Definition for View source for Marx, Karl

Marx, Karl (1818 to 1883): Founder of international communism, born in Trier, Germany. He studied law at Bonn and Berlin, but took up history, Hegelian philosophy, and Feuerbach's materialism. He edited a radical newspaper, and after it was suppressed he moved to Paris (1843) and Brussels (1845). There, with Engels as his closest collaborator and disciple, he reorganized the Communist League, which met in London in 1847. In 1848 he finalized the Communist Manifesto, which attacked the state as the instrument of oppression, and religion and culture as ideologies of the capitalist class. He was expelled from Brussels, and in 1849 settled in London, where he studied economics, and wrote the first volume of his major work, Das Kapital (1867, two further volumes were added in 1884 and 1894). He was a leading figure in the First International from 1864 until its demise in 1872. The last decade of his life was marked by increasing ill health. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery, London.