Why does no one label themselves Engelist or Engelism?

Why does no one label themselves Engelist or Engelism?

Why has there never been a movement of Engelists? Leninists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, Maoists, all call themselves Marxists yet reference their other founders. Engels on the other hand is never referred to as an ideology.

Because Marx and Engles worked together to develop the original theories of communism. Since Marx is generally accepted to have been the most significant of the two, their thoughts became commonly refered to as Marxism. The other Leninists, Maoists etc call themselves such in reference to key thinkers who hold similar interpretations of Marxism as them, but calling oneself an Englist would seem redundant as it would have no real meaning distinct from Marxist.

Engels is a founding component of Marxism just as Stalin is a founding component of Marxism-Leninism.

Also if you labelled yourself an Engelist, no one would have any idea what that meant.

Hmmm....I'm a rich person who supports communism...I guess that makes me an Engelist!

Wouldn't it be Engelsist and Engelsism? In any case, it doesn't roll off the toungue quite like MArxist and Marxism.

Here's a good essay on the relation between the ideas of Marx and the ideas of Engels. At one time it was fashionable to make a distinction between their theoretical positions; Engels was even blamed by some writers for Stalinism! This essay effectively debunks that idea, and emphasises the continuity between the thinking of Marx and Engels. In other words, what others have said in this thread is basically right: it would be redundant to label oneself an 'Engelist' or even a 'Marxist-Engelist'.

Funny, Potemkin. someone has rediscovered that age-old formula. She currently hangs around on RevLeft, passing this idea off as her own and going on about how dialectical materialism is bad, Marx had nothing to do with it and it led to evil Stalinism.

"Hmmm....I'm a rich person who supports communism...I guess that makes me an Engelist!"

Comrade... I can save you. Send me all your money. Then, when broke, you can be a Marxist

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"Hmmm....I'm a rich person who supports communism...I guess that makes me an Engelist!"

Comrade... I can save you. Send me all your money. Then, when broke, you can be a Marxist Smile

BRILIIANT!!!

Engels did totally agree with Marx.
After Marx's death he spread Marx's works.
Thanks to him, whe know Mar's works.
He considered Marx as a brilliant scientist and historian (and so he was).

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Why does nobody label themselves Engelist or Engelism?

1. Because it's Engelsist
2. If someone labeled themselves an "Engelism", they are incredibly stupid
3. You would lose all of your friends and you'd never get laid. You'd never get hired and you'd probably starve to death at a young age.

On a more serious note, all Engels did was expound on fundamental Marxist theory and focus more on social sciences. The only two important things he ever made/did was write The Origins of Family, Private Property, and the State, and make sure Marx didn't go broke and die. Moreover, Engels, even in his most important writing, never brought anything revolutionary or evolutionary to the theory as, say, Lenin did. Lenin gave completely new ideas to Marxist theory and implemented his new Marxism according to that ideology. Engels did no such thing, rather he is the very most orthodox Marxist and though an important theorist, no creator of an ideology.

Dr. Sex

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Moreover, Engels, even in his most important writing, never brought anything revolutionary or evolutionary to the theory as, say, Lenin did. Lenin gave completely new ideas to Marxist theory and implemented his new Marxism according to that ideology. Engels did no such thing, rather he is the very most orthodox Marxist and though an important theorist, no creator of an ideology.

Marx himself stated many times that Engels input greatly influenced his writings. Marxism is more a combination of Marx and Engels rather than the sole work of Marx.

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Marx himself stated many times that Engels input greatly influenced his writings. Marxism is more a combination of Marx and Engels rather than the sole work of Marx.

Precisely. I certainly in no way attempt to refute Engel's credibility as any sort of brilliant theorist, which I sincerely agree he was. Marxism can be defined as a conjoined formulation of theory from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; from Marx we acquire the philosophical, economic, historical, and political aspects central to Marxism, and from Engels we acquire social-scientific and social aspects. However, I feel the need to further dispute the idea of an "Engelsism". I suppose I will do that now.

I have problems with Engels that lie solely in that after Marx's death he immediately assumed himself the father of Marxism, and in many prefaces and passages in which he expounds on the theory of Marx's text we see he is exceedingly fallacious. For example, in the Second German Edition to the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Engels writes in the Preface:

"I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms the nucleus belongs to Marx. That proposition is: That in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which it is built up, and from that which alone can be explained the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; That the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolutions in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class — the proletariat — cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class — the bourgeoisie — without, at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinction, and class struggles."

What I find particularly remarkable about passages such as this, and those like it, is the complete ignorance of the actual fundamental proposition of Marx's text. The reduction of Marx's entire thought into an overly simplistic, if not fallacious, formulation that attempts to put an extremely large and complex thought into a simple passage; moreover, Engels has completely ignored what Marx truly was: and that is a philosopher. Instead of naming the "nucleus" of Marx's text a philosophical idea he bases it on the political, or rather, historico-political proposition of a text completely absent of philosophy.

All of this is towards the bottom line: Engels was a flawed theorist, though brilliant, and moreover did not completely understand Marx's theory (nor do I claim to, I am simply not afraid to challenge what I see fit) or at least the nucleus of it. "Engelsism" would simply be glorifying a Marxist who himself did not know his own orthodox-ness as a Marxist.

Dr. Sex

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The only two important things he ever made/did was write The Origins of Family, Private Property, and the State, and make sure Marx didn't go broke and die

Yes, the "only" two important things he ever made/did was write The Origins of Family, Private Property, and the State, and make sure Marx didn't go broke and die.

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Yes, the "only" two important things he ever made/did was write The Origins of Family, Private Property, and the State, and make sure Marx didn't go broke and die.

Excuse me, I forgot to add he was a handsome little devil. Oh, and dear me, his fallacious attempts at simplifying Marx's ideas in all of those damn prefaces. I have proven Engels's irrelevance to the nucleus of Marxism - which is of philosophy. Also, come now, you're just going to make a rebuttal with a smiley? How about you type a little, give them fingers some exercise.

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oh great.. now we seem to have another overly-aggressive sarcastic.. um.. another Greg.

Cut him some slack, Chaz; he's only 17. Remember when you were 17? Remember what an arrogant know-it-all asshole you were? I certainly remember what an arrogant know-it-all asshole I was at that age, and indeed still am, so I tend to be tolerant of the same traits in others.