Karl Marx' Life and Legacy (China, Germany, Russia, Vietnam)

Karl Marx was born in Trier on the 5th May 1818 as the third of nine children of his parents. His parents were Jews, but converted to the Protestantism, as the father would otherwise have occupational problems. Between 1830 and 1835 he attended a Gymnasium in Trier, before he began his studies in Bonn and Berlin. Although actually studying law, he also often attended historical and philosophical lectures. During his studies he came in contact with the Young Hegelians, who were especially known for their critique of the Prussian political system and who expected more political change as part of a historical process. In 1841 a philosophical doctorate was conferred on Marx by the University of Jena. Actually he hoped to start an academic career, but due to his work with the Young Hegelians the Prussian state prevented this. Instead he began to work as editor for the oppositional Rheinische Zeitung, but had to stop this work as well due to the Prussian censorship.

In 1843 he married Jenny von Westphalen and together they moved to Paris, where Marx again worked as editor for a newspaper. In Paris he also began to proceed to the Communism and his life-long friendship with Friedrich Engels began. Due to Prussian pressure Marx had to leave Paris in 1845 and settled in Brussels. In 1846 Marx and Engels founded the Communist Correspondence Committee, which planned the cooperation of various Communist groups in Europa and which was merged with another organisation to form the Communist League in 1847. In the revolutionary year 1848 Marx and Engels published the famous Communist Manifesto for the league, which summarises Marx and Engels' theories concerning the nature of society and politics. During the revolutions Marx moved from Brussels to Paris, onwards to Cologne, back to Paris and finally to his exile in London, where he worked as journalist and where he stayed until the end of his life. In London he created A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) and Das Kapital (1867-1883) and contributed to the foundation of the First International in 1864. In his last he was often sick, but still was in contact to many leading Communists and Labour Leader in America and Europa also after the First International was dissolved in 1876. On 2nd December 1881 Jenny Marx died and on 14th March 1883 her husband followed her in the grave.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the most important figures of the Communism and thus they had a tremendous influence on the history of the 20th century especially in China and the Eastern Bloc. He has often been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, although his work has been both lauded and criticised.

Around the World there were and still are many Marx memorial sites. In Eastern Germany for example the city of Chemnitz was known as Karl-Marx-Stadt and there were many memorials for Marx including the famous ones in Berlin and Chemnitz. To commemorate Marx' 200th birthday in 2018 the People's Republic of China sponsored a new Marx memorial for Trier, which was even shown on a Chinese stamp.

Other Marx stamps in 2018 were also issued in Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Vietnam. Interestingly the German stamp of 2018 is already the second stamp of the Federal Republic after one issued during the heyday of the Cold War in 1968.