Karl Marx Wrote Communist Manifesto To Destroy Christianity
Written by Chriss W. Street
(With China facing its first existential financial crisis as it tries to celebrate 75 years of communism on October, 1st, we present Karl Marx life)
Karl Marx was born into a highly respected German family witha long history of Jewish scholars and Rabbis in 1818. But when Karl was 6 years old, his father Heinrich Marx became a lawyer and converted to a Protestant Lutheran in the largely Roman Catholic state. Chronic turmoil over three religions caused Marx to want to destroy Christianity.
Marx was a bright student with few friends when he entered the prestigious University of Bonn in 1835 to follow his father and study law. Marx joined a tavern club, quickly ran into debt and constantly quarreled with his father over demands for more money.
After almost flunking out and being wounded in a duel, Marx was encouraged by professors to leave the school. Marx went against his father’s wishes by embracing leftist Hegelian materialism and began studying for a doctorate in philosophy.
Marx was influenced by Bruno Bauer’s radical critique that the Christian Gospels led to a form of alienation that sanctioned sectarianism and material interests. Bauer’s critique rejectingthe Divine Right of Kings became a republican rallying cry.
Along with Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Engels, Mikhail Bakunin, Richard Wagner, Frederick Douglass, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx was then attracted to University of Berlin anthropologist and philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach’s that argued that man was the highest form of intelligence.
Marx completed his doctorate at the University of Jena in 1841. His doctoral thesis: ‘The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature,’ was a scholarly exploration in support of the ancient Greek philosophy that the root of all human neuroses is denial of death and the tendency for human beings to assume that death will be horrific and painful, which he claimed causes unnecessary anxiety.
Marx tried to work with Bauer to launch the “Journal of Atheism,” but his ambitions to become a professor were crushed after collaborating with Bauer on a pamphlet that encouraged revolutionary that led to Bauer’s dismissal from the University of Bonn and Marx being barred from teaching at any German university.
Undeterred, Marx married an aristocrat’s daughter named Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Marx’s life was then characterized by intellectual studying and writing in Paris, while his growing family struggled in poverty. But over a ten day period, Marx converted the son of a rich factory owner Fredrick Engels from being a Utopian Hegelian seeking peaceful reforms of humanity, to a militant communist revolutionary.
Engels gave Marx thousands of dollars and partnered to launch an International Communist League, advocating for violent revolution. But their efforts to build a revolutionary organization in France failed, due to lack of worker interest. They then took control of the Workers' Educational Society in Brussels in August 1847, gaining immediate prestige among social reform organizations across Europe.
Marx and Engels were invited in November 1847 by the “Federation of the Just” (later the Communist League) to attend their second congress in London as representatives from Brussels. Their revolutionary fervor and organization skills took control of the Congress, and they received funding to write a manifesto.
Marx and Engles returned to Brussels and crafted a declaration advocating for the overthrow of capitalism, the abolition of private property and family, the elimination of classes, the overthrow of governments, and the establishment of a classless, stateless communist society:
“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!”
Two months later in February 1848, resentful French workersunited with bourgeoisie small business owners to overthrow French King Louis Philippe. A provisional government that included members of the Communist League, summoned Marx to establish international headquarters in Paris and coordinate revolutions across Europe.
Marx publishing a revolutionary newspaper in German titled the“Rheinische Zeitung”, and Communist League cadre were sent to support rebellion against the Prussian monarchy. But Marx arrogance and dismissive attitude towards differing opinions alienated potential supporters and the revolution collapsed by May 16, 1849. When Marx was ordered to leave the country, he printed the last edition of his newspaper in red ink.
Arriving back in Paris, Marx found the Communist League influence had faded and the French National Assembly had been retaken by monarchists. Penniless, Marx and his family fled to London where they lived in slum apartment. Marx tried to reignite revolutionary fervor, but his divisive nature alienated the proletarian ranks, and the European Central Committee moved to Cologne, Germany in 1852. The League’s leadership was soon arrested and sentenced to long prison terms for their revolutionary activities.
Marx family lived in extreme poverty in London, where his daughter Francisca died, followed by his son Edgar two years later, and another baby died at birth two years later. Thelandlady seized their belongings due to unpaid rent.
Marx received 160 pounds from a wealthy uncle in Holland. But instead of rescuing his family, he spent the money on a tour of Germany, visiting friends, drinking, and indulging in leisure activities. He returned to London broke.
London held a great international exhibition aimed at showcasing industrial achievements and fostering goodwill among nations. British labor leaders established an “International” organization to unite workers across Europe. A key figure the movement was Eccarius, a former associate of Marx that invited him to participate.
Marx carefully maneuver behind the scenes to get his ideas adopted in what became known as the International Workingmen's Association. Marx confessed to Engels thatagainst his nature, he included moderate phrases in the International’s rules to keep peace.
But once in power, Marx's began creating a core group of disciplined revolutionists to consolidate his power by eliminate any threats to his leadership. German labor leader Herr von Schweitzer was falsely accused of working for Bismarck. Then Marx turned on Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin, who Marx and Engels falsely accused of being an agent of the Russian Czar and embezzling funds, leading to Bakunin’s expulsion.
But the Marx’s purges created distrust and dissension that caused the First International to disintegrate, after English trade unions began to withdraw. Marx back in poverty, went to the public library everyday to write his book, Das Capital, whichargued violent overthrow of the current order was justified and inevitable.
Marx completed the work in 1867 and travelled to Germany to publish the book. But its complex critique and reasoning was too difficult for the working masses or intellectuals. Marx went back to London where he continued to write two more volumes that Engels later published in 1885 and 1894.
Marx's final years were marked by loneliness and defeat. He turned to his family for comfort, but his daughter Eleanor committed suicide, while another daughter, Laura, died in a suicide pact with her husband.
Ignored by labor leaders and ridiculed by reformers, Marx confidence was shattered, and his wife, Jenny died of cancer in December 1881, followed by the sudden death of his favorite daughter, Jenny, thirteen months later. Marx died in his chair on March 14, 1883. Only a small group followed Marx's casket to Highgate Cemetery in London, where Engels delivered a funeral oration, offering the praise Marx never received in life.
Marx had little indication that his ideas would eventually inspire global revolutionary movements that would eventually takeover about a third of the world by the end of World War II.