biography
| name: |
Marx, Karl (Heinrich)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1818–83)
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| biography:
| Social philosopher and founder of international communism, born in Trier, W Germany. The son of a Jewish lawyer, he studied law at Bonn and Berlin, but took up philosophy, particularly Hegelian philosophy, and Feuerbach's materialism. In 1841 he received a doctorate from the University of Jena. He edited a radical newspaper, and after it was suppressed in Germany he moved to Paris (1843) and Brussels (1845). There, with Engels as his closest collaborator, disciple, and sponsor, he reorganized the Socialist League of the Just, later renamed the Communist League, which met in London in 1847. In 1848, in conjunction with Engels, he finalized the Communist Manifesto, which interprets history as the history of class struggle and attacks the state as the instrument of oppression. It predicts a social revolution led by the proletariat, and attacks capitalism, private property, the family, religion and morality as ideologies of the bourgeoisie. Expelled from most European countries, he settled in 1849 in London, where he studied economics, and wrote the first volume of his major work, Das Kapital (1867, two further volumes, compiled by Engels from Marx's drafts were added posthumously in 1884 and 1894). In these, he expanded his theory of global and political revolution as a result of the conflict between the working classes and the bourgeoisie. His goal was to unite all workers in the world in order to achieve political power and transcend national boundaries. He was a leading figure in the First International from 1864 until its demise in 1872. The last decade of his life was marked by increasing ill health. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery, London. |
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