Karl Marx

Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818 to Heinrich and Henrietta Marx in the historical city of Trier. Karl was one of seven children raised within a comfortable middle class home provided by his father. Marx's father worked as a counselor-at-law at the High-Court of Appeal in Trier. David McClellan believes that, "Trier first imbued Marx with his abiding passion for history." (Karl Marx: The Legacy (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1983), pg. 11.) Although the Marx family was linked to a long lineage of Jewish ancestry, Heinrich converted his family to Protestantism in order to keep his position at the courthouse. "Some have considered this rabbinic ancestry to be the key to Marx's ideas and see him as a secularized version of an Old Testament prophet (Karl Marx: The Legacy (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1983)pg.12) Overall, Marx was raised in a very loving, supportive, environment, and maintained a special relationship with his father throughout his life. (Top Biography "Karl Marx: Ancestry and Birth" August 2000, (March 2002).)

In 1830, Marx began school at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium, a Jesuit foundation that had become a respectable high school with a liberal headmaster. While in high school, Marx was known as a bully and acted more as a leader to the students than as a close friend. His grades were not good in history, nor were they good in French or math. Marx, however, did earn excellent grades in Greek, Latin, and German. (The Portable Karl Marx (The Viking Portable Library 1983)

In 1835, Marx graduated from high school and fell in love with Jenny von Westphalen the daughter of a powerful politician. The couple was secretly engaged in the summer of 1836, but, because of their conflicting ancestries, their families would not allow the wedding to commence for seven years. (The Portable Karl Marx (The Viking Portable Library 1983)

After the couples engagement, Marx was enrolled into the University of Bonn on October 17,1835 as a student of jurisprudence. While in college, Marx spent much more time and energy focusing on his academics. Even in college, Karl and his father maintained a very close relationship. This relationship can be seen through this letter written by Marx's father in November of 1835:

I wish to see you in you what I might have become, had I first seen the light of day under move favorable auspices...it may be unjust and ill-advised as well to put one's greatest hopes in a single person and thus perhaps undermine one's own equanimity. (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1975), pg.12.)

However, Marx took up drinking and found himself in a bar fight which resulted in his transfer to the University of Berlin . (Top Biography "Karl Marx: Ancestry and Birth" August 2000, (March 2002).pg 2) At Berlin, Marx studied law, philosophy, and history until the death of his father in October of 1836. After his father's death, Marx abandoned law and focused his studies mainly on philosophy. He then became an atheist, a democrat, and a critic of the Prussian government. (The Portable Karl Marx (The Viking Portable Library 1983)

In 1841, Karl Marx successfully submitted his doctoral thesis on the philosophy of Epicurus and Democritus to the University of Jena . The following year, he began working for a liberal newspaper called the Rheinische Zeitung, and was finally allowed to marry Jenny. The newspaper employed many young radical writers and raised much controversy. Marx quickly resigned and moved to Paris where he began a historically vital friendship with a man named Friedrich Engels. (The Portable Karl Marx (The Viking Portable Library 1983)

While living in France, Marx studied and read literature pertaining to the French Revolution. It was through these readings that Marx began to see the role of class struggles in social development. He intended to publish a journal that combined German and French ideologies concerning socialism, but instead found that the French were put off by the Germans advocacy of atheism and materialism. The journal was published without a single French contribution. (Karl Marx: The Legacy (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1983), pg 20.)

In this journal, Marx contributed several personally written articles that explained how The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and The American Constitution did little to ensure equality among men. Marx believed that these two documents declared men equal in thought, but did nothing to ensure their economic equality. (Karl Marx: The Legacy (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1983), pg 26)

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were asked to collaborate and write a program statement of principles for the small but revolutionary Communist League. The famous Communist Manifesto was published in February of 1848. Coincidentally a revolution broke out in Brussels during the same time period and Marx was again exiled from the country. (Marx Without Myth (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1975) pg. 85 )

Karl Marx believed that people should take active steps to change society. For Marx, the driving force of all human history was class conflict. As Marx envisioned it, the dominant class conflict in industrial society was between the bourgeoisie ( the controlling group of capitalists who owned the means