The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

Along with [classes] the state will inevitably fall. Society, which will reorganise production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers, will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into the museum of antiquity, by the side of the spinning-wheel and the bronze axe.

— Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State is an 1884 anthropological and historical work by Friedrich Engels based on notes made by Karl Marx. According to Marxists.org, "It focuses on early human history, following the disintegration of the primitive community and the emergence of a class society based on private property. Engels looks into the origin and essence of the state, and concludes it is bound to wither away leaving a classless society." The text was updated with new developments in anthropology up until 1890.

"In 1894, Engels’s book appeared in Russian translation. It was the first of Engels’s works published legally in Russia. Lenin would later describe it as “one of the fundamental works of modern socialism.”"

See also

• Primitive communism
• Family
• Love

External links

• The full text available at Marxists.org
• Study Guide for Origin of the Family at Marxists.org