Mengels

Mengels is the slash ship between socialist political philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and/or fictionalized depictions thereof.

Canon
Marx and Engels were collaborators in the early history of German communism and socialism in the mid-19th century. Both wrote extensively on philosophy and political economy in their early careers, and in 1844 collaborated in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, with Engels writing a pair of articles that Marx edited. Thereafter the two entered into a long-term partnership for the creation and distribution of socialist literature in Europe and the advancement of socialist political causes. The earliest product of this partnership was a text known as The German Ideology (Die deutsche Ideologie), written in 1846 but unpublished until 1932.

Marx and Engels co-founded a group known as the Communist Correspondence Committee, with the goal of organizing activists in major European cities and nations into a revolutionary political party. In June 1847, the Communist Correspondence Committee merged with another prominent socialist organization, the League of the Just, forming an international party known as the Communist League. In December 1847, the League's membership passed a resolution that Marx and Engels would co-write a statement of the group's beliefs; this statement was published in 1848 as the Communist Manifesto (Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) and is considered one of the foundational texts of Marxist political philosophy, outlining key points in Marx's materialist interpretation of world history such as economic class struggle and the necessity of revolutionary change. The publication of this text coincided with the Revolutions of 1848, a loosely connected series of populist revolutions across the European subcontinent, though only the French Revolution of 1848 was ultimately successful.

After fleeing Brussels due to his alleged funding of Belgian revolutionaries, Marx settled in the city of Cologne alongside Engels and began the publication of a pro-revolutionary-communism newspaper, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Engels was also a founder of the newspaper, though according to contemporary sources including Engels himself Marx was responsible for the majority of leadership decisions relating to it. However, a new monarchy took power in Prussia and took measures to suppress left-wing publications such as the Neue Rheinische; Marx and Engels both eventually relocated to London, where Engels became a reliable financial supporter of Marx's subsequent political activities. The two continued to frequently correspond and collaborate on writings in the international press. Following Marx's death in 1883, Engels completed the second and third volumes of Marx's magnum opus Das Kapital, which at that point were solely in manuscript form; the completed Kapital went on to become the key foundational text for nearly all subsequent socialist movements and the most-cited work of social science from before 1950. Engels continued to write to German socialists, many of whom were former associates of Marx, until his own death of cancer in 1895.

Fanon
No reputable historical source claims the existence of an intimate relationship between Marx and Engels, and both men were in heterosexual marriages. However, it is clear the two men were close friends between whom a mutual respect existed, and imagining a sexual or romantic relationship between the two has become common among contemporary socialists. Part of the reason for this shipping may be ironic: since Marx and Engels are best-known for their complex academic literature on serious socioeconomic topics, focusing on their potential physical or emotional connection creates an unexpected contrast.

Mengels received a brief surge of interest alongside the 2019 release of Wawayu Animation's Lǐng fēng zhě (The Leader), a fictionalized animated biography of Karl Marx. Engels was also a character in the series, and significant focus was given to the interpersonal relationship between the two writers and the influence it had on their works. The premise of the series, as well as the Chinese government's involvement in its production, caused it to draw surprising amounts of attention in portions of the Western media. Since early episodes of Lǐng fēng zhě showed a younger Marx and Engels than is usually depicted, and audiences noted the attractiveness of these characters, depictions of the pairing among fans grew more common. Of the 18 works on AO3 tagged with the Mengels relationship (as of October 5th, 2022), 14 were published after the release of Lǐng fēng zhě.