Introduction¶
Core Argument¶
Karl Marx was born on 5 May 1818 in Trier, Prussia, into a reasonably prosperous Jewish family that converted to Lutheranism. He studied law, history and philosophy in Berlin, where he was influenced by Hegel’s dialectic and joined the Left Hegelians. Marx later combined philosophical materialism with dialectics, breaking with Feuerbach. As editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, he wrote revolutionary articles until Prussian censors closed it. In 1843 he married Jenny von Westphalen and moved to Paris, where he studied political economy and met Friedrich Engels in 1844, beginning a lifelong collaboration. Expelled from Paris, Marx moved to Brussels, joined the Communist League, and with Engels wrote The Holy Family (1845) and The German Ideology (1846), developing historical materialism. They published The Communist Manifesto in 1848. During the 1848 revolutions, Marx edited the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne until it was suppressed. Banished from Germany and France, he moved to London in 1849, living in dire poverty supported by Engels. He wrote The Class Struggles in France and The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, and from 1864 was the leading figure of the First International, fighting Proudhonists, Mazzini, trade union reformists and Bakunin. He published Volume I of Capital in 1867; the remaining volumes were completed posthumously by Engels. Marx died after his wife Jenny’s death in 1881.
Marx died of pleurisy in London on 14 March 1883 and was buried beside his wife in Highgate Cemetery. A daguerreotype of his father was found in his breast pocket and interred with him. His original modest grave was later vandalised and is now largely ignored by visitors, who instead flock to the large monument erected in November 1954 after Marx and his family were reburied nearby. The new tomb, unveiled on 14 March 1956, bears the inscriptions “Workers of all lands unite!” and the famous line from the Theses on Feuerbach: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways – the point however is to change it.” The text argues that the true monument to Marx is not in Highgate cemetery, nor made of stone or bronze, but consists of the immortal ideas in his fifty-volume Collected Works. This is presented as the only monument Marx would have desired, and as the foundation stone of the world working-class movement and the guarantee of its future victory.