Arnold Ruge (1802–1880)

German publicist; one of the prominent representatives of Young Hegelians.

Ruge was born in 1802, in Bergen auf Rügen, Germany. From 1821 to 1824, he studied philosophy at the universities of Halle, Jena and Heidelberg. In 1826, he was sentenced to imprisonment for championing the organization of “youth associations” (Burschenschaft). After his release from prison in 1830, he became a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Halle, and he chiefly studied Hegelian philosophy. In 1837, he was expelled from the university in the campaign of persecution against the Left Hegelians. Since then, he turned to publishing and political activities. In the same year, he founded the Halle Annals for German Science and Art (abbreviated as Halle Annals), later renamed Annals for German Science and Art, which discussed the social and political questions of the time from the stance of the Hegelian philosophy and radical democracy and became the Young Hegelian center of propaganda. From 1842 to 1843, Ruge co-edited the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (German-French Annals) with Marx, and in mid-1844 he opposed Marx. Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher was published as a compilation of 1st and 2nd issues in Paris in German only at the end of February 1844. Marx’s Introduction to the Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law, On The Jewish Question as well as Engels’ Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy were published in this journal. After the publication of the journal Marx and Ruge were both wanted by the Prussian authorities. In 1847, Ruge returned to Germany, became a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly during the German Revolution of 1848 and organized a left-wing faction in the Parliament and served as the editor of the journal Die Reform. In 1849, he fled to England on charges of participating in the 1848 Revolutions and has lived in England ever since, being one of the leaders of the German petit-bourgeois exiles living abroad in London in the 1850s. He became a national liberal after 1866 and died in London in 1880. Ruge’s main works include Collected Writings of Arnold Ruge (1847–1848), Our System (1850), From Earlier Times (1862–1867), etc.