Overseas Engels Studies: Latest Advances and Hot Issues

For a long time, an anti-Engels tendency has existed in the academic discourse of overseas Marxism, with many scholars implying that Engels belittled and distorted Marx’s thought, viewing this as the root of the crisis in Marxism. At the end of the 20th century, the world socialist movement fell into a trough, and overseas Marxist studies also experienced periodic pain and adjustment. During this period, overseas scholars began to reflect on traditional Engels studies, which were mainly characterized by ideological dominance, the “theory of the opposition between Marx and Engels,” and the dominance of research on *Dialectics of Nature*. On this basis, they re-examined Engels’s thought, attempting to uncover his theoretical legacy in economics, political science, philosophy, ecology, geography, and other fields. Overseas Engels studies appear to have developed a trend of “one source, many streams.”

长期以来，在国外马克思主义的学术话语中一直存在着一种反恩格斯倾向，很多学者暗示恩格斯贬低和扭曲了马克思的思想，将其视为马克思主义产生危机的根源。20世纪末，世界社会主义运动陷入低谷，国外马克思主义研究也经历了阶段性的阵痛与调整。在此期间，国外学者开始反思以意识形态主导、“马克思恩格斯对立论”主导、《自然辩证法》研究主导为主要特征的传统恩格斯研究，并在此基础上重新审视恩格斯的思想，试图发掘其在经济学、政治学、哲学、生态学、地理学题等方面的理论遗产，国外恩格斯研究似乎呈现出“一源多流”的发展态势。

I. Reflection and Revival: Innovation and Development in Engels Studies

一、反思与复兴：恩格斯研究的创新和发展

In the 1980s, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the publication of *The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State*, new feminists called for a “revisit” of Engels, raising the theoretical demand for reflecting on and reviving Engels studies.[1]1 The reference is to the 1984 centenary of Engels’s *The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State* (1884), which prompted feminist scholars to call for a critical re-engagement with his work on gender and the family. In 1995, British historian Stephen Rigby published a commemorative article on the 100th anniversary of Engels’s death, supporting this view and advocating for expanding the perspective of “revisiting” from feminism to a broader field of research. He argued that Engels had endured excessive criticism and accusations, but that his contributions to Marxism were in fact important and multifaceted; therefore, it was necessary to re-examine Engels’s thought and contributions, making a more just and objective evaluation.[2]2 Stephen H. Rigby, “Engels and the Formation of Marxism,” *History of Political Thought* 16, no. 3 (1995): 357–384. In 2018, British scholar Terrell Carver published an article focusing on the revival of Engels studies, arguing that the study of “Engels as an independent thinker” was replacing the study of “Engels as a Marxist,” with greater attention being paid to uncovering Engels’s personal intellectual contributions.[3]3 Terrell Carver, “Engels as an Independent Thinker,” *Science & Society* 82, no. 4 (2018): 507–525. In 2020, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Engels’s birth, the German city of Wuppertal held a series of events under the theme “Rethinking Engels” (Engels neu denken), aiming to promote further development in Engels studies. In recent overseas Engels studies, similar keywords include “rethinking,” “revaluate,” “neu entdecken” (rediscover), and “neu bestimmen” (redefine).

1980年代，为纪念《家庭、私有制和国家的起源》出版100周年，新女性主义者呼吁“重新审视”(revisit)恩格斯，提出了反思与复兴恩格斯研究的理论诉求。(1)1995年，英国历史学家斯蒂芬·里格比在恩格斯逝世100周年之际发表纪念文章，对这一观点表示支持，主张将“重新审视”的视角从女性主义扩大到更广泛的研究领域。他认为，恩格斯承受了过多的批评和指责，但实际上恩格斯对马克思主义的贡献是重要且多方面的，因此需要重新审视恩格斯的思想和贡献，对其作出更加公正和客观的评价。(2)2018年，英国学者特瑞尔·卡弗撰文关注了恩格斯研究的复兴，认为“作为独立思想家的恩格斯”研究正在取代“作为马克思主义者的恩格斯”研究，人们更加重视发掘恩格斯个人的思想贡献。(3)2020年，为纪念恩格斯诞辰200周年，德国伍珀塔尔市以“重思恩格斯”(Engels neu denken)为主题举办了系列活动，旨在推动恩格斯研究的进一步发展。在近年来的国外恩格斯研究中，类似的关键词还有“重新思考”(rethinking)、“重新评估”(revaluate)、“重新发现”(neu entdecken)、“重新确定”(neu bestimmen)等。

Against the overall tone of reflecting on traditional Engels studies, overseas scholars have continuously advanced Engels studies, rethinking issues such as the intellectual relationship between Marx and Engels and Engels’s status and contributions within Marxism, thereby injecting new vitality into Engels studies.

在反思传统的恩格斯研究的整体基调下，国外学者不断推动恩格斯研究，对马克思与恩格斯的思想关系、恩格斯在马克思主义中的地位和贡献等问题进行再思考，为恩格斯研究注入了新的活力。

First, the discovery of textual documents.

第一，文本文献的发掘。

In recent years, new advances in Engels studies have first been attributed to newly discovered documentary materials entering public view. With the support of the International Marx-Engels Foundation, experts, scholars, and research institutions from Germany, Russia, the Netherlands, Japan, and other countries have been dedicated to the editing, compilation, and publication of the second historical-critical edition of the *Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe* (MEGA²). In this process, a large number of Engels’s articles, correspondence, excerpt notebooks, and other materials have been published for the first time, providing a textual and documentary basis for re-examining Engels and offering new evidence for studying the intellectual relationship between Marx and Engels, further promoting the academic and theoretical rigor of overseas Engels studies. As MEGA² editor Jürgen Herres stated, the rich textual documents provided by MEGA² reveal the practices of Marx and Engels in different fields of work, enabling us to understand their intellectual journeys and in-depth dialogues more systematically, and “also to evaluate Engels the man more appropriately.”[4]4 Jürgen Herres, “Die MEGA² und die Neubewertung von Engels,” *Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch* 2018/19 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 15.

近年来，恩格斯研究取得的新进展首先归功于新发掘的文献资料进入了大众视野。在国际马克思恩格斯基金会的支持下，来自德国、俄罗斯、荷兰、日本等国家的专家学者及研究机构致力于《马克思恩格斯全集》历史考证版第二版(MEGA2)的编辑、整理和出版工作。在此过程中，恩格斯的大量文章、通信、摘录笔记等首次面世，为重新审视恩格斯提供了文本文献基础，为研究马克思与恩格斯的思想关系提供了新依据，进一步助推了国外恩格斯研究的学术化、学理化。如MEGA2编辑于尔根·赫雷斯所言，MEGA2提供的丰富文本文献展现了马克思恩格斯在不同工作领域的实践，使我们得以更系统地了解他们的思想历程和深度对话，“也能够更为恰当地评价恩格斯其人”(4)。

Second, the rise of the new reading movement.

第二，新阅读运动的兴起。

Although a large number of relevant textual documents have emerged in recent years, and a trend of analyzing differences between Marx’s and Engels’s texts in an empirical manner has appeared in Engels studies, scholars have not neglected the study of Engels’s thought. They advocate rereading Engels’s classic works, focusing on key texts in the development of Engels’s thought and conducting in-depth analysis. Turkish scholar Kangal, in his book *Engels and “Dialectics of Nature”*, innovatively proposed a “New Engels Reading” (Neue Engels-Lektüre) in the hermeneutical sense. He argued that past scholars failed to distinguish Engels’s purposes, goals, needs, and motives in writing, whereas the “New Engels Reading” refers to an interpretive method that strips away the reader layer and the editorial layer, allows the author to speak, focuses on examining Engels’s own writing intentions, reconstructs the external environment at the time of the text’s creation, and “opposes the practice of defending or defeating Engels by appealing to Marx’s authority.”[5]5 Kangal, *Engels und die “Dialektik der Natur”* (Hamburg: Argument Verlag, 2020), 12. The new reading movement has expanded the depth of textual research. Similar interpretive research works include Japanese scholar Masaki Ajisaka and others’ *A Study of “Anti-Dühring”* [6]6 Masaki Ajisaka et al., *Anti-Dühring-Studien* (Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobo, 2019). and German scholar Elmar Altvater’s *Rediscovering Engels: “Dialectics of Nature” and the Critique of Accumulation and Growth*.[7]7 Elmar Altvater, *Wiederentdeckung von Engels: “Dialektik der Natur” und die Kritik von Akkumulation und Wachstum* (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2020).

尽管近年来相关文本文献大量涌现，恩格斯研究中出现了以实证化方式分析马克思与恩格斯文本差异的趋势，但学者们并未忽视对恩格斯思想的研究，他们提倡重读恩格斯的经典著作，聚焦恩格斯思想发展历程中的关键文本并进行深度耕犁。土耳其学者康加恩在《恩格斯与〈自然辩证法〉》一书中创新性提出，应当在诠释学的意义上进行“新恩格斯阅读”(Neue Engels-Lektüre)。他认为，过去的学者未能区分恩格斯写作的目的、目标、需求及动机，而“新恩格斯阅读”是指这样一种释读方法：剥离读者层与编辑层，让作者发声，注重考察恩格斯本人的写作意图，重建文本诞生时的外部环境，并“反对通过求助马克思的权威来捍卫或击败恩格斯的做法”(5)。新阅读运动拓展了文本研究的深度，类似的释读研究著作还有日本学者鲹阪真等人的《〈反杜林论〉研究》(6)、德国学者艾尔玛·阿尔特法特的《重新发现恩格斯：〈自然辩证法〉与积累和增长批判》(7)等。

Third, the application of new research methods.

第三，新研究方法的运用。

In addition to methods such as documentary verification and textual analysis, overseas scholars have also attempted to further innovate methodology in Engels studies. For example, Engels studies within “Marxology” mainly use difference analysis to examine the similarities and differences between Marx and Engels. In contrast, interdisciplinary research methods are more popular in Engels studies; overseas scholars conduct cross-disciplinary research from perspectives such as history, military science, natural science, geography, psychology, and literature, exploring and opening up new paths for Engels studies.

除了文献考证和文本分析等手段外，国外学者在恩格斯研究中还尝试进一步革新方法论。例如，“马克思学”中的恩格斯研究主要运用差异分析法考察马克思与恩格斯之间的异同。相比之下，跨学科研究法在恩格斯研究中更为流行，国外学者们从历史学、军事科学、自然科学、地理学、心理学、文学等视角展开交叉学科研究，探索并开辟恩格斯研究的新路径。

Methodological innovation has brought about a revival of Engels studies, with a large number of works and papers on a wide range of topics appearing successively. Among them, influential and academically valuable research works include J.D. Hunley’s *The Life and Thought of Friedrich Engels: A Reinterpretation*,[8]8 J.D. Hunley, *The Life and Thought of Friedrich Engels: A Reinterpretation* (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991). Rigby’s *Engels and the Formation of Marxism: History, Dialectics and Revolution*,[9]9 Stephen H. Rigby, *Engels and the Formation of Marxism: History, Dialectics and Revolution* (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992). Tristram Hunt’s *The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels*,[10]10 Tristram Hunt, *The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels* (London: Allen Lane, 2009). and Carver’s *Engels Before Marx*.[11]11 Terrell Carver, *Engels Before Marx* (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Important collections on Engels studies include *Engels Today: A Centenary Appreciation*, *200 Years of Friedrich Engels: Reading Friedrich Engels in the 21st Century*, *Resolving Contradictions: 200 Years of Friedrich Engels*, *Revisiting Engels’s Legacy in the 21st Century*, *Friedrich Engels 200 Years: A Critical Assessment of His Life and Scholarship*, *Natural Philosophy, Social Theory and Socialism: On the Timeliness of Engels’s Thought*, and *The Life, Work and Legacy of Friedrich Engels: Emerging from Marx’s Shadow*.[12]12 These collections were published in English and German between 1995 and 2020, marking the centenary of Engels’s death and the bicentenary of his birth.

方法上的创新带来了恩格斯研究的复兴，大量论题广泛的著作和论文相继问世。其中，有影响力及学术价值的研究著作有J.D.亨利的《恩格斯的生平与思想：重新诠释》(8)、里格比的《恩格斯与马克思主义的形成：历史、辩证法和革命》(9)、特里斯塔姆·亨特的《穿工装的共产主义者：弗里德里希·恩格斯的革命生活》(10)、卡弗的《马克思之前的恩格斯》(11)等。有关恩格斯研究的重要文集则包括《今日恩格斯：百年鉴赏》《恩格斯诞辰200周年：在21世纪阅读弗里德里希·恩格斯》《解决矛盾：弗里德里希·恩格斯诞辰200周年》《在21世纪重新审视恩格斯的遗产》《弗里德里希·恩格斯200年：对他的生活和学术的批判性评价》《自然哲学、社会理论与社会主义：论恩格斯思想的时事性》《弗里德里希·恩格斯的生平、工作和遗产：走出马克思的阴影》等。(12)

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Engels’s death in 1995 and the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2020, internationally renowned left-wing journals such as Germany’s *Marxist Journal* and *Journal of Marxist Innovation* and the United States’ *Science & Society* and *Monthly Review* all opened commemorative columns, publishing a large number of articles on Engels studies. Publications such as the UK’s *Historical Materialism* and *New Left Review* and France’s *Marx Today* also published several research papers related to Engels. At the same time, a new international journal, *Marxism and Science*, announced its launch after an academic seminar held in Turkey in 2020 for the 200th anniversary of Engels’s birth, and set the theme of its inaugural issue in 2022 as “The Actuality of Friedrich Engels.” The journal’s editor-in-chief reflected in the inaugural editorial on the current neglect of natural science in Marxist research, arguing that the main reason lies in “the absence of Engels in Marxism,” and fully affirmed Engels’s important contributions in the field of natural science, regarding him as “the core of the problematic relation between Marxism and natural science.” [13]13 The problematic relation: the original English phrase is retained in the Chinese text.

在1995年恩格斯逝世100周年和2020年恩格斯诞辰200周年之际，德国的《马克思主义杂志》《马克思主义创新杂志》和美国的《科学与社会》《每月评论》等国际知名左翼期刊均开辟纪念专栏，集中发表了大量有关恩格斯研究的文章。英国的《历史唯物主义》《新左翼评论》和法国的《今日马克思》等刊物也刊发了多篇与恩格斯相关的研究论文。同时，一份新的国际性刊物《马克思主义与科学》在2020年于土耳其举办的恩格斯诞辰200周年学术研讨会后宣布创刊，并将其2022年的创刊号主题定为“弗里德里希·恩格斯的现实性”。该刊主编在创刊词中反思了当前马克思主义研究忽视自然科学的状况，认为主要原因在于“马克思主义中没有恩格斯”,并充分肯定了恩格斯在自然科学领域的重要贡献，将其视为“马克思主义与自然科学之间的问题性关系(the problematic relation)的核心”。(13)

In addition, other important academic activities commemorating Engels and studying his theoretical legacy include: in 2005, the Friedrich Engels International Seminar was held in Tokyo, where Carver delivered a lecture titled “‘Marx and Engels’ or ‘Engels versus Marx’”; [14]14 Terrell Carver: a British political scientist known for his work on Marx and Engels, often arguing for significant differences between them. in 2010, Russian and Ukrainian scholars convened an international academic conference in Kyiv to commemorate the 190th anniversary of Engels’s birth, with the conference theme “Marxism and Modernity: The Contours of the Future in Engels’s Works”; [15]15 Kyiv: capital of Ukraine; the conference was held in 2010. in 2020, an international academic conference themed “Friedrich Engels: The Actuality of a Classic Author” was held at the University of Wuppertal in Germany, after which the collected papers were published as *Engels in the 21st Century: Reflections and Reassessments*; [16]16 University of Wuppertal: located in Wuppertal, Germany, Engels’s birthplace. in 2023, the Engels International Academic Symposium, co-organized by the University of Brighton in the UK and the British Marx-Engels International Humanities Exchange Society, was held in Eastbourne, with topics including Engels’s thought and its contribution to the development of Marxism, and the impact of Marxism on the contemporary world, especially on Chinese-path modernization. [17]17 Chinese-path modernization: a term from Xi Jinping Thought, referring to China’s development model as a distinct form of modernization.

此外，纪念恩格斯、研究恩格斯理论遗产的重要学术活动还有： 2005年，在东京举办了弗里德里希·恩格斯国际研讨班，卡弗作了题为《“马克思和恩格斯”,还是“恩格斯对马克思”》的演讲(14);2010年，俄罗斯和乌克兰学者在基辅召开了纪念恩格斯诞辰190周年国际学术研讨会，会议主题是“马克思主义与现代性：恩格斯作品中的未来轮廓”(15);2020年，以“弗里德里希·恩格斯：经典作家的现实性”为主题的国际学术会议在德国伍珀塔尔大学召开，会后出版了论文集《21世纪的恩格斯：反思与重估》(16);2023年，英国布莱顿大学和英国马克思—恩格斯国际人文交流学会共同主办的恩格斯国际学术研讨会在伊斯特本市举行，会议议题包括恩格斯思想及其对马克思主义发展的贡献、马克思主义对当今世界尤其是中国式现代化道路的影响等(17)。

Through tracking and observing relevant works, academic journals, and academic activities in overseas Engels studies, it is not difficult to see that overseas Engels studies exhibit characteristics of actuality, localization, and diversity. On the one hand, overseas Engels studies focus on major practical issues and hot topics, such as new forms of contemporary capitalism, new forms and dilemmas of class struggle in the 21st-century digital capitalist era, and the connection between social movements such as feminism and postcolonialism and Marxism, striving to find theoretical weapons from Engels’s thought to analyze the contemporary world. On the other hand, although capitalist contradictions have shifted to the global level, scholars from different countries have varying research emphases, and their studies also exhibit more local characteristics. For example, in terms of research perspectives, Russian scholars pay more attention to Engels’s contributions to scientific socialism and military theory; contemporary French scholars broadly focus on Engels’s theory of women’s emancipation, the concept of labor, and religious thought. In terms of research paradigms, German and Japanese scholars excel in textual criticism and philological research, conducting empirical sorting and verification of classical texts; British scholars, based on a long tradition of empiricism, place greater emphasis on studying Engels’s thought through a hermeneutic research paradigm.

通过对国外恩格斯研究的相关著作、学术期刊、学术活动的跟踪观察，不难看出，国外恩格斯研究具有现实性、本土化、多样化的特点。一方面，国外恩格斯研究关注重大现实问题及热点问题，如当代资本主义新形态、21世纪数字资本主义时代阶级斗争的新形式和困境、女性主义和后殖民主义等社会运动与马克思主义之间的关联等，力图从恩格斯的思想中寻找理论武器来分析当今世界。另一方面，尽管资本主义矛盾已经转移至全球层面，但不同国家学者的研究侧重点各不相同，研究也更具本土特色。例如，在研究视角上，俄罗斯学者更注重恩格斯在科学社会主义及军事理论上的贡献；当代法国学者则广泛关注恩格斯的妇女解放理论、劳动概念和宗教思想。在研究范式上，德国和日本学者以版本考证和文献学研究见长，对经典文本进行了实证性的梳理和考证；英国学者基于悠久的经验主义传统，更注重以解释学的研究范式对恩格斯思想进行研究。

II. Reassessment and Reception: Re-evaluation of Engels’s Status and Contributions

二、重估与接受：恩格斯地位和贡献的再评价

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the drastic changes in Eastern Europe, the ideological tendency in the field of overseas Marxist studies gradually eased. Many scholars began to study Engels in a more academic manner, re-evaluating the contributions of “Engels as Marx’s lifelong collaborator and co-founder of Marxism.”

苏联解体、东欧剧变后，国外马克思主义研究领域的意识形态化倾向逐步缓解，很多学者开始以更加学术的方式研究恩格斯，重新评价“作为马克思的终身合作者和马克思主义共同创始人的恩格斯”的贡献。

First, rejecting “Engelsism” and rethinking the “Marx-Engels question.”

第一，拒绝“恩格斯主义”,重思“马克思—恩格斯问题”。

The so-called “Engelsism” is an extreme form of the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis.” Norman Levine is well-known for his extreme “Marx-Engels opposition thesis.” He claims to adhere to the principle of value neutrality, expanding the differences between Marx and Engels into a systemic opposition, and calling the dialectical materialism embodied in *Dialectics of Nature* “Engelsism,” in opposition to Marx’s method of social interpretation. [18]18 Norman Levine: an American historian who argued for a sharp opposition between Marx and Engels. Carver, in *Marx and Engels: The Intellectual Relationship*, also upholds the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis.” In this book, he implies that the writing of *Anti-Dühring* and *Dialectics of Nature* was not a joint undertaking of Marx and Engels, and that Marx merely remained silent out of politeness to maintain their friendship. [19]19 *Marx and Engels: The Intellectual Relationship*: a 1983 book by Terrell Carver.

所谓“恩格斯主义”的说法是“马克思恩格斯对立论”的极端形式。诺曼·莱文就以极端的“马克思恩格斯对立论”而闻名，他声称自己坚持价值中立的原则，把马克思与恩格斯之间的差异扩大为体系之间的对立，将《自然辩证法》中体现出的辩证唯物主义称为“恩格斯主义”(Engelsism),与马克思的社会解释方法相对立。(18)卡弗在《马克思与恩格斯：学术思想关系》中也坚持“马克思恩格斯对立论”。他在该书中暗示，《反杜林论》和《自然辩证法》的写作并非马克思恩格斯的共同事业，马克思不过是为了维持两人的友谊而礼貌地保持了沉默。(19)

The “Engelsism” thesis challenges the integrity of Marxism. Responses to this challenge are mainly based on both ideological and academic grounds. Kang Jian’en argues that the debate over Engels and his *Dialectics of Nature* is not only about Engels’s thought itself but also challenges Engels’s academic prestige and political authority, and that both questioning and defending have been, in the past and present, driven by ideological motives. [20]20 Kang Jian’en: likely a Chinese scholar; the name is transliterated from the Chinese text. Paul Blackledge also pointedly notes that supporters of the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis” are more driven by ideological bias. He criticizes Carver’s “Marx-Engels opposition thesis” for relying on straw-man assumptions, and points out that it is not surprising that Marx and Engels, as two independent individuals, had differences, but further expanding these differences to the point of creating opposition means ignoring the academic division of labor between Marx and Engels, which is precisely strong evidence of their high degree of cooperation. [21]21 Paul Blackledge: a British Marxist scholar. John Stanley and Ernst Zimmermann, using the correspondence between Marx and Engels, demonstrate that “Marx fundamentally endorsed the ideas of *Anti-Dühring* and *Dialectics of Nature*,” and that “it was under Marx’s evident encouragement” that Engels formulated a “research agenda” in natural science that “occupied ‘eight years of his golden time.’” [22]22 John Stanley and Ernst Zimmermann: scholars who defended Engels against the opposition thesis.

“恩格斯主义”说向马克思主义的完整性发起了挑战，对这一挑战的回应主要基于意识形态和学术两方面。康加恩认为，有关恩格斯及其《自然辩证法》的争论不仅关乎恩格斯思想本身，更是挑战恩格斯的学术威望和政治权威，质疑与辩护无论过去还是现在都是出于意识形态的动机。(20)保罗·布莱克里奇也一针见血地指出，“马克思恩格斯对立论”的支持者更多是受意识形态偏见的驱使。他批评卡弗的“马克思恩格斯对立论”依赖于稻草人式的假设，并指出马克思与恩格斯作为两个独立个体有差异并不奇怪，但进一步扩大这种差异乃至制造对立，就是忽视马克思与恩格斯之间的学术分工，而这正是两人高度合作的力证。(21)约翰·斯坦利和恩斯特·齐默曼则借助马克思与恩格斯之间的通信证明，“马克思从根本上来说是赞同《反杜林论》和《自然辩证法》的思想的”,而且“正是在马克思的显而易见的鼓励下”,恩格斯才制定了一个“占用了他‘八年的黄金时间’”的“自然科学‘研究日程’”。(22)

It is worth mentioning that the latest manifestation of “Engelsism” in the past two years has appeared in the field of ecology. Japanese scholar Kohei Saito, in *Marx in the Anthropocene*, argues that Engels deleted the term “metabolism of nature” from the manuscript of *Capital* Volume 3, reflecting a fundamental “methodological difference” between him and Marx on ecological issues, especially the concept of metabolism. [23]23 Kohei Saito: a Japanese Marxist philosopher; *Marx in the Anthropocene* is a 2023 book. In response, John Bellamy Foster counters that all of Saito’s assumptions about a “profound ecological divergence” between Marx and Engels rely on minor changes in the concept of metabolism, with no empirical evidence to prove a “methodological rupture” between the two. On the contrary, in the Anthropocene era, “it is necessary to combine Marx’s theory of metabolism with Engels’s dialectics of nature.” [24]24 John Bellamy Foster: an American Marxist sociologist and ecologist.

值得一提的是，“恩格斯主义”近两年的最新表现形式出现在生态学领域。日本学者斋藤幸平在《人类世的马克思》中认为，恩格斯删除了《资本论》第3卷手稿中“自然的物质变换”一词，这反映了他与马克思在生态学问题、特别是物质变换概念上存在着根本的“方法论差异”。(23)对此，约翰·贝拉米·福斯特反驳道，斋藤幸平所有关于马克思与恩格斯存在“深刻的生态学分歧”的假设都依赖于物质变换概念的微小变化，并没有任何实证性的证据来证明两人之间存在着“方法论上的断裂”,相反，在人类世时代“有必要将马克思的物质变换理论与恩格斯的自然辩证法结合起来”。(24)

Second, refuting the view of Engels as a “positivist,” “mechanist,” or “fatalist.”

第二，驳斥将恩格斯视为“实证主义者”“机械论者”“宿命论者”的观点。

This view was prevalent in the 20th-century Western Marxist philosophical tradition, where Engels was often accused of being the originator of “orthodox Marxism” and “determinism” in the Second and Third Internationals. As the first scholar to systematically articulate the ideological opposition between Marx and Engels, George Lichtheim’s view is representative. In *Marxism: An Historical and Critical Study*, he portrays Engels as a mechanist and positivist, arguing that Engels should be held responsible for the positivist elements in Soviet “orthodox Marxism.” Subsequently, more and more scholars followed and repeated this view. Henry even predicted that the research themes of proponents of the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis” would thereafter focus on technicism, determinism, and positivism. [25]25 Henry: likely a reference to a scholar, possibly Michel Henry, a French philosopher who wrote on Marx.

这种观点普遍存在于20世纪的西方马克思主义哲学传统中，恩格斯经常被指责为第二国际和第三国际中“正统马克思主义”和“决定论”的始作俑者。作为第一个系统阐述马克思与恩格斯的思想对立的学者，乔治·里希特海姆的观点具有代表性。他在《马克思主义：一个历史和批判的研究》中将恩格斯刻画成一个机械论者和实证主义者，认为恩格斯应当对苏联“正统马克思主义”中的实证主义因素负责。此后，越来越多的学者跟随、重复这一观点。亨利甚至预言，此后“马克思恩格斯对立论”者的研究主题将集中于技术主义、决定论和实证主义。(25)

In response to this denigration of Engels’s philosophical achievements, scholars such as Foster point out that Western Marxist criticisms of Engels and the one-sided negation of the dialectics of nature are in essence intended to support an idealist interpretation of Marx’s philosophy; it is not that Engels’s dialectics of nature leads to mechanical materialism and positivism, but rather that the philosophical tendencies of the researchers lead to a reductionist reading of Engels’s works.[26]26 Reference to the Western Marxist tradition (e.g., Georg Lukács, Antonio Gramsci, the Frankfurt School) that often criticized Engels’s dialectics of nature as positivist or mechanical, contrasting it with a humanistic or Hegelian reading of Marx. Jerrold Seigel further demonstrates from the perspective of political economy that Engels was not a positivist. In studying the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, Seigel found that Engels’s editing of Volume 3 of *Capital* moved a portion of the text from Chapter 14, “Counteracting Influences,” which reaffirms the validity of the law of the rate of profit, to after Chapter 13, “The Law Itself,”[27]27 The reference is to the structure of Volume 3 of *Capital*: Chapter 13 (“The Law Itself”) and Chapter 14 (“Counteracting Influences”). thereby making the expression of the law of the falling rate of profit in Chapter 13 and the expression of the factors contradicting this law in Chapter 14 each internally consistent and mutually distinct. Seigel argues that Engels attempted through this adjustment to weaken the expression in Marx’s manuscript of *Capital* that treats the law of the falling rate of profit as an economic law of capitalist society; this alteration highlighting the “contradiction” between the two reflects Engels’s dialectical epistemology.[28]28 Seigel’s argument is that Engels’s editorial rearrangement highlights the dialectical tension between the law and its counteracting factors, rather than presenting the law as a simple empirical regularity. Christian Fuchs, from the perspective of scientific socialism, points out that Engels should not be held responsible for the emergence of Stalinism. In Fuchs’s view, Stalin neglected the principles of *Aufhebung* (sublation) and the “negation of the negation,” which are the main characteristics of Engels’s dialectics. Engels consistently insisted that humans are conscious, purposeful actors, and therefore the history of social development differs from the history of natural development; the dialectical laws of society cannot be equated with the dialectical laws of nature. Fuchs acknowledges that some of Engels’s classic formulations may lead to a “determinist” reading, such as Engels’s statement about the “automatic collapse of capitalism,” but Engels placed greater emphasis on class struggle as the decisive practice for bringing about change, and moreover Engels himself actively participated in actual revolutionary activities. Therefore, Engels was by no means a “determinist.”[29]29 Fuchs’s argument distinguishes Engels’s dialectics from the mechanistic determinism often attributed to Stalinist Marxism.

针对这种对恩格斯哲学成就的抹黑，福斯特等学者指出，西方马克思主义对恩格斯的批评以及对自然辩证法的片面否定，实质上是为了支持对马克思哲学的唯心主义解读，并非恩格斯的自然辩证法会导致机械唯物主义和实证主义，而是研究者的哲学倾向导致了对恩格斯著作的还原论解读。(26)杰罗尔德·西格尔进一步从政治经济学的视角证明恩格斯并非实证主义者。在研究利润率下降趋势时，西格尔发现，恩格斯编辑的《资本论》第3卷将第十四章“起反作用的各种原因”中一部分重申利润率规律有效性的文本移至第十三章“规律本身”之后(27),从而使得第十三章关于利润率下降规律的表述与第十四章对与这一规律相悖的因素的表述各自统一起来并相互区分开来。西格尔认为，恩格斯试图通过这一调整来弱化马克思的《资本论》手稿中将利润率下降规律视为资本主义社会的一个经济规律的表述，这种突出两者“矛盾”的改动体现了恩格斯的辩证认识论。(28)克里斯蒂安·福克斯则基于科学社会主义的视角指出，恩格斯不应为斯大林主义的产生负责。在福克斯看来，斯大林忽视了“扬弃”和“否定之否定”的原则，而这正是恩格斯辩证法的主要特征。恩格斯始终坚持认为，人是有意识、有目的的行动者，因此社会发展史不同于自然发展史，不能把社会的辩证规律等同于自然的辩证规律。福克斯承认恩格斯的某些经典论述可能会导致对其作出“决定论者”的解读，例如恩格斯关于“资本主义会自动崩溃”的论述，但恩格斯更多地强调了阶级斗争是发生变革的决定性实践，况且恩格斯本人也积极参与了实际的革命活动。因此，恩格斯绝不是“决定论者”。(29)

Third, criticism of the charges of “misreading” and “falsification” leveled against Engels.

第三，批评针对恩格斯的“误读论”和“篡改论”指控。

In the 1990s, especially after the publication of MEGA² Part II, Volumes 12–15, the “battlefield” accusing Engels of distorting Marx shifted from the field of philosophy to that of political economy,[30]30 MEGA² (Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe) is the historical-critical edition of the complete works of Marx and Engels. Part II contains *Capital* and its preparatory works. focusing mainly on Engels’s editorial work on *Capital*. Represented by Hans-Georg Backhaus and Helmut Reichelt of the German Neue Marx-Lektüre school and Christopher Arthur of the British New Dialectics school, the “misreading” thesis holds that Engels, from a linear historical perspective, misinterpreted Marx’s theory of “simple circulation” as a theory of “simple commodity production,” thereby leading to the failure of the reconstruction of monetary theory. In Backhaus’s view, Engels’s “misreading” meant that “the mountain of Marx’s dialectics could only give birth to a mouse.”[31]31 Backhaus’s critique is that Engels’s reading of Marx’s theory of commodity circulation as a historical stage of “simple commodity production” (rather than a logical abstraction) undermined the dialectical structure of Marx’s critique of political economy. The “falsification” thesis argues that Engels’s alterations to the text of *Capital* distorted Marx’s original meaning. For example, Carl-Erich Vollgraf and Jürgen Jungnickel, by comparing Marx’s 1864–1865 manuscript with Engels’s 1894 printed edition of Volume 3 of *Capital*, concluded that Engels’s editorial work both concealed the open-endedness of Marx’s text and, in certain places (e.g., crisis theory), clearly deviated from Marx’s dialectical method of thinking and presentation.[32]32 Vollgraf and Jungnickel’s comparison of the 1864–1865 manuscript with Engels’s 1894 edition argued that Engels’s editing imposed a more systematic and less open-ended structure on Marx’s text.

1990年代，特别是MEGA2第Ⅱ部分第12—15卷出版后，指责恩格斯曲解马克思的“战场”由哲学领域转向政治经济学领域(30),主要针对恩格斯的《资本论》编辑工作。以德国马克思新阅读学派的汉斯-格奥尔格·巴克豪斯、赫尔穆特·莱希尔特和英国新辩证法学派的克里斯多夫·阿瑟为代表的“误读论”认为，恩格斯从线性历史的角度把马克思的“简单流通”理论误解为“简单商品生产”理论，进而导致货币理论重构的失败。在巴克豪斯看来，恩格斯的“误读”使“马克思辩证法的大山只能生出一只老鼠”。(31)“篡改论”则认为，恩格斯对《资本论》文本的修改歪曲了马克思的原意。例如，卡尔-埃里希·福尔格拉夫和尤尔根·荣克尼克尔通过将马克思的1864—1865年手稿与恩格斯的1894年《资本论》第3卷刊印稿进行对比，得出恩格斯的编辑工作既掩盖了马克思文本的开放性、在某些地方(例如危机理论)又明显与马克思的辩证思维方法和叙述方法不符的结论。(32)

To accurately reveal Engels’s alterations to Marx’s original manuscripts, the Japanese “Sendai Group,” which participated in editing MEGA² Part II, Volume 12, produced a table of textual differences between Engels’s edited manuscript of Volume 2 of *Capital* and Marx’s manuscript, listing approximately 5,000 textual modifications, providing key evidence for evaluating Engels’s editorial work and the intellectual relationship between Marx and Engels.[33]33 The “Sendai Group” refers to a team of Japanese Marx scholars based at Tohoku University in Sendai, who contributed to the MEGA² edition. Overall, the semantic changes in the vast majority of the listed alterations are very minor. The editors ultimately concluded that the textual differences were mostly intended to improve defects in the base text and cannot be taken as evidence that Engels deliberately falsified Marx’s manuscripts. The editors also particularly emphasized the unfinished nature of Marx’s manuscripts.[34]34 The editors’ conclusion is that the textual differences are primarily stylistic or clarificatory, not substantive distortions. Rolf Hecker, one of the editors of this volume, also pointed out that it was unrealistic to expect Engels to always follow Marx’s line of thought in organizing the *Capital* manuscripts, since Marx himself did not have a clear line of thought. He also expressed respect for Engels’s achievement in editing a “readable” book.[35]35 Hecker’s point is that Marx’s manuscripts were often fragmentary and unfinished, making editorial intervention necessary and legitimate. In addition, foreign scholars who defend Engels’s editing of *Capital* include Canadian historian of economic thought Samuel Hollander, German MEGA² editor Michael Krätke, and British Marxist economist Michael Roberts, all of whom believe that Engels completed the editorial work well.

为准确揭示恩格斯对马克思的原始手稿的改动，参与编辑MEGA2第Ⅱ部分第12卷的日本“仙台小组”制作了《资本论》第2卷编辑稿与马克思手稿文本差异一览表，列出约5000处文本修改，为评价恩格斯的编辑工作以及马克思与恩格斯的思想关系提供了关键证据。(33)总的来说，所列绝大部分改动的语义变化都很小。编者们最终得出结论认为，文本差异更多地只是为了对作为底本的文本的缺陷进行改善，不能以此认定恩格斯蓄意篡改了马克思的手稿。编者们还特别强调了马克思手稿的未完成性。(34)该卷编者之一罗尔夫·黑克尔也指出，要求恩格斯一直按照马克思的思路整理《资本论》手稿并不现实，毕竟马克思本人也没有明确的思路。他还对恩格斯编辑出“可读”书籍的成就表示了敬意。(35)此外，为恩格斯编辑《资本论》辩护的国外学者还有加拿大经济思想史学家塞缪尔·霍兰德、德国MEGA2编辑米夏埃尔·克莱特科、英国马克思主义经济学家迈克尔·罗伯茨等，他们都认为恩格斯很好地完成了编辑工作。

Fourth, demonstrating Engels’s “theory of historical resultant forces.”

第四，论证恩格斯的“历史合力论”。

The “theory of historical resultant forces” was independently developed by Engels after Marx’s death. Later generations generally regard it as an innovation in historical materialism, while some scholars see it as a distortion of Marx’s historical materialism. Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser even considered the “theory of historical resultant forces” as “the dissolution of dialectics” and “an epistemological vacuum.”

“历史合力论”是恩格斯在马克思逝世后独自阐发的，后人多认为是恩格斯对唯物史观的创新，也有学者将其视为对马克思唯物史观的扭曲，让-保罗·萨特和路易·阿尔都塞更是将“历史合力论”视作“辩证法的消解”和“认识论的真空”。

In recent years, foreign scholars have conducted in-depth research on the dialectical aspects of the historical materialism Engels expounded, discovering that the dialectical ideas Engels proposed in his later works and letters offer a pioneering understanding of the traditional economic base–superstructure theory. For example, Georgi Bagaturia argues that Engels, as a “dialectician” in *The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State*, put forward a “profound idea about the historical nature of the social foundation itself,” namely, that with the development of human society, the historical nature of the social foundation gradually develops from the dominance of “the production of human beings” toward the dominance of “spiritual production,” “the production of ideas, conceptions, and consciousness.” This idea is a continuation and deepening of the “five types of production” thought proposed in *The German Ideology* and has been confirmed by the developmental trends of contemporary society. In Bagaturia’s view, Engels’s idea powerfully refutes those who simplistically equate Marxism with “economic determinism” and also reveals the applicability and vitality of Marxist theory in contemporary society.[36]36 Bagaturia’s reference to “five types of production” is from *The German Ideology*, where Marx and Engels distinguish between the production of material life, the production of new needs, the production of human beings (the family), the production of social relations, and the production of consciousness. Smail Rapic also argues that Engels transcended Marx’s reductionist interpretation of the relationship between the capitalist economic base and superstructure in *Capital*. He points out that Engels not only emphasized the influence of the economy on law but also particularly highlighted the counteractive effect of law on economic development. This indicates that capitalist economy and politics are no longer independent spheres but are processes that interweave and mutually shape each other. Engels did not understand bourgeois law as a direct reflection of the economy; rather, based on the counteractive effect of law, he successfully predicted the outbreak of World War I, and by analyzing the relationship between bourgeois law and the economy, he revealed the deep-seated contradictions and conflicts hidden beneath the surface. This is a historical inference based on a materialist view of society and social history.[37]37 Rapic’s argument is that Engels’s analysis of law’s reciprocal effect on the economy anticipates later theories of the relative autonomy of the superstructure.

近年来，国外学者对恩格斯阐发的唯物史观的辩证方面进行了深入研究，发现恩格斯在其晚年著作及书信中提出的辩证思想对传统的经济基础—上层建筑理论有开创性理解。例如，格奥尔基·巴加图里亚认为，恩格斯在《家庭、私有制和国家的起源》中作为一个“辩证论者”提出了“关于社会基础本身的历史性质的深刻思想”,即随着人类社会的发展，社会基础的历史性质逐渐由“人的生产”占支配地位向“精神的生产”“思想、观念、意识的生产”占支配地位的方向发展，这一思想是《德意志意识形态》中提出的“五种生产”思想的延续和深化，已被当今社会的发展趋势所证实。在巴加图里亚看来，恩格斯的这一思想有力地反驳了那些将马克思主义简单地等同于“经济决定论”的看法，也揭示了马克思主义理论在当今社会的适用性和生命力。(36)斯迈尔·拉佩奇也认为，恩格斯超越了马克思在《资本论》中对资本主义经济基础与上层建筑关系的还原主义解读。他指出，恩格斯不仅强调了经济对法的影响，还特别突出了法对经济发展的反作用。这表明资本主义经济与政治不再是相互独立的领域，而是相互交织、相互塑造的过程。恩格斯并未将资产阶级的法理解为对经济的直接反映，而是以法的反作用为依据成功预测了第一次世界大战的爆发，通过分析资产阶级的法与经济之间的关系揭示了隐藏在表面之下的深层矛盾和冲突，这是以唯物主义社会观和社会史为基础所作的历史推论。(37)

III. Sedimentation and Activation: The Multidimensional Problematic of Engels’s Thought

三、沉淀与激活：恩格斯思想的多维问题域

Traditional Engels studies have tended to view Engels primarily as a collaborator of Marx. In recent years, foreign scholars have begun to pay more attention to Engels’s identity as an independent thinker, delving into the multidimensional aspects of his thought. This is partly because Engels, hailed as an “encyclopedic scholar,” had a wide range of research interests and conducted specialized studies in multiple fields; partly it is because scholars seek to closely link Engels’s thought with the complex real-world problems of contemporary capitalism. This collision of the pluralization of thought and the pluralization of contradictions has formed the multidimensional problematic of overseas Engels studies, and Engels’s thought has been reactivated in the 21st century.

传统的恩格斯研究通常倾向于将恩格斯视作马克思的合作者。近年来，国外学者们开始更多地关注恩格斯作为独立思想家的身份，深入挖掘其思想的多维向度。这一方面是因为被誉为“百科全书式学者”的恩格斯有着广泛的研究兴趣，在多个领域进行过专门研究；另一方面是因为学者们力图将恩格斯的思想与当今资本主义的复杂现实问题紧密联系起来。这种思想的多元化与矛盾的多元化的碰撞形成了国外恩格斯研究的多维问题域，恩格斯的思想在21世纪被重新激活。

First, research on digital workers, digital class struggle, and digital dialectics in the era of digital capitalism.

第一，数字资本主义时代的数字工人、数字阶级斗争和数字辩证法研究。

Taking the 200th anniversary of Engels’s birth as an opportunity, the journal *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* launched a special issue in 2021, No. 1, themed “Engels in the Age of Digital Capitalism,” attempting to apply Engels’s theories to the new context of digital capitalism, providing a reference for social science research and digital society research in the 21st century.[38]38 *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* is an open-access academic journal focused on critical political economy and communication studies. Using Engels’s works as a theoretical foundation, scholars explored topics ranging from the critique of monopoly capitalism to the critique of digital capitalism, from the condition of the British working class in the 19th century to the current state of the digital working class in the present era, from the dialectics of nature concerning the relationship between humans and nature to the digital dialectics concerning the relationship between humans and machines, and from scientific socialism to digital socialism. The content covers digital labor, digital exploitation, digital surveillance, class struggle among digital workers, digital sharing, digital utopia, and so on.

以恩格斯诞辰200周年为契机，《传播、资本主义与批判》杂志于2021年第1期推出以“数字资本主义时代的恩格斯”为主题的特刊，尝试将恩格斯的理论应用于数字资本主义的新语境中，为21世纪的社会科学研究和数字社会研究提供参考。(38)学者们以恩格斯的著作为理论基础，探讨了从垄断资本主义批判到数字资本主义批判、从19世纪英国工人阶级状况到当今时代数字工人阶级现状、从人与自然关系的自然辩证法到人与机器关系的数字辩证法、从科学社会主义到数字社会主义等议题，内容涉及数字劳动、数字剥削、数字监控、数字工人的阶级斗争、数字共享、数字乌托邦等。

Second, research on natural science and ecology under the wave of the third scientific and technological revolution.

第二，第三次科技革命浪潮下的自然科学和生态研究。

With the surging wave of the third scientific and technological revolution, Engels’s epistemological and ontological thoughts on natural science have attracted widespread attention in international academic circles. Scholars have explored Engels’s elucidation of dialectical scientific thinking in his dual approach to understanding natural science and pursuing the starting point of dialectics, focusing on his important contributions to the thinking methods and theoretical logic construction of natural science. For example, Herbert Hörz emphasized the need to use theoretical thinking to govern the relationship among experiment, model, and theory, arguing that solving the empiricist epistemological problems of contemporary natural science cannot be separated from Engels’s dialectics of nature.[39]39 Herbert Hörz is a German Marxist philosopher specializing in the philosophy of science and dialectics of nature. Huib Zwart, from the perspective of synthetic cells, pointed out that Engels studied life through the dialectical thinking of affirmation—negation—negation of negation, laying the foundation for a dialectical evaluation of contemporary technoscience.[40]40 Huib Zwart is a Dutch philosopher of science and technology, known for work on technoscience and synthetic biology. Foster also noted: “The real transformation that allowed Engels to regain his reputation as a great classical Marxist theorist on par with Marx came not as a historian or political economist, but as a natural scientist.”[41]41 John Bellamy Foster is a prominent American Marxist sociologist and ecologist, editor of *Monthly Review*. Scholars have also focused on excavating the ecological value in Engels’s dialectics of nature. Foster even transformed Engels’s famous assertion “Nature is the touchstone of dialectics” into “Ecology is the touchstone of dialectics,”[42]42 Engels’s original phrase is from *Dialectics of Nature*; Foster’s adaptation shifts the focus from nature to ecology. and regarded Engels as one of the founders of modern ecology, believing that the dialectics of nature played a “formative” role in the development of modern ecology and evolutionary theory. Therefore, it is necessary to re-examine the importance of Engels’s ecological thought for solving ecological problems.[43]43 Foster’s work on Engels and ecology is part of the broader ecosocialist tradition.

随着第三次科技革命浪潮汹涌而至，恩格斯的自然科学认识论和本体论思想在国际学术界引起了广泛关注，学者们纷纷探讨恩格斯在理解自然科学和追寻辩证法起点的双向进路中对辩证的科学思维的阐发，关注其对自然科学的思维方法和理论逻辑建构作出的重要贡献。例如，赫尔伯特·霍兹强调以理论思维统摄实验—模型—理论的关系，认为解决当代自然科学的经验主义认识论问题离不开恩格斯的自然辩证法。(39)胡伯·茲瓦特从合成细胞的角度指出，恩格斯以肯定—否定—否定之否定的辩证思维研究生命，为辩证评价当代技性科学(technoscience)奠定了基础。(40)福斯特也指出：“恩格斯得以恢复其作为与马克思并驾齐驱的伟大经典马克思主义理论家的声誉，真正的转变并非作为历史学家和政治经济学家，而是作为自然科学家。”(41)学者们还注重挖掘恩格斯自然辩证法中的生态价值，福斯特更是将恩格斯的著名论断“自然界是检验辩证法的试金石”改造为“生态是检验辩证法的试金石”(42),并将恩格斯视为现代生态学的奠基人之一，认为自然辩证法在现代生态学和进化论观点的发展中发挥了“形成性”的作用，因此有必要重新审视恩格斯的生态思想对于解决生态问题的重要性。(43)

Third, research on epidemics and the situation of women under the COVID-19 pandemic.

第三，新冠疫情下的流行病和妇女境况研究。

The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to humanity and also provided an opportunity for foreign scholars to re-examine Engels’s epidemiological thought. As early as 1983, Howard Waitzkin detailed Engels’s pioneering role as a social epidemiologist. He pointed out that the 24-year-old Engels, when writing *The Condition of the Working Class in England* in 1844, explored the causes of disease in a manner later adopted by the public health field.[44]44 Howard Waitzkin is an American medical sociologist who studied Engels’s contributions to social epidemiology. Camilla Royle also noted that Engels studied epidemics in depth in his youth and put forward unique insights. These insights were not valued at the time but now appear highly prescient. For example, Engels believed that epidemics are not only a natural phenomenon but also a social phenomenon; the spread of epidemics is often closely related to factors such as social structure, economic conditions, and cultural background. Therefore, to effectively control the spread of epidemics, it is necessary to proceed from society as a whole and comprehensively consider various factors. The current trend of introducing “structural violence” into public health analysis coincides with Engels’s research from a hundred years ago.[45]45 “Structural violence” refers to systematic harm caused by social structures (e.g., inequality, poverty), a concept developed by Johan Galtung. Juliana Farudi and Michelle Crosby, based on an investigation of the living conditions of women during the COVID-19 pandemic, argued that the dissolution of physical space during the pandemic reactivated a basic idea of Engels, namely his discussion of the boundaries between paid and unpaid labor, and between the public and private spheres. In particular, the domestication and privatization of women that Engels exposed in the 19th century reappear in the 21st century within digital communities, where women suffer double exploitation in the digital economy mediated by social media: social exploitation and self-exploitation.[46]46 Juliana Farudi and Michelle Crosby are scholars of gender and digital labor; their work examines the pandemic’s impact on women. Marnie Holborow focused on the influx of women into the labor market after the pandemic, which made Engels’s view that women rejoin the wage-earning class to oppose gender oppression resonate in the current era. She argued that, as Engels foresaw, the increase in women’s paid work has intensified the dissolution of old gender norms and led to changes in political expectations regarding the family and traditional gender roles.[47]47 Marnie Holborow is an Irish scholar of language, ideology, and political economy, focusing on gender and labor.

全球范围内新冠疫情的暴发给人类带来了前所未有的挑战，也为国外学者重新审视恩格斯的流行病学思想提供了契机。早在1983年，霍华德·韦茨金就详尽地介绍了恩格斯作为社会流行病学家的先驱作用。他指出，24岁的恩格斯在1844年撰写《英国工人阶级的状况》时曾以后来公共卫生领域所采取的方式探索疾病的病因。(44)卡米拉·罗伊尔也指出，恩格斯青年时代就深入研究了流行病，并提出了独到的见解。这些见解在当时未受重视，但如今看来极具前瞻性。例如，恩格斯认为，流行病不仅是一种自然现象，更是一种社会现象，流行病的传播往往与社会结构、经济条件、文化背景等因素密切相关。因此，要有效控制流行病的传播，必须从社会整体出发，综合考虑各种因素。当今将“结构性暴力”引入公共卫生分析的趋势与百年前恩格斯的研究不谋而合。(45)朱莉安娜·法鲁迪和米歇尔·克罗斯比则基于对新冠疫情期间妇女群体生活状况的考察认为，疫情期间物理空间的消解重新激活了恩格斯的一个基本思想，即他关于有偿劳动与无偿劳动、公共领域与私人领域之间界线的论述，特别是19世纪恩格斯所揭露的妇女的家庭化和私有化在21世纪重新出现在数字社区之中，女性在以社交媒体为中介的数字经济中受到双重剥削，即社会剥削和自我剥削。(46)玛尔妮·霍尔博罗则关注到疫情之后妇女大量涌入劳动力市场，从而使恩格斯有关妇女重新加入工薪阶层以反对性别压迫的观点在当今时代引起了共鸣。她认为，正如恩格斯所预见的那样，女性有偿工作的增多加剧了旧的性别规范的解体，并导致了对家庭和传统性别角色的政治期待的改变。(47)

Fourth, research on military affairs and national politics against the background of frequent local wars.

第四，局部战争频发背景下的军事和国家政治研究。

In recent years, the continuous tension in the international situation and the escalating war conflicts have brought Engels’s military theory back into focus. Foreign scholars have mainly conducted research from two aspects: the historical materialist view of war and the dialectical materialist view of war. Martin Kitchen argued that Engels analyzed the roots of war from the perspective of economics and productive forces, emphasizing the political-economic essence of war. However, this does not mean that Engels used economic determinism or simple causality to explain military issues. On the contrary, he paid special attention to the dialectical relationship between objective forces and human practice in war, emphasizing the importance of factors such as soldier quality, strategy and tactics, and military theory for victory in combat. This fully demonstrates Engels’s dialectical materialist perspective in the military field.[48]48 Martin Kitchen is a British-Canadian historian of modern European military history. Wolfgang Streeck argued that Engels’s exposition of 19th-century militarism supplemented Marxist state-political theory, outlining a more realistic approach to historical materialism from the perspective of war, technology, and state development than Marx’s economic theory. This is of great value for analyzing the interaction between production and destruction, class struggle and international war in the contemporary era of the war on terror and regional conflicts.[49]49 Wolfgang Streeck is a German sociologist and political economist, known for work on capitalism and the state.

近年来，国际局势的持续紧张和战争冲突的不断升级，使得恩格斯的军事理论再次受到关注。国外学者主要从历史唯物主义的战争观和辩证唯物主义的战争观两个方面展开研究。马丁·基钦认为，恩格斯从经济和生产力的角度剖析战争的根源，强调战争的政治经济本质；但是，这并不代表恩格斯在利用经济决定论或简单的因果论阐述军事问题，相反，他格外注重战争中的客观力量与人的实践之间的辩证关系，强调士兵素质、战略战术、军事理论等多种因素对于作战胜利的重要性，这充分证明了恩格斯在军事领域的辩证唯物主义视角。(48)沃尔夫冈·施特雷克认为，恩格斯对19世纪军国主义的阐述补充了马克思主义的国家政治理论，从战争、技术和国家发展的视角勾勒出比马克思的经济理论更为现实的历史唯物主义研究进路，对于分析当今时代反恐战争和地区冲突中生产与破坏、阶级斗争与国际战争的相互作用具有重要价值。(49)

Fifth, research on spatial geography in the process of globalization and urbanization.

第五，全球化、城市化进程中的空间地理研究。

Geographical research is an emerging growth point in overseas Engels studies. Engels extensively engaged with fields such as economic geography, spatial geography, urban geography, cartography, and ethnography. Mark Rainey and Steve Hansen emphasized that *The Condition of the Working Class in England* not only laid the foundation for the development of Marxist political thought but also had a profound impact on the entire social sciences, including human geography and urban sociology. Through an ethnographic description of Manchester, Engels not only revealed the filth and misery of early working-class slums but also exposed the strategies by which the urban bourgeoisie isolated themselves from the surrounding social and material horrors.[50]50 Mark Rainey and Steve Hansen are geographers who study Marxist spatial theory. David Harvey also expressed admiration for Engels’s foresight: “It is shocking that when we compare the living conditions of the working class, marginalized ethnic groups, and the unemployed in Lisbon, São Paulo, and Jakarta with Engels’s classic 1844 work *The Condition of the Working Class in England*, we find no substantial difference between them.”[51]51 David Harvey is a leading Marxist geographer and theorist of urban capitalism. Thomas Jellis and Joe Gerlach even described Engels as a “prescient” geographer, arguing that he provided a “cartographic depiction” of the relationship between capital and urbanization, clearly pointing out that “the relationship between the urbanization of capital and the geography of the labor market is rooted not only in the dialectic of capital and labor but also in the interweaving of spaces.” Taking this as a starting point, Jellis and Gerlach sought to remove the obscuration of Engels’s geographical thought in the English-speaking world due to ideological issues, because “Engels’s works still speak to our times in unexpected ways.”[52]52 Thomas Jellis and Joe Gerlach are geographers who engage with Engels’s spatial thought.

地理学研究是国外恩格斯研究中的一个新兴增长点。恩格斯曾广泛涉猎经济地理学、空间地理学、城市地理学、制图学以及民族志等领域。马克·雷尼和史蒂夫·汉森强调，《英国工人阶级状况》不仅为马克思主义政治思想的发展奠定了基础，同时也对包括人类地理学、城市社会学等学科在内的整个社会科学产生了深远影响。通过对曼彻斯特的民族志式描述，恩格斯不仅展现了早期工人贫民窟的肮脏和苦难，而且揭示了城市资产阶级将自己与周围的社会和物质恐怖隔离开来的策略。(50)大卫·哈维也对恩格斯的先见之明表示赞叹：“令人震惊的是，我们拿里斯本、圣保罗和雅加达劳动者阶层、边缘族群和失业者的生活条件与恩格斯1844年的经典著作《英国工人阶级状况》相比，会发现两者没有什么实质差别。”(51)托马斯·杰利斯和乔·格拉赫更是将恩格斯描述为一个“超前的”的地理学家，认为他对资本与城市化之间的关系进行了“制图式的描绘”,明确指出了“资本的城市化与劳动力市场的地理学之间的关系不仅植根于资本与劳动的辩证法中，而且植根于空间的交融中”。杰利斯和格拉赫以此为切入点，试图去除英语世界因意识形态问题对恩格斯地理学思想的遮蔽，因为“恩格斯的作品仍在以意想不到的方式与我们的时代对话”。(52)

IV. Conclusion

四、结语

Looking at overseas Engels studies in recent years, the main trends have been a re-evaluation of Engels, a defense of Engels, and a vindication of Engels’s contributions. Engels’s status and contributions as Marx’s lifelong collaborator and co-founder of Marxism have been fully affirmed, and the theoretical explanatory power and practical value of Engels’s thought today have been fully demonstrated. Actively utilizing textual and documentary materials and drawing on new overseas research methods can help promote academic exchange and mutual learning, and drive the optimization of the perspectives, content, and positioning of domestic Engels studies. In response to the various shortcomings that currently exist in domestic academic Engels research, consideration can be given to strengthening research efforts in the following areas. Overall, a systematic and holistic Engels study oriented toward the 21st century should be constructed, encompassing both “opening up” — that is, detailed Engels studies by period and field — and “synthesis” — that is, holistic, all-round generalized Engels studies. On the practical front, we should adhere to a problem-oriented approach, resolving the problems of modernity in contemporary economic and social development, and putting Engels’s viewpoints, categories, and methods into practice. On the stance front, we should construct an Engels study that combines ideological stance with academic research, so that domestic Engels research not only reflects the correct political direction and values but also conforms to academic norms and aligns with international frontiers. In terms of attitudes toward the results of overseas research, on the one hand we should actively engage in academic exchange and interaction with overseas scholars; on the other hand, we must also discriminate among the results of overseas Engels studies, opposing a flat, wholesale acceptance. As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out when discussing new achievements in overseas Marxism: “We must pay close attention to and study new achievements, analyzing and discriminating, neither adopting an attitude of blanket rejection nor engaging in wholesale copying.” [53]53 This is a citation from Xi Jinping, likely from a speech or document discussing the study of overseas Marxist theories. The original source is not provided in the text.

纵观近年来的国外恩格斯研究，对恩格斯重新评价、为恩格斯辩护、为恩格斯的贡献正名成为主要趋势，恩格斯作为马克思的终身合作者和马克思主义共同创始人的地位和贡献得到了充分肯定，恩格斯的思想在今天仍然具有的理论解释力和现实价值得到了充分证明。积极运用文本文献材料，借鉴国外新的研究方法，有助于促进学术交流和取长补短，推动国内恩格斯研究视角、内容、定位的优化。针对目前国内学界恩格斯研究方面存在的种种不足，可以考虑从以下几个方面加大研究力度。总体而言，应当面向21世纪构建体系化、整体性的恩格斯研究，既有“开”,即各时期、各领域的细化恩格斯研究，又有“合”,即整体性、全方位的一般化恩格斯研究。现实方面，应当坚持以问题为导向，解决当代经济社会发展中的现代性问题，实践恩格斯的观点、范畴、方法。立场方面，应当构建意识形态立场与学术研究相结合的恩格斯研究，使国内恩格斯研究不仅体现正确的政治方向及价值观，而且符合学术规范，接轨国际前沿。在对待国外研究成果的态度上，一方面应积极与国外学者展开学术交流和互动，另一方面对于国外恩格斯研究的成果也要有所辨析，反对扁平化的照单全收。正如习近平总书记在谈及国外马克思主义的新成果时所指出的：“新成果，我们要密切关注和研究，有分析、有鉴别，既不能采取一概排斥的态度，也不能搞全盘照搬。”(53)

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑