How did Engels predict the outbreak and ending of World War I?

As early as the 1980s of 19, Engels predicted that "a world war with unprecedented scale and intensity" was coming, "and its end was general bankruptcy; The old country and the generations that ruled it collapsed together, so that the crown rolled in the street without being picked up; How all this will end and who will be the winner of the struggle is absolutely unpredictable; There is absolutely no doubt that there is only one result, which is the general exhaustion of the working class and the conditions for final victory. "

19 14 years, the world war predicted by Engels finally broke out. The war lasted four years and eight months, involving 65.438+0.5 billion people in 365.438+0 countries in the world. Population, accounting for 3/4 of the world population at that time. This war is an unprecedented catastrophe in human history. Imperialist countries have caused great disasters to the people of the world for the benefit of a handful of monopoly capitalists. The warring parties mobilized 74 million troops, of which 6.5438+0.3 million were killed and more than 20 million were injured. The number of civilians killed in the war exceeded that of the army. The total economic losses of the warring sides reached 270 billion US dollars, numerous urbanization ruins, chaotic financial and economic conditions of various countries, and people were generally trapped in poverty and hunger.

The war intensified class contradictions, promoted the growth of people's revolutionary consciousness in various countries and triggered a series of revolutions. 19 17, February Revolution broke out in Russia and the czar's government was overthrown. Then, the Bolshevik Party headed by Lenin led the workers and peasants to hold the October socialist revolution that shocked the world, overthrew the bourgeois provisional government, established the proletarian regime, and withdrew from the imperialist war. The October Revolution set a shining example for people all over the world to "turn the imperialist war into a civil war" and opened up a new era of proletarian revolution and colonial and semi-colonial national liberation movement. Encouraged by the October Revolution, revolutionary movements in various countries surged like a storm, forming the first worldwide revolutionary climax in modern world history.

Under the impact of war and revolutionary movement, many crowns rolled in the street. Romanov dynasty in Russia, Hornsoren dynasty in Germany, Habsburg dynasty in Austria-Hungary, dynasties that lasted for hundreds of years in European history, and Sultan court in Ottoman Empire collapsed one after another. On the ruins of these great empires, apart from Soviet Russia, bourgeois republics such as Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Finland and Turkey were born. At the same time, in the post-war situation, "the strategy of governing the country depends on generations" has lost its function, and the ruling classes in many western countries have been forced to change their tactics, thus a new situation has emerged in which the Socialist Party has begun to take power in some major capitalist countries. These are undoubtedly historical progress.

The first world war fulfilled Engels' prediction to some extent. Contrary to the desire of imperialism, this war has not consolidated but weakened world capitalism, creating conditions for the victory of the working class. People will ask, why is Engels' prediction so strikingly similar to the development of the situation? Of course, this is not an astrologer's divination, but a scientific conclusion drawn by Engels on the basis of scientific analysis of the laws of capitalist social and economic movement and the basic contradictions of capitalism by using materialist dialectics, so it has strong foresight.