See also: Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx , born on May 5th, 1818 with Trier in the Rhineland (area of Germany) and dead on March 14th, 1883 with London, was an activist political, Philosophe and theorist, famous for his critic of the Capitalisme and its vision of the Histoire like result of the Class struggle, at the origin of the Marxisme.

Biography

Karl Marx was born with Trier in 1818 in the Rhineland then under Prussian domination. His/her father, Hirschel ha Levi, lawyer resulting from a family of rabbis and merchants, converted with Protestantism to be able to follow his occupation. His/her mother is called Henrietta Pressburg Hirshel. Karl Marx is baptized in the Lutheranism in 1824.

Studies

After having obtained its Abitur in a Gymnasium (college) of Trier, Marx between at the university, initially with Bonn to study the right there, then with Berlin where it is devoted more to the history and philosophy. It finishes its studies in 1841 by the presentation of a thesis of doctorate written in old Greek: Difference of the philosophy of nature at Démocrite and Épicure ( Differenz DER demokritischen und epikureischen Naturphilosophie ).

Engagement

To Berlin, it belongs to the circle of the “Hégéliens of left”, also called “Jeunes hégéliens” (with Bruno Bauer and others) which seek to draw the atheistic and revolutionary conclusions of the philosophy of Georg Hegel.

The hégélien of left Ludwig Feuerbach had launched out in a criticism of the Théologie starting from 1836 and had started to turn to the Matérialisme (in opposition to the Idéalisme hégélien). In 1841, this orientation materialist takes the top in his philosophy ( gasoline of Christianity ) and combines with dialectical the known as idealist of Hegel to give him a scientific and historical character seizing reality in the logic of its evolution. This position runs up against the policy of the Prussian government which had taken from Feuerbach its pulpit in 1832, then had prohibited to him to return to the university in 1836. To finish, the same authorities prohibit in Bruno Bauer, another great figure of the hegelianism of left to teach in Bonn in 1841.

Marx, after having obtained its university degree, leaves for Bonn with the hope to become professor there. But vis-a-vis this policy of the government, it gives up the idea of a university career.

The newspaper of opposition Rheinische Zeitung

At the beginning of 1842, certain radical middle-class men of the Rhineland, in contact with Hégéliens of left, create with Cologne a newspaper of opposition to the government, the Rheinische Zeitung (Rhenish Gazette). They propose with Marx and Bruno Bauer to become the principal collaborators about it. In October 1842, Marx becomes editor association and settles about it in Cologne.

The revolutionary democratic tendency of the newspaper is accentuated under the direction of Marx. The government reacts by imposing a double to him, then triple censures. Then, on January 1st 1843, it prohibits it. Marx had been constrained to resign before this date, but that did not save the newspaper, which suspended its in March 1843 publication.

One of the principal articles of Marx in the Rheinische Zeitung is that devoted to the living conditions of the vine growers of the valley of the the Moselle. This report, as well as the whole of its journalistic activities, makes him become aware of its insufficiencies as regards political economy and pushes it to launch out in an in-depth study of this one.

Marriage

In 1843 with Kreuznach, Marx marries a friend of childhood, Jenny von Westphalen , to which it had become engaged student. His wife is resulting from the Prussian nobility, her older brother will become Minister of Interior Department of Prussia during one of the periods more the reactionaries whom this country knew, of 1850 with 1858. It had several children but only three girls will arrive at the adulthood (Laura, Éléanor and Jenny). Laura will marry Paul Lafargue, socialist French having left in his personal Souvenirs on Karl Marx a biography intimist of the philosopher.

Franco-German annals

With the autumn 1843, Marx settles with Paris in order to publish a radical newspaper abroad with Arnold Ruge (1802-1880). Only one number of the Franco-German Annales is published. The publication stops because of the large difficulties in the clandestine distribution of the newspaper in Germany and also in consequence of dissensions between Marx and Arnold Ruge. The articles of Marx show that this one positions already as a revolutionist defending a “pitiless critic of all existing it” (even if “the weapon of criticism cannot replace the criticism of the weapons”) cash on the masses and the Prolétariat to change the order of the things, and either on some enlightened leaders.

It is at the same time that Ludwig Feuerbach writes its Principes of the Philosophy of the future . “It is necessary to have lived by oneself the liberator effect of these books”, will write later Engels, which adds: “We became very of a blow all of the feuerbachiens. ”

Meet with Engels

In September 1844, Marx meets Friedrich Engels which spends a few days to Paris; it is the beginning of a deep friendship. Engels had had with the 18 years age to leave the college to become employed of trade with Bremen for family reasons. Studying by itself philosophy, it had become in favor of Hegel while rejecting the support that this one had brought at the Prussian State. In 1842, it had left Bremen to take a station in a commercial firm of Manchester whose his/her father was one of the owners. There, it had met proletarian misery in all its width and had studied the conditions systematically of them ( the condition of the working classes in England , 1845). This meeting is thus not the fruit of the chance.

Shortly after this one, Marx and Engels work in concert to their first common work: the Holy Family where they attack the critical philosophy of Bruno Bauer to which they had been close. Comes then the German Ideology (primarily written by Marx) mainly centered around a very virulent criticism from max Holy Stirner entitled “max” and which occupies nearly two thirds of the work. This work defends a design materialist of the history which exceeded the design of the materialism of Feuerbach. By a severe criticism of Bruno Bauer and max Stirner, Marx and Engels thus mark a rupture not only with Feuerbach, but also with the utopian socialism and the idealism hégélien of left, and more largely the Idéalisme of Hegel itself. But the work does not find an editor, and it will be published only nearly one century later. In the Theses on Feuerbach , short text found in the same manuscript, written Marx (Thesis XI): “The philosophers did nothing but interpret the world in various ways; what imports, it is it to transform ”.

In the middle of the Years 1840, Marx and Engels take an active share in the life then bubbling of the Parisian revolutionary groups. Much of them was particularly influenced by the doctrines of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon expressed mainly in its work Philosophie misery . Marx makes of it a very severe criticism in Misère of Philosophy . The foreword shows the polemical and ironic character style of Marx: “In France, it has the right to be a bad economist, because it passes for a good philosophizes German. In Germany, it has the right to be bad philosopher, because it passes to be an economist of strongest. We, in our capacity of German and economist, we wanted to protest against this double error. ”

On the insistent request of the Prussian government, Marx, considered as a dangerous revolutionist, is driven out of Paris in 1845. It arrives then at Brussels. The house which it occupies to the 50 of the street Jean d' Ardenne with Ixelles between January 1847 and February 1848 is used as point of meeting with all the political opponents. Marx takes part in the Democratic Association of Brussels, from which he is elected vice-president.

In spring 1847, Marx and Engels join a clandestine political group, the Ligue of the Communists. They take there a dominating place at the time of its second congress in London in November 1847. On this occasion, one asks them to write the Manifeste of the League , known under the name of Manifeste of the Communist party , which appears in February 1848.

Revolutions of 1848

With the bursting of the Revolution of February 1848, Marx leaves the Belgium to return to Paris. With the extension of the revolution to Germany, it leaves for Cologne to become there editor association of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (the New Rhenish Gazette) published of June 1st 1848 with the May 19th 1849.

With the victory of the counter-revolution, Marx is continued in front of the courts. It is defended in front of sworn while declaring: “The first duty of the press is thus to undermine all the bases of the current political system”. He is discharged the February 9th 1849, but the government expels it the May 16th same year, although he is Prussian citizen .

It goes back then to Paris from which it is again driven out after the manifestation of the June 13rd 1849. It leaves then for London where it will reside the remainder of its days.

The life of Marx in exile is extraordinarily difficult as its correspondence testifies some. In spite of the financial aid of Engels, him and its family must face an extreme misery: “My wife is sick, the small Jenny is sick, Léni has a kind of nervous fever. I cannot and I could not call the doctor, for lack of money for the drugs. Since eight days, I nourished the family with bread and potatoes, but I wonder whether I could still get them today to me” (in Engels, September 4th 1852). One of his/her children, Edgar, will die besides of hunger.

He then writes a series of seven articles, gathered under the title the 18 brumaire of Louis Bonaparte , describing the beginnings of the second French Republic and his evolution towards the coup d'etat of December 2nd 1851 leading to the Second Empire. Until the end of the year 1862, whereas it has just started the drafting of the Capital, the situation remains critical in spite of the assistance of Engels, him even in financial problems because of the American crisis, and its uncle Lion Philips which authorizes an advance to him on heritage. In 1864 its financial position improves thanks to the heritage of his/her mother, who had always refused to pour the share to him which returned to him from that of his/her father and will have made him grace only few old debts, but the way of life of the Marx family remains of a modest level.

New York Platform

It devotes all the Années 1850 to write hundreds of “food” articles for newspapers like the New York Tribune all while being devoted to the research deepened in economy, Histoire, Politique, etc In same time, it remains in correspondence with the revolutionists of the continent and writes political booklets in bond with the topicality. It passes to the eyes of controlling Prussian like the chief of an organization of conspirators, whereas the Ligue of the Communists does not exist any more since its car-dissolution in 1852. It is in fact isolated. Its situation economically precarious slows down its work.

Return to the political writings

It is only in 1859 that it completes and publishes the Contribution to the criticism of the political economy . Y are present all the essential components, in particular the law of the value , the '' Capital ''. Marx writes at that time: “I do not think that one ever wrote on the money all while missing some at this point”.

In 1859, it leaves its political insulation to take the direction of the German-speaking newspaper Das Volk in bond with the regroupings which take place in the German labor movement and which will lead to the constitution by Ferdinand Lassalle of the first true German working party (ancestor of SPD).

In 1867 Marx publishes finally, after more than 20 years of work, the first part of its work the Capital . It continues its work to complete the two following volumes but, time patient and lack, it will leave only unfinished drafts.

The International one of the Workers

In 1864, it writes the Inaugural Adresse of the International association of the Workers , which is based then. This inaugural address becomes the heart of this First International. All the effort of Marx in the drafting of this inauguration tends to unify the labor movement which knows all kinds of forms of regroupings claiming socialism on various and contradictory bases (Mazzini in Italy, Proudhon in France, Michel Bakounine in Suisse, British trade unionism liberal British, right lassalienne in Germany, etc).

The Commune of Paris is crushed in 1871. Marx writes a text which is adopted by the International one: the Civil war in France . Karl Marx draws the conclusion which the proletariat cannot be satisfied to seize the machine with State to make it function with its profit: it will have to destroy it basic in roof. Marx greets the new democracy appeared with the Commune: the principle of eligibility and the revocability of the persons in charge on all the levels of the company (executive, legislature, legal). This text makes great noise, and the name of the author is then revealed: Karl Marx acquires for the first time a certain fame, including within the Labor movement.

Important divergences appear within the Internationale. In 1872, the bakouniniens are excluded, from the constitution of a secret fraction but also because of the degradation of the relationship between Marx and Bakounine. Being added the quasi-disappearance of the labor movement to it in France because of repression of the Commune, the HAS cease to practically exist in Europe (an important part of the militants of International preferred to follow the federalistic principles preached in particular by Bakounine). The General advice of HAS of London is transferred to New York, and an international federalistic worker joining together of excluded constitutes herself the same year.

End of its life

The health of Marx is undermined by its tireless political work of organization of the Internationale and the drafting even more exhausting of its work. It essentially leaves in Engels the care to follow the developments of SPD, even if in 1875 Marx writes a very hard criticism of the program of Gotha of the SPD. Karl Marx is devoted then primarily to the completion of the '' Capital '', for which it collects a considerable mass of new materials and, in addition to the languages which it controlled already (French, English, Italian and German), Russian learns. However, its declining health prevents it from completing the last two volumes of the '' Capital ''. Engels will be given the responsability thereafter to gather and format its notes in order to publish partial materials.

Jenny, his wife who had accurately supported it, dies the December 2nd 1881. After a stay in Algeria and whereas he works on critical matters calling into question the economic base of his work, Marx dies out peacefully in its armchair the March 14th 1883. It is buried close to his wife in the cemetery of Highgate to London, England. The two husbands had broken with their social environment and remained faithful, in the adversity as in misery, with an ideal of human emancipation.

“Imagines the human man and his report/ratio in the world like a human report/ratio, and you will be able to exchange the love only against the love, confidence that against confidence, etc If you want to enjoy art, you must have an artistic culture; if you want to have ascending on others, you will have to be able to act for many others and to exert a stimulative influence. Each one of your relationship with the man - and nature - will have to be a determined demonstration, in conformity with the object of your will, your true individual life. If you like without causing the reciprocal love, if your love does not cause the reciprocity, so alive and magnet you are not made like, then your love is impotent, and it is a great misfortune. ” ( Economy and Philosophie , money)

Portraits

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