Revolutions 10-2 -The Adventures of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Speaker 1
And so his dad shipped him off to the university of berlin, which was located in the capital of the kingdom. Before karl departed, he proposed marriage to jenni von vestfallen, the daughter of a minor noble civil servant. And though the couple were only together in person once over the next five years, and that one time they got together almost wrecked their relationship, their engagement held. And when they finally got married. They remained together through the occasionally thick and very often thin rest of their lives. Arriving in berlin in 18 36, karl did something even worse than drinking and brawling. He became enamored with philosophy. In germany in the mid 18 thirties, getting into philosophy meant getting into the just recently deceased hegel, whose philosophy cast an all encompassing shadow over german intellectual life, especially here in the first half of the nineteenth century. We'll talk a little bit more next week about what concepts marks pulled out of hegel, but for now, the crowd marks fell in with was the more radical and icono classic group called the young hegalians. The young hegalians were working from themes that came from the early days of the french revolution. And they took hegel seriously when he said that the purpose and course of history was all about the abolition of anything that restricts freedom and the use of reason.

Speaker 1
The rhineland news was suppressed. And in 18 forty three, whatever plans marks may have had for a normal life with a steady income were turned upside down by his politics. During his stint with the rhinland news, marks came into contact with a young, semi anonymous contributor named friedrick angles. Angles was two and a half years younger than marks, born in 18 20 in barman, a city about 35 miles east of cologne. The engles family were first, devout evangelical protestants, and second, industrial pioneers in the rhineland. They owned textile factories in the region and had further expanded up to manchester, england, which was rapidly transforming into a hive of industrial factories. The scion of this rich, capitalist and very religious family rebelled on nearly every front. In 18 forty two, engles did a requisite year the prussian army, and stationed in berlin, he attended lectures and came into social and intellectual contact with both the young hegalians and various proto socialists. Angles took to thinking and writing, and he submitted pieces to the rhinland news, anonymously, as i said. Since he was the son of filthy, rich capitalists, scandalized

Speaker 1
Their arrival in brussels happened to coincide with the beginning of the hungry forties. The potato blight and harvest failures were going to send recessive shock waves reverberating through every sector of the european economy. So the going was hard for the marks family. And his son, edgar, was born in february 18 forty seven, at a very difficult time, both for his family and for families across europe. In brussels, marks and angles also reconnected on a more manent basis, and they actively collaborated on various book ideas, some of which, like the holy family, were published at the time, while others, like the german ideology, sat around in piles of paper until soviet researchers put them out in the 19 twenties and 19 thirties. Most of these ideas, though, revolved around their various beefs with other german radicals and philosophers. Old friends and mentors became derided rivals, as marks and angles moved decisively towards the idea that material economics was the basis of everything else. And if you disagreed, prepared to be eared with a sarcastic and ascitic pen. They broke with the young hegalians.