Karl Marx, the man who was the first to give socialism, and thereby the whole workers' movement of our day, a scientific foundation, was born in Trier in 1818. He studied in Bonn and Berlin, at first taking up jurisprudence, but he soon devoted himself exclusively to the study of history and philosophy, and in 1842 was on the point of qualifying as a dozent in philosophy when the political movement which had arisen since the death of Frederick William III directed his life into a different career. With his collaboration, the leaders of the Rhenish liberal bourgeoisie, Messrs. Camphausen, Hansemann, and others had founded in Cologne the Rheinische Zeitung, and in the autumn of 1842, Marx, whose criticism of the proceedings of the Rhine Province Assembly(1) had attracted very great attention, was put at the head of the paper. The Rheinische Zeitung naturally appeared under censorship, but the censors could not cope with it.(2) The Rheinische Zeitung almost always got through the articles which mattered; the censor was first supplied with insignificant fodder for him to strike out, until he either gave way of himself or was compelled to give way by the threat that then the paper would not appear the next day. Ten newspapers with the same courage as the Rheinische Zeitung and whose publishers allowed a few hundred talers extra to be expended on typesetting — and censorship would have been made impossible in Germany as early as 1843. But the German newspaper owners were petty-minded, timid philistines, and the Rheinische Zeitung carried on the struggle alone. It wore out one censor after another; finally it came under a double censorship; after the first censorship the Regierungspräsident(3) had once more and finally to censor it. Even that was to no avail. In early 1843, the government declared that it was impossible to cope with this newspaper and suppressed it without further ado.
Marx, who in the meanwhile had married the sister of von Westphalen, later a reactionary minister, moved to Paris, and there, in conjunction with A. Ruge, published the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, in which he opened the series of his socialist writings with a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law.(4)
Further, together with F. Engels, The Holy Family. Against Bruno Bauer and Co.,(5) a satirical criticism of one of the latest forms assumed by the German philosophical idealism of the time.
The study of political economy and of the history of the Great French Revolution[215] still allowed Marx time enough for occasional attacks on the Prussian government[216]; the latter revenged itself in the spring of 1845 by securing from Guizot's ministry — Mr. Alexander von Humboldt is said to have acted as inter-mediary[217]—his expulsion from France. Marx shifted his domicile to Brussels and published there in French in 1848 "Discours sur le libre échange" (Speech on the Question of Free Trade)[218] and in 1847 Misère de la philosophie,(6) a criticism of Proudhon's Philosophie de la misère(7) (Philosophy of Poverty). At the same time he made use of the opportunity to found a German workers' association in Brussels[219] and so commenced practical agitation. The latter became still more important for him when he and his political friends in 1847 entered the secret Communist League, which had already been in existence for a number of years. Its whole structure was now radically changed; this association, which previously had been more or less conspiratorial, was transformed into a simple organisation of communist propaganda, which was
Endnotes
[214] Engels wrote this work in mid-June 1877 at the request of Wilhelm Bracke, a leader of the Social-Democratic Workers' Party of Germany, for the Volks-Kalender which he edited (see Bracke's letter to Engels of April 13, 1877). It was published in English for the first time in: Karl Marx, Man, Thinker and Revolutionist A symposium edited by D. Ryazanoff, London [1927], pp. 17-34.
[215] A reference to Marx's stay in Kreuznach in May-October 1843, the time when he conceived the idea of his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law (see present edition, Vol. 3, pp. 3-129). When writing this work, he felt the need for more historical material, and with this in mind he began to study problems related, not only to the theory and history of the state as a whole, but also to the history of particular countries (England, France, Germany, the United States, Italy, Sweden) and major world-historical events, in particular the French Revolution, as can be seen from his five notebooks containing excerpts (the Kreuznach Notebooks). Having moved to Paris in 1844, Marx concentrated on political economy in his scientific studies. Their results were set forth in the work known as the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (see present edition, Vol. 3, pp. 229-346).
[216] 216 Engels is referring above all to Marx's "Critical Marginal Notes on the Article 'The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian' " (see present edition, Vol. 3, pp. 189-206), which was one of the reasons for the closing down of the Vorwärts! and the expulsion of Marx and a number of other contributors from France by Guizot's order of January 16, 1845 issued under pressure from the Prussian government.
[217] 217 Engels' supposition has not been substantiated by facts.
[218] 218 The "Speech on the Question of Free Trade" was based on the material prepared by Marx for a speech he was to have delivered at the Congress of Economists in September 1847 (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 279-81, 287-90). Marx intended to speak at the Congress but its organisers closed the debate and refused to give him the floor. An account of Marx's speech appeared in the Belgian newspaper Atelier Démocratique on September 29, 1847.
[219] 219 See Note 162.