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The Red Prussian: The Life and Legend of Karl Marx
life of karl marx
382 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1948
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 6 reviews
July 4, 2014
Schwarzchild leaves nothing standing. Not only the feet, but the entire idol, turns out to be made of clay. Marx turns out - and the evidence is thoroughly supplied with footnotes - to be a repulsive human being with few redeeming features: treacherous, untruthful, intellectually dishonest, manipulative, and, in short, the true begetter of Communism, which has proved to be remarkably faithful to the character, methods & spirit of its founder.
The book is not a "hatchet-job" - the repulsiveness of Marx is in the sources; prettifying the sources in order to blow-dry a subject who according to them is thoroughly repulsive, is no part of an honest biographer's work. Because the book is not a hatchet-job, Schwarzchild has plenty to say about Marx's truly appalling health, which he endured for many years in extremely trying circumstances. His horrible behaviour becomes much more understandable as a result. Nor were his circumstances aided by his having made himself stateless - for the last 35 years of his life, he was a stateless person.
For this reader the most interesting parts of the book were the pages on Marx's early years, and on his intellectual development. The book is informative and engagingly, often humorously, written, and the author does not hide his opinion of his subject, and gives reasons for the judgements he makes; the reader is therefore all the better able to make up his own mind as to whether Schwarzchild's information should or should not be interpreted as he interprets it. The book is all the better for including photographs of characters such as Lassalle, Bakunin, & Engels, all of whom played a significant part in Marx's life.
The book is not a "hatchet-job" - the repulsiveness of Marx is in the sources; prettifying the sources in order to blow-dry a subject who according to them is thoroughly repulsive, is no part of an honest biographer's work. Because the book is not a hatchet-job, Schwarzchild has plenty to say about Marx's truly appalling health, which he endured for many years in extremely trying circumstances. His horrible behaviour becomes much more understandable as a result. Nor were his circumstances aided by his having made himself stateless - for the last 35 years of his life, he was a stateless person.
For this reader the most interesting parts of the book were the pages on Marx's early years, and on his intellectual development. The book is informative and engagingly, often humorously, written, and the author does not hide his opinion of his subject, and gives reasons for the judgements he makes; the reader is therefore all the better able to make up his own mind as to whether Schwarzchild's information should or should not be interpreted as he interprets it. The book is all the better for including photographs of characters such as Lassalle, Bakunin, & Engels, all of whom played a significant part in Marx's life.
June 12, 2012
The German Leopold Schwarzschild wrote this biography of Marx in the early days of the Cold War, and it is clearly an attempt to discredit Marxist doctrine. That being said, the book is well-researched, provides a thoughtful analysis of the genuine weaknesses in Marx's doctrine and character, and only occasionally strays into the outright polemical realm.
Marx was a good student with a powerful intellect, but he spent most of his university years in Bonn and Berlin, drinking, comporting himself like a spendthrift with his family's money, and bumming around coffee houses spouting atheist rants. His coffee house buddies were part of the Young Hegelian movement, who revered the master philosopher, but who sought to purge his ideas of any tinges of theism. Originally, Marx was not so keen on politics; he had fantasies of becoming a great poet. Eventually, he gave up this idea, and the more successful members of the Young Hegelians were able to convince him to finally finish his doctoral dissertation: "The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature." After becoming Dr. Marx he returned to the Rhineland and married his sweetheart, but his radical atheism prevented him from pursuing an academic career. He instead turned to journalism.
After becoming acquainted with the socialist fad that was sweeping the bourgeois of Europe, Marx set about to use the Rhenish Gazette to "present communism to the public in all its unwashed nakedness...[as] the undeniable collision between the have-nots and the middle class would be solved peacefully...[and he could] not even grant any theoretical validity to communist ideas, much less desire their practical realization." For Marx at that time, Hegelian thought and atheism were the only things that mattered; communism/socialism were as unrealistic as Christianity. His atheism and his polemical writing lost him his first job. He then moved to Paris.
In Paris Marx became the Marx we know. He became a committed communist, he met and began his life-long partnership with Friedrich Engels. His commitment to communism did not spring from his concern for the conditions of the working class; he loathed the uneducated masses. Rather, Marx hope to establish himself as a great philosopher on par with his idol Hegel. He took the ideas of Hegel: 1) the importance of the state (along with the Prussian notion of the all-powerful state), 2) dialectic: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis, propelled forward by the all-powerful, all-rational "IT." Though Marx found his reading in economics mind-numbingly boring he came to decide that Hegel's great "IT" was economics. Economics drove the historical dialectic. That is, all the great changes in history, the dialectic, were driven by economics. His "scientific socialism" was based on the idea that "what individuals are, depends upon the conditions of material production." Society, culture, morals, type of government, etc., are outgrowths of "a particular state of development in the productive forces." "The handmill will produce a society with feudal princelings; the steam mill a society with an industrial capitalist." In line with the Hegelian dialectic, every society, based on the means of production, held within itself the seeds of its own dissolution. "At a certain stage of development the productive forces come into conflict with the existing productive relations...the productive forces rebel against the mode of production which they have outgrown." That is, the oppressed classes, who do not control the means of production, and are exploited to maintain a certain society will inevitably rebel, and it is only through this rebellion that change will come. What was to come afterwards, beyond a "withering away of the state," was left to the imagination of his disciples, though Marx's arrogant, dictatorial personality gave indications as to what sort of "administration" would rule (i.e. "the dictatorship of the proletariat") after the "state" had disappeared.
This intellectually satisfying theory, when compared to reality has many holes, holes which Marx and Engels spent a lifetime skirting, obfuscating and talking-around. In fact, Marx NEVER published this theory in a cohesive manner (his seminal work "Capital" focused on the labor theory of value). He thought it, preached it, wrote about it in letters, but never felt the need to set it down in a clear, concise manner. He actually spent more time writing polemics, and assassinating the characters of his erstwhile comrades. Hence he earned the nick-name "the calf-bitter."
Except in his treatment to his immediate family and, usually Engels, Marx was extremely arrogant. As a politician he was an inveterate schemer, liar, double-dealer. He invented the notion of a "false-flag" political party that so many of his disciples (Lenin, etc.) adopted; claiming to be anything but communists, while setting the stage for communist revolution. Like Lenin he spent as much or more time fighting with those who should have been his allies, trying to assert his own unassailable political and theoretical authority, as he did battling the bourgeoisie. He helped destroy or weaken the Communist League, the first International, and the German Worker's Association,through his jealousy and scheming. His and Engels' predictions about the coming economic crisis that would finally bring about the dissolution of capitalism were proved wrong again, and again. He alienated most all of his one-time comrades, through his radicalism, character assassination, arrogance. Though a Jew himself, he was an anti-Semite, though learned given to using the coarsest of language in his letters. He ended his life as a political pariah, but a, somewhat, towering theoretical figure. His influence on contemporary, non-communist, notions about the role of economics in history is incalculable. Then again, this was not exactly a novel idea when he took it up and fit it into his theory of historical materialism.
Marx was a good student with a powerful intellect, but he spent most of his university years in Bonn and Berlin, drinking, comporting himself like a spendthrift with his family's money, and bumming around coffee houses spouting atheist rants. His coffee house buddies were part of the Young Hegelian movement, who revered the master philosopher, but who sought to purge his ideas of any tinges of theism. Originally, Marx was not so keen on politics; he had fantasies of becoming a great poet. Eventually, he gave up this idea, and the more successful members of the Young Hegelians were able to convince him to finally finish his doctoral dissertation: "The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature." After becoming Dr. Marx he returned to the Rhineland and married his sweetheart, but his radical atheism prevented him from pursuing an academic career. He instead turned to journalism.
After becoming acquainted with the socialist fad that was sweeping the bourgeois of Europe, Marx set about to use the Rhenish Gazette to "present communism to the public in all its unwashed nakedness...[as] the undeniable collision between the have-nots and the middle class would be solved peacefully...[and he could] not even grant any theoretical validity to communist ideas, much less desire their practical realization." For Marx at that time, Hegelian thought and atheism were the only things that mattered; communism/socialism were as unrealistic as Christianity. His atheism and his polemical writing lost him his first job. He then moved to Paris.
In Paris Marx became the Marx we know. He became a committed communist, he met and began his life-long partnership with Friedrich Engels. His commitment to communism did not spring from his concern for the conditions of the working class; he loathed the uneducated masses. Rather, Marx hope to establish himself as a great philosopher on par with his idol Hegel. He took the ideas of Hegel: 1) the importance of the state (along with the Prussian notion of the all-powerful state), 2) dialectic: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis, propelled forward by the all-powerful, all-rational "IT." Though Marx found his reading in economics mind-numbingly boring he came to decide that Hegel's great "IT" was economics. Economics drove the historical dialectic. That is, all the great changes in history, the dialectic, were driven by economics. His "scientific socialism" was based on the idea that "what individuals are, depends upon the conditions of material production." Society, culture, morals, type of government, etc., are outgrowths of "a particular state of development in the productive forces." "The handmill will produce a society with feudal princelings; the steam mill a society with an industrial capitalist." In line with the Hegelian dialectic, every society, based on the means of production, held within itself the seeds of its own dissolution. "At a certain stage of development the productive forces come into conflict with the existing productive relations...the productive forces rebel against the mode of production which they have outgrown." That is, the oppressed classes, who do not control the means of production, and are exploited to maintain a certain society will inevitably rebel, and it is only through this rebellion that change will come. What was to come afterwards, beyond a "withering away of the state," was left to the imagination of his disciples, though Marx's arrogant, dictatorial personality gave indications as to what sort of "administration" would rule (i.e. "the dictatorship of the proletariat") after the "state" had disappeared.
This intellectually satisfying theory, when compared to reality has many holes, holes which Marx and Engels spent a lifetime skirting, obfuscating and talking-around. In fact, Marx NEVER published this theory in a cohesive manner (his seminal work "Capital" focused on the labor theory of value). He thought it, preached it, wrote about it in letters, but never felt the need to set it down in a clear, concise manner. He actually spent more time writing polemics, and assassinating the characters of his erstwhile comrades. Hence he earned the nick-name "the calf-bitter."
Except in his treatment to his immediate family and, usually Engels, Marx was extremely arrogant. As a politician he was an inveterate schemer, liar, double-dealer. He invented the notion of a "false-flag" political party that so many of his disciples (Lenin, etc.) adopted; claiming to be anything but communists, while setting the stage for communist revolution. Like Lenin he spent as much or more time fighting with those who should have been his allies, trying to assert his own unassailable political and theoretical authority, as he did battling the bourgeoisie. He helped destroy or weaken the Communist League, the first International, and the German Worker's Association,through his jealousy and scheming. His and Engels' predictions about the coming economic crisis that would finally bring about the dissolution of capitalism were proved wrong again, and again. He alienated most all of his one-time comrades, through his radicalism, character assassination, arrogance. Though a Jew himself, he was an anti-Semite, though learned given to using the coarsest of language in his letters. He ended his life as a political pariah, but a, somewhat, towering theoretical figure. His influence on contemporary, non-communist, notions about the role of economics in history is incalculable. Then again, this was not exactly a novel idea when he took it up and fit it into his theory of historical materialism.
December 3, 2019
Best biography of Marx.
September 15, 2014
Swartzchild's Karl Marx biography reflects the social biases of the 1950-1960's. His book is well documented and provides a vast amount of details about his personal relationships, Hegelian roots, and gridlock writing Das Capital. I was intrigued by his chapter on Miquel's critique of Marx-Engels theories. This is an important read for political science students and public policy scholars.
May 4, 2025
This is a great book and well researched.
I previously read a book on Marx that focused more on his private life, this focused more on his "professional" life. I got it from a second hand shop, and tried to get on kindle edition but no luck. As already mentioned in a previous review this book should really be re-printed, its ashame.
I previously read a book on Marx that focused more on his private life, this focused more on his "professional" life. I got it from a second hand shop, and tried to get on kindle edition but no luck. As already mentioned in a previous review this book should really be re-printed, its ashame.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 6 reviews