Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the leading theorists and advocates of the 19th-century communist movement, creating the historical and economic critique of capitalism known as Marxism. Marx was born in Trier to a converted Jewish family. He studied law and, after a failed literary career, fell in with the Young Hegelians. Marx’s radical journalism attracted the ire of the Prussian government, forcing him into exile in Paris, where in 1844 he met Engels, a fellow radical who was the son of a successful industrialist. Engels would help support his friend throughout his life as Marx struggled to support his family with his meager income as a writer and journalist. Marx and Engels continued to develop their ideas and advocate for revolutionary causes, with both men eventually moving to England to escape persecution after the failed revolutions of 1848. They published The Communist Manifesto that same year. Marx and Engels played leading roles in the leading communist organization of their time, the International Workingmen’s Association, and fleshed out their ideas in the multiple volumes of Capital. Engels continued to write and organize after Marx’s death, most notably publishing The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State in 1884.