the historical trend of our age is the fatal crisis which capitalist production has undergone in the European and American countries where it has reached its highest peak, a crisis that will end in its destruction, in the return of modern society to a higher form of the most archaic type – collective production and appropriation.He added that "the vitality of primitive communities was incomparably greater than that of Semitic, Greek, Roman, etc. societies, and, a fortiori, that of modern capitalist societies".K. Marx, First draft of the letter to Vera Zasulich [1881]. In Marx-Engels 'Collected Works', Volume 24, p. 346. Before he died, Marx asked Engels to write up these ideas, which were published in 1884 under the title ''[[The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State]]'', partially based on Marx's notes to [[Lewis H. Morgan]]'s book ''[[Ancient Society]]''. == Personal life == === Family === [[File:Jenny laura marx.jpg|thumb|upright|Jenny Carolina and Jenny Laura Marx (1869): all the Marx daughters were named Jenny in honour of their mother, Jenny von Westphalen.]] Marx and von Westphalen had seven children together, but partly owing to the poor conditions in which they lived whilst in London, only three survived to adulthood.{{cite book |first=Peter |last=Singer |author-link=Peter Singer |year=2000 |title=Marx: A very short introduction |page=5 |isbn=0192854054 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=Oxford}} Their children were: [[Jenny Longuet|Jenny Caroline]] (m. Longuet; 1844–1883); [[Laura Marx|Jenny Laura]] (m. Lafargue; 1845–1911); Edgar (1847–1855); Henry Edward Guy ("Guido"; 1849–1850); Jenny Eveline Frances ("Franziska"; 1851–1852); [[Eleanor Marx|Jenny Julia Eleanor]] (1855–1898) and one more who died before being named (July 1857). According to his son-in-law, [[Paul Lafargue]], Marx was a loving father.{{cite book |first=Paul |last=Lafargue |author-link=Paul Lafargue |editor=[[Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute]] |publisher=Progress Publishers |year=1972 |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1890/xx/marx.htm |title=''Reminiscences of Marx'' (September 1890) |quote=He was a loving, gentle and indulgent father. [...] There was never even a trace of the bossy parent in his relations with his daughters, whose love for him was extraordinary. He never gave them an order, but asked them to do what he wished as a favour or made them feel that they should not do what he wanted to forbid them. And yet a father could seldom have had more docile children than he. |access-date=30 December 2020 |archive-date=16 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816133812/https://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1890/xx/marx.htm |url-status=live }} In 1962, there were allegations that Marx fathered a son, Freddy,{{cite news|last=Montefiore |first=Simon Sebag |author-link=Simon Sebag Montefiore |title=The Means of Reproduction |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/books/review/love-and-capital-by-mary-gabriel-book-review.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=23 September 2011 |access-date=25 September 2011 |archive-date=26 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110926042626/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/books/review/love-and-capital-by-mary-gabriel-book-review.html |url-status=live}} out of wedlock by his housekeeper, [[Helene Demuth]],{{sfn|Wheen|2001|p=173}} but the claim is disputed for lack of documented evidence.{{cite book |quote=this [claim] is not well founded on the documentary materials available |last=Carver |first=Terrell |title=The Cambridge Companion to Marx |year=1991 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0521366946 |page=11 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-marx/C8B7D6342B659E2AA6203BA970A791DF |editor-last=Carver |editor-first=Terrell |chapter=Reading Marx: Life and Works |access-date=30 December 2020 |archive-date=8 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180608131100/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-marx/C8B7D6342B659E2AA6203BA970A791DF |url-status=live }} Helene Demuth was also largely entrusted as a confidante. In her obituary, penned by [[Friedrich Engels]], her role is revealed as: "Marx took counsel of Helena Demuth, not only in difficult and intricate party matters, but even in respect of his economical writings".{{Cite web |title=Helene Demuth Obituary |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/family/demuth/obitry.htm |access-date=2024-07-08 |website=www.marxists.org}} Marx frequently used pseudonyms, often when renting a house or flat, apparently to make it harder for the authorities to track him down. While in Paris, he used that of "Monsieur Ramboz", whilst in London, he signed off his letters as "A. Williams". His friends referred to him as "Moor", owing to his dark complexion and black curly hair, while he encouraged his children to call him "Old Nick" and "Charley".{{sfn|Wheen|2001|p=152}} He also bestowed nicknames and pseudonyms on his friends and family, referring to Friedrich Engels as "General", his housekeeper Helene as "Lenchen" or "Nym", while one of his daughters, Jennychen, was referred to as "Qui Qui, [[Emperor of China]]" and another, Laura, was known as "[[Cockatoo|Kakadou]]" or "the [[Khoikhoi|Hottentot]]".{{sfn|Wheen|2001|p=152}} === Health === Marx drank heavily after joining the Trier Tavern Club drinking society in the 1830s, and continued to do so until his death. Marx was afflicted by poor health, what he himself described as "the wretchedness of existence",{{sfn|Blumenberg|2000|p=98}} and various authors have sought to describe and explain it. His biographer Werner Blumenberg attributed it to liver and gall problems which Marx had in 1849 and from which he was never afterward free, exacerbated by an unsuitable lifestyle. The attacks often came with headaches, eye inflammation, [[neuralgia]] in the head, and rheumatic pains. A serious nervous disorder appeared in 1877 and protracted [[insomnia]] was a consequence, which Marx fought with narcotics.{{sfn|Blumenberg|2000|p=100}} The illness was aggravated by excessive nocturnal work and faulty diet. Marx was fond of highly seasoned dishes, smoked fish, caviare, pickled cucumbers, "none of which are good for liver patients", but he also liked wine and liqueurs and smoked an enormous amount "and since he had no money, it was usually bad-quality cigars". From 1863, Marx complained a lot about boils: "These are very frequent with liver patients and may be due to the same causes".{{sfn|Blumenberg|2000|p=100}} The abscesses were so bad that Marx could neither sit nor work upright. According to Blumenberg, Marx's irritability is often found in liver patients:
The illness emphasised certain traits in his character. He argued cuttingly, his biting satire did not shrink at insults, and his expressions could be rude and cruel. Though in general Marx had blind faith in his closest friends, nevertheless he himself complained that he was sometimes too mistrustful and unjust even to them. His verdicts, not only about enemies but even about friends, were sometimes so harsh that even less sensitive people would take offence ... There must have been few whom he did not criticize like this ... not even Engels was an exception.{{sfn|Blumenberg|2000|pp=99–100}}According to Princeton historian [[Jerrold Seigel]], in his late teens, Marx may have had pneumonia or pleurisy, the effects of which led to his being exempted from Prussian military service. In later life whilst working on {{lang|de|Das Kapital}} (which he never completed),{{sfn|Blumenberg|2000|p=98}}{{sfn|Seigel|1978|p=494}} Marx suffered from a trio of afflictions. A liver ailment, probably hereditary, was aggravated by overwork, a bad diet, and lack of sleep. Inflammation of the eyes was induced by too much work at night. A third affliction, eruption of carbuncles or boils, "was probably brought on by general physical debility to which the various features of Marx's style of life – alcohol, tobacco, poor diet, and failure to sleep – all contributed. Engels often exhorted Marx to alter this dangerous regime". In Seigel's thesis, what lay behind this punishing sacrifice of his health may have been guilt about self-involvement and egoism, originally induced in Karl Marx by his father.{{sfn|Seigel|1978|pp=495–496}} In 2007, a [[retrodiagnosis]] of Marx's skin disease was made by [[dermatologist]] Sam Shuster of [[Newcastle University]]. For Shuster, the most probable explanation was that Marx suffered not from liver problems, but from [[hidradenitis suppurativa]], a recurring infective condition arising from blockage of [[apocrine]] ducts opening into [[hair follicles]].{{sfn|Shuster|2008|pp=1–2}} Shuster went on to consider the potential [[psychosocial]] effects of the disease, noting that the skin is an organ of communication and that hidradenitis suppurativa produces much psychological distress, including loathing and disgust and depression of self-image, mood, and well-being, feelings for which Shuster found "much evidence" in the Marx correspondence. Professor Shuster went on to ask himself whether the mental effects of the disease affected Marx's work and even helped him to develop [[Marx's theory of alienation|his theory of alienation]].{{sfn|Shuster|2008|p=3}} === Death === [[File:Grave of Karl Marx Highgate Cemetery in London 2016 (10).jpg|thumb|[[Tomb of Karl Marx]], East [[Highgate Cemetery]], London]] Following the death of his wife Jenny in December 1881, Marx developed a [[catarrh]] that kept him in ill health for the last 15 months of his life. It eventually brought on the [[bronchitis]] and [[pleurisy]] that killed him in London on 14 March 1883, when he died a [[Statelessness|stateless person]] at age 64. Family and friends in London buried his body in [[Highgate Cemetery]] (East), London, on 17 March 1883 in an area reserved for agnostics and atheists. According to [[Francis Wheen]], there were between nine and eleven mourners at his funeral.{{sfn|Wheen|2001|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3KOyuSakn80C&pg=PA382 382]}} Research from contemporary sources identifies thirteen named individuals attending the funeral: [[Friedrich Engels]], [[Eleanor Marx]], [[Edward Aveling]], [[Paul Lafargue]], [[Charles Longuet]], [[Helene Demuth]], [[Wilhelm Liebknecht]], Gottlieb Lemke, [[Frederick Lessner]], G Lochner, Sir [[Ray Lankester]], [[Carl Schorlemmer]] and [[Ernest Radford]].John Shepperd, 'Who was really at Marx's funeral?', in "Friends of Highgate Cemetery Newsletter ", April (2018), pp. 10–11. https://highgatecemetery.org/uploads/2018-04_Newsletter_final_web.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200204074940/https://highgatecemetery.org/uploads/2018-04_Newsletter_final_web.pdf |date=4 February 2020 }} A contemporary newspaper account claims that twenty-five to thirty relatives and friends attended the funeral.'Dr Karl Marx', in ''[[The Sunday People|The People]]'', 25 March 1883, p. 3. A writer in ''[[The Graphic]]'' noted:
By a strange blunder ... his death was not announced for two days, and then as having taken place at Paris. The next day the correction came from Paris; and when his friends and followers hastened to his house in [[Haverstock Hill]], to learn the time and place of burial, they learned that he was already in the cold ground. But for this secresy [sic] and haste, a great popular demonstration would undoubtedly have been held over his grave.'Dr Karl Marx' in ''The Graphic'', 31 March 1883, pp. 319, 322.Several of his closest friends spoke at his funeral, including [[Wilhelm Liebknecht]] and Friedrich Engels. Engels' speech included the passage: {{blockquote|On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep – but forever.}} Marx's surviving daughters [[Eleanor Marx|Eleanor]] and [[Laura Marx|Laura]], as well as [[Charles Longuet]] and [[Paul Lafargue]], Marx's two French socialist sons-in-law, were also in attendance. He had been predeceased by his wife and his eldest daughter, the latter dying a few months earlier in January 1883. Liebknecht, a founder and leader of the German Social Democratic Party, gave a speech in German, and Longuet, a prominent figure in the French working-class movement, made a short statement in French. Two [[telegrams]] from workers' parties in France and Spain were read out; from {{ill|Jose Mesa y Leompart|es}} on behalf of the Madrid branch of the {{ill|Partido Socialista Obrero Español|es}}, and from '''The Secretary, Lipine''
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the [[opium of the people]].Similar to the later views of [[Max Weber]], Marx believed that religion plays a [[Legitimation|legitimating function]] for the dominant classes by providing a divine sanction for [[Economic inequality|inequality]] and existing social conditions, and that for subordinate classes religion offers an escape: like an [[opiate]], alleviating pain but not offering a cure. Marx's senior thesis at the {{Interlanguage link|Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium (Trier)|de|3=Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium (Trier)|lt=Gymnasium zu Trier}} argued that religion had as its primary social aim the promotion of [[solidarity (sociology)|solidarity]].{{Cite book |first1=Karl |last1=Marx |author1-link=Karl Marx |first2=Friedrich |last2=Engels |author2-link=Friedrich Engels |title=Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels |volume=1 |location=New York |publisher=International Publishers |year=1975 |pages=636-642}} ==== Critique of political economy, history and society ==== {{further|Critique of political economy|Marxian economics}} {{Quote box |width=25em |align=right |quote=But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the whole bourgeoisie in chorus. The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the means of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women. He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere mean of production. |source=—Karl Marx, ''The Communist Manifesto''Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, "The Communist Manifesto", page 55, translation made by Samuel Moore in 1888 }} Marx's thoughts on labour and its function in reproducing capital were related to the primacy he gave to social relations in determining the society's past, present and future.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=20–23}}{{cite web |last=Marx |first=Karl |title=Grundrisse 06 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch06.htm |access-date=21 November 2021 |website=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |quote=the demand that wage labour be continued but capital suspended is self-contradictory, self-dissolving. |archive-date=21 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211121201428/https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch06.htm |url-status=live }} Critics have called this [[economic determinism]]. Labour is the precondition for the existence of, and [[accumulation of capital]], which both shape the [[social system]]. For Marx, [[social change]] was driven by conflict between opposing interests, by parties situated in the historical situation of their [[mode of production]].{{sfn|Calhoun|2012}} This became the inspiration for the body of works known as the [[conflict theory]]. In his [[sociocultural evolution|evolutionary]] model of history, he argued that [[human history]] began with free, productive and creative activities that was over time coerced and dehumanised, a trend most apparent under capitalism.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=20–23}} Marx noted that this was not an intentional process, but rather due to the immanent logic of the current [[mode of production]] which demands more human labour ([[Abstract labour and concrete labour|abstract labour]]) to reproduce the social relationships of capital.{{sfn|Postone|2006|pp=190, 26–27. 135, 374–375}}{{sfn|Pepperell|2010|pp=104–105}} The organisation of society depends on [[means of production]]. The means of production are all things required to produce material goods, such as land, natural resources, and technology but not human labour. The [[relations of production]] are the social relationships people enter into as they acquire and use the means of production. Together, these compose the [[mode of production]] and Marx distinguished historical eras in terms of modes of production. Marx differentiated between [[base and superstructure]], where the base (or substructure) is the [[economic system]] and superstructure is the cultural and political system. Marx regarded this mismatch between economic base and social [[base and superstructure|superstructure]] as a major source of social conflict. Despite Marx's stress on the critique of capitalism and discussion of the new [[communist society]] that should replace it, his explicit critique is guarded, as he saw it as an improved society compared to the past ones ([[slavery]] and [[feudalism]]). Marx never clearly discusses issues of [[morality]] and [[justice]], but scholars agree that his work contained [[Logical implication|implicit]] discussion of those concepts. {{multiple image | direction = vertical | width = 220 | image1 = | caption1 = Memorial to Karl Marx in Moscow, whose inscription reads: "[[Workers of the world, unite!|Proletarians of all countries, unite!]]" | image2 = Murales Rivera - Treppenhaus 7 Marx.jpg | caption2 = A mural by [[Diego Rivera]] showing Karl Marx, in the [[National Palace (Mexico)|National Palace]] in Mexico City }} Marx's view of capitalism was two-sided. On one hand, in the 19th century's deepest critique of the dehumanising aspects of this system he noted that defining features of capitalism include alienation, exploitation and recurring, cyclical [[economic depression|depressions]] leading to mass unemployment. On the other hand, he characterised capitalism as a "revolutionising" system that was "industrialising and universalising qualities of development, growth and progressivity," which meant, for Marx, industrialisation, urbanisation, technological progress, growing [[productivity]], and scientific development. All things that he saw as deficient in earlier forms of society.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=20–23}} Marx considered the capitalist class to be one of the most revolutionary in history because it constantly improved the means of production, more so than any other class in history and was responsible for the overthrow of [[feudalism]].{{sfn|Clark|1998|pp=57–59}} Capitalism can stimulate considerable growth because the capitalist has an incentive to reinvest profits in new technologies and [[capital equipment]].{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|p=22}} According to Marx, capitalists take advantage of the difference between the labour market and the market for whatever commodity the capitalist can produce. Marx observed that in practically every successful industry, input unit-costs are lower than output unit-prices. Marx called the difference "[[surplus value]]" and argued that it was based on [[surplus labour]], the difference between what it costs to keep workers alive, and what they can produce. Although Marx describes capitalists as [[vampire]]s sucking worker's blood,{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=20–23}} he notes that drawing profit is "by no means an injustice" since Marx, according to [[Allen W. Wood]] "excludes any trans-epochal standpoint from which one can comment" on the morals of such particular arrangements. Marx also noted that even the capitalists themselves cannot go against the system.{{sfn|Clark|1998|pp=57–59}} The problem is the "cancerous cell" of [[Capital (economics)|capital]], understood not as property or equipment, but the social relations between workers and owners, (the selling and purchasing of labour power) – the societal system, or rather [[mode of production]], in general.{{sfn|Clark|1998|pp=57–59}} At the same time, Marx stressed that capitalism was unstable and prone to [[crisis theory|periodic crises]]. He suggested that over time capitalists would invest more and more in new technologies and less and less in labour. Since Marx believed that profit derived from surplus value appropriated from labour, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall as the economy grows.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|p=23}} Marx believed that increasingly severe crises would punctuate this [[business cycles|cycle]] of growth and collapse.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|p=23}} Moreover, he believed that in the long-term, this process would enrich and [[empowerment|empower]] the capitalist class and impoverish the proletariat.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|p=23}}{{sfn|Clark|1998|pp=57–59}} In section one of ''The Communist Manifesto'', Marx describes [[feudalism]], capitalism, and the role internal social contradictions play in the historical process: {{blockquote|We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged ... the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on before our own eyes ... The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring order into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.}} [[File:MandK Industrial Revolution 1900.jpg|thumb|Outside a factory in [[Oldham]], 1900. Marx believed that industrial workers, the [[proletariat]], would rise up around the world.]] Marx believed that those structural contradictions within capitalism necessitate its end, giving way to socialism, or a [[post-capitalism|post-capitalistic]], communist society: {{blockquote|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.}} Thanks to various processes overseen by capitalism, such as urbanisation, the working class, the proletariat, should grow in numbers and develop [[class consciousness]], in time realising that they can and must change the system.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=20–23}} Marx believed that if the proletariat were to seize the means of production, they would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, abolishing the exploiting class and introducing a system of production less vulnerable to cyclical crises.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=20–23}} Marx argued in ''[[The German Ideology]]'' that capitalism will end through the organised actions of an international working class: {{blockquote|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.|sign=|source=}} In this new society, the alienation would end and humans would be free to act without being bound by selling their labour.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|p=23}} It would be a democratic society, enfranchising the entire population.{{sfn|Clark|1998|pp=57–59}} In such a [[utopia]]n world, there would also be little need for a state, whose goal was previously to enforce the alienation.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|p=23}} Marx theorised that between capitalism and the establishment of a socialist/communist system, would exist a period of [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] – where the working class holds political power and forcibly socialises the means of production.{{sfn|Clark|1998|pp=57–59}} As he wrote in his ''[[Critique of the Gotha Program]]'', "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the [[communist revolution|revolutionary transformation]] of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat". While he allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong [[democracy|democratic]] institutional structures (such as [[United Kingdom|Britain]], the [[United States]], and the [[Netherlands]]), he suggested that in other countries in which workers cannot "attain their goal by peaceful means" the "lever of our revolution must be force".[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/09/08.htm La Liberté Speech] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180716015355/https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/09/08.htm |date=16 July 2018 }} delivered by Karl Marx on 8 September 1872, in [[Amsterdam]]. "You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries – such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland – where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognise the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal to erect the rule of labour." ==== Biology ==== Marx reacted with approval to the publication of ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'' by [[Charles Darwin]], favourably viewing the challenge Darwin's theory posed to teleology and idealism in the natural sciences. Marx approved of biological evolution and saw it as a naturalistic, materialistic explanation for the historical development of nature. However, together with Engels, he rejected on ideological grounds Darwin's application of [[Malthusianism|Malthusian theory]] to the natural world and that [[biological competition]] and [[natural selection]] were the main mechanisms behind evolution. The concept of the [[struggle for existence]], a key pillar of Darwinian natural selection, was particularly vehemently opposed by Marx because it validated Malthusian ideas about [[overpopulation]] and resource scarcity and lent support for these phenomena being universal natural laws. Marx also believed Darwin's view of nature was coloured by his social milieu, and he rejected the aspects of the Darwinian theory of evolution he found unpalatable as a reflection of the imprint of bourgeois society that led Darwin to erroneous conclusions.{{Cite journal |last1=Rogers |first1=James Allen |date=1965 |title=Marxist and Russian Darwinism |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41043117?searchText=&searchUri=&ab_segments=&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default%3A529b2c7d6c31d8f6739f74f45a766b77&initiator=recommender&seq=2 |journal=Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=199–211 |issn=0021-4019 |access-date=23 August 2026 |via=JSTOR}} Marx viewed the environmental theory of evolution of [[Pierre Tremaux]], articulated in his 1865 work ''Origine et transformations de l'homme et des autres êtres'' which purported that differences between human races can be explained by differences in soil content, to be a superior theory to Darwin's.{{Cite journal |last1=Mikulak |first1=Maxim W. |date=July-September 1970 |title=Darwinism, Soviet Genetics, and Marxism-Leninism |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2708511?seq=7 |journal=[[Journal of the History of Ideas]] |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=359–376 |doi=10.2307/2708511 |issn=0022-5037 |access-date=19 March 2026 |via=JSTOR|url-access=subscription }} Tremaux's theory was based on [[orthogenesis]], an idea rejected by Darwinism that evolution is inherently progressive and directed towards increasing biological advancement, as opposed to being driven by random variation that natural selection acted on to select those organisms most successful at reproducing in a particular environment and thus having no inherent direction as Darwin purported. This appealed to Marx, who believed scientists would broadly accept Tremaux's theory if it was widely circulated and the scientific establishment was made aware of it. === International relations === [[File:Karl Marx memorial.jpg|thumb|[[Karl Marx Monument]] in [[Chemnitz]], known as ''Karl-Marx-Stadt'' from 1953 to 1990]] Marx viewed [[Tsarist autocracy|Russian Tsarism]] as the main threat to European revolutions.{{sfn|Anderson|2016|pp=49–239}} During the [[Crimean War]], Marx backed the [[Ottoman Empire]] and its allies Britain and France against [[Russian Empire|Russia]].{{sfn|Anderson|2016|pp=49–239}} He was absolutely opposed to [[Pan-Slavism]], viewing it as an instrument of Russian foreign policy.{{sfn|Anderson|2016|pp=49–239}} Marx considered the [[Slavs|Slavic]] nations except [[Polish people|Poles]] as 'counter-revolutionary'. Marx and Engels published in the ''[[Neue Rheinische Zeitung]]'' in February 1849: {{blockquote|To the sentimental phrases about brotherhood which we are being offered here on behalf of the most counter-revolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of Russians was and still is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the [[Revolutions of 1848|revolution]] [of 1848] hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution. We know where the enemies of the revolution are concentrated, ''viz''. in Russia and the Slav regions of Austria, and no fine phrases, no allusions to an undefined democratic future for these countries can deter us from treating our enemies as enemies. Then there will be a struggle, an "inexorable life-and-death struggle", against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and ruthless terror – not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!"Cited in: B. Hepner, "Marx et la puissance russe," in: K. Marx, ''La Russie et l'Europe'', Paris, 1954, p. 20. Originally published in ''[[Neue Rheinische Zeitung]]'', no. 223, 16 February 1849.}} Marx and Engels sympathised with the [[Narodniks|Narodnik]] revolutionaries of the 1860s and 1870s. When the [[Narodnaya Volya|Russian revolutionaries]] assassinated Tsar [[Alexander II of Russia]], Marx expressed the hope that the assassination foreshadowed 'the formation of a Russian commune'.Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to the Chairman of the Slavonic Meeting, 21 March 1881. Source: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ''Selected Correspondence'' (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975). Marx supported the [[Polish–Russian Wars|Polish uprisings]] against tsarist Russia.{{sfn|Anderson|2016|pp=49–239}} He said in a speech in London in 1867: {{blockquote|In the first place the policy of Russia is changeless... Its methods, its tactics, its manoeuvres may change, but the polar star of its policy – world domination – is a fixed star. In our times only a civilised government ruling over barbarian masses can hatch out such a plan and execute it. ... There is but one alternative for Europe. Either Asiatic barbarism, under Muscovite direction, will burst around its head like an avalanche, or else it must re-establish Poland, thus putting twenty million heroes between itself and Asia and gaining a breathing spell for the accomplishment of its social regeneration.Speech delivered in London, probably to a meeting of the International's General Council and the Polish Workers Society on 22 January 1867, text published in ''Le Socialisme'', 15 March 1908; ''Odbudowa Polski'' (Warsaw, 1910), pp. 119–123; ''Mysl Socjalistyczna'', May 1908. From Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ''The Russian Menace to Europe'', edited by Paul Blackstock and Bert Hoselitz, and published by [[George Allen and Unwin]], London, 1953, pp. 104–108.}} Marx supported the cause of [[Irish Home Rule movement|Irish independence]]. In 1867, he wrote Engels: "I used to think the separation of Ireland from England impossible. I now think it inevitable. The English working class will never accomplish anything until it has got rid of Ireland. ... English reaction in England had its roots ... in the subjugation of Ireland.""[https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/01/archives/karl-marx-and-the-irish.html Karl Marx and the Irish] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180509153123/https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/01/archives/karl-marx-and-the-irish.html |date=9 May 2018 }}". ''[[The New York Times]]''. December 1971. Marx spent some time in [[French Algeria]], which had been [[French conquest of Algeria|invaded]] and made a [[French colonial empire|French colony]] in 1830, and had the opportunity to observe life in colonial North Africa. He wrote about the colonial justice system, in which "a form of torture has been used (and this happens 'regularly') to extract confessions from the Arabs; naturally it is done (like the English in India) by the 'police'; the judge is supposed to know nothing at all about it." Marx was surprised by the arrogance of many [[Pied-Noir|European settlers]] in Algiers and wrote in a letter:The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.
when a European colonist dwells among the 'lesser breeds,' either as a settler or even on business, he generally regards himself as even more inviolable than handsome William I [a Prussian king]. Still, when it comes to bare-faced arrogance and presumptuousness vis-à-vis the 'lesser breeds,' the British and Dutch outdo the French.According to the ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'':
Marx's analysis of colonialism as a progressive force bringing modernization to a backward feudal society sounds like a transparent rationalization for foreign domination. His account of British domination, however, reflects the same ambivalence that he shows towards capitalism in Europe. In both cases, Marx recognizes the immense suffering brought about during the transition from feudal to bourgeois society while insisting that the transition is both necessary and ultimately progressive. He argues that the penetration of foreign commerce will cause a social revolution in India.{{cite encyclopedia |title=Colonialism |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |year=2017 |access-date=10 August 2018 |archive-date=11 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180611042603/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/ |url-status=live }}Marx discussed British [[British Raj|colonial rule]] in [[Colonial India|India]] in the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'' in 1853: {{blockquote|There cannot remain any doubt but that the misery inflicted by the British on Hindostan [India] is of an essentially different and infinitely more intensive kind than all Hindostan had to suffer before. England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing... [however], we must not forget that these idyllic village communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism, that they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition.{{cite news |title=Marx in Algiers |url=http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/24784.aspx |work=Al-Ahram |access-date=10 August 2018 |archive-date=10 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180810144250/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/24784.aspx |url-status=live}}{{cite news |title=Marx on India under the British |url=https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-bookreview/marx-on-india-under-the-british/article3209143.ece |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=13 June 2006 |access-date=10 August 2018 |archive-date=30 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180630051005/https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-bookreview/marx-on-india-under-the-british/article3209143.ece |url-status=live}}}} == Legacy == {{main|Marxism}} {{See also|Karl Marx Avenue (Petrozavodsk, Karelia)|label 1=Karl Marx Avenue}} [[File:Marx und Engels Denkmal, alter Platz - panoramio.jpg|thumb|Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels monument in [[Marx-Engels Forum]], [[Berlin-Mitte]], Germany]] [[File:Stamp Soviet Union 1948 CPA 1246.jpg|thumb|upright|1948 [[Soviet Union stamp catalogue|Soviet Union stamp]], featuring Marx and Engels, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the ''Manifesto'']] Marx's ideas have had a profound impact on world politics and intellectual thought,{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=23–24}}{{cite news |last=Wheen |first=Francis |author-link=Francis Wheen |date=17 July 2005 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/jul/17/comment.theobserver1 |title=Why Marx is man of the moment |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050718233606/http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1530250,00.html |archive-date=18 July 2005 |url-status=live |work=[[The Observer]]}} in particular in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution.{{Cite journal |last1=Magness |first1=Phil |last2=Makovi |first2=Michael |year=2022 |title=The Mainstreaming of Marx: Measuring the Effect of the Russian Revolution on Karl Marx's Influence |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/722933 |journal=[[Journal of Political Economy]] |volume=131 |issue=6 |pages=1507–1545 |doi=10.1086/722933 |issn=0022-3808 |access-date=12 November 2022 |archive-date=30 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221230081241/https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/722933 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }} Followers of Marx have often debated among themselves over how to interpret Marx's writings and apply his concepts to the modern world.{{sfn|Andersen|Kaspersen|2000|p=123–}} The legacy of Marx's thought has become contested between numerous tendencies, each of which sees itself as Marx's most accurate interpreter. In the political realm, these tendencies include [[political theories]] such as [[Leninism]], [[Marxism–Leninism]], [[Trotskyism]], [[Maoism]], [[Luxemburgism]], [[libertarian Marxism]],{{sfn|Andersen|Kaspersen|2000|p=123–}} and [[Open Marxism]]. Various currents have also developed in [[academic Marxism]], often under influence of other views, resulting in [[structuralist Marxism]], [[historical materialism]], phenomenological Marxism, [[analytical Marxism]], and [[Hegelian Marxism]].{{sfn|Andersen|Kaspersen|2000|p=123–}} From an academic perspective, Marx's work contributed to the birth of modern sociology. He has been cited as one of the 19th century's three masters of the "[[Hermeneutics of suspicion|school of suspicion]]",{{cite book |last=Ricoeur |first=Paul |title=Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation |location=New Haven and London |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |year=1970 |page=32}} and as one of the three principal architects of modern [[social science]]. In contrast to other philosophers, Marx offered theories that could often be tested with the [[scientific method]].{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|pp=23–24}} Both Marx and [[Auguste Comte]] set out to develop scientifically justified ideologies in the wake of European [[secularisation]] and new developments in the [[philosophy of history|philosophies of history]] and science. Working in the Hegelian tradition, Marx rejected Comtean [[sociological positivism]] in an attempt to develop a ''science of society''.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002|p=19}} [[Karl Löwith]] considered Marx and [[Søren Kierkegaard]] to be the two greatest philosophical successors of Hegel.{{cite book |last=Löwith |first=Karl |author-link=Karl Löwith |title=From Hegel to Nietzsche |location=New York |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |year=1991 |page=49}} In modern [[sociological theory]], [[Marxist sociology]] is recognised as one of the main classical perspectives. [[Isaiah Berlin]] considers Marx the true founder of modern sociology "in so far as anyone can claim the title".{{sfn|Berlin|1963|p=130}} Beyond social science, he has also had a lasting legacy in philosophy, literature, the arts, and the humanities.{{sfn|Singer|1980|p=1}}{{cite journal |first=Bridget |last=O'Laughlin |date=October 1975 |title=Marxist Approaches in Anthropology |journal=[[Annual Review of Anthropology]] |volume=4 |pages=341–370 |doi=10.1146/annurev.an.04.100175.002013}}