About him as a person, his historical conditions, his life, his loved ones. Does anyone have any favorite biographies or even just passages from primary or secondary sources? Alternatively, if anyone has the time, what do you think is most important or interesting to understand about Karl Marx as a person, or perhaps about the historical context he lived in?
"An account by Liebknecht of a smashing drunken evening in London town, written some 40 years after the event...
One evening, Edgar Bauer, acquainted with Marx from their Berlin time and then not yet his personal enemy […], had come to town from his hermitage in Highgate for the purpose of “making a beer trip.” The problem was to “take something” in every saloon between Oxford Street and Hampstead Road – making the something a very difficult task, even by confining yourself to a minimum, considering the enormous number of saloons in that part of the city. But we went to work undaunted and managed to reach the end of Tottenham Court Road without accident.
There loud singing issued from a public house; we entered and learned that a club of Odd Fellows were celebrating a festival. We met some of the men belonging to the “party,” and they at once invited us “foreigners” with truly English hospitality to go with them into one of the rooms. We followed them in the best of spirits, and the conversation naturally turned to politics – we had been easily recognised as Germany fugitives; and the Englishmen, good old-fashioned people, who wanted to amuse us a little, considered it their duty to revile thoroughly the German princes and the Russian nobles. By “Russian” they meant Prussian nobles. Russia and Prussia are frequently confounded in England, and not alone of account of their similarity of name. For a while, everything went smoothly. We had to drink many healths and to bring out and listen to many a toast.
Then the unexpected suddenly happened… Edgar Bauer, hurt by some chance remark, turned the tables and ridiculed the English snobs. Marx launched an enthusiastic eulogy on German science and music – no other country, he said, would have been capable of producing such masters of music as Beethoven, Mozart, Haendel and Haydn, and the Englishmen who had no music were in reality far below the Germans who had been prevented hitherto only by the miserable political and economic conditions from accomplishing any great practical work, but who would yet outclass all other nations. So fluently I have never heard him speak English.
For my part, I demonstrated in drastic words that the political conditions in England were not a bit better than in Germany [… ] the only difference being that we Germans knew our public affairs were miserable, while the Englishmen did not know it, whence it were apparent that we surpassed the Englishmen in political intelligence.
The brows of our hosts began to cloud […]; and when Edgar Bauer brought up still heavier guns and began to allude to the English cant, then a low “damned foreigners!” issued from the company, soon followed by louder repetitions. Threatening words were spoken, the brains began to be heated, fists were brandished in the air and – we were sensible enough to choose the better part of valor and managed to effect, not wholly without difficulty, a passably dignified retreat.
Now we had enough of our “beer trip” for the time being, and in order to cool our heated blood, we started on a double quick march, until Edgar Bauer stumbled over some paving stones. “Hurrah, an idea!” And in memory of mad student pranks he picked up a stone, and Clash! Clatter! a gas lantern went flying into splinters. Nonsense is contagious – Marx and I did not stay behind, and we broke four or five street lamps – it was, perhaps, 2 o'clock in the morning and the streets were deserted in consequence. But the noise nevertheless attracted the attention of a policeman who with quick resolution gave the signal to his colleagues on the same beat. And immediately countersignals were given. The position became critical.
Happily we took in the situation at a glance; and happily we knew the locality. We raced ahead, three or four policemen some distance behind us. Marx showed an activity that I should not have attributed to him. And after the wild chase had lasted some minutes, we succeeded in turning into a side street and there running through an alley – a back yard between two streets – whence we came behind the policemen who lost the trail. Now we were safe. They did not have our description and we arrived at our homes without further adventures."
the only difference being that we Germans knew our public affairs were miserable, while the Englishmen did not know it, whence it were apparent that we surpassed the Englishmen in political intelligence.
This is hilarious. Chad German who has already given up vs naive Englishman who still has hope
Some of my favorite anecdotes about Marx:
- Named all his daughters Jenny, after their mother
- Broke a bunch of street lamps one drunken night in London in a rowdy fit, then hid from the police in an alleyway
- Got into a duel as a university student with a Prussian soldier. Came away with a scar above his eye.
- His wife one time sold his pants for food
- One time a Prussian cop went to the Marx household as part of an investigation, but had to leave because the cigar smoke was so thick
- Had he and his wife lived a bit longer, and were in better health, Marx would have probably published a book on calculus. He was very interested in mathematics towards the end of his life, particularly differential and integral calculus.
- Had a thing for nicknames. His closest friends called him Mohr (he had a darker complexion than most Germans). His kids called him Nick or Charlie. He frequently gave other people nicknames too. My favorite is he gave the name 'Jollymeier' to Carl Schorlemmer, Marx's friend and one of the founders of organic chemistry.
- He had a wide and varied social life, despite being so poor and of ill-health. He made friends easily. People were always coming and going in his house or staying over, including August Willich, who'd serve as a Union general in the American civil war
- One of the people who attended Marx's funeral was Wilhelm Liebknecht, father of Karl Liebknecht, who'd go on to found the Spartacus League with Rosa Luxemburg.
What about when August Willich challenged him to a duel an Marx was like "nah I'm not getting into that shit".
That duel did occur, with Konrad Schramm standing in for Marx. Schramm was a member of the Communist League and an associate of Marx. That duel is kind of funny because after setting a time and date, Willich and Schramm then both discovered pistol dueling wasn't legal in the UK, so instead they held it in Belgium.
Schramm got shot in the head in the duel, but apparently survived and died of TB 8 years later.
Dueling is one of those things from history I just cannot wrap my head around. Especially a duel among comrades.
Throughout most of European history it operated as a pressure relief valve. It was conflict resolution among nobility, more than that it kept the noble class united. Most duels weren't to the death, they were declared over when one person forfeited or had their blood drawn. Both parties in a successful duel were considered honorable, both the winner and the loser, so both had reputation to gain even if they lost.
Even though they weren't fighting to the death, people did frequently die in them. That's part of how they worked as a uniting force among nobles. Even the threat of a duel was frightening, because even a simple scratch on the cheek could lead to infection, fever, and death. Even winning a duel was often deadly, because even if you kill your opponent, your wounds could also prove lethal. So, more often than not, nobles would choose to play nice with one another and resolve mutual conflicts in diplomatic ways, or just use their own soldiers, because the alternative was a swordfight that could kill both of them.
August Willich was a Prussian army officer and grew up among people with noble titles. Dueling was the culture he was acclimated to. I don't know much about Schramm, but in my head I've imagined the story as he saw the duel as defending Marx against some haughty guy with a noble title trying to inject something as ridiculous as dueling between comrades. Schramm might have seen victory against Willich as proof of how proletariat revolutionaries could defeat aristocrats. Schramm was also only 27 years old at the time and full of piss and vinegar, so he also might not have been thinking straight to begin with.
I hope that explains it.
lmao so funny. im fascinated by both the image of marx's lifestyle but also the peak into the minds of stuffy old timey policemen
When he was alive magazines would have these fill in the blank personal preference lists to pass the time, kind of like buzzfeed quizzes now. Marx liked to do them, but i cant find any of them online
He had a sugar daddy named Friedrich Engels, you should look him up.
favourite names
Jenny, Laura
:gaddafi-happy: that's his wife and daughter
The character in history you most dislike
Did not say hitler
pretty sussy ngl
A lot of these seem so weird they're probably like inside jokes he had with family members. It's kinda neat but also frustrating.
if you are feeling very, very lazy you could watch the Marx Chinese anime https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T0a_jXHiDo&list=PLXDJDEaop8WS60EmNnW8xGByFu8LqsqME
Apparently he couldn't leave the house at times because his wife, Jenny, had pawned his trousers. I guess it was typical back then to only have one pair of pants per household?
It wasn't, but Marx was very poor, partially because he couldn't write consistently for long periods and instead did so in short, manic bursts.
Hard to say now but he may have had ADHD or something similar.
So what was the typical number to own then? Two? Six? Ten?
If you could pawn them, they must have had more value back then than they do today.
Depends, both on what part of the 19th century and Marx's specific circumstances. When he first moved to London he had a fairly comfortable middle-class existence, so...4-10 pants, possibly more given Jenny was from a wealthy family. But Children and the dwindling of inheritances due to financial crashes hurt things and they swung between family comfortable and very poor depending on Marx's writing income.
Later, after Capital was published he began to get a more consistent income and were solidly lower middle class.
A (housed, factory jobbed) working-class person at least 2, probably 3-4. Old pair, good pair, Sunday best. Even very poor rural fishermen would own two pairs (you see this in some of Enid Blyton's novels) of outer clothes and more shirts, shifts etc and more became possible as the sewing machine and artificial dyes dropped clothing prices from 1860 on.
Also there's a split in the number and quality. An upper working class person might own more, but cheaper (or at least harder wearing), clothes than, say, a lower middle class women who had to keep up appearences.
So if Marx's last pair is being pawned they're right on the precipice of homelessness or starvation. This usually only happened when Engles was away for extended periods and Marx couldn't hit him up.
The Pawn market was huge, but in urban areas fashion was very important so upper and upper middle class garments were easier to find.
So in Paris in the 1790s the very poor might wear pawned finery 3 years out of date and soiled and unsuited for the life they lived, but the poor would wear well constructed garments appropriate for their job. Imagine if you had to work in a laundry with lye and soap wearing an 18th century silk gown. It'd last 3 days.
There's somebody on here who cited like 4 books including the jenny Marx one that seemed really interesting in a previous post
I’m gonna post three (probably) replies, this will be the first one. Second will address some interesting points that I've noticed in my quest to read all the Marx biographies, will take longer. Last will be a bunch of quotes about Marx and will take even longer. This first one will answer the question of “Does anyone have any favorite biographies” by giving brief reviews of the Marx biographical literature I have read bc i love all of them. Starting with more contemporary sources, I need to begin by explaining the social character of the Marxes (Engels and his wives included in this circle). The Marxes kept a lot of stuff secret from their political comrades, and even friends. Many of their friends had no idea how dire their financial situation often was, and Karl even hid this from his future son in law Lafargue during periods when he was living with the Marxes (he wouldn’t find out about the financial situation until well after marriage) as just one example. This means that, when considering contemporary sources on Marx, it is wise to divide into at least three ‘categories’ for analysis: 1. accounts by Marxes (and Engels, Lizzy and Mary ofc need to be treated slightly differently as they lived in a different city for ~2 decades, but they were in on the secrets), 2. accounts by other close friends and close political allies and 3. accounts by everyone else (could be divided more ofc). All accounts are useful, but this aids in preventing one from taking the Prussian police report of Marx’s character during the Soho period(the worst and most miserable years of his life) as characteristic of Marx through his entire life, or taking Marx at his word when he says his financial situation is alright, for example.
The best place to start imo is with Eleanor Marx’s writings. After her father’s death in 1883 she wrote two brief articles in Progress, a newspaper, the first of which is a brief biography of Karl Marx. The second is a brief summary of Marx’s key theoretical points and is also cool and good. She also wrote some biographical notes about more personal information in his early life. Eleanor is obviously very biased, being Karl’s daughter, but she’s also probably the person who knew him best at that point. Most later biographies of Karl use Eleanor’s works as the basis for their accounts of the key points, which they then add to using more sources. Paul Lafargue and Wilhelm Liebknecht also wrote more personal reminiscences of Karl, both of which offer a look at some of his less politically relevant qualities. As far as I’m aware, these are the three biggest ‘biographies’ of Marx written by people who knew him personally, and all can be found on marxists.org.
When we discuss biographies by people who didn’t know him, we need to discuss the publishing of Marx’s hoard of unpublished articles, notes, letters, and the like.This process is still ongoing in the Marx Engels Gesamtausgabe 2, the project to publish all of Marx’s and Engels’ writings, including writings in margins, notes, letters (even more than what is currently published in MECW), literally everything they can find. This means biographies written in 2018 have much better access to sources than those written even just 20 years prior. However, we don’t actually have all the personal letters: Engels destroyed many of the letters to/from himself that Marx had preserved which dealt with strictly personal matters. So regardless of how complete any biography claims its research into Marx’s letters is keep firmly in mind that there are missing letters, and many biographers are unaware of this. Also bare heavily in mind that the people with the time and money to research and write a biography of Marx are going to be academics with bad takes on AES, also often without full comprehension of his ideas, let alone Marxism after Marx so they’ll often have horrible takes there too.
In terms of these more recent biographies, the most focussed on the Marxes’ personal lives is Love and Capital. If you want a readable modern book giving you an idea of what Karl Marx (and his family) were like this is a good choice. It engages a lot with letters from what I remember– including Jenny Marx sr.’s and the childrens’ which are often overlooked. This allows it to get much closer to a ‘personal’ Karl Marx than others. The book is also (vaguely) structured around a tragic narrative centered on the writing of Capital, which makes it more engaging to read, but gives Gabriel a tendency to attribute motivations and present her interpretations as facts. On the occasion she tries to delve into history or theory, she often gets things mixed up or misunderstood, but this isn’t much of a failing imo bc it isn’t the focus of the book.
The two most general biographies I’ve read are Jones’ Greatness and Illusion and Liedman’s A World to Win. The first one has some of the worst takes on Marx’s theory ever, and also tends to interpret things very negatively towards Marx. However it presents the most exhaustive examination of the day-to-day life of Karl Marx so it’s still definitely worth reading if you want more concrete details wrt that. A World to Win is a very, very general biography; it tries to explain Marx’s theoretical development, personal life, and the historical context. This makes it a bit lighter on details, and I don’t think the author fully understands the theory he’s writing about. However it is a very solid general introduction to Karl Marx as a whole, looking at least a bit at every aspect of his life. It’s also written by a multilingual Swedish author who has examined sources in several languages including English and German giving it access to sources the books written by Anglos generally won’t have.
Rachel Holmes’ Eleanor Marx is a biography of Eleanor, but this means it (at least until 1883) examines Karl from the perspective of the daughter who he claimed was so similar to him that she was him: “Jenny [jr] is most like me, but Tussy[Eleanor]…is me.” Holmes is even more focussed on a narrative (and an agenda) than Gabriel, which again leads imo to some uncharitable interpretations of Karl, but this is also a book that aims to expose Edward Aveling (Eleanor’s commonlaw husband) as her murderer after almost a century of her death being ruled a suicide so I firmly think her heart is in the right place (and also think she’s right about Aveling being a murderous shithead); her uncharitable interpretations of Karl are usually because she’s taking Eleanor’s side in an argument.
The Frock Coated Communist by Hunt (former labour MP, no good political takes to be found) is the most recent biography of Friedrich Engels. There are some absolutely terrible opinions here and it needs to be read very critically and with a truck of salt, however if you want to understand Karl Marx, understanding Friedrich Engels is important. There’s also Carver’s Engels and Marx and Engels which are older and push the “Engels is an evil revisionist” narrative a bit, but they’re less prone to launching personal attacks on Engels’ character so may be more readable in that regard.
As @solaranus mentioned, Musto wrote a biography of very late Karl Marx addressing both personal and theoretical development. Musto is a “the fall of the USSR was good for Marxism” academic radlib, but he also REALLY likes writing and editing books about Marx so I do trust his research, if not the conclusions he comes to from that research. His edited books (Marx and Le Capital, Marx’s Capital After 150 Years and Rethinking Alternatives With Marx are the ones I’ve read) also generally feature people with much better takes than his, many of those contributions weave in information about how Marx did his research, especially later in life.
Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society by Michael Heinrich is very ambitious, and when completed will likely be the single most comprehensive biography of Karl Marx. The first volume, published 2018 and translated from German to English the next year, covers 1818-1841 in exhaustive detail. However, the second volume, which will cover 1841-1845, will not be published until this August. No estimated dates for future volumes, and, if 1841-45 is going to be one volume, I am assuming we are looking at at least 10 volumes tbh because the number of sources to examine only increases as Marx’s life goes on.
All of the above (and every volume of MECW including those with (some of the) letters if you wanna look at them) can be found on libgen
First thing I want to point out is that Marx changed over time. This seems obvious, but a lot of people overlook the changes in circumstances and personality Marx saw during his lifetime and sorta imagine an unchanging Marx; whether it’s as a devoted researcher, a politician or a young drunken student. Over the course of his life Marx was, among other things, a teen worrying about his future, an irresponsible student in Bonn, a hyperfixated scholar in Berlin, a radical journalist in Cologne, unemployed in Paris, revolutionary journalist in Cologne, refugee in London, international correspondent for the New York Tribune, lower class man trying desperately to pass as middle class, doting father and grandfather. Some key periods I might outline in Marx’s life would be “baby marx; his life until around November 10th 1837,” “Theological Marx; from 1837 to around 1844,” “early Marx; 1844-51,” “treading water; 1851-59,” “Capital; 1859-72ish,” and “late Marx; 1872-83” but other divisions are possible (this one is based more on his personal life than theory, despite some of the names), and there’s similarities and differences across and between all of these Marxes.
Someone else in the thread pointed towards ADHD and that’s possible, but another possibility (and they aren’t mutually exclusive ofc) is autism; his research gives me more the impression of a special interest. Another suggestive indication is how often Marx is misunderstood in his letters when they’re analysed by biographers. For example, his 1837 letter to his father is called “rambly,” “unrelated to his father’s concerns,” etc but when read carefully, after Karl realised he spent 1-2 pages detailing his theoretical legal system he’d already discarded as silly, he seems to have planned out the letter a bit. Many of the things that biographers read as “excuses,” feel to me (as an autist) like an autistic person explaining the exact reasons we do what we do. Most of the people in Karl’s most immediate family seem to have understood this and other such behaviours much better than those more distant, and this is visible in letters and relationships. One thing Marx biographers often forget is literally everyone in the inner Marx circle had, as far as I’m aware from what I’ve read, not once expressed such doubts about his intentions or about his behaviours (in writing that we have at least); they stuck with him for decades because he was very dear to them. Other indications of Marx’s autism/ADHD/neurodiversity generally include pacing, his violent outbursts, ‘rude’ (really, “direct” is a better word imo) tone, repetitive behaviour, inability to ‘drop’ a topic or agree to disagree, ‘black and white’ view of things (especially evident when he’s angry), etc. Eleanor Marx gives me a similar impression (also egg vibes).
Marx’ work also wasn’t really done in bursts, however. It appears that way looking at publication, but when Marx isn’t publishing books he’s basically writing manuscripts, notes, reading other books and making notes on them, editing manuscripts, getting sick, writing articles for the New York Tribune, etc. He does seem to have had a hard time with larger projects (e.g. Capital) getting out of hand, and him being unsure where to cut stuff off as “irrelevent.” Getting volume one published took a MASSIVE toll on his mental and physical health leading to breaks, but if he was able, Marx was generally reading and writing.
One interesting point is Marx’s relationship to religion. When he was young, both in the gymnasium and in his 1837 letter, he seems to have been at least vaguely believing in God and such. Based on the phrasing of his free choice essay (and his choice to bring God into it) he seems to have been some sort of deist (his father also seems to have been a deist). This would change into overt hostility to religion as Marx threw himself into religious polemics. However, after writing the unpublished articles criticising German philosophy with Engels that would later be edited together, re-arranged and added to to create The German Ideology in the 30s, Marx turned away from this sort of academic philosophical abstract non-concrete metaphysical debates. When he died, Marx had a copy of the Bible as well as the Torah, and according to Eleanor Marx began acknowledging that some people have spiritual needs; Eleanor says he told Jenny sr. she would do better to seek spiritual fulfilment in the Torah than a secular church when she went to such a church.
Someone else mentioned Marx’s nickname of ‘Mohr’ (used by his children as well as his friends) and darker skin. This likely played a role in Marx’s experiences with bigotry in his early London years, intersecting with his foreignness, poverty, Jewish heritage and disabilities ([probably] ND, inherited shitty health). There’s an account (I’ll try and find it for the third reply) of him attempting to pawn one of Jenny sr.’s plates (with her permission, they needed food), but when the pawnbroker saw the ragged immigrant with the huge nose and not-pale skin trying to sell it he called Marx a thief. Marx tried to explain in bad English that it was his wife’s. Don’t remember offhand how it ended. Marx seems to have tried to downplay his Jewish heritage’s role in people’s views; but there’s lots of circumstantial evidence that suggests it played at least something of a role, at least at times. Eleanor Marx would explicitly claim her Jewish heritage years after his death.
Passages from sources, a few contemporary to Marx, some written by Marx, and some recent ones written by folks who've had the chance to extensively study his work.
ON HEGEL 1 Since I have found the Highest of things and the Depths of them also, Rude am I as a God, cloaked by the dark like a God. Long have I searched and sailed on Thought's deep billowing ocean; There I found me the Word: now I hold on to it fast. 2 Words I teach all mixed up into a devilish muddle, Thus, anyone may think just what he chooses to think; Never, at least, is he hemmed in by strict limitations. Bubbling out of the flood, plummeting down from the cliff, So are his Beloved's words and thoughts that the Poet devises; He understands what he thinks, freely invents what he feels. Thus, each may for himself suck wisdom's nourishing nectar; Now you know all, since I've said plenty of nothing to you! Early Literary Experiments 3 Kant and Fichte soar to heavens blue Seeking for some distant land, I but seek to grasp profound and true That which — in the street I find. 4 Forgive us epigrammatists For singing songs with nasty twists. In Hegel we're all so completely submerged, But with his Aesthetics we've yet to be Purged.” (First Line is title of the Poem, Marx, Berlin Period pre-nov10, 1837)
“TO THE MEDICAL STUDENTS Damned philistino-medico-student crew, The whole world's just a bag of bones to you. When once you've cooled the blood with Hydrogen, And when you've felt the pulse's throbbing, then You think, "I've done the most I'm able to. Man could be very comfortable, too. How clever of Almighty God to be So very well versed in Anatomy!" And flowers are all instruments to use, When they've been boiled down into herbal brews.” (First Line is title of the Poem, by Marx, written while in Berlin but before the November 10th Letter)
“They rest on the misunderstanding to the effect that Marx seeks to define where he only explains, and that one can generally look in Marx for fixed, cut-and-dried definitions that are valid for all time. It should go without saying that where things and their mutual relations are conceived not as fixed but rather as changing, their mental images, too, i.e. concepts, are also subject to change and reformulation; that they are not to be encapsulated in rigid definitions, but rather developed in their process of his- torical or logical formation” (Engels, preface to Capital Volume 3)
“When Marx has answered a question, he keeps looking for inconsistencies, often not confident in his own judgement” -Carl-Erich Vollgraf (one of the editors of MEGA2)
“Marx did not rush to judgement, or assume that what he had written…could simply be extended to Russia. Rather, as he later wrote, “in order to reach an informed judgement of the economic development of…Russia, I learned Russian and then spend several long years studying official publications and others…”” -Ian Angus “Marx and Engels and Russia’s Peasant Communes”
““Here it was, where Mrs Marx after the death of one of her children born in London, of little “Foexchen,” in 1852, wrote with her heart’s blood on a loose sheet of paper: “My grief was so great. It was the first child I lost And on the same sheet added some years later: “Alas! I did not suspect, then, what was in store for me, before which everything else would sink into nothingness!” She is speaking of the death of poor “Moosh.” A few months after Foxy’s death little Franciska died. And on one of the loose diary leaves, found only recently on sifting the papers, we read: On Easter of the same year, 1852, our poor little Francisca died of severe bronchitis. Three days the poor child was struggling with death. It suffered so much. Its little lifeless body rested in the small back room, we all moved together into the front room, and when night approached, we made our beds on the floor. There the three living children were lying at our side, and we cried about the little angel who rested cold and lifeless near us. The death of the dear child fell into the time of the most bitter poverty ... (The money for the burial of the child was missing.) I went to a French refugee living in the vicinity who had visited us shortly before. He at once gave me two pounds sterling with the friendliest sympathy. With this money the little coffin was purchased, in which my poor child now slumbers peacefully. It had no cradle when it entered the world, and the last little abode also was for a long time denied to it. What did we suffer, when it was carried away to its last place of rest!”” -From Liebknecht’s memoirs
Marx was a passionate smoker. Like everything else, he carried on smoking with impetuousness. English tobacco being too strong for him, he provided for himself, whenever he had any chance of doing so, cigars which he half-chewed in order to heighten the enjoyment or to have a double pleasure. As cigars are very dear in England, he was continually on the hunt for cheap brands. And what kind of stuff he secured in this way may be imagined; “cheap and nasty” is an English expression, and Marx’s cigars were consequently dreaded by his friends.” -From Liebknecht's Memoirs
“But at my first visit, when I saw him in his study in Maitland Park Road, he appeared before me, not as the indefatigable and unequaled socialist agitator, but as the man of learning. ... He would never allow anyone to arrange (really, to disarrange) his books and papers. The prevailing disorder was only apparent. In actual fact, everything was in its proper place, and without searching he could put his hand on any book or manuscript he wanted. Even when conversing, he would often stop to show a relevant passage or figure in the book itself. He was at one with his study, where the books and papers were as obedient to his will as were his own limbs.
He took no account of external symmetry when arranging his books. Quarto and octavo volumes and pamphlets were placed side by side; he arranged his books not according to size but according to content. To him books were intellectual tools, not luxuries. “They are my slaves,” he would say, “and must serve my will.” He had scant respect for their form, their binding, the beauty of paper or printing; he would turn down the corners of the pages, underline passages, and cover the margins with pencil marks.” (Lafargue memoirs)
“By September 25 ...Marx was at the point of selecting a title for his now two-hundred-page book. He suggested Da-Da-Vogt, an obscure reference to an Arab writer who was used by Napoleon in Algiers as Vogt had been used in Geneva. Marx said the meaning would become clear about halfway through the book,114 and in a letter to Engels defended the title, saying it “will PUZZLE your philistine, pleases me and fits in with my SYSTEM OF MOCKERY and CONTEMPT.”” (Garbiel, Love & Capital)
“For a long time I believed that it would be possible to overthrow the Irish regime by English working class ascendancy. I always expressed this point of view in the New York Tribune. Deeper study has now convinced me of the opposite. The English working class will never accomplish anything before it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland.” -letter from marx to engels, dec 11 1869
Great thread.
I confess to not having read nearly enough of/on Marx, though I’m constantly blown away by his prognostications and prescience.
I quite liked The Young Karl Marx
Filmmaker Raoul Peck has done some good work toward our cause, including movies about Patrice Lumumba and James Baldwin also.
The first few episodes of season 10 of the revolutions podcast talks a lot about marx's life (mainly episode 10.2)
When I was a baby leftist I read a Marx biography by Francis Wheen (Lib) but had some good nuggets on the young Marx and some very personal passages about him and his relationship with his children
