Karl Heinrich Marx, who is often called the father of communism, was a philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. Karl Marx addressed a wide range of issues and is most famous for his analysis of history.
Karl Heinrich Marx was born one of seven children in a Jewish family on May 5th, 1818. His family had resided in Trier, Prussia (That is now Germany). His father Heinrich Marx was a lawyer, who would later be a key factor in Karl's education, had descended from a long line of rabbis, but had to convert to Christianity because the Prussian authorities would not allow Heinrich to continue practicing law as a Jew. That is when he joined the official denomination of the Prussian state which allowed him to stay and raise his family in Trier. His mother was born in Holland and did not like the culture well enough to learn the language well, which had effected the communication in the household.
Karl Marx has been thought to have been educated hat home until the age of thirteen. Then from 1830-1835 Marx attended and graduated a secondary school called Trier Gymnasium where he applied the train of thought that he has picked up from his father. Surprisingly, Marx's weakest subject in secondary school was history.
In 1835, after graduating secondary school, Karl Marx enrolled in the University of Bonn where he was to study law. There, he joined a group called the Trier Drinking Club society which resulted in large debts that had to be paid off by his father and lower grades. Because of the lower grades, Karl Marx's father had him transferred to a more serious and academically orientated university in Berlin. During this period of time Karl Marx wrote many poems and essays concerning life, once again using the theory that he had acquired from his father.
In 1841, Karl Marx earned a doctorate for an essay that he had written. Marx had a bad reception in Berlin so he decided to hand in all of his further work to Jena University. That same year he graduated Jena University and earned a degree in Philosophy. This degree would help him to write his future creations of independent thought.
Karl Marx met Fredrich Engels, the man who would help him in his writings, in Paris. They both had similar ways of thinking so they decided to work together on making communism known. In January 1846, Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels set up a Communist Correspondence Committee that was made to be a tool to co-ordinate the theory and practice of communism in the capitals of Europe. In June 1847, Karl Marx changed the name to the “Communist League”. The league was still a secret society and would stay that way until the member knew that it was safe to state their opinions.
After Marx and Engels attended a meeting, they were entrusted with the task of drawing up a manifesto to express and publicise the League's state of mind. Even though both of their names were on it, Engels admitted that the actual writing of the manifesto was done entirely by Karl Marx. The Communist Manifesto was published February 28, 1848, and is only 12,000 words long. It took Marx only six weeks to complete it. The manifesto suggested a course of action for a working class revolution to overthrow the social order and eventually result in a classless and stateless society.
The work of Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels led to their own political practice and theory that was used long after they had passed away, called Marxism. Karl Marx was expelled from France for criticising the work of another philosopher by the name of Bruno Bauer, by implying that his theory was wrong and Marx's theory was right. He was also expelled from Prussia because he tried to convert the community he lived in, into communists.
Karl Marx wrote that capitalism would end through the organized actions of an international working class and his ideas only began to exert a major influence on workers' movements shortly after his death. The revolution that was thought to be inspired by Karl Marx was the Bolshevik Revolution on October 25, 1917, long after Marx was deceased. One of the communist countries around the world is China. The government is run by one group of people and nobody in China has been known to have fought for more rights or voting power.
Karl Marx and his writings have fulfilled their purpose of making people to think differently about how their government should be organised and how there should be a classless and stateless society. I don't think that Karl Marx's theory or practice would work well in our society today because if everyone was the same, there would be no scientific discoveries because nobody would think differently. If everyone was the same, the whole world would be like China is right now. It would be full of poverty and unable to be helped.
A famous line that Karl Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto is “The Communists… are on one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others.” This line is just Karl Marx judging and giving an opinion on his own work when he says that the communists of every country are more advanced then others.
