Author: Dr. Fazl Ahmad Ahmadi
Marx and Marxism (Part Two)
1. An Overview of Marx’s Life
Marxism is the only political doctrine named after one person: Karl Marx. Although later it was mixed with other ideologies such as Leninism, Maoism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, and even lesser-known variants like Titoism, Khrushchevism, or Gorbachevism, Marx’s contribution remains significant and central. Therefore, it is best to begin studying this doctrine with Marx himself.
Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818, in Trier, Prussia. His father was a Jewish lawyer who converted to Protestantism in 1824. Karl’s father was one of the most respected defense attorneys in Trier, and due to the fear of losing his job, he agreed to convert to Christianity. His mother was strongly influenced by Jewish piety. Marx grew up in a middle-class environment with a liberal upbringing. Until three years before his birth, Trier was under French control, and the local population was in conflict with the feudal Prussian government; on one hand, this region was one of the most industrialized in Prussia, and on the other, republican, innovative, and enlightened ideas, including radical political beliefs, were prevalent.
In 1841, Marx wrote his thesis on the philosophy of Epicurus and graduated. After completing his university studies, he went to Bonn with the intention of becoming a university professor, but the reactionary policies of the German government forced the young Marx to abandon his academic aspirations. In 1842, an opposition newspaper called the Rheinische Zeitung invited Marx to collaborate. He accepted the editorship of the newspaper and moved from Bonn to Cologne. The newspaper took a more revolutionary direction during Marx’s editorship, prompting the government to censor it and ultimately decide to shut it down on January 1, 1843. To prevent the closure of the newspaper, Marx resigned from his editorship, but his resignation did not save the publication.
In 1843, Marx married his childhood friend, Jenny von Westphalen. Jenny belonged to a noble and conservative Prussian family but turned her back on her class and family, remaining a loyal companion to Karl Marx throughout her life. In the fall of 1843, Marx moved to Paris to publish a radical and revolutionary magazine. In the articles he wrote for this magazine, Marx addressed the masses and the proletariat, providing a relentless critique of the status quo.
In September 1844, Engels visited Paris for a few days, and after meeting Marx, he became Marx’s closest friend and companion for the rest of his life. Together, throughout their fruitful lives, they fought tirelessly against petty-bourgeois and bourgeois views that diverted the working class from its struggles.
In 1845, Marx was exiled from Paris due to his revolutionary ideas and moved to Brussels. In the spring of 1847, he and Engels joined the League of Communists, a secret group for which they wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party. In this document, they articulated a new worldview—dialectical materialism—that provided a comprehensive and profound understanding of evolution, the theory of class struggle, and the historical and global revolutionary role of the proletariat.
After successive exiles from Belgium, France, and Germany, Marx settled in London in 1849, where he remained for the rest of his life. On December 2, 1881, Jenny von Westphalen passed away, and in March 1883, Marx quietly fell into eternal sleep in his armchair. He is buried next to his wife in Highgate Cemetery, London.
If we do not want to consider Karl Marx (1818-1883) the greatest thinker of the second millennium, based on a poll conducted by BBC Radio in 2005, he can undoubtedly be cited as one of the most influential thinkers of this millennium, alongside figures like Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, and others.
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