In our first post, we explored the world before Marxism—a time of upheaval and searching for answers. Now, we turn to the men who saw themselves as the architects of humanity’s liberation: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Their partnership would birth one of the most revolutionary ideologies in history, but understanding these men reveals much about the flaws and dangers of their vision.

Karl Marx: The Philosopher Who Rejected God

Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Trier, Germany, to a middle-class family. Early on, Marx showed a keen intellect, studying law, history, and philosophy. But it wasn’t long before he turned his academic pursuits into a platform for radical ideas.

Marx was greatly influenced by the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whose concept of history as a series of conflicts deeply shaped Marx’s thought. However, Marx rejected Hegel’s spiritual dimension, replacing it with a materialist worldview. To Marx, there was no God, no eternal truths—only matter and material forces driving human history.

This rejection of God became central to his philosophy. Marx famously wrote that religion is “the opiate of the masses,” a tool used by the powerful to pacify the oppressed. For Marx, religion, private property, and the family had to be abolished to create a truly liberated society.

Despite his revolutionary rhetoric, contradictions marked Marx’s personal life. He depended heavily on financial support from others, particularly Engels, while railing against the wealthy. His family endured extreme poverty, and his relationships with his wife and children were fraught with tension. Four of his six children died young, and two surviving daughters later committed suicide.

Even in his personal letters, Marx revealed a bitterness toward humanity itself, often expressing envy, anger, and disdain. This anger extended to his views on society, where he saw class conflict as the engine of history and revolution as the only solution.

Friedrich Engels: The Wealthy Revolutionary

Friedrich Engels, born in 1820, came from an entirely different background. Engels, the son of a wealthy industrialist, grew up in privilege, yet he turned against his class and embraced radical ideas.

Engels and Marx met in 1844 and immediately bonded over their shared disdain for capitalism and religion. Engels provided much of the financial support that allowed Marx to continue his writing and activism. Without Engels, Marx’s work may never have reached the global stage.

Unlike Marx, Engels spent much of his life working in business, managing his family’s textile factories in England. Ironically, the wealth generated by these capitalist enterprises funded the very ideology that sought to destroy capitalism.

Engels shared Marx’s materialist worldview and his hatred of religion, famously declaring that “communism begins where atheism begins.” Together, they saw Christianity and traditional morality as obstacles to their vision of a classless society. Engels also played a significant role in shaping and promoting Marx’s ideas, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto and editing Marx’s works after his death.

A Partnership of Ideas and Contradictions

Marx and Engels’ collaboration was both intellectual and practical. They believed they had uncovered the key to history: the struggle between oppressors and the oppressed. They called for the proletariat—the working class—to rise up and overthrow the bourgeoisie, the capitalist class.

Yet, their personal lives revealed the contradictions of their ideology. Marx, who despised wealth, relied on Engels’ capitalist profits to survive. Engels, who championed equality, enjoyed the comforts of a privileged upbringing. Both men rejected the family as an outdated institution, but their relationships with their own families were deeply fractured.

These contradictions are not just personal flaws; they reflect the deeper inconsistencies of Marxism itself. An ideology that claims to liberate humanity often does so by imposing new forms of control, rejecting God, and undermining the very foundations of society.

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Why This Matters

Understanding the lives of Marx and Engels helps us see that Marxism is not merely a set of ideas—it’s a worldview rooted in rebellion against God and His order. Their rejection of religion, private property, and the family wasn’t incidental; it was central to their vision of humanity’s future.

But as we’ll see in the next post, their ideas didn’t stay in the realm of theory. Marx and Engels codified these ideas in The Communist Manifesto, a document that would inspire revolutions and reshape nations.