Table Of ContentKarl Marx: A Biography sets the man and his ideas
clearly against the historical sweep of his times. It
follows Marx from his middle-class origins in Trier
and student days in Bonn, through the years of
travel across Europe in search of sanctuary to
London, and the titanic labours on Capital at the
famous desk in the British Museum Reading
Room, and finally to the cemetery at 1 lighgate.
Expertly informed yet eminently readable,
Karl Marx vividly evokes the life and times from
which emerged the ideas that have had such an
incomparable impact on the tide of world affairs.
The epilogue brings together pen portraits of Marx
the man from several contemporaries, and the book
ends with an invaluable chronological table
and an extensive critical biography.
'It could be said that the biographers have only
changed Marx in various ways; the point is to
interpret him - and McLellan has filled a very real
K A RL M A RX
gap in doing this as fairly as he can ... he has
produced the most up-to-date, well-informed,
reliable and sensible biography so far.'
New Society D A V ID M c L E L L AN A B I O G R A P HY
'An authoritative and thorough re-creation of
Marx's life and thought - and the interaction
between the two . . . undoubtedly the best one-
volume biography of the great man in existence.'
Sunday Times
Cover illustration shows a derail of Karl Marx
© David King Co!~
Biography
ISBN 0-333-63947-2
>
ndoubtedly the best
one-volume biography of
9 IOUJJJ OJJ1IH the great man in existence.'
Sunday Times
KARL MARX
DAVID MCLELLAN is Professor of Political Theory at
the University of Kent. His numerous books have been
translated into many languages. His most recent publi-
cations are Simone Weil: Utopian Pessimist and Unto
Caesar: The Political Relevance of Christianity and he is
now working on a book which relates recent case law
to political theory.
David McLellan
ALSO BY DAVID McLELLAN
KARL MARX
The Young Hegelians and Karl Marx
Marx before Marxism
Karl Marx: The Early Texts
Marx's Grundrisse
A Biography
Karl Marx: His Life and Thought
Marx
Engels
Karl Marx: Selected Writings
Marxism after Marx
Simone Weil: Utopian Pessimist
Unto Caesar: The Political Relevance of Christianity
PAPERMAC
Contents
&
First published 1973 by Macmillan Press Ltd List of Plates vii
This edition published 1995 by Papermac Acknowledgements viii
an imprint of Macmillan General Books
Cavaye Place London swio gtc
Preface to Third Edition ix
and Basingstoke
Preface to First Edition xi
Associated companies throughout the world
Map: Germany about 1848 xiii
ISBN O 333 63947 2
Copyright © David McLellan 1973, 1995
ONE: TRIER, BONN AND BERLIN
The right of David McLellan to be identified as the
Childhood, 1. Student Days, 13. Journalism, 32.
author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
two: PARIS
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission. Marriage and Hegel, 57. The Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbiicher, 69.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance The 'Paris Manuscripts', 91. Last Months in Paris, 110.
with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution THREE: BRUSSELS
and civil claims for damages.
The Materialist Conception of History, 125. Weitling and Proudhon, 137.
135798642
The Founding of the Communist League, 149.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
FOUR: COLOGNE
Phototypeset by Intypc, London From Brussels to Paris, 173. Politics in Cologne, 177.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Mackays of Chatham pic, Kent The Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 179. The Watershed, 186.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, The Demise of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 193. Paris Again, 201.
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out,
or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which FIVE: LONDON
it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The First Year in London, 207.
Refugee Politics, 229. Life in Dean Street, 237.
Resumed Economic Studies, 251. Journalism, 255.
vi CONTENTS
Six: THE 'ECONOMICS'
The Grundrisse and Critique of Political Economy, 266. Herr Vogt, 283.
Marx and Lassalle, 287. Life in Grafton Terrace, 294. Capital, 302.
List of Plates
Life in Modena Villas, 319.
SEVEN: THE INTERNATIONAL
Origins of the International, 332. Growth of the International, 337.
1 Marx's birthplace
The International at its Zenith, 346.
2 Karl Marx, aged eighteen
The Franco-Prussian War and the Decline of the International, 355. 3 Jenny von Westphalen
4 Friedrich Engels
EIGHT: THE LAST DECADE 5 Helena Demuth
6 Jenny Marx, soon after her marriage
Marx at Home, 380. Work, 385. Health, 390. The European Scene, 394.
7 Jenny Marx with her eldest daughter Jenny
Russia, France and Britain, 401. The Last Years, 408. 8 28 Dean Street
9 The first known photograph of Marx
NINE: EPILOGUE 10 The younger Jenny
n Laura Marx
The Russian Aristocrat, 417. The American Senator, 417.
12 Freddy Demuth
The Down-and-out Prussian Lieutenant, 418. The Faithful Disciple, 419. 13 Eleanor Marx
14 Edgar Marx
The Anarchist Opponent, 419. The Adoring Daughter, 420.
15 Marx and Engels with Jenny, Eleanor and Laura
The English Gentleman, 420. Marx's Confession, 421. 16 9 Grafton Terrace
17 Marx in 1872
TEN: POSTSCRIPT: MARX TODAY 422. 18 Marx and his daughter Jenny
19 Marx in 1867
Chronological Table, 426.
20 The only known profile photograph of Marx
Genealogical Tree, 432. 21 Marx in 1875
22 Marx in 1882: the last photograph
Diagram of Marx's 'Economics', 433.
23 41 Maitland Park Road
Select Critical Bibliography, 434. 24 The chair in the British Museum
25 Marx's tomb in Highgate Cemetery
Index, 456.
26 Jenny Marx shortly before her death
Acknowledgements Preface to Third Edition
The plates are reproduced by permission of the following: i, Staatsbiblio- For this edition I have added a short postscript on how our view of Marx
thek, Berlin; 2 and 14, Dietz Verlag, Berlin; 3-7, io, 15, 18 and 26, Int. has been shaped by the events of the twentieth century, and also brought
Instituut voor Soc. Geschiedenis, Amsterdam; 9 and 21, Radio Times the bibliography up to date.
Hulton Picture Library; 11 and 13, Marx Memorial Library; 12, David
Heisler, London; 17, 19 and 22, Institut fur Marxismus-Leninismus, East D. M.
Berlin; 20 and 23, Communist Party Headquarters, London; 24, the
British Museum; 25, Angelo Hornak, London. Nos 8 and 16 were taken
by the author.
Preface to First Edition
There has been no full-scale biography of Marx in English covering all
aspects of his life since that of Mehring, first published in the original
German in 1918. Two events have occurred since then which justify a
fresh attempt: first, there is the publication of the unexpurgated Marx-
Engels correspondence - together with numerous other letters relating
to Marx's activities; second, several of Marx's crucial writings were
published only in the 1930s and considerably alter the picture of his
intellectual contribution.
Much writing about Marx has obviously suffered from the grinding of
political axes. Clearly it is impossible to pretend to a completely 'neutral'
account of anyone's life - let alone Marx's. There is a vast amount of
information and commentary on Marx and the very process of selection
implies a certain standpoint. What I have tried to do is at least to write
sine ira et studio and present the reader with a reasonably balanced picture.
I have therefore relied considerably on quotation and write from a sym-
pathetically critical standpoint that avoids the extremes of hagiography
and denigration.
The book is intended for the general reader; and I have attempted to
cover fully the three main facets of Marx's life - personal, political and
intellectual. In dealing with this last aspect I have had to include some
rather difficult passages, particularly in the latter halves of chapters one
and two and the beginning of chapter six. These passages are, however,
necessary for an accurate appreciation of Marx as a thinker.
I am grateful to Dr R. D. McLellan, Dr Brian Harrison and Mr C.
N. Taylor who read parts of the manuscript and made many helpful
suggestions; my particular thanks go to Dr G. M. Thomas whose inimi-
table sense of style has left its imprint on virtually every page of the book.
Remaining deficiencies are certainly not their fault.
D.M.
722 Old Dover, Road,
Canterbury, Kent
December 1972
ONE
Trie?] Bonn and Berlin
I feel myself suddenly invaded by doubt and ask myself if your heart
is equal to your intelligence and spiritual qualities, if it is open to
the tender feelings which here on earth are so great a source of
consolation for a sensitive soul; I wonder whether the peculiar demon,
to which your heart is manifestly a prey, is the Spirit of God or that
of Faust. I ask myself - and this is not the least of the doubts
that assail my heart - if you will ever know a simple happiness and
family joys, and render happy those who surround you.
Heinrich Marx to his son, MEGA i i (2) 202.
i. CHILDHOOD
It may seem paradoxical that Karl Marx, whom so many working-class
movements of our time claim as their Master and infallible guide to
revolution, should have come from a comfortable middle-class home. Yet
to a remarkable extent he does himself epitomise his own doctrine that
men are conditioned by their socio-economic circumstances. The German
city in which he grew up gave him a sense of long historical tradition
and at the same time close contact with the grim realities of the under-
development then characteristic of Germany. Thoroughly Jewish in their
origins, Protestant by necessity yet living in a Catholic region, his family
could never regard their social integration as complete. The sense of
alienation was heightened in Marx's personal case by his subsequent
inability to obtain a teaching post in a university system that had no room
for dissident intellectuals.
Marx was born in Trier on 5 May 1818. A community of about 15,000
inhabitants, it was the oldest city in Germany1 and also one of the loveliest
- situated as it was in the Mosel valley, surrounded by vineyards and
luxuriating in an almost Mediterranean vegetation. Under the name of
Augusta Treverorum the city had been considered the Rome of the North
and served as the headquarters of the most powerful of the Roman armies.
The Porta Nigra, in whose shadow (literally) Marx grew up, and the
enormous fourth-century basilica were enduring monuments of Trier's
9
36 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY TRIER, BONN AND BERLIN 3
imperial glory. In the Middle Ages the city had been the seat of a Prince- rabbi in Trier and then moved to Westhofen in Alsace where he held the
Archbishop whose lands stretched as far as Metz, Toul and Verdun; it was rabbinate for twenty years. Aron Lwow's father, Moses Lwow, came from
said that it contained more churches than any other German city of Lemberg (the German name for Lwow) in Poland, and numbered among
comparable size. Marx did not only get his lifelong Rhineland accent his ancestors Meir Katzenellenbogen, head of the Talmudic High School
from Trier: more importantly, his absorbing passion for history originated in Padua during the sixteenth century, and Abraham Ha-Levi Minz,
in the very environment of his adolescence. But it was not just the city rabbi in Padua, whose father had left Germany in the middle of the
of Roman times that influenced him: during the Napoleonic wars, fifteenth century owing to persecutions there. In fact almost all the rabbis
together with the rest of the Rhineland, it had been annexed by France of Trier from the sixteenth century onwards were ancestors of Marx.5
and governed long enough in accordance with the principles of the French Less is known of the ancestry of Karl's mother, Henrietta, but she
Revolution to be imbued by a taste for freedom of speech and consti- seems to have been no less steeped in the rabbinic tradition than her
tutional liberty uncharacteristic of the rest of Germany. There was con- husband. She was Dutch, the daughter of Isaac Pressburg, rabbi of Nijme-
siderable discontent following incorporation of the Rhineland into Prussia gen. According to Eleanor (Karl's daughter), in her grandmother's family
in 1814. Trier had very little industry and its inhabitants were mainly 'the sons had for centuries been rabbis'.4 In a letter to the Dutch socialist
officials, traders and artisans. Their activities were largely bound up with Polak, Eleanor wrote: 'It is strange that my father's semi-Dutch parentage
the vineyards whose prosperity, owing to customs unions and outside should be so little known. .. my grandmother's family name was Press-
competition, was on the decline. The consequent unemployment and burg and she belonged by descent to an old Hungarian Jewish family.
high prices caused increases in beggary, prostitution and emigration; more This family, driven by persecution to Holland, settled down in that
than a quarter of the city's population subsisted entirely on public charity. country and became known as I have said, by the name Pressburg - really
Thus it is not surprising that Trier was one of the first cities in the town from which they came.'5
Germany where French doctrines of Utopian socialism appeared. The Marx's father was remarkably unaffected by this centuries-old tradition
Archbishop felt himself compelled to condemn from the pulpit the doc- of strict Jewish orthodoxy. He had broken early with his family, from
trines of Saint Simon; and the teachings of Fourier were actively propa- whom he claimed to have received nothing 'apart from, to be fair, the
gated by Ludwig Gall, Secretary to the City Council, who constantly love of my mother',6 and often mentioned to his son the great difficulties
emphasised the growing disparity and hence opposition between the rich he had gone through at the outset of his career. At the time of Marx's
and the poor. birth he was counsellor-at-law to the High Court of Appeal in Trier; he
Marx was all the more predisposed to take a critical look at society as also practised in the Trier County Court, and was awarded the title of
he came from a milieu that was necessarily excluded from complete social Justizrat (very roughly the equivalent of a British Q.C.). For many years
participation. For it would be difficult to find anyone who had a more he was President of the city lawyers' association and occupied a respected
Jewish ancestry than Karl Marx.2 The name Marx is a shortened form of position in civic society though he confined himself mostly to the com-
Mordechai, later changed to Markus. His father, Heinrich Marx, was born pany of his colleagues.
in 1782, the third son of Meier Halevi Marx who had become rabbi of Although his beliefs seem to have been very little influenced by his
Trier on the death of his father-in-law and was followed in this office by Jewish upbringing, Heinrich Marx's 'conversion' to Christianity was one
his eldest son Samuel (Karl's uncle) who died in 1827. Meier Halevi Marx made solely in order to be able to continue his profession.7 The Napo-
numbered many rabbis among his ancestors, who came originally from leonic laws had given Jews in the Rhineland a certain equality but had
Bohemia, and his wife, Chage, had an even more illustrious ancestry: she attempted to impose strict controls over their commercial practices. On
was the daughter of Moses Lwow, rabbi in Trier, whose father and the transference of the Rhineland to Prussia, Heinrich Marx addressed a
grandfather were also rabbis in the same city. The father of Moses, Joshue memorandum to the new Governor-General in which he respectfully
Heschel Lwow, had been chosen rabbi of Trier in 1723, corresponded requested that the laws applying exclusively to Jews be annulled. He
with the leading Jewish personalities of his time and had been widely spoke of his 'fellow believers' and fully identified himself with the Jewish
known as a fearless fighter in the cause of truth. It was said of him that community. But the memorandum was without effect. The Jews got the
no important decision was taken in the Jewish world without his having worst of both worlds: in 1818 a decree was issued keeping the Napoleonic
first been consulted. The father of Joshue Heschel, Aron Lwow, was also laws in force for an unlimited period; and two years earlier the Prussian
