Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is a short book first published in 1880 by German-born socialist Friedrich Engels. The work was primarily extracted from a longer polemic work published in 1876, Anti-Duhring. It first appeared in the French language. The title Socialism: Utopian and Scientific was adopted for the first English edition -- the tenth language in which the book appeared. Intended as a popularization of Marxist ideas for a working class readership, the book was one of the fundamental publications of the international socialist movement during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, selling tens of thousands of copies. Throughout the decade of the 1860s, Karl Marx, close personal friend and political associate of Friedrich Engels, dedicated himself to the study of economics, culminating in the publication of the first volume of Das Kapital in 1867. Marx's lengthy and ponderous volume was extremely difficult for the average reader to penetrate, however, leading Engels to suggest to Marx in a letter of September 16, 1868 that a short popularized version of Das Kapital for a working class audience was urgently needed. "If it is not written, some Moses or other will come along and do it and botch it up," Engels warned. Marx concurred with Engels' assessment, suggesting "it would be a very good thing if you yourself wrote a small popular explanatory pamphlet. Engels went on to prepare a short summary of the central points of Das Kapital, but the pamphlet was never published. Nevertheless, the necessity for popularization of Marx's frequently turgid prose remained -- a need finally addressed by Engels with the publication of the short work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific more than a decade later.

Author Biography

Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820 - 5 August 1895) was a German philosopher, communist, social scientist, journalist and businessman.[4] His father was an owner of large textile factories in Salford, England and in Barmen, Prussia (what is now in Wuppertal, Germany). Engels developed what is now known as Marxist theory together with Karl Marx and in 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research in English cities. In 1848, Engels co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Marx and also authored and co-authored (primarily with Marx) many other works. Later, Engels supported Marx financially, allowing him to do research and write Das Kapital. After Marx's death, Engels edited the second and third volumes of Das Kapital. Additionally, Engels organised Marx's notes on the Theories of Surplus Value, which he later published as the fourth volume of Capital.[5] In 1884, he published The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State on the basis of Marx's ethnographic research. Engels died in London on 5 August 1895, at the age of 74 of laryngeal cancer and following cremation his ashes were scattered off Beachy Head, near Eastbourne. Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen, Rhine Province, Prussia (now Wuppertal, Germany) as eldest son of Friedrich Engels Sr. (1796-1860) and of Elisabeth Elise Franziska Mauritia von Haar (1797-1873).[6] The wealthy Engels family owned large cotton-textile mills in Barmen and Salford, both expanding industrial metropoles. Friedrich's parents were devout Pietist Protestants[4]and they raised their children accordingly. At the age of 13, Engels attended grammar school (Gymnasium) in the adjacent city of Elberfeld but had to leave at 17, due to pressure of his father, who wanted him to become a businessman and start to work as a mercantile apprentice in his firm.[7] After a year in Barmen, the young Engels was in 1838 sent by his father to undertake an apprenticeship at a commercial house in Bremen.[8][9] His parents expected that he would follow his father into a career in the family business. Their son's revolutionary activities disappointed them. It would be some years before he joined the family firm.