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Karl Marx | |
|---|---|
 Retrato del camarada Marx | |
| Nació | Karl Heinrich Marx 5 de mayo de 1818 Tréveris, Reino de Prusia, Confederación Germánica |
| Murió | 14 de marzo de 1883 (64 años) Londres, Reino Unido |
| Nacionalidad | Prusa (1818–1845) Apátrida (después de 1845) |
| Conocido por | Desarrollando una línea de pensamiento político conocida como Marxismo |
| Campo de estudio | Filosofía, ciencia, economía política, historia |
Karl Heinrich Marx (5 de mayo de 1818 - 14 de marzo de 1883), españolizado como Carlos Enrique Marx, fue un filósofo, economista, historiador, sociólogo, teórico político, periodista y revolucionario socialista alemán del siglo XIX que, junto a su amigo y antiguo colaborador Friedrich Engels, descubrió las leyes del desarrollo de las sociedades humanas basándose en el método materialista dialéctico y creando así el Marxismo.
Marx es el pensador más importante del movimiento comunista. Puso de relieve las contradicciones y la explotación intrínseca del capitalismo, y contribuyó a desarrollar modelos económicos socialistas. Sus obras más famosas, el Manifiesto Comunista, que escribió con Engels en 1848, y El Capital, cuyo primer volumen terminó en 1867, han tenido una enorme influencia internacional.
Vida
Primeros años
Marx nació el 5 de mayo de 1818 en la pequeña ciudad rural de Tréveris, en el sur de la Prusia renana, actual Alemania, cerca de la frontera con Francia. En aquella época, Tréveris tenía aproximadamente 11,000 habitantes[1], y entre 1794 y 1815 la ciudad formó parte de Francia, lo que cambió tras la derrota de Napoleón y la anexión prusiana de la región.[2] Fue el tercer hijo de Heinrich y Henriette Marx, y creció con siete hermanos. En 1847, a la edad de 29 años, la mayoría de ellos habrían muerto de tuberculosis, excepto sus tres hermanas, que finalmente le sobrevivieron: Sophie (1816-1886), Emilie (1822-1888) y Louise (1821-1893).[3]
La familia de Karl Marx perteneció a una próspera pequeña burguesía de Tréveris, y tuvo orígenes judíos tanto por parte de su madre como de su padre, aunque su familia se convirtió al cristianismo protestante en 1824.[4] El padre de Karl, Heinrich, era un abogado acomodado que gozaba de buena reputación entre los sectores más altos de la sociedad de Tréveris, y había acumulado un cierto nivel de riqueza.[5][6]
Karl Marx y su hermana Sophie conocieron a Edgar y Jenny von Westphalen, quien más tarde se convertiría en la esposa de Marx. Esta amistad comenzó a partir de Karl y Edgar, quienes estudiaron en la misma escuela, o a través de una amistad entre sus padres[7]. La familia von Westphalen también era una familia pequeñoburguesa.[8] El joven Karl tenía una amistad con el barón Johann Ludwig von Westphalen, padre de Jenny, y se convirtió en una influencia para Marx a través de su intercambio intelectual.[9]
De 1830 a 1835, Marx estudió en el Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium, una escuela pública de educación secundaria que preparaba a los estudiantes para la universidad. Allí estudió con varios profesores, algunos de ellos críticos con el estado político de las cosas, entre ellos Johann Hugo Wyttenbach, el director de la escuela.[10][11] En esa época, el liberalismo se asociaba con ideales revolucionarias y un sentimiento romántico hacia la Revolución Francesa, ambos mal vistos por el gobierno prusiano. El Gimnasio de Tréveris sólo admitía alumnos varones en aquella época[12] y en él Marx estudió las lenguas griega, latina y francesa.[11]
Educación universitaria
Tras graduarse con un buen rendimiento escolar en el Trier Gymnasium, Marx ingresó en la universidad, pasando dos semestres en la Universidad de Bonn de 1835 a 1836. El padre de Marx desaprobaba la afición a la bebida y el estilo de vida de su hijo y le convenció para que se trasladara a la Universidad de Berlín, en aquel momento una universidad bien establecida y muy respetada. Allí estudió Derecho, especializándose en Historia y Filosofía, y concluyó su carrera universitaria en 1841, presentando una tesis doctoral sobre la filosofía de Epicuro. En aquella época, Marx era idealista hegeliano y pertenecía al círculo de los hegelianos de izquierda, junto con Bruno Bauer y otros.[13]
Años posteriores
En los años posteriores de Marx, éste produjo estudios antropológicos, a pesar de las dificultades en su vida personal que le impidieron terminar gran parte de su trabajo. En 1882, Marx viajó a Argelia y escribió sobre la desigualdad y la subordinación como conceptos abominables para todos los verdaderos musulmanes.[14]
Fuentes ideológicas
Las tradiciones intelectuales en las que Marx se inspiró principalmente fueron la filosofía alemana, la economía política inglesa y el socialismo francés.[15]
Sus fuentes principales en la filosofía alemana fueron:
en la economía política inglesa:
y en el socialismo francés:
Referencias
- ↑ “In 1819, Trier had hardly more than 11,000 inhabitants; furthermore, about 3,500 soldiers were stationed in Trier (Monz 1973: 57). This was not an especially large population, even if one takes into consideration that back then most people lived in the countryside and cities had far fewer inhabitants than today. [...] The Trier in which Marx grew up was characteristically rural; it had only two main streets, the rest of the town consisting of side alleys and little streets.”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (pp. 39-40). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ “In 1794, Trier was occupied by French troops. Revolutionary France had not only beaten back the monarchist powers but had made considerable territorial conquests. [...] After Napoleon’s failed Russian campaign, French rule ended. In 1815, at the Congress of Vienna, Catholic Trier, along with the Rhineland, was awarded to Protestant Prussia.”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (pp. 39-40). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ “Karl was not his parents’ first child; in 1815, their son Mauritz David and in 1816 daughter Sophie had been born. However, Mauritz David died in 1819. In the years following, further siblings were born: Hermann (1819), Henriette (1820), Louise (1821), Emilie (1822), Caroline (1824), and Eduard (1826), so that Karl grew up with seven siblings total. However, not all of them would go on to live long lives: Eduard, the youngest brother, was eleven when he died in 1837. Three other siblings were hardly older than 20 at the time of their death: Hermann died in the year 1842, Henriette in 1845, and Caroline in 1847. In all cases, the cause of death was given as “consumption” (tuberculosis), a widespread illness in the nineteenth century. The three remaining sisters lived considerably longer; they also survived their brother Karl. Sophie died in 1886, Emilie in 1888, and Louise in 1893.”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (p. 35). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ “Parents Heinrich (1777–1838) and Henriette (1788–1863) had married in 1814. Both came from Jewish families that converted to Protestant Christianity. Karl Marx was baptized on August 26, 1824, along with his then six siblings. At this point, his father had already been baptized; the exact date, however, is not known. His mother was baptized a year later, on November 20, 1825. On the occasion of the baptism of her children, according to the entry in the church register, she wanted to wait with her own baptism out of consideration for her still-living parents, but she wanted her children to be baptized.”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (p. 35). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ “Marx’s father was a well-regarded lawyer in Trier, and his income allowed his family a certain affluence. Both the house on Brückengasse (today Brückenstraße), which the family rented and in which Karl was born,16 as well as the somewhat smaller, but centrally located house on Simeonstraße that the family purchased in the autumn of 1819 and in which young Karl grew up, were among the better bourgeois homes of the city. (p.35)
[...]
The center of social life in Trier was the Literary Casino Society (Literarische Casinogesellschaft) founded in 1818. Its statutes determined its purpose to be “maintaining a reading society connected to an association location for the convivial enjoyment of educated people” (quoted in Kentenich 1915: 731). In the Casino building, completed in 1825, there was a reading room that also contained several foreign newspapers. Balls and concerts, and on special occasions banquets, were regularly held (see Schmidt 1955: 11ff.). The sophisticated bourgeois stratum and the officers of the garrison belonged to the Casino. Karl’s father, Heinrich Marx, was one of the founding members. Similar societies, often with the same name, also arose at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century in other German cities; they were important focal points for the emerging bourgeois culture. Critique of existing political conditions was also articulated here. (pp. 41-42)”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (pp. 35-42). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ “Professional success was also reflected in a certain level of affluence. In 1819, Heinrich Marx was able to buy a house on Simeonstraße. According to the tax information evaluated by Herres, Heinrich Marx was assessed in 1832 as having an income of 1,500 talers annually, thus belonging to the upper 30 percent of the Trier middle and upper class that had a yearly income of more than 200 talers. Since this middle and upper class only comprised around 20 percent of the population, the Marx family, in terms of income, belonged to the upper 6 percent of the total population. With this income, the family was also able to accumulate a certain level of wealth, owning multiple plots of land used for agriculture, among which were vineyards. For wealthy citizens of Trier, ownership of vineyards was a popular retirement provision. The Marx family also employed servants. In the year 1818, there was at least one maid; for the years 1830 and 1833, “two maids” are documented.”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (pp. 67-68). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ “Eleanor reports that among Marx‘s earliest playmates was his future wife, Jenny von Westphalen, and her younger brother Edgar. The latter attended the same school as Marx and also received confirmation along with him on March 23, 1834. How the children‘s friendship came about and when it began, however, remains unknown. We know that Marx‘s older sister Sophie was friends with Jenny, but whether it was the two girls or the two boys Karl and Edgar who first made friends, or whether the children‘s friendship was first initiated through the friendly relationship between their fathers, is not known.”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (p. 36). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ “Ludwig von Westphalen and Heinrich Marx had annual incomes of 1,800 and 1,500 taler, respectively.”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (p. 45). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ “Eleanor also discloses that the young Karl was intellectually stimulated primarily by his father and his future father-in-law, Ludwig von Westphalen. It was from the latter that he “imbibed his first love for the “Romantic” School, and while his father read him Voltaire and Racine, Westphalen read him Homer and Shakespeare.” The fact that Marx dedicated his doctoral dissertation rather emotionally to Ludwig von Westphalen in 1841 demonstrates how important the latter was to him.”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (p. 36). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ “The towering presence of the Trier gymnasium was its director of many years, Johann Hugo Wyttenbach (1767–1848). He was also an archaeologist and founder of the Trier city library. In 1804, Wyttenbach was already director of the French secondary school; he remained director of the gymnasium until 1846. His thinking was strongly influenced by the Enlightenment; in his earlier years, he was an adherent of the French Jacobins. He maintained his liberal and humanistic ethos even under Prussian rule.”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (p. 97). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ 11,0 11,1 “When the young Karl started gymnasium in 1830, Wyttenbach was sixty-three years old. Most teachers were considerably younger, and as can be gleaned from the fragmentary information of the surviving records, at least a few of them had rather critical attitudes toward the reigning social and political conditions and were observed with distrust by the Prussian authorities.
First and foremost to be named in this regard is Thomas Simon (1793– 1869), who taught French to Karl at the Tertia level. [...] He had “turned toward the concerns of the poor, neglected people,” since as a teacher he had seen daily that “it was not the possession of cold, filthy, minted money that makes a human being a human being, but rather character, disposition, understanding, and empathy for the weal and woe of one’s fellows” (quoted in Böse 1951: 11). In 1849, Simon was elected to the Prussian house of representatives, where he joined the left. His son, Ludwig Simon (1819–1872), also attended the gymnasium in Trier and took the Abitur exams a year after Karl. [Ludwig] was elected to the national assembly in 1848. As a result of his activities during the revolutionary years of 1848–49, the Prussian government brought multiple legal proceedings against him and convicted him in absentia to death, so that he had to emigrate to Switzerland.
Heinrich Schwendler (1792–1847), who taught French to Marx at the Obersekunda and Prima levels, was suspected in 1833 by the Prussian government of being the author of an insurgent leaflet; he was accused of “poor character” and of “familiar relationships to all the fraudulent minds of the local city.” In 1834, a ministerial commission warned of the “pernicious orientation” of Simon and Schwendler, and in 1835, the provincial school council regarded his dismissal as desirable, but could not find a sufficient reason (Monz 1973: 171, 178).
Johann Gerhard Schneeman (1796–1864) had studied classical philology, history, philosophy, and mathematics; he published numerous contributions on the archaeology of Trier. At the Tertia and Obersekunda levels, he taught Karl Latin and Greek. In 1834, Schneeman also participated in the singing of revolutionary songs at the Casino and was interrogated by the police as a result.”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (pp. 98-99). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ “Marx was a student for six years. There are serious differences between student life then and as it exists today. Perhaps the most noticeable back then was that there were no female students or professors; universities were purely male institutions and would remain so for quite a while. Whereas in Switzerland women could enroll at the University of Zurich beginning in the 1860s, it wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that women were admitted as regular students to German universities.”
Michael Heinrich (2019). Karl Marx and the birth of modern society: the life of Marx and the development of his work (p. 122). Nueva York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-735-3 [LG] - ↑ Lenin (1914). Carlos Marx. (Breve esbozo biográfico, con una exposición del marxismo) marxists.org link
- ↑ Vijay Prashad (2017). 'Eastern Marxism' en Red Star over the Third World (p. 83). [PDF] Nueva Delhi: LeftWord Books.
- ↑ Lenin (1913-03) Tres fuentes y tres partes integrantes del marxismo