The Lives And Works Of The Great Historians – Karl Marx

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Marx had a complicated life full of contradictions. He was born into a Jewish family who had converted to Lutherist Christianity. Marx went to university in Germany to study law but spent as much time reading political philosophy and hung around with radical left wing students. He got work as an economic journalist but his articles were often heavily censored by the very conservative Prussian authorities. He married a Prussian aristocratic baroness called Jenny Von Westphalen. The Marxes moved to Paris and Karl met German Socialist, Freidrich Engels. Who had already written a study on the condition of The Working Class In England. Together, the men created The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, the principle text books on which the Russian Revolution would be founded. Marx saw history as social control and conflict entirely in terms of the class struggle, and with his focus very much on the future. Progress is the workers freeing themselves from serfdom, from the capitalists and gaining control of the means of production for themselves until the state fades away. The problem was that Marx failed to see the rise of right wing-extremists who were principally out to crush the Left. Marx also failed to see how much the Left wing governments would entrench themselves in order not to wear away, though ultimately the lack of western freedoms and their own oppressive regimes led the countries east of the iron curtain to tear it down, leaving Russia in a state of uncertainty now. More than any historian, Marx influenced future history. Since his time historians are often classed as Marxist-Socialist or non- Marxist-Socialist. Marx’s support for the failed European risings of 1848 led to him being regarded as a fugitive in many countries. He died virtually penniless in London two years after his wife. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery. In Marxism it wasn't the great leaders who did the work, but their workforce, their soldiers, cooks, slaves, serfs, employees, who would often live in slums while their leaders and employers lived in palaces. Alexander The Great didn’t conquer most of the then known World, his armies did. To Marx, the real soldiers, cooks, and workers were the true unsung heroes of social history, denied not only recognition but the true financial value of their services too. It was the lot of serfs and peasant farmers and mill workers, to be owned and exploited by the capitalists in charge of the means of production. To Marx, history represents the progress of humanity to the workers seizing the means of production, taking charge of all state initutions and gradually withering the state away until humanity is left with a true balanced, fair Communist society. Marx was therefore a historian with a clear eye on shaping the future, using the past as an example. He failed sadly to see that when one country embraced Communism after his 1883 death (The Russian Revolution of 1917) the neighbouring regions of Europe would move to the hard right (Fascism and Nazism) to buttress itself against falling in the same way, resulting in a conflict that burnt the World until 1945. The Communist regime was not a state that would wither away. Stalin effectively entrenched his power base and the regime was crushed for not offering the freedoms enjoyed by the more liberal-minded Western side of the shattered Iron Curtain. Historians since Marx are often seen as Marxist or anti-Marxist Arthur Chappell