Karl Marx

KARL MARX

German political theorist and revolutionary. He studied humanities at the Univ. of

Bonn (1835) and law and philosophy at the Univ. of Berlin (1836-41), where he

was exposed to the works of G. W. F. Hegel. Working as a writer in Cologne and

Paris (1842-45), he became active in leftist politics. In Paris he met F. Engels,KARL MARX

German political theorist and revolutionary. He studied humanities at the Univ. of

Bonn (1835) and law and philosophy at the Univ. of Berlin (1836-41), where he

was exposed to the works of G. W. F. Hegel. Working as a writer in Cologne and

Paris (1842-45), he became active in leftist politics. In Paris he met F. Engels,

who would become his lifelong collaborator. Expelled from France in 1845, he

moved to Brussels, where his political orientation matured and he and Engels

made names for themselves through their writings. Marx was invited to join a

secret left-wing group in London, for which he and Engels wrote the Communist

Manifesto (1848). That same year he organized the first Rhineland Democratic

Congress in Germany and opposed the king of Prussia when he dissolved the

Prussian Assembly. Exiled, he moved to London in 1849, where he would live

the rest of his life. For years his family lived in poverty, and two of his children

died. He worked part-time as a European correspondent for the New York

Tribune (1851-62) while writing his major critique of capitalism, Das Kapital (3

vols., 1867-94). He was a leading figure in the First International from 1864 until

the defection of M. Bakunin