ABSTRACT
Just as Engels had anticipated the Communist Manifesto in his "Principles of Communism" so he had anticipated Marx's doctrine of historical materialism in his book on the English workers. Before his partnership with Marx began, Engels had attributed to economic causes the class structure of England in the 1840s. He had explained that the bourgeoisie was the dominant class in English society and that it not only controlled the national economy in its own interests but also used every social institution to serve its own ends. Thus "the whole legal system has been devised to protect those who own property from those who do not".2 The dominant middle classes were in constant conflict with the oppressed proletariat. Engels confidently predicted that this conflict would end in a revolution and in the triumph of the workers.
