Historical Figure
Karl Marx
d. 1883
German philosopher and socialist theorist (1818–1883)
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Biography
Karl Marx was a German philosopher, social and political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto, and his three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1894), a critique of classical political economy which employs his theory of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism, in the culmination of his life's work. Marx's ideas and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism, have had enormous influence.
Timeline
The story of Karl Marx, told in moments.
By the late 20th century, roughly a third of the world's population lives under governments claiming to follow his ideas. None of them look much like what he described. His face appears on banknotes, statues, murals, and T-shirts. His grave at Highgate is one of the most visited in London.
Publishes The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels. "A spectre is haunting Europe." Written in six weeks in Brussels, it lays out the theory of class struggle and calls for the abolition of private property. It sells a few thousand copies. Within two years, Marx is expelled from Belgium, France, and Germany. He's 29 and stateless.
Moves to London, where he'll spend the rest of his life. He's broke. Three of his six children die in childhood, partly from the poverty. He writes in the British Museum reading room, borrowing money from Engels, who owns a textile factory in Manchester. The irony is not lost on anyone.
Volume 1 of Das Kapital is published. It's a 1,200-page analysis of capitalism's internal contradictions. He predicts the system will destroy itself. Engels edits volumes 2 and 3 from Marx's notes after his death. Marx spent 18 years writing it. It sells slowly. A Russian translation outsells the German.
Dies in his armchair in London at 64. Stateless. He never became a British citizen. Eleven people attend his funeral at Highgate Cemetery. Engels delivers the eulogy: "His name will endure through the ages, and so also will his work."
In Their Own Words (20)
If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist
Original: Ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste., 1882
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
The Criticism of the Gotha Program (1875), 1875
Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes.
Letter to W. Bracke (5 May 1875), 1875
If conquest constitutes a natural right on the part of the few, the many have only to gather sufficient strength in order to acquire the natural right of reconquering what has been taken from them.
The Abolition of Landed Property Letter to Robert Applegarth (3 December 1869), 1869
Everyone who knows anything of history also knows that great social revolutions are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress may be measured precisely by the social position of the fair sex (plain ones included).
Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, dated 12 December 1868., 1868
Artifacts (15)
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