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Essay Biography of Karl Marx

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Biography of Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, social scientist, and revolutionist whose writings formed the beginning of the basic ideas known as Marxism. Although he was largely disregarded by scholars in his own lifetime, his social, economic and political ideas gained rapid acceptance in the socialist movement after his death. With the help of Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx created much of the theory of socialism and communism that we know today.

Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany, on May 5, 1818 to Hirshel and Henrietta Marx. Hirshel Marx was a Jewish lawyer and in order to escape anti-Semitism, he chose to abandon his Jewish faith when Karl was only six years old. Even though the majority of people …show more content…

These articles were critical about the government. Not long after it was published, the Prussian government banned the newspaper in 184344.

With rumors circulating that he may be arrested, Marx then left for Paris and married Jenny von Westphalen, one of his childhood friends, whom he was engaged with for seven years 5. There, Marx began studying political economy and the history of the French Revolution. At this time, Marx teamed with a man named Arnold Ruge to publish the radical journal Deutsch-Franzosiche Jarbucher. Ruge had also been affiliated with the Young Hegelians, and was a very politically oriented man. An arguement with Ruge because of their political differences brought their relationship to an end as well as the journal’s end; Ruge stayed a liberal while Marx was becoming a communist revolutionary6.

In 1845, Marx moved to Brussels, Belgium, and continued his studies. He had previously made friends with Friedrich Engels, the son of a wealthy cotton spinner who also had been a Young Hegelian. They collaborated on several works, including The Holy Family, which was a criticism of some of their Young Hegelian friends. Marx was again expelled for subversive journalism in his writings7.

Two years later, a London organization, League of the Just, invited Marx and Engels to their sessions of Congress. The ideas of Marx were well accepted by the League and Marx was

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