Spontaneous protest against exploitation of masses of poor people had long ago produced ideal pictures of a more equitable social system. In polemicising against Dühring's attempt to create a "new" socialist doctrine out of an eclectic mixture of mechanical materialism, vulgar evolutionism and bourgeois positivist sociology, Engels explained the philosophical basis of Marxian socialism and how it differed from the mode of thinking of previous socialist thinkers. The vacillation of the USAP leaders in the face of the ideological challenge mounted by Dühring led Engels, at Marx's urging, to provide a popular exposition of their common approach to philosophy, political economy and socialism in opposition to those of Dühring.
Among those in the USAP who gave enthusiastic support to Dühring's views was Eduard Bernstein who, after Engels death in 1895, would emerge as the chief advocate of a reformist "revision" of Marxism. The USAP had been formed as a result of a fusion in May 1875 between the pro Marxist Socialist Workers Party (SAP) led by Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel - t he so-called "Eisenachers" (after the town of Eisenach where the SAP had its founding congress in August 1869) -and the reformist General Association of German Workers (ADAV), founded in 1863 by Ferdinand Lassalle. In his lectures and numerous writings which flooded the book market after 1869, Dühring claimed to be the originator of a "revolution in science" which superseded Marxism.ĭühring's views had strong influence on many of the university intellectuals who had joined the United Socialist Workers Party of Germany (USAP) in the 1870s. It is probably the most influential work expounding the basic ideas of Marxism, other than the Communist Manifesto.Īs Engels himself explains in his introduction to the first English edition, published in 1892, it was drawn from three chapters of his 1878 book Anti-Dühring, a polemic against the views of Eugen Dühring, a professor at Berlin University.
This book by Frederick Engels explains the origins of the modem socialist movement.
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