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Marx’s early life
In this chapter you will learn:
• about Marx’s personal life and character
• the background to the society in which he lived
• key facts about his early life and career
• about his work on the Communist Manifesto
• why he became an exile.
Europe at the time of Marx
Karl Marx was born on 5 May 1818, during a time of rapid social change throughout Europe. There were two main forces for this change. The first was the Industrial Revolution that had started in Britain. This led to the growth of the factory system throughout Europe and to an increase in the size and number of cities. The invention of the steam engine and the spread of the factory system meant that people were beginning to live in a completely different way to their ancestors. In the past, people had lived and worked in closely knit communities and worked in traditional agriculture or as craftsmen. They now began flocking from rural areas into the huge new cities that were beginning to spring up all over Europe.
Agricultural reforms and machinery had increased the efficiency of farms and led to unemployment in rural areas. In addition, landowners took over common rights and grazing areas that had once belonged to everyone under the feudal system. This also increased rural poverty.
The new towns and cities were soon flooded with destitute farmers, craftsmen and their families who were desperate for work under any circumstance. They mainly worked long hours for subsistence wages in factories and mines that were completely unregulated. Even young children laboured for hours with unguarded and dangerous machinery. These unfortunate people lived in appalling conditions: squashed into slum housing with inadequate sanitation, poor food and no clean drinking water. Disease was rife and mortality rates were high.
Secondly, the French Revolution of 1789 and the Napoleonic wars (1799–1815) had led to the downfall of the monarchy and the abolition of feudalism throughout much of Europe. The feudal system was a society where the power of the ruling class, or aristocracy, rested on its control of farmable lands or fiefs. The way these societies worked varied from country to country, but in general the lands were divided out among vassals (free men), who managed them in return for military service on behalf of the aristocracy. The land was then farmed by serfs or peasants, who were not free. Marx believed that this led to a class society based upon the exploitation of the peasants who farmed the lands and his views on this are discussed later in the book.
Marx’s birthplace, Trier in the Rhineland, was then a part of Prussia, in central Europe. Prussia was a large semi-feudal empire that covered what is known today as Germany and parts of what are now Poland and Sweden. Prussia had been invaded on several occasions by the French and Trier had been part of Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine. When Napoleon was eventually defeated and exiled, in 1815, Prussia returned to being a set of kingdoms and principalities ruled by hereditary monarchies. At the end of the Napoleonic wars, state boundaries were redefined and an agreement was drawn up between Prussia, Russia and Austria; this was known as the ‘Holy Alliance’. It was an attempt by the ruling classes to preserve the social order; the aristocracy and landowners were determined to hang on to power now they had regained it.
Prussia was really a very loose patchwork of scattered countries, so it had always had a large army to keep order and had a government-controlled economy. Revolutions were sweeping through most of Europe and fear of these changes led to the Prussian state becoming overly bureaucratic, backward-looking and resistant to trade and industry. The police were particularly powerful as landowners were fearful of the democratic ideals that had led to the French Revolution. There was a deep suspicion of any new ideas, especially those that were seen to be liberal. Many free thinkers, including artists, writers and poets, moved to Paris or Switzerland to escape from this oppressive regime. Most liberal thinkers in Prussia wanted to see a united German state with a democratic constitution. In contrast, the conservatives of the time wanted to keep Germany as separate countries within the Prussian Empire.
Marx’s father, Heinrich Marx, was a lawyer. He was Jewish and came from a family that had several rabbis in its history, but he had registered as a Protestant Christian when laws were passed preventing Jews from holding public positions. Marx’s mother, Henriette, was a Dutch Jew who also came from a family that included a long line of rabbis. Marx himself did not hold any strong religious beliefs and ended his life as an atheist, but the strong anti-Jewish feeling in the Rhineland during his youth must have had some influence on him.
Although Prussia was a mainly agricultural country, the area of the Rhineland where Marx grew up was its most industrialized region. Marx’s early life there meant that he observed rural life under threat, experienced repression of religious belief and understood the power of the State and private ownership, all at first hand. These formative experiences had a part in shaping his later philosophy.
The early life of Marx
Marx’s upbringing was a middle class one. Little is known of his very early life as he became somewhat estranged from his family in his later life. He came from a fairly large family with brothers and sisters, but he was the oldest son and his brothers both died young.
His father was said to be a serious, well-educated man but not particularly imaginative. He wanted his children to fit in with the society around them and he tried to encourage them to be good members of the State and church. He wanted to elevate the social standing of the family and so became a member of the casino club, where in 1816 he met Baron Von Westphalen, a senior government officer from an aristocratic family. The two families soon became friendly; Marx’s older sister Sophie was a great friend of the Baron’s daughter Jenny, and Karl was at school with Edgar, one of the Baron’s sons.
Marx’s mother was not formally educated but this was fairly normal for women at the time. She put all her energies into bringing up her family and was forever anxious about them, even when they had grown up and left home.
Young Karl was soon seen to be possessed of a strong and creative intelligence. He was fiercely independent, domineering and argumentative from a young age. His sisters told his daughter Eleanor that he used to force them to eat mud pies but they put up with it because he would tell them imaginative stories that they loved to listen to.
His intelligence soon caught the attention of their family friend Baron von Westphalen. The Baron was a very cultured and educated man, somewhat radical in his beliefs and fond of literature, including Shakespeare who he liked to quote in the original English. The Baron became friendly with young Karl and encouraged him in his studies; they often took walks together and talked about Greek poetry. He lent many of his own books to the boy so that he could further his education and Marx dedicated his doctoral thesis to him in appreciation.
It is thought that Marx was privately educated until he joined the Trier High School in 1830. His school records do not show flashes of any particular genius but he showed signs of independent thought, and demonstrated a tendency of not going along with the crowd in his refusal to talk to a new state-appointed headmaster who was given a position at the school.
The old headmaster was a man of fairly liberal ideas and this led to a police raid on the school in 1832; literature in support of free speech was found circulating there and one of the schoolboy ringleaders was expelled. The headmaster was put under surveillance and eventually the authorities employed a very conservative co-headmaster to keep an eye on things. Marx would not talk to this man at all, and was one of the few boys who did not visit him after he graduated from school, much to his father’s embarrassment.
Although intellectually powerful, Marx never had a particularly strong constitution and was dogged by ill health for most of his life. He had a weak chest, which eventually led to him being found unfit for military service in 1836. His parents constantly fretted about his health when he went off to university in Bonn at the age of 17.
While Marx was at university his parents bombarded him with letters advising him not to study more than his health could bear, not to smoke, stay up late, drink too much wine and to keep his rooms and himself clean and hygienic. He never took much notice of their advice and for most of his life he lived in a disordered way, smoked and drank far too much, and spent long hours studying and writing.
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