Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx was born to a Jewish family in Trier Germany on May 5th 1818. From this it is said that he grew to become the most influential socialist thinker of the 19th century. As a boy his family converted to Lutheranism. As a man he pronounced all religious beliefs as "the opiate of the masses". He was educated by the best universities in Germany and was therefore influenced by the most celebrated scholars of the previous generation. While attending the University of Bonn, he became engaged to wed Jenny von Westphalen, the daughter of a prominent member of the Trier society Baron von Westphalen. A year later, Marx's father moved him to a more serious University of Berlin where he became a member of the Young Hegelian movement which in practice was the opposition to the Prussian autocracy. The Prussian government then barred any hope of a university career for Marx and so he took to journalism. In 1842, he began editing for an influential liberal newspaper called Rheinische Zeitung. Later due to his radical articles on economic questions the Prussian government shut down the paper and Marx moved to France.

While in France, Marx befriended another German emigrant by the name of Friedrich Engels. However, in 1844 Marx was expelled from Paris and moved with Engels to Brussels where they lived for the next three years. During that time he wrote several manuscripts in which he predicted the collapse of industrial capitalism and its replacement by communism. He also became a member of the Communist League which's center was in London. At a conference in 1847, Marx and Engels were designated to write a declaration of the organization's official position. This became known as the Communist Manifesto and was published just before a wave of revolutions struck Europe.#

The Communist Manifesto stated that societies can and will change when the circumstances can facilitate such change. In essence, society would evolve as deficiencies in previous governments are discovered and then replaced with new governments. An existing society would be defeated by a more efficient and viable society. The earliest civilizations lacked order and then gave way to feudalism. Feudalism was then itself replaced with a bougeoise system of government. With this he concluded that it was inevitable that Communism would take over the next phase of governments.#

Karl