Who was Karl Marx and tell about his socialist life ?

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The German philosopher, revolutionary economist (one who studies the use of money and other material funds), and leader Karl Marx founded modern "scientific" socialism (a system of society in which no property is held as private). His basic ideas—known as Marxism—form the foundation of Socialist and Communist (an economic and government system characterized by citizens holding all property and goods in common) movements throughout the world.

Karl Heinreich Marx was born in Trier, Rhenish Prussia (present-day Germany), on May 5, 1818, the son of Heinrich Marx, a lawyer, and Henriette Presburg Marx, a Dutchwoman. Both Heinrich and Henriette were descendants of a long line of rabbis (masters or teachers of Jewish religion)

Karl was baptized in the same church in 1824 at the age of six. Karl attended a Lutheran elementary school but later became an atheist (one who does not believe in the existence of God) and a materialist (one who believes that physical matter is all that is real), rejecting both the Christian and Jewish religions. It was he who coined the saying "Religion is the opium [drug that deadens pain, is today illegal, and comes from the poppy flower] of the people," a basic principle in modern communism.

Karl attended the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium in Trier for five years, graduating in 1835 at the age of seventeen. The gymnasium's program was the usual classical one—history, mathematics, literature, and languages, particularly Greek and Latin

Karl became very skillful in French and Latin, both of which he learned to read and write fluently. In later years he taught himself other languages, so that as a mature scholar he could also read Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Scandinavian, Russian, and English. As his articles in the New York Daily Tribune show, he came to handle the English language masterfully (he loved Shakespeare [1564–1616], whose works he knew by heart), although he never lost his heavy German accent when speaking.

Marx was married to his childhood sweetheart, Jenny von Westphalen, who was known as the "most beautiful girl in Trier," on June 19, 1843. She was totally devoted to him. She died of cancer on December 2, 1881, at the age of sixty-seven. For Marx it was a blow from which he never recovered

The Marxes had seven children, four of whom died in infancy or childhood. He deeply loved his daughters, who, in turn, adored him. Of the three surviving daughters—Jenny, Laura, and Eleanor—two married Frenchmen. Both of Marx's sons-in-law became prominent French socialists and members of Parliament. Eleanor was active as a British labor organizer.

Marx spent most of his working time in the British Museum, doing research both for his newspaper articles and his books. In preparation for Das Kapital, he read every available work in economic and financial theory and practice.

Marx's excessive smoking, wine drinking, and love of heavily spiced foods may have been contributing causes to his illnesses. In the final dozen years of his life, he could no longer do any continuous intellectual work. He died in his armchair in London on March 14, 1883, about two months before his sixty-fifth birthday. He lies buried in London's Highgate Cemetery, where his grave is marked by a bust (sculpture of a person's head and shoulders) of him.

Marxism achieved its first great triumph in the Russian Revolution (1917–21; when the lower class overthrew three hundred years of czar rule), when its successful leader, Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870–1924), a lifelong follower of Marx, organized the Soviet Union as a proletarian dictatorship (country ruled by the lower class). Lenin based the new government on Marx's philosophy as Lenin interpreted it. Thus, Marx became a world figure and his theories became a subject of universal attention and controversy (open to dispute). Marx wrote hundreds of articles, brochures, and reports, but only five books

Marx's universal appeal lies in his moral approach to socio-economic problems, in his insights into the relationships between institutions and values, and in his ideas about the salvation (to save from destruction) of mankind. Hence Marx is best understood if one studies not only his economics, but also his theory of history and politics. The central idea in Marx's thought involves two basic notions: that the economic system at any given time determines the current ideas; and that history is an ongoing process keeping up with the economic institutions that change in regular stages

Marx participated in a duel while at University. Marx accepted the challenge from a young military cadet and ended up losing badly, suffering a small wound under his left eye. Marx’s father, hearing of Karl’s injury, wrote him a letter where he angrily demanded that Karl “not let this inclination, and if not inclination, this craze, take root. You could, in the end, deprive yourself and your parents of the finest hopes that life offers.

Marx’s future wife Jenny Von Westphalen broke off an engagement prior to getting engaged to Marx.

While Marx was ancestrally Jewish—one of his grandfathers was actually a Rabbi—Marx’s father converted from Judaism to Lutheranism before young Karl was born

Marx’s father’s conversion to Prussia’s dominant religion was an attempt to avoid Anti-Semitic laws that were a mainstay at the time and which constrained the activity of Jewish people. Marx’s Judaic heritage has been cited as being key to both his moral ethics and materialist philosophy.

While living in London, Marx served as a European correspondent for the working-class American newspaper the New York Daily Tribune.

Marx wrote newspaper pieces on a number of significant historical events, including the British rule in India, slavery and the American Civil War, the Crimean War and the ongoing Industrial Revolution in Britain. While Marx’s early pieces were written in German and then subsequently translated into English, Marx quickly picked up his new home’s language and began writing articles in English.

Marx’s magnum opus, Das Kapital, was incidentally first published in Russia. Although the ruling regime in Russia had a policy of censoring works that they deemed to promote communism, the censors permitted Marx’s masterwork to enter the country as they considered it a “strictly scientific work,” that “very few people in Russia will read…and even fewer will understand.” Not exactly the most perceptive take by the censors!

Marx, who died in 1883 at age 74, was buried in London’s Highgate Cemetery, in a modest plot in a section reserved for atheists and other secularists.

Marx’s grave currently sees about 200 visitors a day and the graveyard recently instituted a $6 entry fee, which some critics claim would have Marx spinning in his grave.

Marx’s political and economic writing is brimming with evocative Gothic metaphors involving monsters, werewolves, and vampires. Marx was particularly fond of the vampire metaphor, which he variously used to describe the central process of profit-taking within capitalism as capital “constantly sucking in living labour as its soul, vampire-like.”

Marx was voted the “Greatest Thinker of the Millenium” in a 1999 BBC poll, beating out several intellectual titans in the form of Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and Isaac Newton. At press time, it’s still unclear how he placed in the “Greatest Beards of the Millenium” poll

While living in London, Marx spent numerous hours writing and researching his manuscripts in the reading room of the British Museum, which then housed the British Library. This reading room has also been used by numerous other famous historical figures including Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, and Virginia Woolf.

Marx’s seven children died at a young age as a result of the family’s deep poverty and it is reported that occasionally Marx was unable to leave the house as his wife Jenny had to go pawn his trousers in order to put food on the table!