SOURCE: “A Communistic Prophet,” in The Spectator, No. 3,349, Sept. 3, 1892, pp. 326-27.

In the following essay, the anonymous critic comments on the 1892 reprinting of The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, discussing specifically the preface Engels wrote for the new edition. The critic suggests that the book was worth republishing “if only to show what foolish things a clever man may say.”

There are men who lack the courage of their convictions. Of these is not Mr. Frederick Engels. He has the courage both of his convictions and his predictions. In 1845 he wrote a book, from the communistic point of view, on the condition of the working class in England, which he described as being so bad that it could not well be worse, imputing all their woes to the greed of capitalists and the selfishness of the bourgeoisie, meaning thereby all who do not earn their...