The%20Life%20and%20Thought%20of%20Karl%20Heinrich%20Marx

1
The Life and Thought of Karl Heinrich Marx

• Matthew P. Aldred Hans-Peter
• Basic Spoken German
• Fall 2006

2
His Childhood

• Karl Marx was born on May 5th 1818 in Trier,
  Germany.
• He was raised in a middle class, working family.
• His father, Hirschel, came from a long line of
  Jewish Rabbis. He converted to Catholicism
  early on in his life.
• Marx was an unruly child, known for making his
  sisters eat mud pies.

3
The College Years

• His first year of college was at the University
  of Bonn, where he spent much of his time reading,
  drinking, and studying law.
• Afterwards, he transferred to the University of
  Berlin, where he discovered philosophy.
• This newly discovered passion for philosophy
  would alter the course of the rest of his life.

4
The Start of His Activism

• After college, Marx sought out work in a German
  university, to no avail.
• His first job was as a journalist, for the
  Rheinische Zeitung (Rhineland Times).
• He was so effective, he was promoted to editor in
  one year, and was very popular with his
  subordinates.
• He encouraged articles that attacked the local
  Prussian authorities, as well as the liberal
  opposition for their ineffectiveness against the
  government.
• Due to the anti-government leanings of his paper,
  it was shut down by the authorities in 1843.

5
Marxs Marriage

• Marx married his childhood sweetheart Jenny von
  Westphalen, shortly after the closing of the
  Rheinische Zeitung.
• Jenny came from a wealthy, politically connected
  family. Her family made it clear that she would
  be cut off if she married him.
• Bored with her princess like life, she left
  everything behind and married Karl, a man who was
  almost penniless at the time.
• Together they left Prussia and went to Paris, the
  revolutionary center of Europe.

6
A Meeting of Like Minds

• In Paris, Marx got a job as the editor of the
  German French Yearbook.
• It is here that he met a man that would grow into
  a lifelong friend and associate, Friedrich
  Engels.
• Engels was a revolutionary, much like Marx.
  However, he was a successful businessman and only
  practiced these ideals on the surface, without
  fully embracing them.
• Out of all of the friends that Marx had in his
  life, Engels was the only one with whom he never
  argued.

7
Origins of The Communist Manifesto

• Engels and Marx traveled to Brussels, to join the
  newly formed Communist League.
• Due to their combined journalistic experience,
  the league tasked them with writing a manifesto.
• Out of this arose Marxs famous Communist
  Manifesto

8
Purpose of the Communist Manifesto

• The Manifesto was a call to the working classes,
  to rise up and liberate themselves from the
  perceived chains of capitalism.
• This would be achieved by replacing all private
  property with community property.
• The manifesto established what the goals of the
  Communist league were, and what it was to become.

9
The Key Manifesto Quote

• The Manifesto concludes with this important
  statement
• Communists disdain to conceal their views and
  aims. They openly declare that their ends can be
  attained only by the forcible overthrow of all
  existing social conditions. Let the ruling
  classes tremble at a communist revolution. The
  proletariat have nothing to lose but their
  chains. They have a world to win. WORKERS OF
  THE WORLD, UNITE!

10
A Final Trip to Germany

• Marx and Engels returned to Germany, where they
  took the helm of a resurfaced Rheinische Zeitung.
• The Prussian Assembly in Berlin was dissolved by
  Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm, who then shut down the
  paper again.
• This time, Marx was deported from Germany, never
  to return to his homeland again.
• He traveled with his family to England in August
  of 1949, where he would live out the rest of his
  life.

11
Marxs Isolation

• Marx and Engels rejoined the Communist league,
  whose international headquarters were now in
  London.
• Marx spent the next eleven years focusing on his
  studies and research in the reading room of the
  British Museum.
• At the end of this time, he released his first
  full book, Contribution to the Critique of
  Political Economy.

12
Other Written Works

• In addition to Contribution to the Critique of
  Political Economy and the Communist Manifesto,
  Marxs book Das Kapital was released
  posthumously.
• This was a three volume set that spanned over
  1,000 pages per book.
• It was essentially inaccessible to the general
  public, being filled with passages like the
  following
• The progress of accumulation lessens the
  relative magnitude of the variable part of
  capital, therefore, but this by no means excludes
  the possibility of a rise in its absolute
  magnitude.

13
His Final Years

• Karl Marx spent the remainder of his life working
  on his writing, and ideas, in London.
• To his final day, he proclaimed I am not a
  Marxist!
• When he wasnt working on his studies, he would
  take his family for picnics with leapfrog and
  other games. He was a playful, boisterous man.
• He always had the mind of a student, trying to
  improve himself and his thinking.
• Karl Marx died, in 1883 at the age of 64.
• His lifelong friend, Engels gave his eulogy, in
  which he prophetically said
• His name and work will endure through the ages.

14
References

• Marx in 90 minutes
• By Paul Strathern
• Karl Marx his life and thought
• By David McLellan
• The Communist manifesto of Karl Marx and
  Friedrich Engels
• By Karl Marx
• Internet
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_marx