德主义。他坚持认为中产阶级是工人阶级的“敌人”，进而是人类普遍利益的“敌人”，因为“他们的利益同你们的利益是完全对立的”。

In Engels’s early article “Letters from the Wupper Valley,” we can foresee some of the themes he would later elaborate in *The Condition of the Working Class in England*. This article was published in the *Telegraph für Deutschland* when Engels was only eighteen years old. In it, Engels pointed out that industrialization had led to the physical and moral “degeneration” of German workers, and that religious Pietists played a significant role in justifying these appalling conditions. Under the pretext of preventing workers from drinking, they did everything possible to reduce workers’ wages, to the point that workers either indulged in alcoholism and debauchery, or internalized religious fundamentalism as an anesthetic to alleviate the pain of their lives—or, more commonly, hypocritically combined these two coping strategies. As Carver observed, the author of these letters possessed a keen eye for detail, a thirst for knowledge, and a hatred of dogmatism. These letters were also clearly written by a scholar who had seriously studied German society, who recognized both his strengths as an author and his shortcomings as a scholar researching the subject he was writing about. It was precisely to remedy this deficiency that Engels announced his intention to devote more time to study.

在恩格斯的早期文章《伍珀河谷来信》中，我们可以预见到他在《英国工人阶级状况》中阐述的一些主题。该文章发表在《德国电讯》（Telegraph für Deutschland）上，当时恩格斯只有18岁。恩格斯在文章中指出，工业化导致德国工人在身体和道德上“堕落”，而宗教虔诚派教徒（Pietism）在为这种恶劣状况辩护方面发挥了重要作用。他们借口不让工人酗酒，千方百计降低工人的工资，以致于他们要么沉迷于酗酒和淫乱，要么将宗教原教旨主义内化为一种镇痛剂以缓解其生活的痛苦——或者更常见的是，将这两种应对策略虚伪地结合起来。正如卡弗所观察到的那样，这些信件的作者对细节有着敏锐的洞察力、渴望知识并憎恶教条主义。这些信件也显然是由一位认真研究德国社会的学者所写的，他既认识到自己作为一位作者的长处，也清楚自己作为一名研究其所写内容的学者所存在的不足之处。正是为了弥补这一不足，恩格斯宣布他打算投入更多的时间进行学习。

In the article “The British View of the Domestic Crisis,” Engels deepened his views on class society. He argued that the British middle and upper classes considered the Chartists’ demand for universal suffrage to be a revolutionary demand, because through universal suffrage, those “propertyless … masses of proletarians” threatened the power of the middle and upper classes. In the article “The Domestic Crisis,” published two days later, Engels added that although Britain’s industrial development had made the country wealthy, this had been achieved at the cost of creating a class of proletarians, a class of paupers. Nevertheless, unlike Hegel, who viewed this class as a mere victim of industrialization, Engels believed that the great strike movement of that summer not only proved the independence of this class’s actions, but also showed that workers were increasingly aware that “only through a violent transformation of the existing abnormal relations, through the fundamental overthrow of the clique aristocracy and the industrial aristocracy, could the material conditions of the proletarians be improved.”

在《英国对国内危机的看法》一文中，恩格斯深化了他关于阶级社会的看法。他提出，英国中上阶层认为宪章主义者呼吁的普选其实是一个具有革命性的要求，因为通过普选，那些“没有财产的……无产者群众”威胁到了中上阶层的权力。在随后两天发表的《国内危机》一文中，恩格斯补充道，尽管英国的工业发展使这个国家变得富裕，但这却是以创造无产者阶级、赤贫者阶级为代价实现的。尽管如此，与黑格尔将这个阶级视为工业化的纯粹受害者不同，恩格斯认为，那个夏天的大罢工运动不仅证明了这个阶级行动的独立性，也表明工人们越来越意识到，“只有通过暴力变革现有反常关系，根本推翻门阀贵族和工业贵族，才能改善无产者的物质状况”。

It is noteworthy that Engels also wrote that although “the law-abiding mentality peculiar to the English hinders them from engaging in such a violent revolution,” the existence of economic crisis would place unbearable pressure on the ideology that obstructed thoroughgoing change, and “this revolution is inevitable in England,” because “the fear of starvation will surely be greater than the fear of the law.” Thus, in stark contrast to the idealism of the Young Hegelians, Engels arrived at a materialist viewpoint: “the beginning and progress of this revolution will be for the sake of interest, not for the sake of principle … the revolution will not be a political revolution, but a social revolution.”

值得关注的是，恩格斯还写道，尽管“英国人所特有的守法观念阻碍着他们从事这种暴力革命”，但经济危机的存在将对阻碍彻底变革的意识形态造成难以承受的压力，“这个革命在英国是不可避免的”，因为“对饿死的恐惧一定会大于对法律的恐惧”。因此，与青年黑格尔派的观念论形成鲜明对比的是，恩格斯得出了唯物主义观点，即“这个革命的开始和进行将是为了利益，而不是为了原则……革命将不是政治革命，而是社会革命”。

This germ of the materialist conception of history was deepened in Engels’s “Letters from London.” In May 1843, this letter was published in the Zurich radical weekly *Schweizerischer Republikaner*. Although the great strike of the previous summer had failed, Engels still claimed:

唯物史观的这一思想萌芽在恩格斯的《伦敦来信》中得到了深化。1843年5月，这封信被发表在苏黎世的激进周刊《瑞士共和主义者》（Schweizerischer Repulikaner）上。尽管前一年夏天的大罢工失败了，恩格斯仍然声称：

The democratic party is making rapid progress in England … socialism, despised and ridiculed, advances calmly and confidently and gradually forces its way into public opinion … a numerous new party has formed in a few years under the banner of the People’s Charter.

民主党派正在英国获得迅速的进展……被人轻视和嘲笑的社会主义却沉着而满怀信心地向前迈进并且硬是逐渐进入社会舆论……一个人数众多的新政党几年的工夫就在人民宪章的旗帜下形成了。

Subsequently, Engels again mentioned the moment when the English working class emerged as an independent political force at the 1843 Chartist Convention, the scene of a decisive rupture between radical workers and the middle-class moderates. In an article written about forty years later, Engels recalled an important lesson he had learned in Manchester in the early 1840s:

随后，恩格斯再次提及了英国工人阶级在1843年宪章运动大会上崭露头角、成为独立政治力量的时刻，那是激进工人与中产阶级温和派断然决裂的情景。在距此大约40年后的一篇文章中，恩格斯提到了他1840年代初在曼彻斯特吸取的重要教训：

Economic facts, which have hitherto played no role or only a very minor role in historical works, are, at least in the modern world, a decisive historical force; these economic facts form the basis for the emergence of modern class antagonisms; these class antagonisms, in countries where they have been fully developed by large-scale industry, and therefore particularly in England, are in turn the basis for the formation of political parties, for party struggles, and thus for the whole of political history.

迄今为止在历史著作中根本不起作用或者只起极小作用的经济事实，至少在现代世界中是一个决定性的历史力量；这些经济事实形成了产生现代阶级对立的基础；这些阶级对立，在它们因大工业而得到充分发展的国家里，因而特别是在英国，又是政党形成的基础，党派斗争的基础，因而也是全部政治史的基础。

Engels’s thought developed in this critical direction through his critical reading of Thomas Carlyle’s romantic critique of capitalist industrialization—*Past and Present*. Engels’s article “The Condition of England” was published in the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher*, edited by Marx and Arnold Ruge. At the beginning of the article, Engels praised Carlyle as a “German-style theorist,” but argued that Carlyle had failed to fulfill the promise of his theoretical insights, because in his work these insights were jumbled together without coherence, accompanied by an opposing tendency inclined toward superficial “empiricism.” Regarding empiricism, Engels argued that facts must be selected and interpreted, and “a conclusion is worthless without the process of development that makes it a conclusion; we have known this since Hegel.” The problem with Carlyle’s study was that, although he powerfully described the essentially soulless state of modern society, he misjudged its cause, believing that the dehumanization of modern society was due to the rise of atheism. Consequently, he mistakenly treated part of the problem of modern life as the solution itself. Following Ben Jonson, Carlyle claimed that “man has lost his soul.” To this, Engels retorted:

通过批判性地阅读托马斯·卡莱尔（Thomas Carlyle）对资本主义工业化的浪漫主义批评——《过去和现在》（Past and Present），恩格斯的思想得以朝着这个批判性的方向发展。恩格斯的《英国状况》一文发表在由马克思和阿尔诺德·卢格（Arnold Ruge）编辑的《德法年鉴》（Deutsch-Französisch Jahrbücher）上。恩格斯在该文开篇就赞美卡莱尔是一位“德国式的理论家”，但却认为卡莱尔未能兑现其理论见解中的承诺，因为在其著作中，这些见解混杂在一起没有头绪，并伴随着一种倾向于表面“经验主义”的对立趋势。针对经验主义，恩格斯认为，事实必须被选择和解释，并且“结论要是没有使它得以成为结论的发展过程，就毫无价值，这一点我们从黑格尔那时就已经知道了”。卡莱尔的研究存在的问题是，尽管他有力地描述了现代社会本质上的无灵魂状态，但却误判了其中的原因，认为现代社会的非人性是由于无神论的兴起。因此，他误将现代生活的一部分问题视为解决方案本身。卡莱尔追随本·约翰逊（Ben Jonson）的观点，声称“人丧失了自己的灵魂”。对此，恩格斯反驳道：

Man has lost his inherent essence in religion, alienated his human nature; now, after religion has been shaken by historical progress, he becomes aware of his emptiness and instability. But he has no other salvation than to thoroughly overcome all religious ideas, to return resolutely and sincerely, not to ‘God,’ but to himself, in order to regain his humanity, his essence.

人在宗教中丧失了他固有的本质，使自己的人性外化，现在，在宗教由于历史的进步而动摇了之后，他才觉察到自己的空虚和不坚定。但是，他没有其他拯救的办法，只有彻底克服一切宗教观念，坚决地真诚地复归，不是向“神”，而是向自己本身复归，才能重新获得自己的人性、自己的本质。

The moral humanist thought contained in this passage originates from an important view of Engels, namely that the moral and intellectual decline of the English “upper classes” meant that “only the workers, the English rabble, the poor” had become the agents “on whom England’s salvation depends.” This view, tinged with humanism, distinguishes Engels from the German “True Socialists,” for whom socialism was a moral rational deduction based on humanism. This does not mean that Engels had already formed a mature political viewpoint on this point. His writings were not simply limited to a Feuerbachian notion that socialism conforms to the common interests of humanity. Stephen Rigby’s comment on *The Condition of the Working Class in England* also applies to this early article “The Condition of England”: its characteristic lies not in its utopian themes, but in Engels’s attention to the redemptive potential of the English workers’ movement, which “prefigures the views developed in *The German Ideology* and the *Communist Manifesto*.”

这段话蕴含的道德人本主义思想源于恩格斯的一个重要观点，即英国“上层阶级”的道德和智力衰退，使得“只有工人、英国的贱民、穷人”成为了“拯救英国要靠他们”的代理人。这一带有人本主义色彩的观点，使恩格斯有别于德国“真正的社会主义者”（True Socialists），对后者而言，社会主义是人本主义基于道德的理性推论。这并不意味着恩格斯在这一点上已经形成了成熟的政治观点。他的著作并未简单地受限于费尔巴哈式的观念，即社会主义符合人类的共同利益。斯蒂芬·里格比（Stephen Rigby）对《英国工人阶级状况》的评论也适用于《英国状况》这篇早期文章：它的特点不在于乌托邦的主题，而在于恩格斯对英国工人运动的救赎潜力的关注“预示了《德意志意识形态》和《共产党宣言》中发展的观点”。

III. Humanism and Socialism

三、人本主义与社会主义

Engels’s detailed observations of English social conditions in his “Letters from London” are the starting point for his theoretical maturation. Draper believes that, aside from abstract humanist elements, the most important difference between these letters and the *Communist Manifesto* is that when writing the former, Engels had not yet extended his analysis of the revolutionary role of the proletariat from England to the European continent. Although he still believed that the German middle class could play a progressive role as long as they were convinced of the rationality of socialism, his analysis of English social relations still differed from that of his contemporaries, rooted in a more concrete and practical understanding of the connection between socialism and the interests formed through existing social relations. In stark contrast to the German Young Hegelians, Engels praised English socialists as being “more principled and more practical” than French socialists. Engels commented that English socialism also had weaknesses in practice, namely its lack of understanding of left-wing movements on the European continent. To remedy this deficiency, Engels set himself a research task in 1843: writing *Progress of Social Reform on the Continent*, to explain how the English, French, and German leftists who had come into practical contact with socialism “because of the rapid increase of poverty, demoralization, and pauperism in their own countries” had first “through politics” and second “through philosophy” arrived at the same conclusions.

恩格斯在《伦敦来信》中对英国社会状况的详细观察是其理论走向成熟的起点。德雷珀认为，除了抽象的人本主义要素外，这些信件与《共产党宣言》之间最重要的区别在于，在写作前者时，恩格斯尚未将他对无产阶级革命作用的分析从英国推广到欧洲大陆。尽管他仍然坚信，只要德国中产阶级相信社会主义的合理性，他们就能发挥进步作用，但他对英国社会关系的分析仍与同时代的学者有所不同，这植根于他对社会主义与通过现有社会关系形成的利益之间的联系的更具体、也更实际的理解。与德国的青年黑格尔派形成鲜明对比的是，恩格斯称赞英国社会主义者比法国社会主义者“更有原则和更为实际”。恩格斯评论说，英国社会主义在实践方面也存在弱点，这一弱点就是对欧洲大陆的左翼运动缺乏了解。为了弥补这一缺憾，恩格斯在1843年为自己制定了一项研究任务，即写作《大陆上社会改革运动的进展》，以解释那些“由于自己国内贫穷、道德败坏和赤贫现象迅速加剧”而实际接触社会主义的英国人、法国人和德国左翼是如何首先“通过政治”、其次“通过哲学”得出相同结论的。

Engels believed that the philosophical, political, and practical convictions of European socialism were converging. This was confirmed in 1844, when the Silesian weavers revolted against their German factory owners. Engels’s response to this uprising was acute and profound. In June 1844, he wrote in an article for the Chartist newspaper *The Northern Star*: “The factory system and everything connected with it oppresses the Silesian weavers just as it has oppressed and still oppresses the English factory workers and hand-loom weavers.” This profound insight prompted Engels to write *The Condition of the Working Class in England* in the following months. He believed that the German left needed to learn from the social development of England, because the struggle of English workers against inhuman treatment had universal significance.

恩格斯相信，欧洲社会主义在哲学、政治和实践方面的信念正在趋于融合。这在1844年得到了印证，当时西里西亚的织工们起义反抗他们的德国工厂主。恩格斯对这次起义的回应敏锐而深刻。1844年6月，他在宪章派报纸《北极星报》（The Northern Star）上的一篇文章中写道：“工厂制度和它所带来的一切后果压迫了西里西亚的织工，就像它过去和现在压迫着英国的工厂工人和手工织工一样。”这一深刻的洞察力促使恩格斯在接下来的几个月里撰写了《英国工人阶级状况》。他认为，德国左翼需要从英国的社会发展中汲取教训，因为英国工人反抗不人道待遇的斗争具有普遍意义。

According to Engels, “the history of the English working class begins... with the invention of the steam engine and the cotton-processing machine.” Interestingly, although he noted that these inventions “as everyone knows” drove the Industrial Revolution, which in turn drove the transformation of civil society, the concept of the “Industrial Revolution” was not used in English or German at the time; it was likely borrowed by Engels from contemporary French literature. There is no doubt that Engels’s view was correct, that the “world-historical significance of the Industrial Revolution is only now beginning to be recognized.”

根据恩格斯的说法，“英国工人阶级的历史是……随着蒸汽机和棉花加工机的发明而开始的”。有趣的是，尽管他注意到“大家知道”的这些发明推动了工业革命，工业革命同时又推动了市民社会的变革，但当时的英语和德语中并未使用“工业革命”的概念，它很可能是恩格斯从当时的法语文献中借鉴而来的。毫无疑问，恩格斯的下述观点是正确的，即工业革命的“世界历史意义只是现在才开始被认识”。

Engels anticipated Marx’s later famous analysis of the peasantry in *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*. Although industrialization brought many evils, it successfully broke the previous state of agricultural society, a society that produced “strong, sturdy” individuals, but who were “mentally... stagnant.” This revolution developed rapidly and dramatically. In those famous passages that prefigured the *Communist Manifesto*’s description of capitalism — “all that is solid melts into air” — Engels described the Industrial Revolution as a great whirlpool that sucked everything into it.

恩格斯预见到了马克思在《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》中对农民阶级的分析，这一分析后来广为人知。尽管工业化带来了诸多弊端，但它成功地打破了之前农业社会的生活状态，那是一个生产出“强壮、结实”的个体的社会，但这些人在“智力方面……是死气沉沉的”。这场革命发展迅猛且具有戏剧性。在那些预言了《共产党宣言》关于资本主义——“一切等级的和固定的东西都烟消云散了”——的著名论断中，恩格斯将工业革命描述为一个把一切都卷入其中的大旋涡。

Engels believed that issues concerning the future of the emerging working class were “all the more important debates in Parliament.” Nevertheless, there was no rigorous study of the English working class at the time, and therefore no understanding of “the immense wrath of the whole working class against the propertied classes, who systematically exploit them and then cold-heartedly leave them to their fate. This wrath will inevitably, sooner or later (the moment can almost be calculated), break out into a revolution compared with which the first French Revolution and 1794 will be child’s play.” Somewhat oddly, the actual chapter Engels wrote on the industrial proletariat is only three pages long — though it does paint an interesting picture: the intellectual level of the modern working class is directly proportional to their relationship with manufacturing, with factory workers, by virtue of their role in production, becoming the core of the movement. In fact, the new social form Engels advocated corresponding to this class was a concrete alternative to that atomized society, which was utterly indifferent to the condition of the poor.

恩格斯认为，关乎新兴工人阶级未来的问题都是“议会中一切稍微重要的辩论”。尽管如此，当时并不存在针对英国工人阶级的严谨研究，因此也就没有“整个工人阶级对富有者的极大的愤怒，这些富有者系统地剥削他们，然后又冷酷地让他们受命运的摆布。这种愤怒要不了多久（这个时刻人们几乎可以算出来）就必然会爆发为革命，同这一革命比较起来，法国第一次革命和1794年简直就是儿戏”。有些奇怪的是，恩格斯所撰写的关于工业无产阶级的实际章节仅有三页长——尽管它确实描绘了一幅有趣的图象，即现代工人阶级的智力水平与他们同制造业的关系成正比，工厂工人凭借他们在生产中的角色成为运动的核心。事实上，恩格斯主张建立的与这个阶级相适应的新社会形态，是对那种原子化社会的具体替代，后者根本不关心穷人的状况。

Thus, Engels began to outline a humanism that united workers as never before. Although this phenomenon originated from the changes brought about by industrialization, its social potential was realized through the concrete struggles of the workers — particularly participation in trade union activities: strikes for common interests “deepened the workers’ hatred and anger against the propertied classes.” Trade union struggle opposed the main driving force of capitalism — the forced competition among workers. Engels was the first socialist to emphasize the importance of trade unions in the socialist struggle, an insight derived from his historical humanism.

因此，恩格斯开始勾勒出一种将工人史无前例地团结起来的人本主义。尽管这种现象源自于工业化带来的变革，但它的社会潜力是通过工人的具体斗争来实现的——特别是参与工会活动：为了共同利益而罢工，“加深了工人对有产阶级的仇恨和愤怒”。工会斗争反对的是资本主义的主要驱动力——即工人之间被迫展开的竞争。恩格斯是第一个强调工会在社会主义斗争中的重要性的社会主义者，这一见解来源于他的历史人本主义。

Engels developed his historical conception of human nature and morality in his discussion of gender relations. Commenting on the movement of women entering factories, Engels noted that many (especially unemployed) male workers felt “indignant” at this reversal of roles. He condemned it: “This most shameful insult to both sexes and to the human dignity possessed by both sexes is the final result of the civilization we praise, the final result of the efforts of hundreds of generations to improve their own condition and that of their children!” However, Engels did not end his analysis at this descriptive and moralistic level, but further clarified his own position:

恩格斯在讨论两性关系时发展了其关于人性和道德的历史观念。在评论女性争取进入工厂的运动时，恩格斯指出，许多（尤其是失业的）男性工人对这种角色颠倒感到“愤怒”。他谴责道：“这种最可耻地侮辱两性和两性都具有的人类尊严的情况，正是我们所赞美的文明的最终结果，正是几百代人为了改善自己和自己子孙的状况而做的一切努力的最终结果！”但是，恩格斯并没有在这一描述性的和道德主义的层面结束其分析，而是进一步阐明了自己的主张：

We must admit that the complete reversal of the relationship between the sexes has come about only because these relationships were based on an irrational foundation from the start. If the rule of women over men, which the factory system inevitably brings about, is inhuman, then the original rule of men over women must also be considered inhuman.

我们必须承认，两性间的关系之所以这样完全颠倒过来，只是因为这些关系一开头就建立在不合理的基础上。如果说工厂制度所必然造成的女人统治男人的现象是不近人情的，那末原来男人统治女人的现象也应该认为是不近人情的。

Engels believed that the role of the family could be reversed, and even the family itself could disappear, because it too is a historical product. Specifically, the modern family exists because of “private interest concealed under the cloak of common property.”

恩格斯认为，家庭的角色可以颠倒，甚至家庭本身都会消失，因为它也是历史的产物。具体地说，现代家庭的存在是因为“隐藏在财产共有这一外衣下的私人利益”。

If the dissolution of the family under the pressure of market forces is one aspect of society’s increasing atomization, then Engels’s inference from *Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy* is that “competition is the most complete expression of the war of all against all which prevails in modern civil society.” In this situation, the proletarian is dehumanized, while the bourgeoisie enriches itself because “the bourgeoisie has a monopoly of all the means of subsistence.” This is a system of “murder.” This is not a trivial discussion of individual capitalists killing individual workers, but a deeper revelation of a society that operates in a manner that makes workers “inevitably meet with premature, unnatural death.” Faced with the temperance and abstinence movements of middle-class moralism that arose in the 1820s and 1830s, Engels insisted that, under the brutal conditions of poverty and insecurity in England at the time, it was better not to regard drunkenness (and sexual license) merely as vices, but as the inevitable consequence produced under such circumstances. Indeed, it was this social environment that generated a feeling of demoralization among the working class.

如果说家庭在市场力量的压力下解体成为社会日益原子化的一个方面，那么恩格斯从《政治经济学批判大纲》中引申出的观点是：“竞争最充分地反映了流行在现代市民社会中的一切人反对一切人的战争。”在这种情况下，无产者被非人化，而资产阶级因其“资产阶级垄断了一切生活资料”而致富。这是一种“谋杀”的制度。这并不是在琐碎地谈论个别资本家杀害个别工人，而是更深刻地揭示出一种按照使工人“不可避免地遭到过早的、非自然的死亡”的方式运作的社会。面对在1820年代和1830年代兴起的中产阶级道德主义的节制运动和禁酒运动，恩格斯坚持认为，在英国当时贫穷且不安全的野蛮环境下，最好不要把酗酒（和性放纵）仅仅视为恶习，而应该将其视为在这种环境下必然产生的后果。事实上，正是这种社会环境在工人阶级中产生了一种颓废堕落的感觉。

Yet Engels did not paint a one-sided picture of working-class demoralization. He believed that this condition gave rise among the workers to what Carlyle called an increasingly prevalent “feeling,” namely that they “are becoming less and less respectful of the commands of their earthly superiors, and less and less believing of the preachings of their ecclesiastical superiors.” While Carlyle noted this feeling, he did not endorse this “fatal” sentiment. Engels, however, insisted that this feeling was the basis of hope for resistance against the inhumanity of the capitalist system:

然而，恩格斯并没有片面地描绘工人阶级颓废堕落的图景。他认为，这种状况在工人中引发了卡莱尔所说的越来越普遍的“情绪”，即他们“对自己的世俗上司的命令越来越不尊重，对自己的教会上司的说教越来越不相信”。虽然卡莱尔注意到了这种情绪，但他并不认同这种“致命”的情绪。而恩格斯则坚持认为，这种情绪是对抗资本主义制度的非人性的希望之基：

Carlyle is perfectly right, but he is wrong when he censures the workers’ intense hatred of the upper classes. In fact, this hatred, this anger, is a proof that the workers feel they are in an inhuman situation, that they do not want to be degraded to the level of beasts, and that they will one day free themselves from the yoke of the bourgeoisie.

卡莱尔讲得完全对，但是在对工人强烈憎恨上等阶级的情绪加以谴责的时候，卡莱尔就讲得不对了。实际上，这种憎恨、这种愤怒是一种证明，证明工人感觉到他们是处在非人的境地，证明他们不想被人贬低为牲口，证明他们总有一天要把自己从资产阶级的奴役下解放出来。

Engels again emphasized that workers are not only victims of the capitalist system but also its potential subverters, capable of overthrowing this system and achieving their own emancipation. He argued that, in stark contrast to the mean and selfish behavior of individual members of the bourgeoisie, workers are often more “humane” in their interpersonal relations, a view he corroborated with the words of a Manchester clergyman.

恩格斯再次强调，工人不仅是资本主义制度的受害者，也是其潜在的颠覆者，他们可以推翻这个制度并实现自己的解放。他认为，与资产阶级个别成员的卑鄙和自私行为形成鲜明对比的是，工人在人际关系中往往更加“仁慈”，他以曼彻斯特的教士的话证实了这一观点。

If the spirit of resistance and interpersonal human concern were one way for workers to resist demoralization (another way being behaviors such as drunkenness), then the bourgeoisie often fell entirely into its own moral degradation, manifested as incurable selfishness. Engels once recounted a conversation he had with a Manchester capitalist. After Engels spoke of the appalling housing and social conditions endured by the Manchester working class, the capitalist, as he left, responded in a simple and direct manner: “And yet there is a great deal of money to be made here. Good morning, sir!”

如果反抗精神和人际间的人性关怀是工人阶级反抗颓废堕落的一种方式（另一种方式则是酗酒等行为），那么资产阶级则往往完全陷入了其自身的道德沦丧之中，这种沦丧表现为一种无可救药的自私。恩格斯曾经引用了他与一位曼彻斯特资本家的对话。在恩格斯谈到曼彻斯特工人阶级所忍受的恶劣的住房和社会条件之后，那位资本家在离开时用一种简单而直接的方式回应道：“但是在这里到底可以赚很多钱。再见，先生！”

Engels believed that this brief reply encapsulated the bourgeoisie’s attitude toward the inhuman consequences of poverty: the bourgeoisie used wealth and state power to maintain and reproduce the “interests” of these degradations and moral corruptions. These views of Engels prefigured the classic Marxist perspective of regarding the modern state as a structure of capitalism, while also opening up space for Engels to outline the complex process of the working class’s struggle against capitalism. Engels examined the actual workers’ movement, including its existing defects. He insisted that, besides strikes, acts such as crime and machine-breaking also represented historical moments of workers’ resistance to enslavement. If this account of the actual movement did not attempt to glorify crime, it equally (and more importantly) did not engage in a pseudo-radical moral critique of criminal behavior, a critique that could easily be used to justify the enhancement of state power.

恩格斯认为，这个简短的回答概括了资产阶级对由贫困带来的非人性后果的态度，资产阶级用财富和国家权力来维护和再生产这些堕落和道德败坏的“利益”。恩格斯的这些观点预先阐述了经典的马克思主义的观点，即将现代国家视为资本主义的结构，同时也为恩格斯勾勒出工人阶级反对资本主义斗争过程的复杂阐述开辟了空间。恩格斯考察了现实工人运动，包括这些运动所存在的缺陷。他坚持认为，除了罢工，犯罪和破坏机器等行为也都代表了工人反对奴役的历史时刻。如果这一关于现实运动的叙述没有试图美化犯罪，那么它同样（并且更重要的是）也没有对犯罪行为进行伪激进的道德批判，而这种批判往往容易被用来证明国家权力的增强是合理的。

Moreover, Engels’s discussion of the power used by the bourgeoisie to maintain its rule included not only viewing the state as a capitalist institution but also regarding the law as “the whip which the bourgeois has ready for the proletarian.” For example, he saw the New Poor Law of 1834 as “the most open declaration of war of the bourgeoisie upon the proletariat.” [9]9 The New Poor Law of 1834 reformed the English poor relief system, abolishing outdoor relief (aid outside workhouses) and requiring the able-bodied poor to enter workhouses, where conditions were deliberately harsh to deter applicants. It was based on the principle of “less eligibility,” meaning conditions inside the workhouse should be worse than the worst-paid independent laborer. The theoretical basis of the New Poor Law was Malthus’s theory of population. Passed in the 1830s, this law, like today’s legislation on unemployment, placed the blame for capitalist crises on the poor.

此外，恩格斯对资产阶级为维持其统治而使用的权力的论述，不仅包括将国家视为资本主义制度，还包括将法律视为“资产者给他准备的鞭子”。例如，他将1834年的《新济贫法》视为“资产阶级对无产阶级的最公开的宣战”。《新济贫法》的理论基础是马尔萨斯的人口理论，这部法律在1830年代通过，它与今天关于失业的立法一样，也将资本主义危机的责任归咎于贫困人口。

In commenting on Malthus’s theory of population, Engels argued that Malthus’s views “are in many respects well adapted to existing conditions.” But against Malthus’s attribution of the existence of surplus population and the consequent inescapable poverty to natural phenomena, Engels pointed out that the surplus population, or “industrial reserve army,” is not a product of nature but of the capitalist trade cycle. Like any other commodity, the population is relatively scarce during economic booms and becomes surplus during recessions. This situation is a characteristic of labor power as a commodity, not of labor itself. Engels noted: “Malthus’s theory of population is now the favorite theory of all genuine English bourgeois.” The bourgeoisie’s acceptance of this theory reflected its desire to justify its own selfish behavior and, more importantly, its inability to develop a scientific understanding of social reality. Constrained by the standpoint of civil society, the bourgeoisie regarded capitalist social relations as a natural state, and therefore considered the situation of the poor under capitalism as natural. From this perspective, the emergence of workhouses was a rational response to the problem of poverty.

在评论马尔萨斯的人口理论时，恩格斯认为，马尔萨斯的观点“对现存关系来说有许多方面是适合的”。但针对马尔萨斯将剩余人口的存在以及因此而无法摆脱的贫困归因于自然现象，恩格斯指出，剩余人口或“产业后备军”不是自然的产物，而是资本主义贸易周期的产物。与任何其他商品一样，人口在经济繁荣时期会相对稀缺，而随着经济衰退则会出现剩余。这种情况是劳动力作为商品的特征，而不是劳动本身的特征。恩格斯指出：马尔萨斯的人口理论“现在已成为英国一切真正的资产者心爱的理论”。资产阶级对该理论的接受反映了资产阶级希望为自身的自私行为辩护的愿望，以及更重要的是，它无法发展出对社会现实的科学理解。由于受制于市民社会的立场，资产阶级将资本主义社会关系视为自然状态，也因此认为穷人在资本主义条件下的处境是自然的。从这个角度来看，济贫院（workhouses）的出现是对贫困问题的理性回应。

If the New Poor Law was a sharp institutionalized form of class struggle, then from the perspective of civil society it appeared ideologically as a common-sense response to a natural problem. Engels pointed out that the united struggle of the workers was the core content of a concrete socialist alternative. The Chartists were crucial to achieving this unity, for they were the true vanguard of the labor movement. Engels recognized that, in a specific context, with the rise of working-class class consciousness, the six points of the People’s Charter—universal male suffrage, annual parliaments, payment of MPs, secret ballots, equal electoral districts, and abolition of property qualifications for MPs—“would suffice to destroy the whole English Constitution, Queen and House of Lords included.” [10]10 The People’s Charter was a petition drafted in 1838 by the London Working Men’s Association, demanding six political reforms to make Parliament more democratic. The Chartist movement that grew around it was the first mass working-class political movement in Britain. If this important insight was central to Engels’s scientific methodology—seeing the essence through the phenomena—then, as described above, he also used this method to trace the development of the Chartist movement. Chartism began as an alliance between the working class and middle-class radicals, but split as the struggle intensified, thereby turning Chartism into “a purely working men’s cause, free from all bourgeois elements,” and it was precisely this that terrified the bourgeoisie.

如果说《新济贫法》是阶级斗争的一种激烈的制度化形式，那么从市民社会的角度来看，它在意识形态上则表现为对自然问题的常识性回应。恩格斯指出，团结起来的工人斗争是具体的社会主义替代方案的核心内容。宪章派对于实现这一团结至关重要，因为它是劳工运动的真正先锋。恩格斯认识到，在特定的背景下，伴随着工人阶级阶级意识的提升，《人民宪章》的六大要点——成年男子拥有普选权，国会每年改选，向议员支付薪酬，选举采用秘密投票的方式，各选区平等，取消议员候选人的财产资格限制——“足以把英国的宪法连同女王和上院彻底毁掉”。如果说这一重要观点是恩格斯的科学方法论的核心，即透过现象认识本质，那么如上所述，他还运用这种方法追溯了宪章派的发展历程。宪章派起初是工人阶级与中产阶级激进派的联盟，后来随着斗争的加剧而分裂，从而使宪章派变成了“没有任何资产阶级分子参加的纯粹工人的事业”，正是这一点让资产阶级感到恐惧。

If we follow Engels’s argument that the main advantage of Chartism lay in its proletarian character—that is, that the Chartist workers were “the true representatives of the proletariat”—then the primary weakness of this movement was its relative theoretical backwardness. By contrast, the socialists “saw further,” but because they originated from the middle class, they had not yet “merged with the working class.” Engels welcomed the beginning of this process and asserted that only through “the fusion of socialism and Chartism” would “the working class truly become the ruler of England.” He also implied that this process was not as inevitable as his earlier thought had explained. He believed that history was open: “If people are placed in an environment fit only for beasts, they have no other path than to rise up in revolt or truly become beasts themselves.” This statement recalls his later claim in *Anti-Dühring*: “If the whole of modern society is not to be destroyed, a transformation of the mode of production and distribution that eliminates all class distinctions must be carried out.” Rosa Luxemburg also invoked this view when she called on humanity to choose between “socialism or barbarism.” Similarly, this early view of Engels can also be interpreted as an important battle cry.

如果按照恩格斯的论点，宪章主义的主要优势在于其无产阶级的性质，即宪章派工人是“真正的无产阶级的代表”，那么这一运动的首要弱点则是其理论上的相对落后。相比之下，社会主义者则“看得比较远”，但由于他们起源于中产阶级，所以还未能“和工人阶级融合在一起”。恩格斯对这一进程的开始表示欢迎，并断言只有通过“社会主义和宪章运动的融合”，“工人阶级才会真正成为英国的统治者”。他还暗示，这一进程并不像他早期思想所解释的那样不可避免。他认为，历史是开放的，“如果人们被置于只适合于牲口的环境，那么他们除了起来反抗或者真的沦为牲口，是没有其他道路可走的”。这句话令人想起他后来在《反杜林论》中的主张：“如果要避免整个现代社会毁灭，就必须使生产方式和分配方式发生一个会消除一切阶级差别的变革。”罗莎·卢森堡（Rosa Luxemburg）在号召人类选择“社会主义还是野蛮”时也提到了上述观点。同样地，恩格斯早期的这个观点也可以被被解读为重要的战斗号令。

IV. Retrospect and Development

四、回顾与发展

Nonetheless, there remained a trace of fatalism in Engels’s belief in the ultimate victory of socialism. After rereading *The Condition of the Working Class in England* twenty years later, Marx also remarked nostalgically:

尽管如此，恩格斯关于社会主义最终胜利的信仰中仍然带有一丝宿命感。在20年后重新阅读《英国工人阶级状况》后，马克思也怀旧式地感叹道：

This book is written with such freshness, passion, and bold anticipation, free from academic and scientific doubts! Even the illusion that one would witness the historical outcome tomorrow or the day after gave the entire work a tone of enthusiasm and optimism. Compared with this, the later “grey hues” appear extremely unpleasant.

这本书写得多么清新、热情和富于大胆的预料，没有学术上和科学上的疑虑！连认为明天或后天就会亲眼看到历史结局的那种幻想，也给了整个作品以热情和乐观的色彩，与此相比，后来的“灰暗的色调”就显得令人极不愉快。

Engels also commented in the preface to the 1892 edition of *The Condition of the Working Class in England* that the book bore “the stamp of the author’s youth, reflecting the strengths and weaknesses of his youth.”

恩格斯也在1892年版《英国工人阶级状况》的前言中评论说，这本书带有“作者青年时代的烙印，反映着他青年时代的优点和缺点”。

In *The Condition of the Working Class in England*, the most incoherent and obvious “defect” reflecting that Engels was not yet a Marxist was its concluding recommendation: Engels placed his hopes on the rise of communism within the Chartist leadership to mitigate the possibility of a bloody revolution. Engels considered the coming revolution self-evident; the only question was whether British capitalism could survive one or more economic cycles of crisis before the revolution triumphed. Since communism was an ideology “not only of the workers, but of all humanity,” one that “transcended the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat,” if the communists were strong enough, they could restrain the proletariat’s tendency toward “revenge.” “Revolution is inevitable; it is now too late to find a peaceful solution; but the revolution can be carried out more mildly than the prophecy above suggests.” In fact, communism was the only hope for the bourgeoisie; otherwise, the proletarian terror predicted by *The Times* would become the future of the English bourgeoisie, as terrifying as Robespierre’s “war on palaces, peace to cottages.” Fortunately, Engels wrote to Marx in October 1844 that German workers would follow the example of their English counterparts; these proletarians would realize that “the method of opposing the old social system as individuals and through violence is useless, and they will oppose it through communism as people with their own holistic capacities.”

在《英国工人阶级状况》中，体现恩格斯尚未成为马克思主义者的最不连贯和最明显的“缺陷特征”的内容是其结论性的建议，即恩格斯寄希望于共产主义在宪章派领导层中崛起，以减轻血腥革命的可能性。恩格斯认为，革命即将到来，这是不言而喻的，唯一的问题是英国资本主义是否能在革命胜利之前挺过一个或多个危机爆发的经济周期。由于共产主义“不仅仅是工人，而是全人类的”意识形态，是“超越资产阶级和无产阶级之间的敌对的”，因此，如果共产主义者足够强大，就能对无产阶级的“复仇”倾向起到抑制作用。“革命必然到来，要找到一个和平解决问题的方法，现在已经太晚了；但是革命可以进行得比上面预言的温和些。”事实上，共产主义是资产阶级唯一的希望，否则，《泰晤士报》（The Times）所预言的无产阶级恐怖将成为英国资产阶级的未来，那将与罗伯斯庇尔的“对宫廷宣战，给茅屋和平”的情景一样可怕。幸运的是，恩格斯在1844年10月写信给马克思时表示，德国工人将效仿英国同行的做法，这些无产者将认识到“作为个人和以暴力来反对旧的社会制度的这种方法，是没有用的，他们就会作为具有自己整体能力的人们通过共产主义来反对它”。

In *The Condition of the Working Class in England*, Engels also noted problems with the predictions he had made in his youth: “I have deliberately not deleted many of the prophecies in this book, especially the predictions of an imminent social revolution in England that my youthful passion boldly made.” The incoherent arguments at the end of *The Condition of the Working Class in England* reflected the contradictions in Engels’s thought at that time. Although his analysis of the English experience powerfully pointed to the necessity of revolution, he too quickly transformed this analysis into an optimistic prediction of the inevitable development of revolution, at a time when his “communism” was still a superficial ideology. He advocated peaceful reform through persuasion and hoped this approach could moderate the excesses of revolution. However, as the passage quoted above from *Anti-Dühring* indicates, he and Marx not only overcame these weaknesses in the following months but also made a thorough break with socialist moralism, mechanical materialism, and political fatalism in 1845.

在《英国工人阶级状况》中，恩格斯还注意到他在青年时期所作的预测存在问题：“我有意地不删去本书中的许多预言，特别是青年时期的激情使我大胆作出的英国即将发生社会革命的预言。”《英国工人阶级状况》结尾提出的那些不连贯的论点反映了当时恩格斯思想的矛盾性。尽管他对英国经验的分析有力地指出了革命的必要性，但却过快地将这一分析转化为对革命必然发展的、乐观预测，而那时他的“共产主义”仍然是一种浮于表面的意识形态。他主张通过说服去实现和平改革，并希望这种方式可以调解革命中的过激行为。然而，正如上文引用《反杜林论》中的文字所表明的那样，他与马克思不仅在接下来的几个月里克服了这些弱点，而且还在1845年与社会主义的道德主义以及机械唯物主义和政治宿命论进行了彻底的决裂。

(Author’s biography: Paul Blackledge: School of Social Sciences, London Left Bank University; Yan Peiyu: Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

（作者简介：保罗·布莱克利奇（Paul Blackledge）：英国伦敦左岸大学社会科学院；闫培宇：中国社会科学院哲学所）

(This article is translated from Chapter 2 of Paul Blackledge’s work *Friedrich Engels and Modern Social and Political Theory* (Paul Blackledge, *Friedrich Engels and Modern Social and Political Theory*, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2019, pp. 39-49). The translation has been abridged, and the subtitles in the text have been added by the translator.)

（本文译自保罗·布莱克利奇的著作《弗里德里希·恩格斯与现代社会政治理论》第二章（Paul Blackledge, Friedrich Engels and Modern Social and Political Theory, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2019, pp.39-49），译文有删减，文中小标题为译者所加）

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