Some Communist Manifesto quotes:-
A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of
Communism.
The class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of
the proletariat.
Religion ... is the opium of the people.
The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various
ways; the point, however, is to change it.
The workers have nothing to lose but their chains.
Some quirky aspects of
Karl Marx biography
Although KM's ancestors on both sides of his family
included many Jewish Rabbis his father conformed to evangelical
Lutheranism in order to avoid civil disabilities in force against
Jews and to advance his legal career in Cologne.
KM's father owned a number of Moselle vinyards.
KM was introduced to the works of Shakespeare quite
early in life and developed an enduring, and great, admiration
for his works.
KM was excused military service because of a weak
chest.
In his late teens KM, despite his Jewish background and
somewhat questionable prospects in life, became engaged to a
truly gorgeous daughter of a German baronial house who was four
years his senior. This lady had a paternal grandfather who had
been Chief of Staff in the Prussian armies during the Seven Years
War and her mother was closely descended from Scottish Earls. The
engaged couple remained unmarried for about seven years.
KM may have contemplated becoming a literary man but,
despite a high degree of intellectual brilliance, he found that
he had not the appropriate talents.
As a radical journalist KM was expelled from the
Germanies and Belgium. He was also expelled from Paris with
permission to live in a notoriously unhealthy part of provincial
France. He therefore was obliged to seek a home in England though
at one time seems to have contemplated moving on to the United
States. An inability to raise the fare may have deterred such a
move.
On his mothers side KM was a Philips, the same Philips
whose name is to this day displayed on a major European
electronics companies products.
KM's wife was a daughter of her fathers second
marriage. A son of his first marriage rose to become Minister of
the Interior in Prussia. Reactionary Prussia would in any case
have kept the noted radical Karl Marx under surveillance.
A lack of amity between this personally reactionary Minister
and KM's family tended to make this surveillance more
intense.
KM fathered a child born to the Marx family's
housekeeper Helene Delmuth.
When KM had money he was very open handed with friends
and with socialist causes. Whether he had money or whether he had
not KM's family was very apt to attempt a bougeoise
lifestyle that was beyond their means. Their valuables were often
in pawn and they were routinely harassed by creditors.
Whilst KM maintained good ideological terms with
Friedrich Engels virtually all other would-be socialist and
communist ideologues who came to his notice were excoriated at
one time or another as deviationists or opportunists.
For much of his adult life KM suffered greatly from
frequent attacks of painful boils that could break out on any
part of his body.
KM wrote to Charles Darwin seeking consent to a
dedication to Darwin appearing on an english language edition of
KM's works. Darwin refused such consent.
At one stage of his life KM received a substantial
bequest from Wilhelm Wolff, a communistic comrade, and
subsequently dabbled with some success in stocks and
shares.
KM lived in perpetual expectation of a serious crisis
in Capitalism that would precipitate Communist revolution.
At one time during his years of living in London KM
applied for a job as a clerk but was turned down becuse of his
handwriting. Only his wife and Friedrich Engels could decipher
it!!!
Throughout his life KM spent much time in the British
Museum reading room buried in books on philosophy and economics.
Continuing extensive subsidies from his friend Friedrich Engels,
who considered KM to be a true genius, helped keep
KM's family from going under completely in their financial
affairs. Engels was employed in his father's cotton business in
Lancashire.
Throughout his life KM spent much time in the British
Museum reading room buried in books on philosophy and economics.
Continuing extensive subsidies from his friend Friedrich Engels,
who considered KM to be a true genius, helped keep
KM's family from going under completely in their financial
affairs. Engels was employed in his father's cotton business in
Lancashire.
In living such a life KM echoed somewhat the lives of his Rabbinical ancestors.
It was commonplace in European Jewish life for the wealthy members of the community to
gain merit through the patronage of recognised scholars.
KM does not appear to have attempted to involve himself
with wider English society during his years in London.
Only eleven mourners attended KM's funeral on
17th March 1883. In a graveside oration his long time
friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels predicted that:- "His
name and work will endure through the ages."
Within a century four in every ten of the world's population
lived under forms of governance more or less inspired by the
writings of KM. Many of the "Social Democratic?" societies
meanwhiles were variously caught up in a "cold war" situation
intended by themselves to limit the further spread of
Marxism.
Karl Marx was very much a materialist. In his view Religion
was "The opiate of the masses" whilst Marxist-Leninism came to
regard nationalism as a form of "Bourgeois Deviationism."
It may be however that Life is Larger than Marx
allowed!!!
Popular European History pages
at Age-of-the-Sage
- 1 The European Revolution of 1848 begins
- A broad outline of the background to the onset of the turmoils and a consideration of some of the early events.
- 2 The French Revolution of 1848
- A particular focus on France - as an Austrian foreign minister said "When France sneezes Europe catches a cold".
- 3 The Revolution of 1848 in the German Lands and central Europe
- "Germany" had a movement for a single parliament in 1848 and many central European would-be "nations" attempted
to assert a distinct existence separate from the dynastic sovereignties they had been living under.
- 4 The "Italian" Revolution of 1848
- A "liberal" Papacy after 1846 helps allow the embers of an "Italian" national aspiration to rekindle across the Italian Peninsula.
- 5 The Monarchs recover power 1848-1849
- Some instances of social and political extremism allow previously pro-reform conservative elements to support
the return of traditional authority. Louis Napoleon, (who later became the Emperor Napoleon III), attains to power
in France offering social stability at home but ultimately follows policies productive of dramatic change in the wider European
structure of states and their sovereignty.
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