On this day 128 years ago, the German philosopher and political theorist Karl Marx died at the age of 64. Marx studied at the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin before becoming a political journalist, writing for a radical paper which was shut down by the government after publishing an article critical of the Russian Tsar. Marx moved to Paris in 1843 at the age of 25 to write for a different radical paper.
In Paris, he started a friendship with Friedrich Engels. However, Marx’s stay in Paris was cut short when he was expelled by the interior minister in 1845 and the paper he was writing for was shut down. Marx was allowed to move to Brussels after pledging not to write about contemporary politics, and it was there in 1848 that The Communist Manifesto was first published. He was expelled from Belgium and returned to Paris later the same year, before moving to London in 1849.
Throughout his lifetime Marx was essentially a failed student radical, but after his death many of his ideas spread very widely, giving rise to communist political systems in the Soviet Union, China, and numerous other countries. Marxism has largely lost its popular allure since the collapse of communist political systems in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but numerous Marxist revolutionaries remain.