Karl Marx: Revolutionizing the Way People Think
One of the men commonly known to be responsible for the formation of communism, and our interpretation of it, was born in 1818. Karl Marx’s family lived in the Rheinish Prussian city of Trier, where they remained Jewish until converting to Protestantism when Karl was six years old. Upon graduating from high school, Karl left for the university at Bonn where he was to study law. The basis behind this judgment was that Karl’s father was a lawyer, thus Karl felt obligated to follow in his father’s footsteps. Karl transferred universities from Bonn to Berlin, where he graduated in 1841, having majored in history and philosophy. Karl Marx’s education led him to become acquainted with many new colleagues, which in turn affected a great deal of what he did in his life: the books he wrote, the newspapers he wrote and edited for, the organizations he joined. Through his many written works, Karl Marx has managed to revolutionize the way people reflect upon their government.
Throughout his career as a historical major and philosopher, Karl Marx wrote numerous tomes and novels on a variety of topics, ranging from politics, to philosophy, to economics. Following Marx’s college graduation, he relocated himself, with his new wife, Jenny Westphalen, to Paris. There, Marx became associated with Arnold Ruge, and together they published the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher. “Marx’s articles in this journal showed that he was already a revolutionary who advocated ‘merciless criticism of everything existing’, and in particular the ‘criticism by weapon’, and appealed to the masses and to the proletariat” (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/m/a.htm#marx).
This began a series of socialist writings, beginning with Criticism of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right. This is the first occurrence of opposition and criticism from Marx. Following the completion of his first piece of writing, Marx teamed up with Friedrich Engels, to produce The Holy Family Against Bruno Bauer and Co. This was another criticism towards German philosophical idealism that was currently in place. Towards the latter part of his life, Karl Marx became increasingly interested in politics. He participated in the founding of the International Working Men’s Association, in London. For this organization, Marx produced a number of works, mainly as a proclamation of the group’s personal feelings on political issues of the time. He wrote the association’s first address, and a plethora of other literature. “Finally, in 1861 there appeared in Hamburg Capital, a Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, Volume I, Marx’s chief work, which expounds the foundations of his economic socialist conceptions and the main features of his criticism of existing society, the capitalist mode of production and its consequences. The second edition of this epoch-making work appeared in 1872;” (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/ m/a.htm#marx). The production of this masterpiece, as well as every previous creation, eventually led to the development of mass working-class socialist parties in numerous countries around the world.
Along with the production of a myriad of masterpieces, Karl Marx also contributed articles to a wide variety of newspapers. The first of these newspapers, was the Rheinische Zeitung, which focused mainly on the opposition to the Prussian government. In 1842, Marx became the editor-in-chief of the paper, and then decided to move from his location in Bonn, to Cologne. “The newspaper’s revolutionary-democratic trend became more and more pronounced under Marx’s editorship, and the government first imposed double and triple censorship on the paper, and then on January 1, 1843 suppressed it” (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/m/a.htm#marx). In an attempt to resuscitate the paper, and keep it from being completely abolished, Marx resigned his position. This was to no avail, however, for the paper was still put to an end.
This illustrates how Marx’s objectionable views to politics in the world around him, led him to be disliked by the government, and even the discontinuation of the newspaper of which he was chief. Approximately six years after losing the Rheinische Zeitung, Marx relocated to Cologne, Germany, where he became the editor-in-chief of a newspaper created by himself, titled: Neue Rheinische Zeitung. This newspaper was published for about a year, before it was shut down by the government. Because of Marx’s previously published newspaper articles, his work in the Communist League, and now his articles in his newest newspaper, Karl Marx was banished from Germany. The basis behind this banishing is the fact that Marx’s objective position toward the government came out incredibly clearly in all his writings, and led to a revolution. In each of the different newspapers in which Marx published articles, he was given a way of expressing his views on politics and economics. This led him to develop an even greater interest in these areas, and a want for change in the world around him. This want, was the force that compelled Marx to eventually publish his [and Engels’] greatest masterpiece, the Communist Manifesto.
In September of 1844, Marx’s domicile was located in Paris, and one of his closest friends came to visit for a few days.
These few days turned into quite an ordeal, much longer than Engels had intended. Together, the two laid down the foundations of Marxism and formed a publication. This first work of Marxism to be published was titled The German Ideology. During this time, Marx and Engels were both taking part in the revolutionary groups of Paris, attempting to have as large an impact on the world as they could. They each felt that they mission in life was to ‘change it’. Just as Marx’s ideas begin to take notice, the French government, under pressure from the Prussian government, banished Marx from Paris. The logic for this was that both countries considered Marx to be a hazardous insurgent. He found a way to deal with this though, by moving to Brussels, and carrying on with his work there.
Towards the beginning of the year 1847, Marx and Engels made the decision to join a surreptitious organization called the Communist League. The two excelled in this organization, and at the League’s request, Marx and Engels produced the Communist Manifesto, and published it soon into 1848. “With outstanding clarity, this work outlines a new world-conception based on materialism. This document analyses the realm of social life; the theory of the class struggle; the tasks of the Communists; and the revolutionary role of the proletariat—the creators of a new, communist society” (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/m/a. htm#marx). The publishing of the Communist Manifesto opened up a new doorway for many countries as an alternative means of government. It was also brought to the attention of many people around the world, primarily the working class, as having made sense. This encouraged revolution and the want and need for change within countries throughout the world.
The way in which people reflect upon their government, has been undoubtedly altered by the many written works published by Karl Marx. Marx has published an overabundance of written material, a lot of it with a recurring theme: life has always been about class struggles, and the fight to be on top. It is for this reason that Karl Marx, along with his partner, produced a solution to this problem: communism. At the time during which Marx and Engels were designing this manifesto, they could not have imagined that their work would yield such profound results in history. “Marx’s name and work have been bandied about in support of the ideology of numerous peasant revolutions; and yet to date there has been no successful socialist revolution in any of the advanced industrial nations of which he wrote” (Richard E. Olsen, Karl Marx, 154). This true fact is ironic, in that there have been successful socialist revolutions in more than a few Asian countries of which he didn’t write. Through the publication of Marx’s books and tomes, newspapers and newspaper articles, and works of Marxism, people have been presented with a new form of government that is highly beneficial to the working class: everyone is equal. This sort of government made sense to a lot of people, and thus led to the creation of mass working-class socialist parties in a great number of countries, not only in Europe, but around the world. With these organizations in place, the people often attempted, through revolutions, to get what they wanted: radical change to a new government; their kind of government. Can you imagine what Russia would have turned out to be if Karl Marx hadn’t written the Communist Manifesto, the basis for communism?
Works Cited
Basgen, Brian, and Blunden, Andy. Encyclopedia of Marxism. 1999. 2004.
Olsen, Richard E. Karl Marx. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978.
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