A hugely influential revolutionary thinker and philosopher, Marx did not live to see his ideas carried out in his own lifetime, but his writings formed the theoretical base for modern international communism as well as a far-reaching intellectual and cultural movement, known as Marxism.
Karl Heinrich Marx was born on 5 May 1818 in Trier in western German, the son of a successful Jewish lawyer. Marx studied law in Bonn and Berlin, but was also introduced to the ideas of Hegel and Feuerbach. In 1841, he received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Jena. In 1843, after a short spell as editor of a liberal newspaper in Cologne, Marx and his wife Jenny moved to Paris, a hotbed of radical thought. There he became a revolutionary communist and befriended his life long collaborator, Friedrich Engels. Expelled from France, Marx spent two years in Brussels, where his partnership with Engels intensified. They co-authored the pamphlet 'The Communist Manifesto' which was published in 1848 and asserted that all human history had been based on class struggles, but that these would ultimately disappear with the victory of the proletariat.
In 1849, Marx moved to London, where he was to spend the remainder of his life. For a number of years, his family lived in poverty but the wealthier Engels was able to support them to an increasing extent. Gradually, Marx emerged from his political and spiritual isolation and produced his most important body of work, 'Das Kapital'. The first volume of this 'bible of the working class' was published in his lifetime, while the remaining volumes were edited by Engels after his friend's death.
In his final years, Karl Marx was in creative and physical decline. He spent time at health spas and was deeply distressed by the death of his wife, in 1881, and one of his daughters. He died on 14 March 1883 and was buried at Highgate Cemetery in London.
[quote]It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.
- Karl Marx [/quote]
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Ah, that old time Bolshevik religion. "Dictatorship of the Proletariat". Some thought it would be the Worker's Paradise. Instead, Marxist socialism/communism turned out to be more like the reign of Ivan the Terrible. There is no Santa Claus kids.
@badminton Well marxism is a critique of Capitalism while communism being a goal it was never really defined in Marx work. Authoritarianism is responsible for crimes not marxism and his ideas have influenced academia and social movements worldwide to this day.
@Roundandroundwego They are incredible hypocrites talking about Soviet crimes and feeling morally superior when their capitalist warmachine caused death, chaos and destruction worldwide.
@Gloomy The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Republic of Bulgaria and the Hungarian People's Republic. The invasion stopped Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring liberalisation reforms and strengthened the authoritarian wing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. About 250,000 Warsaw Pact troops, supported by thousands of tanks and hundreds of aircraft, participated in the overnight operation, which was code-named Operation Danube
