The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 | Page 7

that is
the reason why, since the dying-out of Owenism, there has been no
Socialism in England. With the breakdown of that monopoly, the
English working-class will lose that privileged position; it will find
itself generally--the privileged and leading minority not excepted--on a
level with its fellow-workers abroad. And that is the reason why there
will be Socialism again in England."
To this statement of the case, as that case appeared to me in 1885, I
have but little to add. Needless to say that to-day there is indeed
"Socialism again in England," and plenty of it--Socialism of all shades:
Socialism conscious and unconscious, Socialism prosaic and poetic,
Socialism of the working-class and of the middle-class, for, verily, that
abomination of abominations, Socialism, has not only become
respectable, but has actually donned evening dress and lounges lazily

on drawing-room causeuses. That shows the incurable fickleness of
that terrible despot of "society," middle-class public opinion, and once
more justifies the contempt in which we Socialists of a past generation
always held that public opinion. At the same time, we have no reason
to grumble at the symptom itself.
What I consider far more important than this momentary fashion
among bourgeois circles of affecting a mild dilution of Socialism, and
even more than the actual progress Socialism has made in England
generally, that is the revival of the East End of London. That immense
haunt of misery is no longer the stagnant pool it was six years ago. It
has shaken off its torpid despair, has returned to life, and has become
the home of what is called the "New Unionism;" that is to say, of the
organisation of the great mass of "unskilled" workers. This organisation
may to a great extent adopt the form of the old Unions of "skilled"
workers, but it is essentially different in character. The old Unions
preserve the traditions of the time when they were founded, and look
upon the wages system as a once for all established, final fact, which
they at best can modify in the interest of their members. The new
Unions were founded at a time when the faith in the eternity of the
wages system was severely shaken; their founders and promoters were
Socialists either consciously or by feeling; the masses, whose adhesion
gave them strength, were rough, neglected, looked down upon by the
working-class aristocracy; but they had this immense advantage, that
their minds were virgin soil, entirely free from the inherited
"respectable" bourgeois prejudices which hampered the brains of the
better situated "old" Unionists. And thus we see now these new Unions
taking the lead of the working-class movement generally, and more and
more taking in tow the rich and proud "old" Unions.
Undoubtedly, the East Enders have committed colossal blunders; so
have their predecessors, and so do the doctrinaire Socialists who
pooh-pooh them. A large class, like a great nation, never learns better
or quicker than by undergoing the consequences of its own mistakes.
And for all the faults committed in past, present, and future, the revival
of the East End of London remains one of the greatest and most fruitful
facts of this fin de siecle, and glad and proud I am to have lived to see

it.
F. ENGELS. January 11th, 1892.

INTRODUCTION
The history of the proletariat in England begins with the second half of
the last century, with the invention of the steam-engine and of
machinery for working cotton. These inventions gave rise, as is well
known, to an industrial revolution, a revolution which altered the whole
civil society; one, the historical importance of which is only now
beginning to be recognised. England is the classic soil of this
transformation, which was all the mightier, the more silently it
proceeded; and England is, therefore, the classic land of its chief
product also, the proletariat. Only in England can the proletariat be
studied in all its relations and from all sides.
We have not, here and now, to deal with the history of this revolution,
nor with its vast importance for the present and the future. Such a
delineation must be reserved for a future, more comprehensive work.
For the moment, we must limit ourselves to the little that is necessary
for understanding the facts that follow, for comprehending the present
state of the English proletariat.
Before the introduction of machinery, the spinning and weaving of raw
materials was carried on in the working-man's home. Wife and
daughter spun the yarn that the father wove or that they sold, if he did
not work it up himself. These weaver families lived in the country in
the neighbourhood of the towns, and could get on fairly well with their
wages, because the home market was almost the only one, and the
crushing power of competition that came