Thomas Sowell: Marx The Man

marks the man after a century of myths and counter myths of deification and demonizing it is hard to realize that behind all the portraits and caricatures to be seen on printed pages and on banners there really was a flesh-and-blood human being named Karl Marx he was born in the little German town of Trier in the Rhineland in 1818 in a three-story townhouse in a fashionable part of town a baron lived nearby and his four year old daughter was destined to become Karl Marx's wife the people who signed his Witnesses on Karl Marx's birth certificate were prominent citizens the Marx's like their neighbors and friends had servants property education and local prominence unlike most of their neighbors and friends however both Heinrich Marx and his wife Henriette were descended from a long line of rabbis indeed the town's chief rabbi was his brother but they were brothers estranged from each other since Heinrich Marx had abandoned the faith of his father's Karl Marx was baptized a Lutheran and throughout his life he spoke of Jews in the third-person and seldom complimentary Lee Marx was the third child born in his family the second to survive and the oldest boy younger brothers and sisters were born annually for the next four years and then two more at two year intervals the father was a prosperous lawyer who also owned vineyards as well as houses whose rents supplemented his income he was a man of wide culture and political liberalism his son idolized him and in later years spoke of him often to his own children though they had never seen him his death having occurred decades before Marx's mother was Dutch and spoke German with a heavy Dutch accent she was a devoted housewife not a woman of learning and though her son loved her in childhood they were soon estranged in his early adulthood when she died many years later Marx expressed not the slightest sorrow Youth Karl Marx grew up a brilliant spoiled child who bullied his younger sisters and taunted his schoolmates with sarcastic witticisms in addition to entertaining both with imaginative stories he had a swarthy complexion that in later years earned in the nickname the moor a name used far more often in his inner circle including his children than was his real name his neighbor baron von Westphalen took a great interest in Marx as a youth and the learned Baron would often take long walks with him discussing Homer Shakespeare Voltaire or other great writers in any of a number of languages that the Baron spoke as a young man Karl Marx attended the University of Vaughan for one year there he was an enthusiastic student but also an enthusiastic drinker and took part in rowdiness and at least one duel his father transferred him to the University of Berlin a larger and more serious institution but the self indulgent bohemian and spendthrift habits that Marx had exhibited at Bonn continued at Berlin where he was sued several times for non-payment of debts his father's letters show growing recriminations directed not only at his son's prodigious capacity to waste money a talent he never lost throughout his life but also at a more disturbing personal characteristic ego mania one of Marx's many poems at this period says then I will wander godlike and victorious through the ruins of the world and giving my words an active force I will feel equal to the Creator the themes of destruction corruption and savagery run through Marx's poems of this era two of which were published in a small literary magazine of the time under the title savage songs there was nothing political about these writings Marx had not yet turned his attention in that direction he was simply as one biographer said a man with the peculiar faculty for relishing disaster a contemporary description of Marx as a student depicts the same demonic personality again not yet in a political context but who advances here full of impetuosity it is a dark form from Trier an Unleashed monster with self-assured steppe he hammers the ground with his heels and raises his arms in all fury to heaven as though he wished to seize the celestial vault and lower it to earth in rage he continually deals with his redoubtable fists as if a Thousand Devils were gripping his hair in short Marxist angry apocalyptic visions existed before he discovered capitalism as the focus of such visions Marx entered the University of Berlin a few years after the death of its most famous professor GWF Hegel whose posthumous influence was even greater than during his lifetime Marx began to associate with a group called the young Hegelians who were preoccupied with philosophy in general and religion in particular or rather with atheism for they were radical critics of Christianity Marx's formal studies languished he took only two courses in his last three years at the University of Berlin Marx became a bohemian student who merely regarded the university as his camping ground and he was largely self-taught the death of his father in 1838 and his long engagement to Jenny von Westphalen eventually made it necessary that he prepared to bring his studies to a close although he had studied at the University of Berlin he applied for a doctorate at the University of Vienna an easier institution noted as a diploma mill his doctoral dissertation was on to ancient materialist philosophers Democritus and Epicurus early career searching aimlessly for a career marks drifted into journalism and became editor of Rheinische Zeitung a liberal newspaper reflecting marks his own political views at that time as well as that of the rhineland middle class in general under the Prussian repression of that era liberalism was an embattled an endangered Creed and Marx made the newspaper more controversial and more widely read than before his running of the paper was characterized by a contemporary as a dictatorship of Marx as so many groups with which he was affiliated would be throughout his lifetime another contemporary described him as domineering impetuous passionate full of boundless self-confidence Marx engaged in a running battle of wits with the government's censors and ironically tried to restrain some of the more radical of the newspapers writers among these was another young man from an affluent background named Moses Hess a communist who eventually converted still another such offspring of wealth to communism Friedrich Engels Marx however purged Hess from the newspaper for his smuggling into the newspaper of communist and socialist dogmas disguised as theatrical criticism only after Marx finally resigned his editor to spare the paper from being banned did he begin the studies that would eventually lead him to communism during the same period in the early 1840s Marx had a decisive break with his family now that his father was dead and the estate had to suffice for eight people to live on Frau Marx was not inclined to continue indefinitely sending money to her eldest son now fully grown and holding a doctoral degree Marx had continued his already long-standing practice of running up bills that he could not pay and was outraged that his mother cut off his remaining small allowance as he put it in a letter to a friend although they are quite rich my family has placed difficulties in my way which have temporarily placed me in an embarrassing situation such temporary embarrassments were to become a permanent feature of Marx's life over the next four decades nevertheless he eventually persuaded the aristocratic bond best fallens to let him marry their daughter now 29 years old who had waited faithfully for him for seven years it was not a marriage whose prospects were viewed with favour by either family there was a church wedding in 1843 but most of her family and all of his family stayed away however the bride's mother paid for the honeymoon and in addition turned over to the couple a small legacy which she had received this legacy was held in the form of coins in a strongbox which Marx and his bride then left open in their hotel rooms inviting any visitors to take whatever they might need it was empty before they returned to her home where they lived with her mother for several months in October 1843 Marx and his wife now pregnant moved to Paris where he was hired to contribute to a publishing venture a bilingual journal for German and French readers only one issue ever appeared Marx and the editor quarrel dand broke up leaving marks without funds in a foreign land a collection was hastily taken up by friends in Cologne and the couple was rescued as they would be again and again throughout their lives here in Paris Marx began the studies that led him to communism he also began to meet other radical figures at the time including the radical poet Heinrich Heine Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin and the French radical writer pierre-joseph Prudhomme Heine though at first a great friend of the Marxist was eventually alienated by Karl Marx's arrogance and dogmatism in later years Heine described the Paris radicals including Marx as a crowd of godless self-appointed gods among these radicals was a young German whom Marx had met briefly before Friedrich Engels collaboration with angles angles two years younger than marks came from an even wealthier family which owned half interest in a factory in Germany and half interest in another factory in England his father had never been as indulgent as Marx's father and angles never attended the University but he was well-read and by middle age could read and write nearly two dozen languages angles was sent away at 17 to get on-the-job training in the family business in Bremen here he was not overworked he was after all an owner's son and was known to have beer cigars poems and correspondence with him and to take a leisurely lunch and a nap afterwards in a hammock he also found time to study Hegel angles eventually became a member of the young Hegelians and in 1842 had his first brief meeting with the editor of the Rheinische Zeitung Karl Marx their first meeting was cool for Marx view dangles at that point as just another member of the radical group whose literary contributions to the paper were causing him trouble with the censors from 1842 to 1844 angles lived in Manchester England working in the family business there and observing the conditions of the working people in this industrial town observations which led to his first book the conditions of the working class in England in 1844 when he passed through Paris on his way back to the Rhineland in 1844 he again met Marx and this time many days of discussion found them in complete agreement on questions of theory as they continued to be for the remaining decades of their lives at this juncture Engles was not only further advanced than marks on the road to communism but was also much better versed in economics although their first joint publication the Holy Family appeared a year later there was at that point no suggestion of a continuing collaboration between them the foreword to the Holy Family promised future writings from the pair each for himself of course but in reality later events brought them together again in England in a permanent alliance in which their ideas and words were so intermingled that it would be rash to say conclusively a hundred years later what was Marx's and what was angles even Marx's daughter after his death mistakenly published a collection of her father's newspaper articles that later turned out all to have been written by angles the most famous of their explicitly collaborative writings was of course the Communist Manifesto it's Genesis typify the pattern of Marxian political intrigue a radical organization in London called the League of the just was in process of reorganization to become the Communist League and it involved several people in the drawing up of its credo one of these submitted his draft to angles who confess to Marx that just between ourselves I played a hellish trick on mosy substituting the Marxian program for the draft entrusted to him angles realized the enormity of his betrayal for he cautioned Marx to utter secrecy otherwise we shall be deposed and there will be a murderous scandal thus Marx and Engels made themselves the voices of communism Engles wrote up a document in question and answer format but then decided that he did not like it he turned his work over to Marx to redo in some other format and suggested the title the Communist Manifesto slowly the document evolved written mostly in the style of Marx though reproducing some ideas from angles earlier draft it was published in February 1848 as the manifesto of the communist party with no authors listed as though it were the work of some major organization rather than of a relative handful of radical refugees the members of the Communist League were overwhelmingly intellectuals and professionals with very few skilled craftsmen their average age was under 30 it had the same kind of social composition that would in later years characterise the so-called International workingmen's association and many other radical groups in which the youthful offspring of privilege called themselves the proletariat when Angles was elected as delegate to the Communist League in 1847 in order to conceal what was in fact an unopposed election in Engles own words a working man was proposed for appearances sake but those who proposed him voted for me ironically the year 1848 was a year of revolutions but revolutions which differed from that described in the communist manifesto the bourgeoisie and the proletariat were in revolutionary alliance against the autocratic European governments on the continent during the upheavals that swept across Europe Marx and Engels returned to Germany Marx to edit a newspaper the NOI Rheinische Zeitung in his familiar dictatorial style angles worked at first as his chief assistant until he had to flee an order for his arrest for inciting to violence angles made his way through France to Switzerland enjoying along the way the sweetest grapes and loveliest of girls this continued angles long lasting pattern of womanizing which included the wife of a fellow communist whose seduction he revealed to another communist when in my cups he was particularly fond of French women reporting to Marx in 1846 some delicious encounters with grazetti and later observing if I had an income of five thousand francs I would do nothing but work and amuse myself with women until I went to pieces if there were no French women life wouldn't be worth living in 18-49 Engles returned to germany where the revolution was being suppressed and took part in armed fighting against the government forces an expulsion order was issued against Marx who had to liquidate the newspaper with ruinous financial losses by the latter half of 1849 marx and engels had separately made their ways to England where they were destined to spend the rest of their lives exiles the dream of returning to the continent in triumph after revolutions there continued to fascinate marx and engels one scholar has countered more than 40 anticipations of impending revolution in their letters and writings over the next 30 years none of which materialized but as early as 1850 marx and engels had to begin making some preparations for a livelihood in england marx was then 32 angles 30 and neither of them had ever been self-supporting they had lived off allowances and gifts from their families including Marx's wife's family off small inheritances from relatives the sale of belongings borrowings credit defaults emergency collections among friends and colleagues and a few scattered and meager earnings from their writings now most of these sources had dried up both Marx and Engels were estranged from their families who were as disappointed at their prolonged dependency as they were repelled by their doctrines still as late as 18-49 Marx's much despised mother advanced him enough money from his future inheritance to enable him to live comfortably for years though in fact it was all gone within one year much of it spent to buy arms for abortive uprisings and to finance Marx's newspaper Engles pious father described by the younger angles as bigoted and despotic nevertheless supported him financially at age 30 angles accepted his father's offer to work in the family business in Manchester this became the source of Angles livelihood and much of Marx's the young angles called it forced labour a painfully ironic term in view of what that phrase was to come to mean in 20th century communist societies angles complained for example that I've now got to be at the office no later than 10:00 in the morning the firm in which angles father had half interest employed about 800 workers though angles began on a modest level in the management his position and his pay rose over the years until he was able to retire at age 50 with substantial funds for himself and at the same time provide a very generous annuity that relieved marks a financial worry for the rest of his life but before reaching that point the financial position of Marx and his growing family was often dire and occasionally desperate in 1850 the Marx family moved into the slums of London where they spent most of the next 20 years during this time it was often difficult for Marx to come up with the money to pay the rent buy groceries or pay his bills the family often dodged creditors were evicted for non-payment of rent on some occasions had to live on bread and potatoes frequently pawned their meager belongings and had three children died amid the squalor including one for whom there was no money for a burial until a gift was received for that purpose yet despite the very real and very painful poverty in which Marx often found himself his known sources of income were sufficient for a lower middle-class family standard of living at that time and was about three times the income of an unskilled worker a contemporary German exile but the similar income to Marx's boasted of eating luscious beefsteak regularly Marx's only regular earnings were as a foreign correspondent for the New York Tribune but angles supplemented this even in the early years before his own finances were solid and other gifts and inheritances added materially to Marx's resources the problem was Marx's chronic inability to manage money and especially his and his wife's tendency to splurge when large sums came in moreover Marx spent at least 100 pounds on a futile lawsuit against an obscure slanderer named forked enough to support a family for months in those times and wasted still more money in time on a long-forgotten book of rebuttal called hair forked for which he was sued in court to collect the unpaid costs of publication in 1864 Marx received a number of inheritances that added up to ten times what he had been living on annually and yet he was still debt ridden in 1868 when angles came to his rescue by paying off Marx's debts and then giving him an annuity ironically marks his most important research and writing were done during these years of travail and heartbreak and he produced little during the last dozen or so years of his life when he led a prosperous bourgeois existence during the 1850s he buried himself in the reading room of the British Museum during the day studying economics until late at night and into the wee hours of the morning he scribbled the voluminous manuscripts that represented several abortive attempts to write the book that eventually emerged as capital angles wrote little during this period when he was working as a capitalist in Manchester and underwriting Marx's efforts in the Communist cause of overthrowing capitalism physical ills dogged Marx increasingly with the passing years his irregular sleeping habits alcohol consumption and lack of personal cleanliness or exercise may well have contributed to these as his improvidence made his family prey to hunger disease and the deaths of three children in infancy and early childhood but he blamed these tragedies like most of his troubles on other people the death of his infant son he blamed on bourgeois misery which he apparently considered also the cause of the boils that covered his body for he promised to make the bourgeoisie pay for them via his revolutionary writings Marx repeatedly denounced creditors who insisted on collecting what he owed them he even lost his temper at his wife for her bouts of tears in the midst of mounting tragedies even during the long years of poverty the Marx household had a maid Helene DeMuth better known by her nickname of lantian she had been a servant of the elder Baroness westfalen who in 1845 sent her as a present to her daughter who was unprepared to take care of children nor a household though the Marx's were seldom in a position to pay her dear faithful engine remained in their service to their dying days and then went to work for angles in her youth she passed up suitors and other opportunities for jobs to stay and serve the marxist in 1851 during the most desperate period of the Marx family when Marx's wife was pregnant luncheon soon became pregnant too only a few friends knew of the child's birth he was sent away to be raised by a working-class family and there was no father's name on the birth certificate marks his wife was told that angles a bachelor was the father but long after the deaths of Marx and his wife it came out that in fact the father was Karl Marx angles confirmed it on his deathbed - Marx's tearful daughter in his life he had taken the blame for Marx in order to save his friend's marriage but in death angles was apparently not prepared to take the blame forever the child himself Freddie DeMuth grew up with no relationship with Marx and never visited his mother as long as the Marx's were alive only after their deaths when Helen DeMuth became Angles housekeeper did the boy begin visiting his mother entering and leaving by the back door he was sacrificed first to Marx's convenience then to Marx his image his mother apparently loved him when she died she left everything to him Marx's human relationships in general were self-centered if not exploitative when his wife gave birth to a child who died immediately Marx briefly mentioned his own reactions in the letter to angles so totally ignoring the effect on his wife that angles reply reminded him that you don't say how she is in 1851 at the age of 33 Marx wrote to my mother threatening to draw bills on her and in the event of non-payment going to Prussia and myself be locked up when his mother refused to be blackmailed this way marks complained of her insolent reply after his mother later died in 1863 Marx's letter to angles was a model of brevity wasting no sentiment on the old woman and focusing entirely on getting his inheritance immediately nor was this the only occasion when death in the family was seen in purely economic terms earlier in 1852 he referred to some good news the illness of my wife's indestructible uncle and added if that dog dies now I'll be out of trouble financially because Marx wanted German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle to find me some literary business in Germany to supplant my diminished income and increased expenditure he cultivated him with flattery to his face and contempt behind his back Marx referred to LaSalle's book on Hegel as an exhibition of enormous erudition when writing to LaSalle and as a silly concoction when writing to Engles Marx added that LaSalle was a Jewish [ __ ] based on Marx's analysis of his appearance it is now perfectly clear to me that has testified also by his cranial formation and hair growth he is descended from the Negroes who joined Moses exodus from egypt unless his paternal mother or grandmother was crossed with a [ __ ] well this combination of jewish and germanic stock with the negroid basic substance is bound to yield a strange product the fellows in portunity is also [ __ ] like Engles likewise seized upon LaSalle's ancestry called him a true Jew and from first to laughte the stupid kid crude and repulsive as Marxist and angles racial remarks to each other often were there is no need to make them still worse by putting them in the same category as 20th century racism that is justified genocide Marx is much criticized essay on the Jewish Question for example contains clear statements of his distaste for what he considered to be Jewish cultural or social traits but in the end it was a defense of Jews right to full political equality written as a reply to a contemporary who had claimed that Jews should be required to give up their religion before receiving equal civil status Marx hoped that the characteristics he disliked in Jews would fade away with the disappearance of capitalism thus leading to abolishing the essence of Jewry but hardly in the sense of Hitler and the Nazis similarly despite his anti-negro stereotypes during the American Civil War he conducted propaganda for the north and for the emancipation of slaves perhaps more indicative he agreed to the marriage of his eldest daughter to a man known to have some Negro ancestry after discouraging other suitors likewise angles in 1851 expressed to a friend his hope that the present persecution of Jews in Germany will spread no further Marx and Engels were in short inconsistent and privately crude but hardly racial fanatics the first international along with the Communist Manifesto and capital the other milestone in Marx's career was his leadership of the first international the International workingmen's association Marx's legendary fame today makes it difficult to realize that he was an obscure figure with no substantial following in the early 1860s that his writings were largely ignored and that even a man as knowledgeable as John Stuart Mill could live for 20 years in the same city writing on the same topics in utter ignorance that someone named Karl Marx even existed the International workingmen's association rescued him from that obscurity as in the earlier case of the Communist League Marx appeared on the scene just as an existing organization was in process of reorganizing and seized the opportunity to maneuver his way to control initially Marx was only one of a number of people on a committee charged with drafting a statement of purpose for the International in 1864 he had taken no active part in the organization before was only belatedly brought into the discussions and was mentioned last on the list of participants yet Marx was able to get the group bogged down in interminable discussions as a prelude to his coup as he described it in a letter to angles in order to gain time I proposed that before we edited the preamble we should discuss the rules this was done it was an hour after midnight before the first of the 40 rules were agreed to creamer said and this was what I was aiming for we have nothing to show the committee which meets on October 25th we must postpone the meeting to November first but the subcommittee can get together on October 27th and attempt to reach a definite conclusion this was agreed to and the documents were sent back for my opinion from here on it was Marx's show on a pretext Marx's own word I altered the whole Priya throughout the declaración the principai and finally replaced the 40 rules with 10 he then maneuvered some Marxists into key positions in the new organization and by 1867 was writing to angles of this powerful machinery in our hands and of his own influence from behind the scenes the membership of the International was however never predominantly Marxist and conflicting currents were always at work angles only hoped that the next international would become communist and openly proclaim our principles eventually the commanding figure of the Russian revolutionary anarchist Mikhail Bakunin rose to challenge Marx for control of the International their struggle for control ultimately destroyed the organization Marx managed to get bakunin expelled and had the headquarters of the International transferred to the United States where it would be safe from other european revolutionary challenges even though he knew that would also mean its demise as well it was a rule or ruin tactic that would appear again and again in later communist infiltration of non communist organizations twilight years in the decade that remained of his life after the destruction of the International marks published little his financial worries were largely behind him but illnesses plagued him and his wife the completion of capital was delayed not only by illness but also by Marx's side excursions into other subjects notably the history of Russia which required him to learn the Russian language even Engles did not know that Marx had left the manuscripts of volumes two and three of capital sit untouched for years while he dallied with other matters when Engles discovered this after Marx's death he said that if I had been aware of this I would not have let him rest day or night until everything had been finished and printed Engles had been vainly urging Marx since 1845 to finish the projected book on economics as it was much of the last two decades of Engles life were taken up trying to decipher and assemble the manuscripts for the remaining two volumes of capital realizing the monumental task that this involved and his own advancing age Engels initiated the young Karl Kautsky into the mysteries of Marx's handwriting enabling Kowski to eventually assemble the remaining manuscripts into theories of surplus-value a separate three volume work originally intended by Marx as the final volume of capital thus a work begun in the middle of the nineteenth century was not completely published until the end of the first decade of the 20th century Marx once observed that all his earnings from capital would not pay for the cigars he smoked while writing it it took four years to sell one thousand copies and though translations began to appear with the passing years Marx remained in his lifetime a little-known figure outside the ranks of revolutionaries his greatest notoriety came as a defender of the bloody activities of the Paris Commune of 1871 his book on the subject the civil war in France sold far more copy than the Communist Manifesto Marx relished this public notoriety though it also included death threats the Marx family even after being relieved from dire poverty had many rocky roads to travel marks his wife a beauty in her youth found herself with a pockmarked face as a result of illness in her words looking more like a kind of rhinoceros which is escaped from a zoo than a member of the Caucasian race she remained a nervous wreck and irritable with her children as a result of decades of strain for which her pampered upbringing had not prepared her while her mother's servant Helene DeMuth had been a godsend to a young wife unable to take care of children money or a household luncheons handling of these responsibilities may also have [ __ ] or prevented Jenny Marx from maturing her immaturity was still evident long after she ceased to be young at age 50 she realized a lifetime ambition by giving a ball complete with uniformed servants and hired musicians even as a middle-aged woman and the wife of a revolutionary she had visiting cards printed up identifying herself as baroness von Westphalen nor were these the only vanities in which she and Marx indulged they continued to give their daughters piano lessons music and dancing lessons even when this sometimes meant not paying the rent keeping up appearances was a major item in the Marx's budget throughout their lives during his worst years of financial desperation Marx strove mightily and with pained embarrassment to prevent visitors from discovering his poverty though angles pointed out how futile and pointless this was even when this required his wife to take everything that was not actually screwed down to the pawnshop to pay for entertaining them during one of his worst financial crises Marx contemplated the most extreme reduction of expenditure which might include requiring him to move into purely proletarian accommodation and get rid of the maids the three Marx daughters all became involved with men unable to support them too through marriage and one in a common-law relationship all received money at one time or other from angles the eldest to pay overdue rent the middle daughter repeatedly for a variety of reasons and the youngest in a large inheritance which she did not live long to enjoy Marx's relationships with his children and grandchildren however show his most happy and human side he was a gentle and indulgent father who amused his children with his own original fairy tales and picnicked and played with them with great relish the deaths of those who perished in childhood severely affected him for years afterwards Marx wrote in a letter bacon says that really important men have so many contacts with nature in the world and have so much to interest them that they easily get over their loss I am NOT one of these important men my child's death has shattered my heart and brain and I feel the loss as keenly as on the first day dismiss marks with his children was a very different man from the marks described by his adult contemporaries when his father questioned whether his heart was as good as his head he raised a question that many others would continue to raise about marks throughout his life a fellow revolutionary said of Marx if his heart had matched his intellect and if he possessed as much love as hate I would have gone through fire for him but a most dangerous personal ambition has eaten away all the good in him still another radical contemporary Pradhan wrote to Marx for God's sake after we have abolished all the dogmatism Zay priori let us not of all things attempt in our turn to instill another kind of dogma into the people he said let us have decent and sincere polemics let us give the world an example of learnin and farsighted tolerance but simply because we are at the head of the movement let us not make ourselves the leader of a new intolerance let us not pose as the apostle of a new religion even though this religion be the religion of logic the religion of reason Karl shirts while still a youthful revolutionary in Germany before his later fame as a liberal in the United States met Marx and formed an opinion of him that accords with the impressions of many others I have never seen a man whose bearing was so provoking and intolerable to no opinion which differed from his he accorded the honor of even a condescending consideration everyone who contradicted him he treated with abject contempt every argument that he did not like he answered either with biting scorn at the unfathomable ignorance that had prompted it or with appropriate suspicions upon the motives of him who had advanced it Marx liked to glare at anyone who challenged his conclusions and say I will annihilate you the radicals and revolutionaries who mark successively alienated over a period of 40 years reads like a who's who of the 19th century political left even the patient and long-suffering angles came close to a break with Marx who's Curt and clumsy remarks on the death of angles common-law wife in 1863 wounded his friend angles wrote all my friends including Philistine acquaintances have shown me more sympathy and friendship on this occasion which inevitably affected me quite closely than I had a right to expect you found the moment suitable for a demonstration of the superiority of your cool manner of thinking so be it Marx's apology brought forgiveness and the historic partnership continued the younger Marx of the 1840s presented a more humane vision in his writings and has become something of a refuge for modern radicals disillusioned with the more blatantly severe later Marx who seemed to presage Lenin and Stalin light-hearted humor also brightened some of these earlier writings in a way seldom seen again in the later works of Marx and Engels yet it would be a mistake to ignore the authoritarian and terroristic elements that were as present in these earlier writings as in the later ones and in angles as well as Marx angles first draft for the communist manifesto included compulsory labor a deliberate undermining of the family by ending the dependence of the wife upon the husband and of the children upon the parents and the erection of common dwellings for communities of citizens to replace family homes Marx is no Rheinische Zeitung declared on its last day of publication when our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism a current vogue aptly characterized as Ingles baiting makes it especially important to assess angles role in Marxism angles was much more than Marxist friend and benefactor he was one of the very few people with whom Marx had intellectual interchange and by far the most important for most of his life Marx has an obscure autodidact was utterly cut off from participation in the world of universities learn at journals scholarly conferences and other institutionalized intellectual exchange nor did he have any intellectual interaction by correspondence or in person with the leading minds of his time Mill Darwin Tolstoy Menger or Dostoyevsky for example marks his relationship with contemporary radical intellectuals was one of tutelage or hostility his correspondence consisted overwhelmingly of gossip intrigue and passing remarks on current events and contemporary personalities only with angles were serious intellectual matters discussed with even occasional regularity angles early economic writing provided the basic conception that Marx systematized and elaborated in the massive volumes of capital finally angles piecing together an editing of the many manuscripts for the posthumous volumes of Marx's magnum opus was a monumental work of dedication and self-sacrifice stretching over more than a decade Engels was not only a far clearer writer than Marx but often more subtly and accurately conveyed Marx's theories especially of history for he did not so readily indulge in Marx's penchant for epigrams at the expense of accuracy Bengals letters on the Marxian theory of history are a major contribution to understanding what Marx actually did in his historical writings as distinguished from how Marx tried to encapsulate his practice in cliches that continued to obscure more than they reveal there is no way to know what angles would have accomplished in the decades he devoted first to earning a living for both himself and Marx and then to completing Marx's unfinished work but what he actually accomplished was both impressive and indicative his socialism utopian and scientific remains the best summary of the system of thought that bears the name of Marx how much of Marxism originated in fact with angles is a question that may never be answered angles was clearly a precursor of Marxian crisis theory in economics as Marx himself indicated angles letters to marks also presage the content and title of Marx's eighteenth Brumaire but the collaborative writings of Marx and angles and their unrecorded conversations over a period of 40 years preclude any definitive disentangling of their respective contributions to Marxism in 1883 at the graveside of Marx angles painted an idealized picture that provided the stuff of which legends are made he began on the 14th day of March at a quarter to three in the afternoon the greatest living thinker ceased to think according to angles Marx discovered the law of development of human history and also the special law of motion governing the present day capitalist mode of production innumerable slanders Marx brushed aside as though it were cobweb and though he may have had many opponents he had hardly one personal enemy this was at best a highly sanitized picture of a man who personalized every quarrel and whose letters to angles were full of spiteful gossip and petty intrigues finally angles funeral oration ended with these words his name will endure through the ages and so also will his work Marx's name has indeed become infinitely better known than when he died in relative obscurity in London a hundred years ago how much of what has happened in the 20th century is his work and in what sense is a much larger and more complex question for Marx the man he perhaps wrote his own best epitaph when he said nothing that his human is foreign to me others made him an abstraction and an icon

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Published: Fri Aug 03 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/MiyegomboBayartsogt]

Nobody claims Marx was a kind man. No one says he was nice to children or compassionate or generous or caring. History does not record anything about Marx doing charity work or helping his fellow man. Nothing indicates Marx was concerned with the welfare of anyone but himself.

His political ideology reflects this so it's no wonder Marxism manifests as mass murder.

[u/TotalistGoose]

I commend your generosity twords such a horrid person. Calling him a man is too kind and inaccurate in my book. He is more akin to a spoiled man-child than an actual man.

[u/geronl72]

Lenin was no saner