A concrete statue of Friedrich Engels brought from the Ukraine.
The folded arms pose is not one I've seen in photos and other illustrations of him. This particular statue was split in half and dumped. Now in Manchester and united once more.
§ Manchester Evening News <a href="https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/watch-friedrich-engels-statue-put-13331317" rel="noreferrer nofollow">reported on the reunification of the two halves</a> in Tony Wilson Square .
§ Link to information about the Engels statue from: <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/soviet-engels-statue" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Atlas Obscura website</a>.
§ Martin Jacques' review of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/02/frock-coated-engels-hunt" rel="noreferrer nofollow">The Frock-Coated Communist by Tristram Hunt</a>. (Jacques' comments about Engels' relationships with women read jarringly.)
§ The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/26/frock-coated-communist-tristram-hunt" rel="noreferrer nofollow">book review by Roy Hattersley</a> has a couple of amusing jokes. Including the comment that "History has made Engels appear the back end of the pantomime horse that produced The Communist Manifesto..." Also noting Engels' enthusiasm for foxhunting in Cheshire. "... the hero of Soviet intellectuals following a field led by the future Duke of Westminster - the unreadable chasing the uneatable..
§ If the statue encourages people to explore Engels' socialist credentials, might they find themselves agreeing with <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-frock-coated-communist-by-tristram-hunt-1680677.html" rel="noreferrer nofollow">John Gray's sharply critical comments in his review of Hunt's book</a>? What most disturbed John Gray was Friedrich Engel's:
"... willingness to smile on human suffering so long as it was part of the unfolding logic of history. Like Marx, Engels believed capitalism was an indispensable stage on the way to the communist future, and if workers were exploited in his Manchester cotton mill it was all part of history's grand plan. Engels achieved fame in his own right chiefly through his depiction of the wretched condition of the English working class, but he never doubted that their misery was necessary.
Engels' indifference to the casualties of progress extended to entire cultures. He welcomed the American seizure of land from 'the lazy Mexicans', and looked forward to the disappearance of Slavs - 'aborigines in the heart of Europe' - in the next world war as 'a step forward'. Rightly, Hunt describes these attitudes as 'deeply chilling', but Engels' Victorian racism seems not to be of much interest to him."
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