Marx, Karl
Marx, Karl
Was born May 5, 1818 in Trier (Treves), Germany, and was educated at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin. He received the doctorate in philosophy at Berlin in 1841, writing on The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Natural Philosophy, which theme he treated from the Hegelian point of view. Marx early became a Left Hegelian, then a Feuerbachian. In 1842-43 he edited the “Rheinische Zeitung,” a Cologne daily of radical tendencies. In 1844, in Paris, Marx, now calling himself a communist, became a leading spirit in radical groups and a close friend of Friedrich Engels (q.v.). In 1844 he wrote articles for the “Deutsch-Franzsische Jahrbcher,” in 1845 the Theses on Feuerbach and, together with Engels, Die Heilige Familie. In 1846, another joint work with Engels and Moses Hess, Die Deutsche Ideologie was completed (not published until 1932). 1845-47, Marx wrote for various papers including “Deutsche Brsseler Zeitung,” “Westphlisches Dampfbot,” “Gesellschaftsspiegel” (Elberfeld), “La Reforme” (Paris). In 1847 he wrote (in French) Misere de la Philosophie, a reply to Proudhon’s Systeme des Contradictionseconotniques, ou, Philosophie de la Misere. In 1848 he wrote, jointly with Engels, the “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, delivered his “Discourse on Free Trade” in Brussels and began work on the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung” which, however, was suppressed like its predecessor and also its successor, the “Neue Rheinische Revue” (1850). For the latter Marx wrote the essays later published in book form as Class Struggles in France. In 1851 Marx did articles on foreign affairs for the “New York Tribune”, published The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and the pamphlet “Enthlungen ber den Kommunistenprozess in Kln.” In 1859 Marx published Zur Kritik der politischen Okonomie, the foundation of “Das Kapital”, in 1860, “Herr Vogt” and in 1867 the first volume of Das Kapital. In 1871 the “Manifesto of the General Council of the International Workingmen’s Association on the Paris Commune,” later published as The Civil War in France and as The Paris Commune was written. In 1873 there appeared a pamphlet against Bakunin and in 1875 the critical comment on the “Gotha Program.” The publication of the second volume of Capital dates from 1885, two years after Marx’s death, the third volume from 1894, both edited by Engels. The essay “Value Price and Profit” is also posthumous, edited by his daughter Eleanor Marx Aveling. The most extensive collection of Marx’s work is to be found in the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe. It is said by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute (Moscow) that the as yet unpublished work of Marx, including materials of exceptional theoretical significance, is equal in bulk to the published work. Marx devoted a great deal of time to practical political activity and the labor movement, taking a leading role in the founding and subsequent guiding of the International Workingmen’s Association, The First International. He lived the life of a political refugee in Paris, Brussels and finally London, where he remained for more than thirty years until he died March 14, 1883. He had seven children and at times experienced the severest want. Engels was a partial supporter of the Marx household for the better part of twenty years. Marx, together with Engels, was the founder of the school of philosophy known as dialectical materialism (q.v.). In the writings of Marx and Engels this position appears in a relatively general form. While statements are made within all fields of philosophy, there is no systematic elaboration of doctrine in such fields as ethics, aesthetics or epistemology, although a methodology and a basis are laid down. The fields developed in most detail by Marx, besides economic theory, are social and political philosophy (see Historical materialism, and entry, Dialectical materialism) and, together with Engels, logical and ontological aspects of materialist dialectics. — J.M.S.