Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) was the German philosopher and radical socialist whose Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital formed the basis of Marxism, and revolutionized the world for better and for worse.
Born in Prussia, he experimented with sociopolitical theories in university, and by the 1840s had become a radical journalist. His writings were viewed as dangerous by the authorities. In the span of a few years he was expelled from Germany, France, Belgium, then Germany again, before he found refuge in London. There, he settled and lived for the remainder of his life.
Marx received a doctorate in 1841, but his politics kept him from getting a teaching job, so he took to journalism. He founded a correspondence committee to link European socialists. That inspired English socialists to form the Communist League, and ask Marx and Engels to write a platform for their party. The result was the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848.
Shortly thereafter, Marx was expelled from Belgium. He went back to France, which also expelled him. He returned to Prussia, but by then he had been stripped of his citizenship, and the authorities refused to re-naturalize him. So he ended up in London in 1849.
On his deathbed in 1883, as he lay expiring from pleurisy (or acute bronchitis), he was solicited for last words. He replied with his last breath: “Go on! Get Out! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!”
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