Overview of the Lives of Marx and Engels

Karl Marx (1818-83) was born into an upper-middle class German-Jewish family from Trier, an old city in the Rhineland, the third of nine children, five of whom died in infancy, of Heinrich and Henriette (née Pressburg) Marx. Marx's parents came from families possessing wealth and learning, of many rabbis. Although Henriette was religious, Heinrich, whose father was an Orthodox rabbi, became a disciple of the Enlightenment, an admirer of French culture, a deist and democrat, particularly influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire (Franois Marie Arouet), John Locke, and Immanuel Kant. Furthermore, to escape religious restrictions by Prussia (it annexed the Rhineland after the fall of Napoleon) on German Jews, who, although citizens, could not practice law or attend public schools, Heinrich converted to the Prussian Evangelical (Lutheran) Church in 1817, the children following in 1824 and wife in 1825.

Marx, a brilliant student, received an excellent education: He was tutored at home to age twelve, graduated from the Trier high school in 1835, studied law at the University of Bonn in 1835-36, attended the University of Berlin from 1836-41, concentrating on history, philosophy, and jurisprudence. He was awarded the Ph.D. in 1841 at the University of Jena. His dissertation, indicating his love of Hellenic civilization and philosophy, was entitled "Differences between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature." He also could fluently read four foreign languages – Greek, Latin, French, and English.

Soon after the completion of his university studies, Marx married Jenny von Westphalen in June 1843, the daughter of Ludwig von Westphalen, a Prussian government official who was not only a good intellectual, but also a St.-Simonian; he befriended the young Marx who considered him his second father. The marriage at first was stormy, but became pacific with time. Marx and Jenny had six children, three of whom survived, Jenny, Laura, and Eleanor; he also had a son, Fred Demuth, with the family's live-in maid, Hélène Demuth.

After graduation, Marx embarked towards radical journalism in 1842-43, moving to Cologne, serving as an editor-in-chief of the Rheinisch Zeitung. In its columns, he courageously attacked the Prussian Monarchy's opposition to democracy and its stifling press censorship and delved into the poverty of the Rhineland's peasantry. The government closed the paper in late 1843 for its bold actions, Marx resigning just before, traveling to Paris with Jenny.

It was in the 1843-44 period that Marx broadened his intellectual horizon by reading the works of French utopian socialists, particularly impressed by the Comte de Claude Henri de Rouveroy Saint-Simon.

Fredrick Engels (1820-95), Marx's intimate collaborator, was born into a wealthy Rhineland German family from Barmen, of pious Calvinists, his father Caspar being a successful textile manufacturer. Engels was not as formally educated as Marx, leaving high school before graduation at age seventeen. This did not, however, detract from his intellectual brilliance. Like Marx, an omnivorous reader, he was well versed in science, history, and philosophy, with an unusual ability to master languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and other Slavic languages, including Arabic and Persian.

Engels, unlike Marx, never married, but was a lifelong companion of Mary Burns, an Irish worker in his Manchester textile mill; for reasons of respectability, they did not live together; when she died in 1863, her sister Lydia became his companion – Engels married her on her deathbed in 1878.

Like Marx, Engels spent most of his adult life in England, from 1842-1844 and from 1850 to his death in 1895: in Manchester, managing the family's textile mill with a partner; in London, soon after his retirement in 1869, living close to Marx, seeing him daily. Engels, an able manager/businessman was quite wealthy. By 1860, his income was a thousand English pounds per year (an average English worker in 1875 earned under forty pounds per year). In 1864, he inherited a small fortune of ten thousand pounds from his father. On retirement, he invested his money in railroads and gas and water works, receiving 4.5 percent annually. Engels was very generous to the Marx family, donating money periodically, and when retiring providing Marx a 350-pound annuity.

Engel's socialist activity began in 1842 as a communist, influenced in this decision by Moses Hess, a German-Jewish socialist and early Zionist, also important in contributing to Marx's understanding of economics and sociology. Engels, as will be observed, was instrumental in Marx's becoming a communist in 1844.

Before proceeding, an important question: Why did Marx become a communist? There is perhaps no one answer to resolve this question. In fact, it might be unanswerable. Marx did not have a severe Oedipus complex that would rail against patriarchal authority; indeed, he loved his father and disliked his mother. He had all the advantages of a wealthy family and a splendid education, a promising journalistic or academic career being a certainty, yet he gave this up for a revolutionary socialism. Ultimately, it was Marx's great empathy/sympathy for the oppressed working class that best explained his Communism.

Notes

A) The Lives of Marx and Engels

1) There are many excellent biographies on Marx: The latest by Francis Wheen, Karl Marx: A Life(New York: W.W. Norton, 2000), presents a lively and sympathetic portrait of his life, which includes many of his faults, like constant begging for money, quickness to take offence, cantankerousness with friends, and addiction to smoking and alcohol. The classic one is by Franz Mehring, Karl Marx: The Story of His Life, trans. Edward Fitzgerald (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1962); first published in 1918. Three rather recent ones sympathetic to Marx include: Maximilian Rubel and Margaret Manale, Marx Without Myth: A Chronological Study of His Life and Work (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1976). Saul K. Padover, Karl Marx: An Intimate Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978); and Jerrold Seigel, Marx's Fate: The Shape of a Life (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1978). These two are hostile to Marx, but contain valuable information: Robert Payne, Marx (New...