Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, sociologist, humanist, political theorist and revolutionary credited as the founder of communism.

Marx's approach to history and politics is indicated by the opening line of the first chapter of The Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. Marx argued that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, will produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, capitalism itself will be displaced by communism, a stateless, classless society which emerges after a transitional period, the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'.

On the one hand, Marx argued for a systemic understanding of socioeconomic change. He argued that it is the structural contradictions within capitalism which necessitate its end, giving way to communism:
“ The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. ”

— (The Communist Manifesto)

On the other hand, Marx argued that socioeconomic change occurred through organized revolutionary action. He argued that capitalism will end through the organized actions of an international working class, led by a Communist Party: "Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." (from The German Ideology)

While Marx was a relatively obscure figure in his own lifetime, his ideas began to exert a major influence on workers' movements shortly after his death. This influence was given added impetus by the victory of the Marxist Bolsheviks in the Russian October Revolution, and there are few parts of the world which were not significantly touched by Marxian ideas in the course of the twentieth century.

Works (selection)

* Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, 1843
* On the Jewish Question, 1843
* Notes on James Mill, 1844
* Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, 1844
* The Holy Family, 1845
* Theses on Feuerbach, 1845
* The German Ideology, 1845
* The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847
* Wage-Labor and Capital, 1847
* Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848
* The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, 1852
* Grundrisse, 1857
* Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859
* Writings on the U.S. Civil War, 1861
* Theories of Surplus Value, 3 volumes, 1862
* Value, Price and Profit, 1865
* Capital, Volume I (Das Kapital), 1867
* The Civil War in France, 1871
* Critique of the Gotha Program, 1875
* Notes on Wagner, 1883
* Capital, Volume II [posthumously, published by Engels], 1885
* Capital, Volume III [posthumously, published by Engels], 1894

Notable marxists:

* Theodor W. Adorno
* Louis Althusser
* Walter Benjamin
* Eduard Bernstein
* Ernst Bloch
* Amadeo Bordiga
* Bertolt Brecht
* Cornelius Castoriadis
* Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya
* James Connolly
* Guy Debord
* Daniel De Leon
* Joseph Dietzgen
* Raya Dunayevskaya
* Friedrich Engels
* Antonio Gramsci
* Harry Haywood
* Max Horkheimer
* C.L.R. James
* Fredric Jameson
* Karl Kautsky
* Alexandre Kojève
* Alexandra Kollontai
* Karl Korsch
* Kim Il Sung
* D. D. Kosambi
* Paul Lafargue
* Henri Lefebvre
* Vladimir Lenin
* Georg Lukács
* Rosa Luxemburg
* Herbert Marcuse
* José Carlos Mariátegui
* Paul Mattick
* William Morris
* Antonio Negri
* Sylvia Pankhurst
* Anton Pannekoek
* Georgi Plekhanov
* Maximilien Rubel
* Otto Rühle
* Alfred Sohn-Rethel
* Joseph Stalin
* George Derwent Thomson
* Leon Trotsky
* Karl August Wittfogel
* Mao Zedong