Biography of Karl Marx

(1818/05/05 - 1883/03/14)
Karl Heinrich Marx
Karl Marx
German philosopher

"In Communist society, where no one has an exclusive sphere of activity, but each one can be done in the field you want to, society regulates the general production, making each possible today doing one thing and tomorrow another: hunting in the morning, fish after eating, raising cattle in the evening, and criticize dinner;" everything according to your own wishes and without converting is never in Hunter, fisherman, or in pastor or in critical"
Karl Marx.

He was born May 5, 1818, in the 664 Bruckergasse of trier (Trier), city that was then part of the Kingdom of Prussia (now Germany).

It was the third of nine children of Henrietta Pressburg and Heinrich Marx, a lawyer Jewish liberal, who converted to Protestantism with the family to avoid the limitations of anti-Semitic legislation.

Karl was baptized a Lutheran Church in August 1824. His maternal grandfather was a Dutch Rabbi, while paternal line there were rabbis in Trier from 1723.

Karl became an atheist and materialist, rejecting both the Christian religion as Jewish. Was it own Marx who coined the aphorism "religion is the opium of the people". His father was the first to receive a secular education; He became a lawyer and was relatively rich.

He received lessons from his father until 1830, when he entered the Jesuit Gymnasium of Trier, whose director, Hugo Wyttenbach, was a friend of his father. He was excused from military service when he was 18 and studied at the universities of Bonn, Berlin and Jena. Marx was low and Husky, had long hair and dark skin, so his family and friends called him Mohr in German, Moro in Spanish.

In 1836 he undertook with Jenny von Westphalen, a Baroness belonging to the Prussian ruling class sister of the Prussian Minister of Interior, who knew since childhood. Their commitment was socially controversial due to ethnic differences and class. Marx became friends with the father of the young man (a liberal aristocrat) and dedicated to him his doctoral thesis. Seven years after his commitment, on June 19, 1843, married in a Protestant Church in Kreuznach, after the death of the parents, who opposed the relationship.

In 1842 an article was published in the Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne, later becoming Editor-in-Chief. He had problems with the authorities by the criticisms made about the social and political conditions in their newspaper articles and was forced to leave his position at the newspaper in 1843.

He moved to Paris where is expelled and settled in Brussels where locks a friendship that lasts a lifetime with Frederick Engels. They exchanged thoughts and views, coming to the conclusion that both had the same conception of the nature of the problems revolutionary. They worked together in the analysis of the theoretical approaches of communism and in the Organization of an international workers movement dedicated to the dissemination of those. They write The Holy Family (1845) and The German ideology (1845-1846) against Feuerbach and the Hegelian idealists left.

It organizes and runs a network of groups called committees of correspondence Communist, established in several European cities. Two years later, Marx and Engels were commissioned to develop a statement of principles that serve to unify all these partnerships and integrate them into the League of the righteous (Communist League), thus was born the Communist Manifesto.

Central propositions of the manifestoby Marx, constitute the conception of historical materialism, Concepción made later in the critique of political economy (1859). This thesis presents the dominant economic system in each historical epoch, whereby the vital needs of individuals are met. This determines the social structure and the political and intellectual superstructure of each period. Thus, the history of the society is the story of the struggles between the exploiters and the exploited.

After the publication of the manifesto, erupted revolutionary processes (the revolutions of 1848) in France, Germany and the Austrian Empire, and he was expelled from Belgium. He returned to Paris and then to the Rhineland. He founded and edited in Cologne a communist publication, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (New Rhenish Gazette), and collaborated in organizing activities of working groups. In 1849 he was arrested and tried on charges of inciting armed rebellion. He was acquitted, but drove him out of Germany and the magazine was closed. Some time later the French authorities also forced him to leave the country and moved to London, where he remained the rest of his days.

It produced several works that were forming the doctrinal foundation of Communist theory, among them is his most important essay, capital (volume 1, 1867; volumes 2 and 3, published by Engels and published posthumously in 1885 and 1894, respectively), an historical analysis and detailed the economy of the capitalist system, which developed the following theory : the working class is exploited by the capitalist class to adapt thissurplus value'(capital gains) produced by that. His second work, the civil war in France (1871), analyzed the experience of the French revolutionary Government (The Paris Commune), established in this city during the Franco-Prussian War. It interpreted its creation and existence as a historical confirmation of the need for workers to take power through an armed insurrection and destroy the capitalist state.

He developed the theory in the critique of the Gotha program (1875) in the following terms: "between the capitalist and communist systems is the period of revolutionary transformation from one into another. This phase corresponds to a period of transition, whose state cannot be other than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat". He also wrote Chronicles on social and political events for newspapers in Europe and the United States, including several articles on the 'liberal revolutions' in Spain and Hispanic America.

He worked as a correspondent for the New York Tribune from 1852 to 1861 and wrote several articles for the New American Cyclopedia. The Communist League was dissolved in 1852 and contacted hundreds of revolutionaries in order to create another organization of the same ideology. His efforts and those of its partners culminated in 1864 with the Foundation in London of the First international. He gave the inaugural speech, wrote its bylaws and later directed the work of the General Council (governing body), overcoming criticism of the supporter group of Mikhail Bakunin'scharacter anarchist. When removed the Paris Commune, which had involved members of the 1st International, the influence of this organization declined and recommended to move its headquarters to United States.

Marx and Jenny von Westphalen had seven children, but due to the poor conditions in which they lived in London, only three of them survived until adulthood. Eleonora Marx participated in the feminist movement; Laura Marx, married the French Socialist leader Paul Lafargue, and committed suicide with him in 1911. It also said that Marx fathered another son, Freddy, out of wedlock with his housekeeper, Helene Demuth.

During the last two decades of his life, he fought against the physical ailments that prevented him working in his political and literary works. He suffered from liver disorder; outbreaks of anthrax, boils in the neck, chest, back and buttocks (often not could sit); toothache pain; eye inflammations; Lung abscesses; hemorrhoids; Pleurisy; persistent headaches and coughing, which made it impossible to sleep without drugs.

After the death of his wife from cancer on December 2, 1881, Marx developed a cold which caused ill-health during his last 15 months, has led to bronchitis and later suffered a Pleurisy which finally ending his life on March 14, 1883 in London, when he was 64 years old. He died as stateless and his body was buried in the cemetery in Highgate, London, on March 17, 1883.

Works

Scorpion and Felix (1837)
Difference between the philosophy of the nature of Democritus and Epicurus (1841)
Critique of the philosophy of law of Hegel (1843)
On the Jewish question (1843)
Notes on James Mill (1844)
Economic and philosophical manuscripts (1844)
Theses on Feuerbach (1845)
The poverty of philosophy (1847)
Working wage and capital (1847)
The struggles of classes in France from 1848 to 1850 (1850)
The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)
Grundrisse or fundamental elements to the critique of political economy (1857)
Preface to contribution to critique of political economy (1859)
Theories of surplus value (1862)
Wages, price and profit (1865)
Capital, volume I (1867)
The civil war in France (1871)
Criticism of the program of Gotha (1875)
Notes on Wagner (1880)

With Engels

The German ideology (1845)
The Holy Family (1845)
Communist Manifesto (1848)
The civil war in the United States (1861)
Capital, volume II (1885)
Capital, volume III (1894)