Courses
Courses for Kids
Free study material
Offline Centres
More
Store Icon
Store

Karl Marx Biography

Reviewed by:
ffImage
hightlight icon
highlight icon
highlight icon
share icon
copy icon
SearchIcon

Who is Karl Marx?

Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, in the year 1818. He died on March 14, 1883. Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, and socialist revolutionist. Marx was born in Trier, Germany, and studied law and philosophy at the university in present Germany. In 1843, he married Jenny von Westphalen. As a result of the publication of political publications, Marx became a stateless person and lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he continued to develop his ideas and publish his works in cooperation with the German thinker Friedrich Engels. Research is conducted in the reading room of the British Museum. 

His most famous works are the 1848 pamphlet "The Communist Manifesto" and the three-volume "Das Kapital" (1867-1883). Marx's political philosophy has had a huge impact on the later history of thought, economic history, and political history. His name is used as an adjective, noun, and school of social theory. We will learn more about who is Karl Marx, here in this Karl Marx biography. 


About Karl Marx

Karl Marx was born in Germany. This statement answers our question of where was Karl Marx born. Marx's critical theory of society, economy, and politics, collectively referred to as Marxism, believes that human society develops through class conflicts. In the capitalist mode of production, this is manifested in the conflict between the ruling class that controls the means of production called the bourgeoisie and the working class called the proletariat that sells labour in exchange for the means of production. For wages, Marx adopts a critical method called historical materialism, predicting that capitalism will generate internal tensions like the previous socio-economic system, which will lead to its self-destruction and be called a socialist mode of production which will be replaced by the new system. 


Marx Thoughts

For Marx, the class antagonism under capitalism is partly due to its unstable and crisis-prone nature, which will eventually lead to the development of the class consciousness of the working class, leading to the seizure of power and the establishment of a classless class. The communist society consists of a free society. Producers Association. Marx actively lobbied for implementation, advocating that the working class should carry out organized proletarian revolutionary actions to overthrow capitalism and achieve social and economic liberation. Marx is described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and his work has been praised and criticized. His work in economics laid the foundation for some current theories about work and its relationship with capital. Many intellectuals, trade unions, artists, and political parties all over the world have been influenced by Marx's works, and many people have modified or adapted his ideas. Marx is generally regarded as one of the main architects of modern social sciences. 


(Image will be uploaded soon)


Figure: Karl Marx


Early Life

Marx’s birthplace is now at Brückenstraße 10 in Trier. The family lived in two rooms on the first floor and three rooms on the first floor. It was acquired by the German Social Democratic Party in 1928 and now has a museum dedicated to him. Heinrich had basically no religious beliefs. He was an Enlightenment and was interested in the ideas of philosophers Emmanuel Kant and Voltaire. 

As a classical liberal, he participated in the Prussian constitution and reform movement, when Prussia was an autocratic monarchy. In 1815, Heinrich Marx started working as a lawyer and in 1819 moved his family to ten rooms near the Black Gate. His wife Henriette Pressburg, a Dutch Jew from a prosperous business family, later founded Philips Electronics. His sister Sophie Pressburg (1797–1854) married Lion Philips (1794–1866), Gerard and Anton Philip The grandmother of Anton Philips and the great-grandmother of Frits Philips. Lion Philips was a wealthy Dutch tobacco manufacturer and industrialist, and Karl and Jane Marx often relied on him to obtain loans during their exile in London.  


Karl Marx Information About His Early Education

Karl Marx birthday is on May 5, 1818. His parents were Heinrich Marx and Henriette Pressburg. Marx’s family was originally a non-religious Jew, but he officially converted to Christianity in his early childhood. His maternal grandfather was a Dutch rabbi, and his paternal line had served as a rabbi in Trier since 1723. This role was played by his grandfather Meyer Harvey Marx. His father, as a boy called Herschel, was the first to receive a secular education. He became a lawyer and his income belonged to the upper-middle class. In addition to the lawyer's income, his family also owned several Moselle vineyards. Before the birth of his son and after the abolition of the liberation of the Jews in the Rhineland, Herschel converted from Judaism to the Prussian State Evangelical Church and took the German nickname Heinrich for the Yiddish Herschel. 


Family 

Karl Marx date of birth is May 5, 1818. Marx and von Westphalia had seven children in total, the main reason was that they lived in poor living conditions in London, and only three survived to adulthood. Karl Marx children names were Jenny Caroline, Jenny Laura, Edgar, Henry Edward Gay, Jeanne Evelyn Francis, Jenny Julia Eleanor, and another child who died before being named. According to his son-in-law Paul Lafargue, Marx was a loving father. In 1962, it was alleged that Marx and his housekeeper Helene Demuth gave birth to an illegitimate child, Freddy, but this claim is controversial due to a lack of documentary evidence. 


Marx Moved to Paris

In 1843, Marx became the co-editor of a new radical left Parisian newspaper Deutsch Französische Jahrbücher and was later founded by German activist Arnold Ruge to combine Germany and France. The militants gathered. Therefore, Marx and his wife moved to Paris in October 1843. Initially living with Ruger and his wife in Wano on 23rd Street, they found living conditions difficult, so they moved in 1844 after the birth of their daughter Jenny. Although it was intended to attract writers from France and Germany, Jahrbücher was dominated by the latter. The only non-German writer was the exiled Russian anarchist collectivist Mikhail Bakunin. 

Marx contributed two articles to this article, "Introduction to the contributions to the critique of Hegel's philosophy of law" and "On the Jewish problem",  the latter presenting his contribution to the proletariat as The revolutionary belief also marked his adoption of communism. Only one issue was published, but it was relatively successful, mainly because it included Heinrich Heine's satirical ode to King Louis of Bavaria, which led to a ban on distribution and confiscation of imported copies by the German states. After the newspaper's closure, Marx began writing for the only remaining uncensored radical German newspaper, Vorwärts! This gave us a clear idea of who is Karl Marx and about his work. 


Marx Moved to London

Marx moved to London in early June 1849, where he spent the rest of his life. The headquarters of the Communist League also moved to London. However, in the winter of 1849-1850, divisions within the Communist League appeared, and factions led by August Willich and Karl Schappel began to agitate for an immediate uprising. Willich and Schappel believed that once the communist alliance launched an uprising, the entire working class in Europe would "spontaneously" join it, thus setting off a revolution throughout Europe. Marx and Engels protested that this unplanned uprising of the Communist League was "risky" and suicide by the Communist League. An uprising like the one recommended by the Schapper/Willich group is easily suppressed by the police and the armed forces of the reactionary European government. Marx believed that this would bring bad luck to the communist alliance itself, and that social change was not achieved overnight through the efforts and willpower of a few people. 

On the contrary, they are achieved through scientific analysis of socio-economic conditions and through different stages of social development towards revolution.


Marx Work in London

At the current stage of development, after the failure of the European uprising in 1848, he felt that the communist alliance should encourage the working class and the rising progressives of the bourgeoisie to unite and defeat the aristocratic feudal affairs and government reform requirements. Related, for example, a constitutional republic with a freely elected parliament and universal (male) suffrage. In other words, before emphasizing the agenda of the working class and the revolution of the working class, the working class must unite with the bourgeoisie and democratic forces to achieve the successful end of the bourgeois revolution. After a long struggle that threatened to destroy the communist alliance, Marx's views prevailed and, in the end, the Willich and Schappel group abandoned the communist alliance. At the same time, Marx was also active in the German Socialist Workers' Education Association. The association held a meeting on Windmill Street in Soho, an entertainment district in central London. 

The organization was also tortured by infighting among its members, some of whom followed Marx, while others followed the Shaper / Willich faction. The issue of this internal division was the same as that raised in the internal division of the Communist League, but Marx failed in the struggle with the Schapper and Willich faction within the German Workers' Education Association and resigned from the association on September 17, 1850. 


Death 

After the death of his wife Jenny in December 1881, Marx contracted mucositis that caused health problems for the last 15 months of his life. He finally died of bronchitis and pleurisy in London on March 14, 1883, when he died as a stateless person at the age of 64. On March 17, 1883, family and friends in London buried his body in an area reserved for agnostics and atheists in London's Highgate cemetery. When his Friends and supporters rushed to his home on Haverstock Hill and learned of the time and place of the burial, they learned that he was already on the frozen ground. But for this mysterious rush, there was nothing to hesitate to hold a large-scale mass demonstration at his grave. 

FAQs on Karl Marx Biography

 1. When Did Karl Marx Move to Brussels?

Answer: Marx decided to move to Brussels, Belgium in February 1845. However, in order to stay in Belgium, he had to agree not to publish any articles on contemporary politics. In Brussels, Marx had connections with other socialists in exile from all over Europe, including Moses Hess, Karl Heinzen, and Joseph Wiedmaier. In April 1845, Engels moved from Barmen, Germany to Brussels, joined Marx and more and more members of the Justice League, who are now looking for a home in Brussels. Later, Mary Burns, Engels' long-term partner, left Manchester, England to join Engels in Brussels. 

2. How Were the Health Conditions of Karl Marx?

Answer: Marx suffered from poor health and health problems for the whole of his lifetime. Liver and biliary problems were encountered by Marx in 1849. He never got rid of these problems since then and was exacerbated by improper lifestyles. Attacks are often accompanied by headaches, eye inflammation, cranial neuralgia, and rheumatic pain. In 1877, a severe neurological disorder caused long-term insomnia, and Marx fought against narcotics. Excessive night work and poor diet worsen the disease.  They are very common in patients with liver disease, probably due to the same reason. The abscess is so severe that Marx cannot sit down or work upright.