F. Engels was one of the founders of scientific communism and considered a scholarly scientist, particularly in the field of military science. Along with K. Marx, he made the great revolutionary turning point and set ground for world view and scientific methodology for theory on wars and building armed forces of the proletariat, on method to protect  revolutionary achievements, etc.

On objectively and scientifically studying, analyzing and assessing the theoretical works of the world’s famous militarists such as Napoleon, Wellington, Jackson, Clausewitz, etc, F. Engels reaffirmed the appearrance of war as a socio-political phenomenon, which is in essence different from armed conflicts happened during the time the social classes had not appeared. He spent a lot of time studying and wrote hundreds of articles in the field of military; published a number of major military works, namely: “The Peasants’ War in Germany”, , “The war”, “The Army”, “Anti-Duhring”, “The role of force in history”, “Can Europe disarm?”, etc. These works contained concepts, categories, principles, rules of material dialectics and have been applied skillfully in studying military to form a system of scientific views of war and armed forces. Besides, they also serve as ground for establishing military platform of the proletariat in their fierce class struggle for the cause of renovating the world, liberating people and the society.

F. Engels’ ideas and arguments focus on explaining objectively and scientifically complicated social phenomena, namely: war and peace; military and defence; armed insurrection and revolutionary struggle; building revolutionary army and protecting the Homeland; military potential transformation in war; the relation between human and weapon; social influences and major disorders caused by war, etc. Among those, viewpoints and theses on building, strengthening military power of the State, meeting the requirements of Homeland protection of the proletariat are of profound theoretical and practical significance for the revolution.

F. Englels pointed out the relations between war and economy, war and politics; the dependence of war conducting method, military organization and power of the State with armed forces being the core force on economic and social regime, the development level of productive forces. According to Engels, army always bares the nature of the class and the state that nourished it and “Armed forces becomes the State’s main purpose and itself purpose”.

Therefore, the power of the armed forces depends on the economic condition of the State that nourished it. This argument of Engels gave a heavy blow on the military theory of the bourgeois who aim to hide the class nature of war and armed forces.

Basing on the materialism’s concept of socio-historical processes, F. Engels pointed out the necessity to build and strengthen military capacity of the proletariat states. He held that the defence power of a country is manifested in the material and spiritual potentials that can be mobilized to create the power serving for military and defence missions meeting the requirements of conventional and modern wars.

Analyzing military power of the proletariat states, F. Engels pointed out basic issues of building military and economic potentials of the state, serving as ground for organizing armed forces to defeat the enemy, protect the Homeland. He said that strengthening military and economic potentials of the proletariat states would make the armed forces steadfast and stay firm in hard conditions and challenges; troops’ fighting morale would be heightened; they would be more creative and dedicated. Talking about the relations between human and weapon, F. Engel stressed: human is the decisive factor. Weapon and equipment, however modern they are, just supplement to the military power of the proletariat states. Human, here, is also the mass being put under the leadership of the worker’s party. He highly valued the role of the generals and officers in building the armed forces and strengthening military power of the proletariat states. He repeatedly mentioned the need to improve knowledge of personnel in the revolutionary armed forces to modernize the army and defence; attached importance to employing civilian engineers to enhance the effectiveness of the officers as well as the necessity of defence education and security maintenance.

F Engels thoughts and viewpoints on building and strengthening military power of the proletariat states made fundamental turning point in military theory of the proletariat states, making it both scientific and revolutionary.

Senior Colonel, MA Nguyen Duc Thang

Military Social and Humane Sciences Institute – Ministry of National Defence