Karl Marx

Most people think of communism as a bad thing. Karl Marx would disagree. He formed the basic ideas of communism in his writings. He argued that communism was the eventual government that formed out of many unsuccessful governments. Many modern communists either use his ideas or use parts of his ideas to form theirs. Karl Marx is the true father of communism.

Marx was born in Trier, Prussia on May 5, 1818 (Beales). His family was Jewish, but his father converted the family to Protestantism when Marx was born. When he was seventeen, he went to the University of Bonn to earn his degree in law (Kreis). He left and attended the University of Berlin where he studied philosophy and earned his doctorate in 1841. His first job was writing articles for the radical paper, Rheinische Zeitung. In October of 1842 he became the manager of the paper and moved to Cologne. The government did not approve of the paper and put it under double and then triple censorship (a government official looked over the paper before it was printed). Finally they decided to forbid printing of the paper and Marx was forced to flee to Paris in 1843 (Engels).

In Paris, he was married to Jenny von Westphalen, and they arrived at Paris in the fall of 1843 (Engels). He became involved with organized German and French radical groups and edited a short lived paper. While in Paris, he became a communist and wrote his views and ideas in a series of writings called the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. While in Paris, he met and developed a friendship with Frederick Engels. He and Engels were kicked out of Paris for their radical ideas in 1844 and moved to Brussels (Kreis).

While in Brussels, he wrote The German Ideology. This was a result from his intensive studying of history. He had studied governments and their collapse and predicted that the current government, capitalism, would fall and be replaced by communism (Kreis).

He and Engels joined the communist league in the spring of 1847. They were then asked to write The Communist Manifesto by the league (Engels). It was published in 1848 and became their most famous work. In it Marx stated that history consisted of many class struggles between upper and middle classes. He believed that this would eventually lead to a revolution and then a classless society, or communism (Beales).

When the February Revolution broke out in 1848, he was expelled from Brussels and, after being invited back by the French government, moved back to Paris. He and some leaders of the Communist League traveled to Germany (Engels). In Cologne, he started another radical paper, which was quickly suppressed. He then fled to London, where he would spend the rest of his life (Kreis).

In the 1850’s, Marx was highly dependant on Engels for income. During this time, he was occupied with writing the three volumes of Capital. The first volume was not published until 1867 and the other two were not completely finished, although Engels had them published after Marx died. Marx was slow to publish his works because of his devotion to the First International, which was an international socialist group. When the Paris Commune of 1871 occurred, he was inspired to write one of his most famous pro-communism pamphlets, The Civil War in France (Kreis).

During the last years of his life, he took little part in world politics. This was mainly due to his declining health (Kreis). To make matters worse, his wife died in 1881. This was followed by the death of his oldest daughter in 1883. Marx died of natural causes in the same year (Engels).

Marx’s ideas were not actively put into use until the communist revolution of Russia in 1917. This revolution was greatly influenced by his writings and teachings. These teachings were based on observing various industrialized countries, leading Marx to the thesis that capitalism was a mere step in history and that it would be replaced by socialism or communism. This made up the Marxian theory, which stated that the 18th century was made up of struggles between the nobles (upper class) and the bourgeoisie (middle class). The bourgeoisie won the struggles and they took control,