Young Marx facts for kids

Karl Marx in 1861

People have long argued about how to understand the early writings of Karl Marx. Some thinkers believe there was a big change in Marx's ideas. They say the "Young Marx" focused on problems like alienation (feeling disconnected). The "Mature Marx," they argue, aimed for a more scientific way of understanding society, called scientific socialism.

This debate started because many of Marx's writings from before 1845 were not published until much later. These include important works like the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. When these writings were finally published between 1927 and 1932, they showed a different side of Marx. They offered a philosophical background to his well-known ideas about economics, history, and politics. Some people, called Orthodox Marxists, saw Marx's journey as a clear move towards scientific thinking. Others, known as Marxist humanists, believed there was a strong connection between his early philosophical ideas and his later work.

Marx's Early Writings: When Were They Published?

Most of Marx's "early writings" from the 1840s were not published while he was alive. Some of his most important early works, like Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right and the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, were not even meant for publication. Marx kept his study notes from this time but didn't seem very interested in publishing these old works.

It wasn't until 1927 that more of his early writings started to appear. This happened as part of a big collection called the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA). This collection included scholarly versions of the Critique, the Manuscripts, and Marx's Notes on James Mill. However, this project stopped shortly after it began. It took many more years for Marx's early writings to become widely known. Good English versions of the Manuscripts only came out in 1956.

Why Were They Published So Late?

One reason for the delay was that Marx's early writings were heavily influenced by the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. During Marx's lifetime, he wasn't very famous until his major work, Capital, was published in 1867. By then, Hegel's ideas were seen as old-fashioned. People didn't think Hegel had much influence on Marx. Instead, Marx was seen as an economist who scientifically showed that capitalism would eventually fail.

Many early Marxists were also very interested in Darwinism (the theory of evolution). This interest was shared by Marx's friend, Friedrich Engels. After Marx died, Engels published several important philosophical books. These books were seen as providing a general philosophy that Marx himself hadn't clearly laid out. For many early Marxists, Marxism became a scientific way to understand how society develops, free from ethical or spiritual ideas.

Another reason for the delay was the political situation. When Marx's early writings finally appeared, Marxism was strongly linked to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had an "orthodox" (official) way of understanding Marx's ideas. This official view found it hard to fit the language and concerns of Marx's early works into its own worldview. For example, the editor of the MEGA collection, David Ryazanov, was sent away and later executed in the Soviet Union. Soviet Marxism often dismissed Marx's early writings as unimportant.

However, in other places, these early writings were welcomed. They seemed to challenge the official Soviet view of Marxism. Thinkers like Karl Korsch and György Lukács had already started to highlight the importance of Hegel's influence on Marx. When the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts were published, they seemed to support these ideas. Some, like Herbert Marcuse, even argued that the Manuscripts showed the true philosophical basis of Marxism.

Different Ideas About Marx's Changes

Many thinkers have tried to pinpoint when Marx's ideas changed. Vladimir Lenin believed Marx's first "mature" work was The Poverty of Philosophy (1847). Louis Althusser, a French philosopher, argued in the 1960s that The German Ideology (written in 1845) marked the big shift. In this work, Marx criticized other young thinkers of his time.

Althusser's "Epistemological Break"

Althusser made popular the idea of an "epistemological break" between the Young Marx and the Mature Marx. This "break" meant the point where Marx stopped thinking based on ideology (ideas that might not be fully true) and started thinking scientifically. Althusser said this break happened when Marx moved away from the ideas of Ludwig Feuerbach.

However, Althusser also said this "epistemological break" wasn't a single moment in time. Instead, it was a "process." This made the question of a clear line between the "Young Marx" and "Mature Marx" more complicated. Althusser saw Marx's German Ideology and Theses on Feuerbach (both from 1845) as "works of the break." He then saw other works from 1845 to 1857 as "transitional," leading to Marx's first truly mature work, the early drafts of Capital.

Althusser also pointed out that the interest in the Young Marx was not just an academic debate. It had political importance, especially because the Soviet Union didn't approve of too much focus on Marx's early works. He warned against reading Marx's later works as if they were already fully present in his early writings. He believed this was a "Hegelian" way of thinking, which he disagreed with.

Criticisms of the "Break" Idea

Many Marxist humanists don't agree that Marx's thought had a rigid "break." They argue that while Marx's ideas certainly developed, there was a strong sense of continuity throughout his work. One piece of evidence they use is that Marx himself tried to publish two volumes of his early writings in 1851. This suggests he still valued them.

François Châtelet argued in 1957 that there was no sharp break between the Young Marx and a mature Marx who had suddenly become perfect in his thinking. Instead, he believed that the different ideas and tensions in Marx's thought continued until his death in 1883. Étienne Balibar also supported this idea, focusing on the ongoing tensions rather than a sudden "maturity."

Others have said that Althusser's idea of a sharp "epistemological break" between the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts (1844) and The German Ideology (1845) was too sudden. While most agree there were big changes, they felt it wasn't so abrupt. Althusser himself later admitted that even in Capital, there were still traces of humanism and Hegelian ideas. He even suggested that only Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme and some notes on a book by Adolph Wagner were completely free from humanist ideology.

Althusser eventually saw the "epistemological break" as an ongoing process, a constant struggle against ideology. He believed there was a "class struggle" even within theory itself. This struggle, he argued, separated philosophers who just interpreted the world from those who tried to "transform" it, as Marx famously said in his Theses on Feuerbach (1845).

Historians have also pointed out other important shifts in Marx's thinking. These include changes that happened after the failure of the 1848 revolutions and after the crushing of the Paris Commune in 1871. These real-world events likely influenced Marx's ideas as much as philosophical debates.

See also

• Marx's theory of alienation
• Marxist humanism
• Marxist philosophy
• The Young Karl Marx