Karl Heinrich Marx: Karl Marx, And Marxism

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 living in Trier were Catholics, Hirshel Marx decided to become a Protestant. The family

He planned to follow his father and become a lawyer—however he soon transferred to the more serious University of Berlin where he remained for four years. He concluded his university course in 1841 after submitting his thesis on the philosophy of Epicurius. While at Berlin, he was introduced to the writings of G. W. F. Hegel and his theory that “a thing or thought could not be separated from its opposite.” The anti-religion and anti-autocracy philosophies of Hegel led Marx to join a radical group known as the Young Hegelians3.

After graduating from Berlin University, Marx moved to Paris, hoping to become a professor. Unfortunately, things did not work out the way he had hoped, and so he turned to journalism instead. Marx became editor of the Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne, a liberal democratic newspaper where he wrote articles on freedom of the press and on religion in politics. These articles were critical about the government. Not long after it was published, the Prussian government banned the newspaper in