was born in Trier on May 5, 1818, the son of the lawyer and later 
counsellor of justice Heinrich Marx, who, as is shown by the 
baptismal certificate of his son, converted with his family from 
Judaism to Protestantism in 1824. After concluding his prepara- 
tory education at Trier Gymnasium, Karl Marx studied from 1835 
in Bonn and then in Berlin, first law and later philosophy, 
attaining his Dr. Phil. in Berlin in 1841 with a dissertation on the 
philosophy of Epicurus.* In the same year he moved to Bonn in 
order to qualify as a lecturer, but the obstacles which the 
government laid in the path of his friend Bruno Bauer, officially 
there as lecturer in theology, which culminated in Bauer’s removal 
from the university, soon made it clear to him that there was no 
room for him at a Prussian university—This was the time when 
the younger elements of the radical bourgeoisie of the Rhineland, 
tinged with Young Hegelianism, urged, in agreement with the 
liberal leaders Camphausen and Hansemann, the publication of a 
big opposition paper in Cologne; Marx and Bauer were also 
consulted as capable main contributors. A concession—necessary 
at that time—was quietly obtained by a devious route, and the 
Rheinische Zeitung appeared on January 1, 1842. Marx contributed 
lengthy articles from Bonn for the new paper; foremost among 
these were: a critique of proceedings in the Rhine Province 
Assembly, a study of the situation of the peasant vintners on the 
Mosel, and another on wood theft and the relevant legislation.” In 

October 1842 he took over the management of the paper and 
moved to Cologne. From this point the paper adopted a sharply 
oppositional character. But the management was so adroit that 
despite first double censorship, and then triple censorship, 
imposed upon the paper (first the ordinary censor, then the 
Regierungsprasident, and finally a Mr. von Saint-Paul dispatched 
ad hoc from Berlin), the government found this sort of newspaper 
hard to deal with and therefore decided to forbid further 
publication of the paper as of April 1, 1843. Marx’s resignation 
from the editorial board*” on this date bought a three months’ 
stay of execution, but then the paper was finally suppressed. 

Marx then decided to move to Paris where Arnold Ruge also 
wished to turn, following the suppression of the Deutsche 
Jahrbticher at about the same time. But first in Kreuznach he 
married Jenny von Westphalen, sweetheart of his youth, to whom 
he had been engaged since the beginning of his university days. 
The young couple reached Paris in the autumn of 1843, and here 
Marx and Ruge published the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbiicher, a 
journal of which only the first issue appeared; a continuation 
failed, partly because of the insuperable difficulties of circulating it 
secretly in Germany, and partly because of the differences of 
principle which very soon became apparent between the two 
editors. Ruge remained tied up with Hegelian philosophy and 
political radicalism, while Marx threw himself into the study of 
political economy, the French socialists, and the history of France. 
The result was his conversion to socialism. In September 1844, 
Fr. Engels visited Marx in Paris for a few days: the two had been 
in correspondence since their joint work on the Deutsch- 
Franzoésische Jahrbiicher, and their collaboration, which only ended 
with the death of Marx, dates from this point. The first fruit of 
this collaboration was a polemical pamphlet against Bruno Bauer, 
with whom they had likewise parted ways on principles in the 
course of the disintegration of the Hegelian school: The Holy 
Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism. Against Bruno Bauer and 
Company, Frankfurt a. M., 1845. 

Marx helped to edit a small German weekly called Vorwarts!, 
published in Paris, which poured biting scorn on the wretchedness 
of the German absolutism and sham constitutionalism of the time. 
This prompted the Prussian Government to demand that Guizot’s 
ministry expel Marx from France. It was agreed: in early 1845 
Marx moved to Brussels, and Engels arrived there soon after- 
wards. Here Marx published The Poverty of Philosophy. Answer to the 
“Philosophy of Poverty” by M. Proudhon, Brussels and Paris, 1847, 

and also ‘Speech on the Question of Free Trade”, Brussels, 1848. 
In addition he wrote occasional articles for the Deutsche-Briisseler- 
Zeitung. In January 1848 he drew up, together with Engels, the 
Manifesto of the Communist Party on the instructions of the Central 
Authority of the Communist League, a secret propaganda society 
which Marx and Engels had joined in the spring of 1847.°'° The 
Manifesto has since appeared in innumerable authorised and 
unauthorised German editions and been translated into nearly all 
European languages. 

On the outbreak of the 1848 February Revolution, which 
brought about popular movements in Brussels too, Marx was 
arrested and expelled from Belgium; in the meantime the 
Provisional Government of the French Republic had invited him 
to come back to Paris, so he returned there. 

At first in Paris he and his friends took a stand against the game 
of forming legions, which gave the majority in the new govern- 
ment a simple means of ridding themselves of the “tiresome” 
foreign workers. It was clear that such openly organised Belgian, 
German, etc., legions would only be able to march across the 
frontiers into a well-organised trap, and this was indeed the case. 
Marx and the other leaders of the Communist League obtained 
for about four hundred unemployed Germans the same travel 
allowance as the legionaries, so that they too could return to 
Germany. 

In April Marx went to Cologne, and om July 1 the Neue 
Rheinische Zeitung was published there under his management; it 
appeared for the last time on May 19 the following year. The 
editors were either threatened with judicial arrest, or with 
expulsion as non-Prussians. The latter fate befell Marx, who 
during his time in Brussels had taken his release from the 
Prussian state. During the existence of the paper he had to appear 
twice before the Jury, on February 7, 1849 because of a press 
misdemeanour, and on the 8th on charges of incitement to armed 
resistance to the government (at the time of the tax refusal, 
November 1848); both times he was acquitted.*” 

After the paper had been suppressed Marx returned to Paris, 
but after the demonstration of June 13°!° he was faced with the 
choice of either allowing himself to be interned in Brittany or of 
turning his back on France once again. He naturally chose the 
latter and moved to London, where he now finally established his 
residence. 

In London he published: the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Polttisch- 
dkonomische Revue, Hamburg, 1850, of which six issues appeared. 

His main work there was 1848 to 1849, an account of the causes 
and the inner connection of the events of these years, particularly 
in France; also (together with Engels) reviews and_ political 
résumés. The former work was soon followed by the continuation, 
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, New York, 1852, 
reissued in Hamburg in 1869 and 1885. The big Communist trial 
in Cologne gave rise to a further pamphlet, Revelations Concerning 
the Communist Trial in Cologne, Boston, 1853, latest edition Zurich, 
1885. From 1852 onwards Marx was London correspondent of the 
New-York Tribune, and for years virtual European editor. His 
articles are in part signed with his name, and in part published as 
editorials: they are not ordinary articles, but extensive accounts of 
the political and economic position of the various countries of 
Europe, based upon thorough study, and often constituting a 
whole series of articles. The military essays amongst them, on the 
Crimean War, the Indian Rebellion, etc., are by Engels. Some of 
Marx’s articles on Lord Palmerston were reprinted in London in 
pamphlet form.” His work for the Tribune only came to an end 
with the American Civil War. 

The year 1859 involved Marx, on the one hand, in a polemic 
with Karl Vogt arising from the Italian War, which found its 
conclusion in Herr Vogt by Karl Marx, London, 1860. But on the 
other hand, it brought the first fruits of his years of economic 
studies in the British Museum in the form of Part One of A 
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Berlin, 1859. This 
Part One had scarcely been published when Marx discovered that 
he was not yet completely clear about the detailed execution of the 
basic ideas of the subsequent parts; the manuscript, which is still 
extant, is the best proof of this.*'’ So he immediately started again 
from the beginning, and so, instead of the continuation, Capital 
was published in 1867. Book One: The Process of Production of Capital, 
Hamburg, 1867. 

While he was working on all three volumes of Capital—the 
second and third volumes at least in draft— Marx finally again 
found an opportunity for practical work in the world of labour. In 
1864 the International Working Men’s Association was founded. 
Many people, in particular Frenchmen, have arrogated to them- 
selves the honour of having been founders of this Association. It is 
obvious that something like this cannot be founded by one person 

alone. But one thing is certain: amongst all those participating 
there was only one who was clear about what had to be done 
and what had to be founded; and this was the man who back in 
1848 had flung the call to the world: Workingmen of all lands, 
unite! 

At the foundation of the International Giuseppe Mazzini too 
attempted to win and utilise the elements coming together for his 
mystical conspiratorial democracy Dio e popolo.’ But the drafts for 
the statutes and the Inaugural Address submitted in his name 
were rejected in favour of those edited by Marx, and from this 
point Marx was sure of the leadership of the International. He 
wrote all the promulgations of the General Council, including 
most notably The Civil War in France which appeared after the fall 
of the Paris Commune and was translated into most European 
languages. 

This is not the place to relate the history of the International. It 
is enough to say that Marx was able to draft statutes with 
principled motivation” under which French Proudhonists, German 
Communists and English New Trades Unionists could work 
together in unity, and that nothing disturbed the harmony of the 
Association until there appeared on the scene those people who 
have since then attempted to disrupt every workingmen’s move- 
ment, the anarchists under Bakunin. It is clear that the strength of 
the Association lay solely in the previously unheard-of attempt to 
unite the European and American proletariat; the General Council 
had no means but moral ones, not even funds; instead of 
the fabled “millions of the International” it generally had only 
debts. Never, probably, has so much been achieved with so little 
money. 

After the Commune the International became impossible in 
Europe. To continue in the previous form the struggle against the 
governments and against the bourgeoisie, which was equally 
excited in all countries, would have demanded enormous sac- 
rifices. Then there was the struggle inside the Association itself 
against the anarchists and the Proudhonist elements sympathising 
with them. Le jeu ne valait pas la chandelle“ So after formal Victory 
over the anarchists had been achieved at the Hague Congress,”’ 
Marx proposed that the General Council be moved to New York. 

The continued existence of the Association was thus guaranteed in 
case changed conditions made necessary its re-establishment in 
Europe. When, however, such conditions emerged, the old form 
was outdated; the movement had far outgrown the old Interna- 
tional. 

From this time Marx stayed aloof from public agitation, but this 
is not to suggest he was any less active in the European and 
American working-class movement. He was in correspondence 
with almost all the leaders in the various countries, who, whenever 
possible, consulted him on important matters; he increasingly 
became the much-sought-after and ever-willing adviser of the 
valiant proletariat. But despite all this, Marx was now able to 
devote himself once more to his studies, the field of which had 
greatly expanded in the meantime. For a man who checked every 
subject for its historical origin and its preconditions, every single 
question naturally produced whole series of new questions. 
Pre-history, agronomy, Russian and American landownership 
relations, geology, etc., were combed, in particular to work out, to 
an extent hitherto never previously attempted, the section on 
ground rent in Book III of Capital. In addition to all the 
Germanic and Romance languages, which he read with ease, he 
also learned Old Slavonic, Russian and Serbian. Unfortunately 
increasing illness prevented him from utilising the material so 
collected. On December 2, 1881 his wife died,* on January 11, 
1883 his eldest daughter,” and on March 14 of the same year he 
passed away quietly in his armchair. 

Most biographies of Marx which have appeared in print teem 
with errors. The only authentic one is that which appeared in 
Bracke’s Volks-Kalender for 1878 in Brunswick (by Engels).‘ 

The following is the fullest possible list of the published writings 
by Marx: . 

Rheinische Zeitung, Cologne, 1842: articles on the Rhine 
Province Assembly, on the situation of the peasant vintners on the 
Mosel, on wood theft; leading articles October to December 
1842.°— Deutsch-Franzésische Jahrbiicher by A. Ruge and K. Marx, 
Paris, 1844: Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law. 
Introduction; On the Jewish Question —K. Marx and F. Engels, The 
Holy Family, Against Bruno Bauer and Company, Frankfurt a.M., 

1845.—Shorter articles (anonymous) in Paris Vorwarts!, 1844.°— 
Various articles, anonymous and signed, in the Deutsche-Briisseler- 
Zeitung, Brussels, 1847-1848.°— The Poverty of Philosophy. Answer to 
the “Philosophy of Poverty” by M. Proudhon, Brussels and Paris, 1847. 
German: Stuttgart, 2nd edition, 1892. Spanish: Madrid, 1891.— 
“Speech on the Question of Free Trade”, Brussels, 1848. English: 
Boston, 1888. German in the German edition of The Poverty of 
Philosophy.—With F. Engels: Manifesto of the Communist Party, 
London, 1848. Latest German: London, 1890; translated into 
almost all European languages.—Articles in the Neue Rheintsche 
Zeitung, editorials, etc., Cologne, 1848-1849. Of these repeatedly 
reprinted separately: Wage Labour and Capital, latest Berlin, 1891; 
appeared in Russian, Polish, Italian, French.—‘“Two Political 
Processes”, Cologne, 1849 (two defence speeches by Marx).*— 
Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Revue, Hamburg, 1850. 6 issues. Including 
by Marx: 1848 to 1849.—Written with Engels: reviews and 
monthly synopses.— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 
New York, 1852. Third edition: Hamburg, 1885. Also published in 
French.— Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne, 
Basle, 1853 (edition confiscated); Boston, 1853. Latest Zurich, 
1885.— Articles in the New-York Tribune, 1852-1861. Of these 
some about Palmerston—enlarged—published as pamphlet in 
London, 1856.— Free Press, Sheffield, June 1856, and London, 
until April 1857; Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th 
Century (on the continued interested dependence of English Whig 
ministers upon Russia).— Das Volk, London, 1859: Articles on the 
diplomatic history of the Italian War of 1859.°— A Contribution to 
the Critique of Political Economy, Part One, Berlin, 1859. Polish, 
1890.— Herr Vogt, London, 1860.— The Inaugural Address of the 
Working Men’s International Association, London, 1864; further all 
publications of the General Council, up to and including The Civil 
War in France, London, 1871. (Latest German Berlin, 1891, also 
published in French, Italian, Spanish.)— Capital. A Critique of 
Political Economy, first volume, Hamburg, 1867, latest edition, 4th, 
1890. Published in Russian, French, English, Polish, Danish.—The 

same, second volume, Hamburg, 1885, second edition in the press. 
Published in Russian. The third volume will be published in 1893. 

London 

Frederick Engels