Kerosi Blog

Karl Marx

Who was Karl Marx?

I’ve read and heard so much about Karl Marx. The first time was when I was in high school. We read about Odili Samalu and Chief Nanga the main characters in Chinua Achebe’s novel A Man of the People. Samalu, the first person narrator was a keen student of Karl Marx and his great ideas.

At University I read more about Karl Marx especially his book Das Kapital. Marx was a well-read intellectual and his works had been published extensively.

He was a great lover of wine and a chain-smoker. He mostly had no money and as a result he would smoke low quality cigars.

Karl Marx used a biting satire in his arguments. He would sometime be cruel and rude. Most of the time he made verdicts which were so harsh and many people took offence. He spared no one in his criticism even his close friends were not spared.

Karl Marx always suffered from the side effects of hard work and poor diet. He slept very little most nights. This had a toll on his health. Overworking especially at night made inflammation.  

Politics

Marx left a complex legacy in the field of politics. His work led to tens of revolutions around the world. The revolutionaries even told the world that they were Marxists. The Russian Revolution is the most notable in this case.

Karl Marx was a great influence on world leaders such as Josip Broz, Mao Zeodong, Kwame Nkurumah, Vladimir Lenin and Salvador Allende.

Marx’s ideas led to the formation of political parties around the world. He is even blamed for deaths of millions of people around the world.

The following books were written by Karl Marx:

1. The Communist Manifesto 
2. Capital, Vol 1: A critical Analysis of Capitalist Production
3. Das Kapital
4. The Marx Engels Reader
5. German Ideology
6. The Eighteen Brumaire of Louis Bornaparte
7. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844/The Communist Manifesto
8. Grundrisse: Foundations of of Critique of Political Economy
9. Capital: The Circulation of Capital
10. The Civil War in France
11. Wage, Labor and Capital /Value, Price and Profit
12. The Poverty of Philosophy
13. Critique of Gotha Program
14. The Portable Karl Marx
15. On the Jewish Question
16. Wage Labor and Capital
17. Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy
18. Eleven Theses on Feuerbach
19. Wages, Price and Profit
20. Early Writings
21. The Class Struggles in France 1848-1850
22. Capital and Manga
23. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
24. On the Paris Commune

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