About the book: year / “The situation of the working class in England. According to my own observations and reliable sources,” the work of F. Engels, which represents the first extensive dialectical-materialist analysis of capitalism, as well as the position and role of the proletariat in bourgeois society. In it, Engels summed up the results of his study of the living conditions of the English working class in 1842–44. Written in September 1844-March 1845. First published in 1845 in Leipzig in German, then in 1887 in New York and in 1892 in London in English. The 1st edition in Russia was published in 1905. In the USSR, the work was published on 10 times with a total circulation of 175 thousand copies. in 7 languages. Published in the 2nd volume of the 2nd edition of Op. K. Marx and F. Engels. In the “Supplement to the American Edition” (1887), Engels noted that this work cannot be considered as a work of mature Marxism (see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 21, p. 265). Studying the socio-economic system of England in the 2nd half of the 18th - 1st half of the 19th centuries, he identified a number of patterns of the capitalist mode of production. Engels gave an analysis of the industrial revolution (See Industrial Revolution), which determined the emergence of the factory proletariat, explored the genesis of the latter and showed the irreconcilability of the interests of workers and capitalists. He came to the conclusion that under capitalism the formation of an industrial reserve army of labor is inevitable (See Industrial Reserve Army of Labor), the periodic repetition of economic crises (See Economic Crises) and the intensification of exploitation of the working class as capitalism develops. K. Marx in Capital noted that Engels in his work revealed a deep understanding of the spirit of the capitalist mode of production and that the data presented in his book about the position of the English working class did not undergo any significant changes 20 years after the publication of the work ( see ibid., vol. 23, pp. 251-52, note). Describing the difficult living and working conditions of workers in England and examining the factors that determine the level of wages, Engels showed that the very situation of the proletariat inevitably pushes it to fight for its emancipation. He praised Chartism and at the same time noted that the successes of the English labor movement of the 30s and 40s. 19th century did not eliminate cruel capitalist exploitation, that “... the cause of the plight of the working class should be sought... in the capitalist system itself” (ibid., vol. 21, p. 262). Engels came to the conclusion that strikes and unions, while serving as an important means of organizing and educating the working class, are still powerless to free it from wage slavery. Only the union of the labor movement with socialism can solve this problem. In this work, Engels took a significant step towards developing a materialist understanding of history and thereby towards a scientific substantiation of communism. Using the example of England, he revealed the connection between the industrial revolution and changes in the class structure of society. Thus, Engels came close to solving the key problem of the materialist understanding of history - to the discovery of the dialectic of productive forces and production relations. He showed that there is a direct connection between the development of large-scale industry and the labor movement, that the proletarian revolution and the transfer of control of society into the hands of the working class are inevitable. Engels came to the understanding that the communist system of society would become a natural result of the labor movement, the class struggle of the proletariat. He criticized the shortcomings of the English socialists - followers of R. Owen - for the fact that “they do not recognize historical development and therefore want to transfer the country into a communist state immediately, immediately, and not through the further development of the political struggle until its completion, in which it will abolish..." (ibid., vol. 2, p. 460). Assessing the significance of this work, V. I. Lenin.