200th Birth Anniversary of Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx (1818–1883) was an outstanding German thinker, philosopher, sociologist, public person, economist and political journalist. The history of the 19th-20th century was strongly influenced by his ideas.

Karl Marx was born on 5 May 1818 in Trier (the Rhine Province). Marx studied at the University of Bonn to continue his education at the University of Berlin. He showed interest in history and Hegel studies. In 1841 he got an external degree from the university, defended a thesis which awarded him his PhD. In 1842 Marx started working in Rhineland News (Rhinische Zeitung) as a journalist and then editor.

Being a member of the League of the Just, an international secret organization, Karl Marx together with Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848).

In the 1850s Karl Marx began working on the new economic theory of his own which was published in 1867 as the first volume of Das Kapital. The second and the third volumes were released by Engels after his comrade’s death in 1885 and 1895. In 1864 Marx set up the International Workingmen’s Association (also known as the First International) that had great influence on the labour and socialist movement. In his last years Marx was actively engaged in starting proletarian political parties.

Karl Marx was the founding father of historical and dialectical materialism; the author of the surplus value theory in economics and class struggle theory in politics. In collaboration with Friedrich Engels, he developed a complete political, economic and philosophic methodology named after him Marxism.

The postage stamp depicts Karl Marx’s portrait sculpture.