Christian Cyclopedia

(1818–83). Pol. philos.; regarded by many as founder of modern socialism based on hist. materialism; b. Trier (Treves), Prussia; bapt. in Luth. ch. 1824; educ. Bonn and Berlin; joined “Hegelian Left” (see Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 9); ed. Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne 1842 (it was suppressed 1843); to Paris 1843; coed. the only issue of Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher; influenced by Fr. socialists including C. H. de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon*; 1844 wrote, with F. Engels,* Die heilige Familie, an attack on B. Bauer*; 1845 contributed to Vorwärts, a radical Ger. paper pub. in Paris; expelled from Fr. 1845; to Brussels, Belg., 1845, where he contacted the workingmen's movement; wrote La Misère de la Philosophie 1847; with Engels wrote Communist Manifesto 1847; expelled from Brussels 1848; to Cologne via Paris; 1849 via Paris to London; led in organizing Internat. Workingmen's Assoc. 1864 (known as “First International”; this and the 2 following Internationals [1889; 1919] gave rise to the shorter name “The International”); spent last days in illness and financial difficulties.

Communist Manifesto is divided: I. Bourgeois and Proletarians; II. Proletarians and Communists; III. Socialist and Communist Literature; IV. Position of the Communists in Relation to Various Existing Opposition Parties. Basic suppositions ordinarily regarded as underlying Communist Manifesto: 1. Marxian dialectics; 2. class struggle; 3. economic determinism (or hist. materialism); 4. labor theory of value and surplus value. Other works include Das Kapital.

See also Socialism, 4.

P. M. Bretscher, “The Communist Manifesto,” CTM, XVII (October 1946), 742–769.