Karl Marx

Karl Marx


Karl Marx was a German scholar who lived in the nineteenth century. He

spent most of his life studying, thinking and writing about history and

economics. A many years of study, much of it spent in England, he believed

that he understood more deeply than anyone who had ever lived before him

why there is injustice i world.


He said that all injustice and inequality is a result of one

underlying conflict in society. He called it a 'class struggle', that is,

a conflict bet the class of people who can afford to own money- producing

businesses, whom he called 'capitalists' or 'the bourgeosie', and the

class of people who do not surplus money to buy businesses and who are

therefore forced to work for wage whom he called 'workers'.


Marx said that, because it was always in the economic interest of

capita to take advantage of or 'exploit' workers, nothing could persuade

capitalists change their ways. In other words, peaceful progess toward

equality and social justice was impossible. The only way to establish

justice, he said, was for t workers to overthrow the capitalists by means

of violent revolution. He urged workers around the world to revolt against

their rulers. "Workers of the world unite!" he wrote. "You have nothing to

lose but your chains."


Another thing Marx taught was that organized religion, the churches,

help capitalists to keep the workers quiet and obedient. Religion,

according to Mar 'the opiate of the masses'. The church tells working

people to forget about the injustice they meet in their lives and to think

instead of how wonderful it will in the after- life when they go to heaven.


Marx, with his colleague, Engels, spread his ideas in two famous

books, Capital' and 'The Communist Manifesto'.


In the early years of the twentieth century, Russia was ready for the

ide Marx. The Russian people were extremely discontented with their ruler,

Tsar Nicholas II, who had little interest in governing and was neglecting

the count badly. Making conditions even more miserable for the people were

the hardships the First World War and a particularly cold winter.


By 1917, the Russian people were desperate enough to accept a

revolution. fact, they got two for the price of one, the first in March

when the Tsar was deposed and a provisional government was set up. Then in

November a political called the Bolsheviks led a further rebellion which

ousted the provisional government. The leaders of the Bolsheviks, Lenin and

Trotsky, began to build a Russia, one built on the ideas of Marx, where

everyone was equal, where all property was owned by 'the people' rather

than by capitalists and where the two were in control of the government.


Not long afterward, Communist Russia was attacked by Britain, America

and France, who wanted to get rid of the communist government. They were

afraid the workers in This is ONLY a preview of the article. If you would like to view the entire document, you must subscribe to Electronic References. Please register below now!


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