Karl Heinrich Marx (1818–1883)

Founder of Marxism; great leader and mentor of the world proletariat and the international communist movement.

Marx was born on May 5, 1818, in Trier, Germany, into a lawyer’s family. Between 1835 and 1841, Marx studied law at the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, but he was more interested in studying history and philosophy. During his university years, Marx was systematically educated in culture and deeply influenced by the liberal thought of French enlightenment thinkers, and he participated in the radical Young Hegelian movement and the Berlin Doctors’ Club. In April 1841, he received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Jena with the article The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature.

After Marx graduated from the university, he wanted to teach in the university, but the Prussian reactionary government suppressed the progressive movement, and a large number of progressives were dismissed from their chairs, thus he could not realize his aim. Between October 1842 and March 1843, Marx worked in the Rheinische Zeitung and served as the chief editor of this newspaper, he began to devote himself to social problems and actual political struggle. He published articles titled as the Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood and The Defense of the Moselle Correspondent in the newspaper, which exposed the essence of state and law and defended the interests of poor peasants. After the censorship of the Rheinische Zeitung, in May 1843, Marx and Arnold Ruge founded the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, and Marx published Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law and put forth the thought that the realization of the emancipation of man and communism should appeal to the masses and the proletariat. At the end of August 1844, when Marx met Engels in Paris, France, the two men, who were in complete agreement in all theoretical fields, began their historic collaboration in the great cause of creating a new world outlook and a new conception of history. In November 1844, they collaborated in the completion of their first book, The Holy Family, which criticized the idealist conception of history of the Young Hegelians and expounded the historical part played by material production and the masses. In the spring of 1845, Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach was the first document which contained the germination of genius of the new world outlook. From the autumn of 1845 to the summer of 1846, Engels and Marx co-authored The German Ideology, a critique of the modern philosophy according to its representatives Feuerbach, Bauer and Stirner, and of German socialism according to its various prophets, and revealed the laws of development of human society, expounded the fundamental viewpoint of the materialist conception of history, and accomplished their first great discovery. In 1846 and 1847, Marx and Engels successively established the Communist Correspondence Committee and the German Workers’ Society in Brussels, and propagated the materialist conception of history and the thought of scientific socialism among workers’ organizations, and eliminated the ideological influence of Proudhonism, Weitling’s egalitarian communism and “true socialism”. The Poverty of Philosophy, written by Marx in 1847, criticized Proudhonism, expounded the fundamental principles of historical materialism, and announced its new world outlook for the first time to the world. November 29–December 10, 1847, the Second Congress of the Communist League was held in London, and the Congress entrusted Marx and Engels with the task of drafting The Communist Manifesto. In February 1848, The Communist Manifesto was published in London, which discussed the general laws of class struggle and the development of human society, put forth the ideas of proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, discussed the laws of the emergence, development and downfall of capitalism, and arrived at the scientific conclusion that “the fall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable”. It expounded the nature, characteristics, basic programme and tactical principles of the Communist Party, and therefore laid the foundation of the Marxist doctrine of party building. The Communist Manifesto is the first programmatic document of scientific socialism, which marked the official birth of Marxism as a mature theory

In March 1848, the new Central Committee of the Communist League was constituted in Paris, France, and Marx was elected as chairman and Engels was elected to the Central Committee. After the defeat of the 1848 Revolutions in Europe, Marx and Engels set out to rebuild the local organizations and the Central Committee of the Communist League and struggled against the Willich-Schapper adventurist group. During the 1848–1849 Revolutions in Europe, Marx and Engels founded Rheinische Zeitung, which served as a weapon in their tit-for-tat struggle against the reactionary forces in Europe, exposing their despicable acts of suppressing the revolutions and persecuting the toiling masses. After the failure of the 1848–1849 Revolutions in Europe, Marx returned to his study and devoted himself to scientific research. The Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, published by Marx in January 1859, has given a complete, systematic and scientific classical expression of the fundamental principles of historical materialism.

From the late 1850s to the mid-1860s, Marx concentrated on the study of political economy and devoted himself to the writing of Capital. Under the suffering of extreme poverty and illness, Marx critically studied almost all the economic works that could be found at that time, wrote a series of manuscripts about the process of production of capital, the process of circulation of capital and the formations of the process as a whole, as well as on commodities, value and surplus-value, and completed the writing of Capital. In September 1867, Volume 1 of Capital was published, a book with irrefutable facts and extremely strict logic of thinking, which has scientifically revealed the laws and contradictions of capitalist economic movement, exposed the secrets of capitalist exploitation, founded the theory of surplus-value, and accomplishing Marx’s second great discovery. On the basis of the two great discoveries, the materialist conception of history and the theory of surplus-value, socialism has been transformed from a utopian idea to a scientific theory.

Marx was a proletarian revolutionist and activist, and he directly participated in the 1848–1849 Revolutions in Europe, and in order to sum up the experience of the revolutions, he wrote The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, put forth the theory that revolutions are the “locomotives of history” and the theory of “permanent revolution” and further clarified the important thought of “the class dictatorship of the proletariat”. On September 28, 1864, Marx participated in the Inaugural Conference of the International Working Men’s Association, i.e., the First International, and wrote the Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association and the Provisional Rules of the International Working Men’s Association, he made a very important contribution to the establishment of the political line, organizational line and tactics of struggle of the First International. On March 18, 1871, the working class in Paris, France, held an armed uprising and established the Paris Commune which was the first working class government in the world. The activities of the Paris Commune were highly concerned by Marx and actively supported by the First International and the working class of other countries. The Paris Commune failed its 72 days of existence due to the suppression by the reactionary forces. Marx quickly wrote The Civil War in France, and made a scientific summary of the experience and lessons of the Paris Commune. In 1875, when the Eisenachers and the Lassalleans of the German workers’ movement merged and signed the Gotha Programme, Marx wrote The Critique of the Gotha Programme, which criticized Lassallean opportunist thought in the draft programme, and expounded the theory of the phases of development of communist society. During the First International period and until his death, Marx always carried on the work of assisting the growth and theoretical research of socialist parties in various countries, criticized all kinds of opportunist currents and schools of thought within the within the international workers’ movement, such as trade unionism, Proudhonism, Bakuninism and Lassalleanism, and defended scientific socialism, and the theoretical principles and basic programmes have spread scientific socialism among the working class, known as the “soul of the International”.

In his later years, according to the new discoveries in history and archaeology, Marx studied the question of the path of development of Oriental society, especially that of Russia, and wrote the scientifically valuable the Anthropological Notebooks and the Chronological Notebooks, further explored the development law of world history and the path of development of Oriental society, and explored the development of human society, and the unity and diversity of the path of development and social transformation of human society which has enriched and developed the materialist conception of history and the theory of scientific socialism.

On March 14, 1883, Marx’s eyes closed upon this world. and was buried at Highgate Cemetery in London. Engels delivered an important speech before Marx’s tomb and said: The greatest living thinker ceased to think. Marx’s death is a grievous loss to the struggling proletariat and to the science of history. His glory and great achievements will last forever!