Karl Marx: The Story of His Life

by Franz Mehring, Edward FitzGerald (Translator)

Containing footnotes and an extensive bibliography, this edition of Franz Mehring's classic biography is designed to assist the English-speaking reader towards a better understanding of Marx, his work and a history of Marxism. The book is divided into parts as follows: Early Years; A Pupil of Hegel; Exile in Paris; Friedrich Engels; Exile in Brussels; Revolution and Counter-Revolution; Exile in London; Marx and Engels; The Crimean War and the Crisis; Dynastic Changes; The Early Years of the International; 'Das Kapital'; The Zenith and Decline of the International; The Last Decade.

Genres: History, Politics, Biography, Nonfiction, Germany, Economics, Philosophy

604 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1918

About the author

Originally a liberal journalist, Mehring joined the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the early 1890s.

Mehring was originally incredibly anti-communist, but eventually after studying the writings of Karl Marx, Mehring changed his mind and was won over to the side of communism. He rapidly became acknowledged as an important theoretician. In the course of time he moved to the left and became associated with the current around Rosa Luxemburg.

With the outbreak of World War I he was, despite his advanced years, a prominent member of the revolutionary opposition to the war along with Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and Clara Zetkin. He was a founder member of the German Communist Party established on New Years Day 1919, but died later in the month shortly after the murder of his comrades Luxemburg and Liebknecht.

Reviews

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a brilliant book! This is one of the earliest biographies of Marx, originally published in 1918 under German military censorship. Mehring was a contemporary of Marx, same age as Marx's sons-in-law Lafargue and Longuet, and a friend of Luxemburg (who actually wrote the section on the second and third volumes of Das Kapital) and Eleanor Marx. It is this aspect that gives the book a sense of presence that lacks in books that treat Marx as a canonised historical figure. Of course, Mehring worked without much of the material (most importantly, the Grundrisse manuscript) available to later biographers, which affects his interpretation of Marx's scientific work. But this is balanced by an intimate knowledge of the workings of the International, often lacking in later works. Interestingly, although a staunch supporter or revolutionary Marxism against Bernstein, Mehring is no idol worshiper. Marx and Engels both get their share of criticism for their opposition to Lassalle, for example. If you should read one biography of Marx, this is not it. But if you've read others before, Mehring's book is an indispensable addition.

[Alex McDouall · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive overview of Marx's life with succinct summaries of his innovations and primary writings, from the perspective of a revolutionary communist. It is important to understand the context for his writings, as well as to illuminate some of the myths around his life and his opponents and the mistakes and errors he made. It is very interesting reading about the development of the 1st international and early workers' parties and provides some insight into early flaws of the SPD, even as it became the first mass workers party.

[Jehiel L · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first biography of Marx. An appropriately detailed account of the major events and periods of his life, with detail of general history as well as the personalities involved. Though it's not much of an intellectual history, there are significant moments in Marx's life which you're left wanting to know more about. The part of the book which deals with this more is the earlier part, up to the 1848 revolutions. It gives an impression that Marx's thought was 'complete' after 1848, perhaps this was Mehring's conception.

[Nathaniel Flakin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Franz Mehring wrote this massive biography of Karl Marx during the First World War. It was published in 1918, shortly before his death. Mehring was among the most erudite people in Prussia, and he was still living in Marx's world — he was not quite 30 years younger. I did not have an easy time reading this book, not just because of the old-timey German, but also because it was written for people extremely familiar with 19th-century European history.

In the introduction, Mehring mentioned that his work had been criticized by Karl Kautsky and David Riazanov. What he wrote about the main political conflicts in Marx's life — with Ferdinand Lasalle about state socialism, and with Mikhail Bakunin about anarchism — was in conflict with the "official party legend." Mehring wrote at great length that these conflicts were not as sharp as they were later made out to be, and that Marx collaborated with both Lasalle and Bakunin over decades because they had so much in common. Mehring even took Marx and Engels to task for their polemics against Bakunin: he was convinced that the decline of the First International was caused by objective factors, and not by anarchist intrigues. In fact, Mehring dedicated so many words to defending Bakunin that he didn't end up writing much about the ideological differences. It is interesting to think that Mehring was working alongside Karl Liebknecht in the Spartacist League, and simultaneously writing such brutal criticisms of Wilhelm Liebknecht, who according to Mehring was just as far from Marxism as Lasalle or Bakunin.

There are certainly newer Marx biographies out there that will be more accessible to modern readers. Particularly the middle third of this book, about Marx's London exile in London between the revolutions of 1848 and the foundation of the First International, was a slog. Even after reading dozens of pages about the case, I still have only the foggiest idea about Marx's conflict with Herr Vogt, for example. It was, however, really useful to have short summaries of all of Marx's works in order. The chapter on Capital Volumes 2 and 3 was actually written by Rosa Luxemburg, as Mehring felt she was better qualified. I wonder if this means she wrote it from prison.

[Mina Talaat · Rating 4 out of 5]

فرانز مهرنغ، المعاصر للفترة الاشتراكية و الشيوعية علي يد ماركس و انغلز و لاسال
اصبج اشتراكيا عندما بلغ الثلاثين من عمره
اشترك مع روزا لكسمبورغ و كلارا زيتيكن في تأسيس عصبة سبارتكوس
و توفي في 1919
في الكتاب هذا يهتمم بأدق التفاصيل الحياتيةفي حياة ماركس منذ نشأته في الطفولة
و كيفية تأثير النشأة و التعليم علي طور حياة ماركس، و الفلسفة الهيجلية و المادية و تأثيرها علي ماركس بشكل كبير
و تاثره بالثورة الفرنسية و انتقاده في البدايات للاشتراكية الفرنسية
انه كتاب لمعرفة ماركس المعرفة الحق
المميز في الكتاب ان فرانز لا يتكلم بتعصب او بتمييز احد، بل الانصااف و الحياديه
الكثير من الرسائل و المقالات المنشورة كثيرًا ما يستدل بها

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super detailed and all encompassing biography. Sometimes Mehring wrote about people or events as if the reader definitely knew all about them already, but mostly he was good with explanations. It was really humbling (?) I think, to read about Marx's life. His family, his interests, his ceaseless pursuit of knowledge in a variety of fields... really something to admire, even if you're not a Marxist. There's a lot in this book, and it definitely hasn't all sunk in, but I'm definitely more familiar with Marx, Engels, their contemporaries and the time period they lived in which feels very cool.

[Douglas Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are going to read one biography about Karl Marx, written by an actual Marxist Leninist, it should be this one. Not only was it written well before the Nazis in 1918, (getting rid of that everything German has to reference the Nazis at some point in all of western propaganda stink), but it is written by a German Marxist well versed in Marxist theory and philosophy (unlike a lot of leftists who call themselves Marxist).

Mehring runs through Marx's actual life, but couches it in the historical events of his time, giving context for his development of theoretical thought but also how it ran along side his more revolutionary activities, from the 1848 revolutions to the context of various wars and movements that were going on, to the Paris commune after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. I view this as a critical text for any new Marxist, as merely reading his texts may cause some confusion without knowing the full context of why and when he was writing those works, and who he was responding to.

The most interesting moments of his life were when he was dealing with some of the same exact stupidity that exists on the left today, such as Ludditism (essentially a form of Anarchism). Much of Marx and Engels' work was refuting a lot of leftism or utopianism at the time, their career started by breaking with the rest of the Young Hegelians, who were seen as leftists trying to form a utopian government from Hegel's ideas. And the key component that differentiated Marx and Engels from the rest of the left was looking at British economic theory, a critical component that led Marx to develop his magnum opus, Das Kapital, an irrefutable work on economics that even bourgeois economists had to begrudgingly admit some of its tenets were more advanced than the theories of Ricardo or Adam Smith.

Many people have ideas of what Marxism is, but Marx would declare himself that Marxism is simply viewing class struggle in society as a movement throughout all of history that can be scientifically analyzed by examining material conditions mathematically. It has nothing to do with LGBTQ ideology or whatever the right tries to put onto it to denigrate it. Whether you agree with it or not, this book will help illuminate what Marxism is.