What kind of nonsense is that? That war is basically the “dark side” of one’s imagination [48:39]? What is this, a Star Wars film?

---

Engels would reject the claim that war is a product of human imagination or human nature because his method shows that human behavior is shaped by material conditions, not timeless instincts.¹ His anthropological work demonstrates that early communal societies had conflict but not war as an institution; war emerges only with private property, class divisions, and the rise of the state.² His military writings show that the form and purpose of war change with the development of productive forces, which makes it impossible to treat war as an innate psychological impulse.³ For Engels, war is a political and economic instrument rooted in class interests and technological development.³ To call it “human nature” is to ignore the historical conditions that produce it.¹

Footnotes:

1. Friedrich Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy; see also Engels, Anti‑Dühring.
2. Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.
3. Friedrich Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, articles in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology.