0:00:07 > 0:00:09This is the 19th century...
0:00:11 > 0:00:15..a pivotal, tumultuous age that witnessed
0:00:15 > 0:00:19revolutions in industry, technology and politics...
0:00:25 > 0:00:30..but also, crucially, in ideas - big, bold, dangerous ideas that
0:00:30 > 0:00:33would bring the world as we know it kicking and screaming into being.
0:00:36 > 0:00:42Three great thinkers led the way - Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche
0:00:42 > 0:00:44and Sigmund Freud.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48They lived in a time when old certainties were breaking down,
0:00:48 > 0:00:52regimes were overthrown by mass uprisings,
0:00:52 > 0:00:55science was undermining religious authority.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59Their challenge was to figure out what makes us
0:00:59 > 0:01:02human in a fast-evolving world.
0:01:02 > 0:01:07Emigres, recluses, enemies of the state - these outsiders
0:01:07 > 0:01:11challenged the existential crisis of their age head-on.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14Little was out of bounds.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18They had an absolute commitment to identify the forces
0:01:18 > 0:01:23controlling our lives. Their weapon - the power of their minds.
0:01:25 > 0:01:30Their search drove them to extremes, into poverty, into madness.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36Yet their penetrating, often contentious, ways
0:01:36 > 0:01:41of seeing the world still shape how we make sense of our lives today.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53# Arise, ye starvelings, from your slumbers
0:01:53 > 0:01:57# Arise, ye criminals, of want
0:01:57 > 0:02:02# For reason in revolt now thunders
0:02:02 > 0:02:07# And at last ends the age of cant... #
0:02:07 > 0:02:11Of all the great historical figures buried in Highgate Cemetery,
0:02:11 > 0:02:15there's one who continues to divide opinion like no other.
0:02:15 > 0:02:19# The Internationale. #
0:02:19 > 0:02:21For those who come here year in,
0:02:21 > 0:02:25year out to mark the day of his death, Karl Marx is a keenly
0:02:25 > 0:02:31intelligent analyst of capitalism, a prophet of human emancipation.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34But for others, who've actually attacked this monument with
0:02:34 > 0:02:37paints, with hacksaws, even with explosives,
0:02:37 > 0:02:41he's a maligned progenitor of totalitarian regimes,
0:02:41 > 0:02:44a man responsible for the death of millions.
0:02:46 > 0:02:51Love him or loathe him, what you cannot dispute is that
0:02:51 > 0:02:55Karl Marx dramatically transformed our world.
0:02:59 > 0:03:04Within 70 years of his death, one third of the world's population
0:03:04 > 0:03:08was ruled by governments claiming Marxism as their doctrine.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12TRANSLATION:
0:03:12 > 0:03:13Ura!
0:03:13 > 0:03:15CHEERING
0:03:15 > 0:03:19Marxist ideology claimed to be liberating but led to dreadful
0:03:19 > 0:03:24suffering and brought superpowers to the brink of Armageddon.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27- ARCHIVE:- It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any
0:03:27 > 0:03:31nuclear missile launched from Cuba as an attack by
0:03:31 > 0:03:34the Soviet Union on the United States.
0:03:34 > 0:03:36Communism was widely discredited,
0:03:36 > 0:03:39precipitating its fall in the 1980s and '90s.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42But economic crisis
0:03:42 > 0:03:47and social unrest have put Marx's ideas back in the spotlight.
0:03:50 > 0:03:54I want to start at the beginning, not to study Marx
0:03:54 > 0:03:55with the hindsight of history,
0:03:55 > 0:03:58but to try to understand what motivated him
0:03:58 > 0:04:02in the context of his own times, to discover how a man,
0:04:02 > 0:04:06whose life was plagued with insecurities, with failure,
0:04:06 > 0:04:10with tragedy, would end up generating
0:04:10 > 0:04:14one of the most influential ideologies in the human experience.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32We tend to think of Marx as a rather imposing,
0:04:32 > 0:04:38greybeard figure staring out sternly from Soviet propaganda,
0:04:38 > 0:04:44but this early image of the young Marx - dashing, dapper, privileged -
0:04:44 > 0:04:46offers a rather different story.
0:04:49 > 0:04:54His birthplace, Trier, was an elegant Rhineland town,
0:04:54 > 0:04:55now part of modern Germany.
0:04:57 > 0:05:02Born in 1818 to upwardly mobile parents in this handsome building,
0:05:02 > 0:05:05Marx's childhood was, on the face of it,
0:05:05 > 0:05:08pretty idyllic and thoroughly bourgeois.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15But one day, when Marx was just 15, his father, Heinrich,
0:05:15 > 0:05:21met with a group of respected public figures here at Trier's Casino Club.
0:05:27 > 0:05:29After too much to drink, some of them
0:05:29 > 0:05:31began pounding the tables raucously
0:05:31 > 0:05:37and singing songs that celebrated the virtues of the great revolution
0:05:37 > 0:05:39that swept through neighbouring France.
0:05:42 > 0:05:48A Prussian army officer witnessed the scene and reported back.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51Two of Marx's schoolteachers, who were also in the room,
0:05:51 > 0:05:53were promptly sacked.
0:05:53 > 0:05:55Others were charged with subversion
0:05:55 > 0:05:59and Marx's father was tarnished with the disgrace.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02The casino was put under surveillance.
0:06:05 > 0:06:08Because under the surface calm of the town there was tension.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15Not long before Karl's birth, Trier had been under Napoleonic control,
0:06:15 > 0:06:18which meant that people like Karl's father had got
0:06:18 > 0:06:21a taste of the French revolutionary principles of
0:06:21 > 0:06:23individual liberty and equality.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29Under French law, Heinrich had been free to train as a lawyer,
0:06:29 > 0:06:32but he was Jewish and, once the more autocratic Prussians
0:06:32 > 0:06:37were in control, they imposed civil restrictions on all Jews.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40Now, in order to keep practising his profession,
0:06:40 > 0:06:42he had to convert to Christianity.
0:06:45 > 0:06:47Marx was growing up in a period
0:06:47 > 0:06:49when questions of political authority
0:06:49 > 0:06:53and freedom of expression were highly contested,
0:06:53 > 0:06:57when ruling classes across Europe feared their people would
0:06:57 > 0:06:59rise up and overthrow them.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04The struggle between the ideals of the French Revolution
0:07:04 > 0:07:08and the intractable conservatives of the Prussian State would
0:07:08 > 0:07:12inspire and motivate Marx.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15And from an early age, it was pretty clear where his allegiance lay.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28When he was 17, Marx was packed off down the Moselle River
0:07:28 > 0:07:30to study law at Bonn University.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35SHIP HORN BLARES
0:07:39 > 0:07:43There was clearly something of the hell-raiser about the teenage Marx.
0:07:43 > 0:07:48He quickly became co-president of the Trier Tavern Club -
0:07:48 > 0:07:51basically a bunch of middle-class bad boys.
0:07:54 > 0:07:57After one night of boozy brawling, Marx was banged up
0:07:57 > 0:08:01in the local cells for a day, but there was more to come.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08Student life was divided along class
0:08:08 > 0:08:11and political lines to the point of conflict.
0:08:11 > 0:08:13The liberal Trier Tavern boys attracted
0:08:13 > 0:08:17the attention of a gang of aristocratic cadets.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21Those cadets forced them to kneel down and swear their allegiance
0:08:21 > 0:08:26to the Prussian aristocracy, and the confrontations escalated.
0:08:26 > 0:08:27At one point,
0:08:27 > 0:08:31Marx ended up in a dual with a sabre wound above his eye -
0:08:31 > 0:08:35a scar which this young scrapper wore as a badge of honour.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40Enough, it seems, was enough for Marx's father.
0:08:48 > 0:08:53Heinrich transferred Karl to the more studious environment of Berlin University.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57Yet even here, Marx found other distractions.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08Marx met a group of Bohemian students and lecturers who loved
0:09:08 > 0:09:12to discuss the philosophies of the day late into the night.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15He grew a beard and joined the Young Hegelians,
0:09:15 > 0:09:23A group obsessed with the theories of a university professor who'd recently died. Georg Hegel.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31Marx describes his first encounter with Hegel
0:09:31 > 0:09:34as one of a completely extraordinary moment.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37He says that when he read Hegel
0:09:37 > 0:09:39it was like the curtain had fallen from his eyes.
0:09:39 > 0:09:41And what is it about Hegel?
0:09:41 > 0:09:43What's particularly exciting about his ideas?
0:09:43 > 0:09:46Berlin is awash with Hegelian ideas
0:09:46 > 0:09:50but perhaps the most important idea of Hegel's that they are completely
0:09:50 > 0:09:54captivated by is the idea of history as this gradual
0:09:54 > 0:09:57unfolding of freedom and of reason.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01And this gradual dialectic, as he called it,
0:10:01 > 0:10:07was made manifest most magnificently in the French Revolution when,
0:10:07 > 0:10:09of course, you had a literal
0:10:09 > 0:10:13cracking open of freedom and of reason.
0:10:13 > 0:10:17I suppose it is totally thrilling, this, isn't it?
0:10:17 > 0:10:20Because you're being told that you're part of a big historical
0:10:20 > 0:10:22story and that gives you a big historical
0:10:22 > 0:10:24- and philosophical canvas to paint on.- That's right.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27And I think that Marx does absolutely see himself
0:10:27 > 0:10:31as kind of standing, as it were, towards the end
0:10:31 > 0:10:35of history that had begun with the ancient philosophers,
0:10:35 > 0:10:40who had talked about the way in which one's soul could only find...
0:10:42 > 0:10:46..perfection if it was properly embedded in the community.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49And do they think that Hegel's got it absolutely right?
0:10:49 > 0:10:51Or is there a sense there's still work to do?
0:10:51 > 0:10:54There is absolutely still work to do.
0:10:54 > 0:10:58So they think that while Hegel had got, in his vision,
0:10:58 > 0:11:01had got part of the way, that what they want to do is bring
0:11:01 > 0:11:04a total revolution rather than just reform.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08They were operating in a world where the nobility, the privileged,
0:11:08 > 0:11:12the aristocracy were still very much in charge and they were
0:11:12 > 0:11:17pushing up against a great kind of wall of privilege and tradition.
0:11:22 > 0:11:25'Marx and the Young Hegelians believed that the single
0:11:25 > 0:11:30'greatest obstacle to human progress was religion.'
0:11:30 > 0:11:34So they set out to critique and to attack it.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39Now, you've got to think how subversive this is.
0:11:39 > 0:11:41Some said that the gospels of the New Testament
0:11:41 > 0:11:45were just folktales, not divine historical truth.
0:11:45 > 0:11:47That's really shocking.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54Others suggested that God was an illusion
0:11:54 > 0:11:58and that as humans we'd taken the best of our powers
0:11:58 > 0:12:02and projected them onto a kind of fantastical fabricated being
0:12:02 > 0:12:05who embodied our finest qualities.
0:12:09 > 0:12:12The Young Hegelians believed that this existential separation,
0:12:12 > 0:12:17brought about by religion, limited our human potential.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21Only by abandoning its delusions could we truly flourish.
0:12:24 > 0:12:26Of course, the group's iconoclastic -
0:12:26 > 0:12:31many would say blasphemous - ideas had wider implications.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34The relationship between Church and state
0:12:34 > 0:12:37was tight to the point of total union.
0:12:38 > 0:12:43Criticism of religion was tantamount to criticism of Prussia.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49Marx had aspired to an academic career but the Prussian
0:12:49 > 0:12:54authorities would not tolerate subversives in their universities.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58So he had to find another platform for his ideas.
0:12:59 > 0:13:05His outlet would be the hot, rapidly expanding business of journalism.
0:13:13 > 0:13:18Marx thought that the written word had transformative power.
0:13:18 > 0:13:22And he became editor of the Rhineland News, based in Cologne.
0:13:23 > 0:13:26A mouthpiece for liberal entrepreneurs
0:13:26 > 0:13:28pushing for constitutional reform.
0:13:29 > 0:13:32He made an immediate impact.
0:13:34 > 0:13:37Nicknamed "the Moor" because of his dark complexion
0:13:37 > 0:13:41and thick mane of hair and beard, it seems he was impetuous,
0:13:41 > 0:13:45passionate, with a boundless energy and self-confidence.
0:13:45 > 0:13:48Although some did say he was vindictive
0:13:48 > 0:13:50and an intellectual bully.
0:13:50 > 0:13:55But whatever his shortcomings, his drive and acuity got the job done.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00Under his tenure, circulation of the paper rose dramatically.
0:14:03 > 0:14:08Marx's journalism took up the cause of his nouveau riche paymasters
0:14:08 > 0:14:11and attacked the old political elite.
0:14:12 > 0:14:16Here's a typical example of his lacerating style.
0:14:16 > 0:14:21It's polemic, laced with a kind of withering sarcasm.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26"The aristocracy cannot be given the form of law
0:14:26 > 0:14:30"because they are formations of lawlessness.
0:14:30 > 0:14:34"No-one's action ceases to be wrongful because it's his custom,
0:14:34 > 0:14:39"just as the bandit son of a robber is not exonerated
0:14:39 > 0:14:43"because banditry is a family idiosyncrasy."
0:14:44 > 0:14:46It's clever, cutting stuff.
0:14:51 > 0:14:54Marx gained notoriety through his thinly veiled attacks
0:14:54 > 0:14:57on the Prussian ruling classes.
0:14:59 > 0:15:05Journalism also stimulated a new interest at the other end of the social scale.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08In 1842, Marx reported on the conditions
0:15:08 > 0:15:11of lower class vine growers back in his home region.
0:15:13 > 0:15:17A dramatic drop in profits had plunged them into poverty.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22There's an unsettling poem written at the time
0:15:22 > 0:15:25that describes how, unable to feed their children,
0:15:25 > 0:15:28the vine growers were driven to suicide.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33"Now the wine's blessing won't run in your barrel
0:15:33 > 0:15:36"You won't sing a song any more when all is covered with snow."
0:15:38 > 0:15:42The workers blamed the authorities for opening up the market
0:15:42 > 0:15:44to greater competition.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47The authorities' response was that a protected market
0:15:47 > 0:15:50before had artificially inflated prices.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57These were men and women who were really struggling.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00Officially they were no longer allowed to collect firewood
0:16:00 > 0:16:03for free because it was being consumed in such vast
0:16:03 > 0:16:05quantities by the new factories.
0:16:06 > 0:16:10They were caught in a pincer movement of progress.
0:16:13 > 0:16:16Marx saw that the vine growers were losing what little power
0:16:16 > 0:16:19they had to determine their own futures.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23His journalism opened his eyes to the complex forces
0:16:23 > 0:16:25governing our everyday lives.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31He thought it should be possible, with scientific precision,
0:16:31 > 0:16:34to work out what these relations are.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36Just listen to what he wrote.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41"This can be determined with almost the same certainty
0:16:41 > 0:16:45"as a chemist determines under which external conditions
0:16:45 > 0:16:49"given substances will form a compound."
0:16:55 > 0:16:58A clinical deconstruction of the nature of society
0:16:58 > 0:17:01was just the sort of thing the Prussian authorities feared.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04Marx's provocations had ruffled the feathers
0:17:04 > 0:17:07of those in power once too often.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09His paper was shut down.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16So we should picture Marx, aged just 25,
0:17:16 > 0:17:19angry, ambitious, criticised.
0:17:20 > 0:17:22'Censured in Prussia,
0:17:22 > 0:17:27'he resolved to travel to the fulcrum of game-changing, provocative ideas.'
0:17:29 > 0:17:34'The origin of those protest songs that his father once sang.'
0:17:34 > 0:17:37The rallying point of revolution.
0:17:46 > 0:17:51Marx's intellectual horizons expanded exponentially here.
0:17:51 > 0:17:56The rebellious fervour of the French Revolution had never really evaporated
0:17:56 > 0:18:00and the streets and bars were home to radical thinkers
0:18:00 > 0:18:05whose ideas threatened to turn society upside down.
0:18:07 > 0:18:09There were libertarian anarchists who declared
0:18:09 > 0:18:11that all property was theft,
0:18:11 > 0:18:15utopian socialists who sought common ownership of the means
0:18:15 > 0:18:19of production, and communists who advocated
0:18:19 > 0:18:23the creation of workers' co-operatives known as communes.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28'In just over a year of frenetic discussion and writing,
0:18:28 > 0:18:31'the shape of Marx's own agitating philosophy would
0:18:31 > 0:18:37'start to form, and this was a new chapter in more ways than one.
0:18:40 > 0:18:44He'd arrived with his childhood sweetheart and now wife,
0:18:44 > 0:18:46Jenny von Westphalen.
0:18:46 > 0:18:50The two had enjoyed the trappings of a well-to-do lifestyle back in Trier.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54She was the daughter of a baron and her father had introduced Marx
0:18:54 > 0:18:58to liberal thinkers and writers like Shakespeare.
0:18:58 > 0:19:01But here in Paris they had to turn their back
0:19:01 > 0:19:04on creature comforts and salon society.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12The newlyweds lodged here on Rue Vaneau with friends.
0:19:12 > 0:19:17'And it was from here that Marx continued to agitate for change in Prussia.'
0:19:21 > 0:19:24Marx helped launched an ambitious publication that encouraged
0:19:24 > 0:19:28collaboration between French and Prussian radicals.
0:19:28 > 0:19:31Actually, there was only ever one edition
0:19:31 > 0:19:34because of the difficulty partly of smuggling it into Prussia.
0:19:34 > 0:19:39But the early essays that Marx wrote for this failed publication
0:19:39 > 0:19:44are both historic gold and pivotal in the evolution of his ideas.
0:19:48 > 0:19:51In these essays, we can start to piece together Marx's quest
0:19:51 > 0:19:57to identify exactly what it is that limits humanity's freedom.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02He's starting to take a different course from the Young Hegelians.
0:20:03 > 0:20:07Rather than seeing religion as the root cause of our problems,
0:20:07 > 0:20:12he describes it simply as "the opium of the people".
0:20:12 > 0:20:15Just a painkiller for something much more deep-seated.
0:20:23 > 0:20:28'The true source of our woes, as he saw it, was the way that
0:20:28 > 0:20:31'society was organised to supply our material needs.'
0:20:33 > 0:20:35The capitalist economy.
0:20:36 > 0:20:40There have been decades of discussion of religion in Germany.
0:20:40 > 0:20:44Marx thinks that is relatively superficial,
0:20:44 > 0:20:48understanding that really the world we live in is the world of work,
0:20:48 > 0:20:50the world of productivity and it's this that affects us
0:20:50 > 0:20:52and the way that our lives go.
0:20:52 > 0:20:57There's a phrase that he uses which is our species-essence, and I've never quite understood it.
0:20:57 > 0:20:59Can you explain that to me?
0:20:59 > 0:21:02The species-essence for Marx primarily
0:21:02 > 0:21:05is about the way in which we human beings differ from other animals.
0:21:05 > 0:21:10And the key idea for Marx is that human beings are
0:21:10 > 0:21:12essentially productive beings.
0:21:13 > 0:21:19Other animals - bees, beavers - do produce, but not like us.
0:21:19 > 0:21:22Bees can only produce one thing, beavers produce one thing.
0:21:22 > 0:21:25We can produce anything.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28Marx thinks that all human beings are creative in the way
0:21:28 > 0:21:31we produce but the tragedy of capitalism
0:21:31 > 0:21:36is workers in a factory, they're simply engaging in repetitive tasks.
0:21:36 > 0:21:40They're not doing the things human beings ought to be doing.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44Now, Marx uses this notion of alienation from our species-essence
0:21:44 > 0:21:48to explain not only the way that the individual worker
0:21:48 > 0:21:52is sort of crushed and chained to the production line
0:21:52 > 0:21:54but also the way in which we human beings are together
0:21:54 > 0:21:57collectively dominated by the world.
0:21:57 > 0:21:59Even the capitalist, actually, is dominated.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03If a capitalist wanted to cut the working day, that probably
0:22:03 > 0:22:07wouldn't be possible because competitors would exploit workers
0:22:07 > 0:22:11just as much as before, they would lose profit and go out of business.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14So, in this way, Marx said under capitalism
0:22:14 > 0:22:16we become playthings of alien forces.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24It's almost like a monster that we've created.
0:22:24 > 0:22:26It's not something we control.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34Now that Marx saw the world in a different way,
0:22:34 > 0:22:37he set out to expose its workings.
0:22:37 > 0:22:39With his ferocious intellect
0:22:39 > 0:22:43and arguably too the bold conviction of youth,
0:22:43 > 0:22:46he resolved to end degrading injustice
0:22:46 > 0:22:50and to reunite people with their true innate being.
0:22:57 > 0:23:02But Marx's philosophical mission would be beset by personal battles.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09Marx suffered bad health, in particular a painful skin condition.
0:23:10 > 0:23:15New research suggests that what he referred to as "boils"
0:23:15 > 0:23:18was in fact something far more serious.
0:23:18 > 0:23:22When I read an account of his life, it was quite an interesting book,
0:23:22 > 0:23:27but it said he suffered really quite badly from a skin complaint.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30Naturally I pricked up my ears and they said that he couldn't
0:23:30 > 0:23:35find a place to rest, he couldn't lie down, he couldn't walk.
0:23:35 > 0:23:40For three weeks at one point he was totally unable to work,
0:23:40 > 0:23:42totally unable to think.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46I thought, the skin complaint they said he was suffering from
0:23:46 > 0:23:47was just boils.
0:23:47 > 0:23:50Well, boils are a bit of a nuisance but they're not that bad.
0:23:50 > 0:23:56And I looked at Marx's letters over a period of about nine years.
0:23:56 > 0:23:58Bit tedious.
0:23:58 > 0:24:02But you could see from these letters he gets them in the groin,
0:24:02 > 0:24:04he gets them around the anus.
0:24:04 > 0:24:09And then, very diagnostically, under the arms.
0:24:09 > 0:24:13Now, this distribution only occurs in one disease.
0:24:13 > 0:24:18- It's a thing called hidradenitis suppurativa.- Right.
0:24:18 > 0:24:20A rather terrible, unpronounceable name.
0:24:20 > 0:24:25- It sounds as though it's very debilitating physically.- Absolutely.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28Here's, for example, an armpit.
0:24:28 > 0:24:32It's scarred where there's been repeated episodes.
0:24:32 > 0:24:35It never really stands still.
0:24:35 > 0:24:37Do we know when he developed this?
0:24:37 > 0:24:43The first traces I found in the letters was in his early 40s.
0:24:43 > 0:24:48We know it starts in the early 20s, the average age is about 21 or 22.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51So do we think this affected him psychologically?
0:24:51 > 0:24:56When the skin is involved, our self-image changes.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59It produces a self-loathing.
0:24:59 > 0:25:04And Marx had this by the gallon.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08In a letter here, he writes,
0:25:08 > 0:25:15- "I took a sharp razor and lanced the cur myself."- Yeah.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18How can you do that?
0:25:18 > 0:25:21He regarded his disease as foreign to him.
0:25:24 > 0:25:27Some have suggested that this condition
0:25:27 > 0:25:30would've added to Marx's sense of alienation.
0:25:30 > 0:25:33The new evidence certainly reminds us
0:25:33 > 0:25:38that towering thinkers also live a flesh-and-blood existence.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49In 1844, Marx became a father for the first time.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53Jenny took their newborn daughter to see her family in Trier
0:25:53 > 0:25:56and she was obviously genuinely worried
0:25:56 > 0:25:58about leaving her husband alone
0:25:58 > 0:26:01in a place renowned for its sexual licence.
0:26:01 > 0:26:07She wrote anxiously of the real menace of unfaithfulness.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11The seductions and attractions of a capital city.
0:26:18 > 0:26:23Marx did arrange a rendezvous, but this was purely a meeting of minds.
0:26:23 > 0:26:25An appointment with a radical writer who'd contributed
0:26:25 > 0:26:29to Marx's failed journal - Friedrich Engels.
0:26:33 > 0:26:36Engels was also from a bourgeois Prussian family.
0:26:36 > 0:26:40Just two years younger than Marx, tall and handsome.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43Both of them had mixed with a young Hegelian crowd
0:26:43 > 0:26:46and had come to similar views on capitalism.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51It seems that the friendship was lubricated by
0:26:51 > 0:26:53an enthusiastic consumption of red wine.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56The two were inseparable for 10 days.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00Talking late into the night and railing against social,
0:27:00 > 0:27:03political, economic injustice.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06What Engels called the sheer misery
0:27:06 > 0:27:09and material squalor of industrial life.
0:27:14 > 0:27:18Engels readily conceded that Marx was by far the cleverer of the two.
0:27:18 > 0:27:22But he had something that Marx lacked.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25Engels had been leading a kind of double life.
0:27:29 > 0:27:31Over the last two years, his day job had been
0:27:31 > 0:27:35working for his father's textile business in industrial Manchester.
0:27:35 > 0:27:40So he had first-hand experience of the engine room of capitalism.
0:27:43 > 0:27:48Engels' lover was an Irish immigrant factory worker called Mary Burns.
0:27:48 > 0:27:51She'd shown him the slum districts of Manchester
0:27:51 > 0:27:54and so he'd witnessed the poverty of the urban classes
0:27:54 > 0:27:57in ways that thesis-bound Marx never had.
0:28:00 > 0:28:03As collaborators and friends, their joint mission
0:28:03 > 0:28:05was to open people's eyes
0:28:05 > 0:28:09to what they judged to be the devastating realities of capitalism.
0:28:12 > 0:28:14SIRENS WAIL
0:28:16 > 0:28:20But Paris turned out not to be a safe haven.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25All Marx's fevered writing and those boozy conversations
0:28:25 > 0:28:29with other agitators had attracted attention.
0:28:29 > 0:28:31There were Prussian spies in Paris
0:28:31 > 0:28:33and they alerted the French authorities
0:28:33 > 0:28:37to the potential danger that Marx's ideas posed.
0:28:38 > 0:28:40He was ordered out of the country.
0:28:48 > 0:28:54In January 1845, Marx fled Paris in haste by postal coach...
0:28:55 > 0:28:58..leaving Jenny behind with their baby daughter
0:28:58 > 0:29:01to frantically pack up all their belongings.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05Neighbouring Brussels accepted political refugees
0:29:05 > 0:29:07and Marx applied for asylum.
0:29:07 > 0:29:09He was granted temporary residence,
0:29:09 > 0:29:13but on the strict understanding that he sign a written pledge
0:29:13 > 0:29:16assuring that he wouldn't stir up dissent with his writing.
0:29:20 > 0:29:21In Brussels, Marx still feared
0:29:21 > 0:29:24the long arm of the Prussian authorities.
0:29:24 > 0:29:26And so to avoid potential extradition,
0:29:26 > 0:29:29he renounced his Prussian citizenship.
0:29:31 > 0:29:33Marx had been marginalised.
0:29:33 > 0:29:36He was stateless and virtually penniless,
0:29:36 > 0:29:41but he clearly had no intention of taking all this lying down.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44Despite the stringent conditions of his residency,
0:29:44 > 0:29:47he was about to ramp up his political activity.
0:29:52 > 0:29:55Marx reunited with Engels and, together,
0:29:55 > 0:29:59they became part of the clandestine world of the communists.
0:30:01 > 0:30:04Outraged at being exploited by the ruling classes,
0:30:04 > 0:30:07they'd set up secret groups right across Europe.
0:30:09 > 0:30:14These working-class activists wanted to abolish private property
0:30:14 > 0:30:17and to create a revolutionary society.
0:30:21 > 0:30:24We know that Marx and Engels hung out here with communists
0:30:24 > 0:30:28in what was once a smoky bar and has now, rather ironically,
0:30:28 > 0:30:31been transformed into an elegant bourgeois bistro.
0:30:33 > 0:30:34The men that Marx met here,
0:30:34 > 0:30:39he believed to be the very foot soldiers of revolutionary change.
0:30:39 > 0:30:43Change which, and this is a critical shift,
0:30:43 > 0:30:46Marx now actively sought to effect himself.
0:30:46 > 0:30:51As he wrote, "Philosophers have only interpreted the world.
0:30:51 > 0:30:54"The point is to change it."
0:30:56 > 0:31:01He and Engels matched their words with deeds and began to coordinate
0:31:01 > 0:31:05a network of communists across Europe from their base in Brussels.
0:31:06 > 0:31:08But they didn't stop theorising.
0:31:10 > 0:31:16As ever, Marx was determined to solve big problems with big ideas
0:31:16 > 0:31:19and with the power of the written word.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24Marx and Engels are working furiously together here.
0:31:24 > 0:31:27What's the quantum shift in their thinking?
0:31:27 > 0:31:32The quantum shift is they now see that it's economic organisations
0:31:32 > 0:31:34and the way they change throughout history,
0:31:34 > 0:31:37THAT'S what drives history forward.
0:31:37 > 0:31:38That's the motor.
0:31:38 > 0:31:43And they see the way society organises itself economically
0:31:43 > 0:31:47changing according to new technological developments.
0:31:47 > 0:31:52And they trace movements from a very early, cooperative -
0:31:52 > 0:31:55as they see it - a cooperative society
0:31:55 > 0:31:58in which people live in a communal fashion
0:31:58 > 0:32:01through slave-owning societies
0:32:01 > 0:32:04on into medieval feudalism
0:32:04 > 0:32:08with aristocratic landowners and their serfs,
0:32:08 > 0:32:13and then the Industrial Revolution and the birth of capitalism.
0:32:14 > 0:32:18- So, this is history as they see it. - Mm.- What's the issue here?
0:32:18 > 0:32:19I mean, what's the problem with this?
0:32:19 > 0:32:22Well, the problem is that for most of human history,
0:32:22 > 0:32:24there have been haves and have-nots.
0:32:24 > 0:32:27And that most humans have lost out
0:32:27 > 0:32:32to the people who own the property and who own the means of production.
0:32:32 > 0:32:36And he thinks the problem is getting even worse under capitalism.
0:32:36 > 0:32:41So, economics is important, class is also very important to them
0:32:41 > 0:32:43- both at this time, isn't it?- Hugely.
0:32:43 > 0:32:48They see capitalism necessarily leading to antagonisms
0:32:48 > 0:32:52between particularly the bourgeois capitalist
0:32:52 > 0:32:56property-owning class and the proletariat who sell their labour -
0:32:56 > 0:33:00because he says capitalism is intrinsically exploitative.
0:33:00 > 0:33:05And more than this, he thinks that law, religion, politics,
0:33:05 > 0:33:07culture, the arts generally,
0:33:07 > 0:33:13they're all there to keep the ruling classes in power and in place.
0:33:13 > 0:33:18They are a superstructure, an ideology to maintain the status quo.
0:33:18 > 0:33:24And he thinks that part of his job is to strip the mask away
0:33:24 > 0:33:27so people can see that they've been had.
0:33:32 > 0:33:34Marx believed that capitalism
0:33:34 > 0:33:36contained the seeds of its own destruction.
0:33:36 > 0:33:42All that he had to do was to awaken what he called the proletariat -
0:33:42 > 0:33:44the working classes of industrial society -
0:33:44 > 0:33:49to their revolutionary role, to bring about communism,
0:33:49 > 0:33:54the final stage of history, when all class divisions would be eradicated.
0:33:56 > 0:33:59By 1847, events in Europe were on his side.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03A revolutionary storm had been brewing.
0:34:03 > 0:34:07The failure of wheat and potato crops across Europe
0:34:07 > 0:34:11brought famine, food riots and political unrest.
0:34:11 > 0:34:14So when Marx and Engels were commissioned to write
0:34:14 > 0:34:17a Profession of Faith by the Communist League,
0:34:17 > 0:34:21they had everything to play for, and they didn't hold back.
0:34:21 > 0:34:23UPBEAT INSTRUMENTAL
0:34:26 > 0:34:28In January 1848,
0:34:28 > 0:34:31Marx and Engels hurried to meet their tight deadline.
0:34:34 > 0:34:37Written with immense fluency in just over two weeks
0:34:37 > 0:34:40in a fug of cheap cigar smoke,
0:34:40 > 0:34:43they produced this little book.
0:34:43 > 0:34:46This is the Communist Manifesto.
0:34:46 > 0:34:48It's just 30 pages long,
0:34:48 > 0:34:52but in those pages is some of the most infamous
0:34:52 > 0:34:56and influential political propaganda of all-time.
0:35:01 > 0:35:04A lot of people think this is just going to be a kind of hatchet job on capitalism,
0:35:04 > 0:35:07but he's actually full of praise for the bourgeoisie.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10And he says that, "it has accomplished wonders far surpassing
0:35:10 > 0:35:14"Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts and Gothic cathedrals".
0:35:14 > 0:35:17That sounds like a great celebration of the bourgeoisie
0:35:17 > 0:35:19- and of capitalism, in a way.- It is.
0:35:19 > 0:35:24He's actually saying that without the advances
0:35:24 > 0:35:27and the things that capitalism can bring,
0:35:27 > 0:35:30communist society cannot work.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33Because communist society needs an abundance of goods
0:35:33 > 0:35:36that everybody can take advantage of.
0:35:36 > 0:35:38And he actually says at one point just before that quote,
0:35:38 > 0:35:42he says, "the bourgeoisie has got a revolutionary role in history".
0:35:42 > 0:35:44And he's really gingering up the language.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48Because some of those phrases, "the spectre of communism is haunting Europe"
0:35:48 > 0:35:50and, "all that's solid melts into air" -
0:35:50 > 0:35:52- they're incredibly memorable, aren't they?- Yeah.
0:35:52 > 0:35:55"The bourgeoisie creates its own grave-diggers."
0:35:55 > 0:35:57You know, he's a master of prose, really.
0:35:57 > 0:35:59He knew exactly what he was doing.
0:35:59 > 0:36:02And one thing that troubles me is when ideas become ideologies.
0:36:02 > 0:36:05And that feels like that's what's happening here.
0:36:05 > 0:36:08There's a kind of calcification of ideas,
0:36:08 > 0:36:10- so it become quite a dangerous document.- Yeah.
0:36:10 > 0:36:14Just as he said that the bourgeoisie was like a sorcerer
0:36:14 > 0:36:18that's created something that he can't actually control any more,
0:36:18 > 0:36:19perhaps he's doing that.
0:36:19 > 0:36:23He's creating something that he...that he can't control any more,
0:36:23 > 0:36:25especially when he's gone.
0:36:28 > 0:36:29Despite the radical fervour
0:36:29 > 0:36:34and sheer rhetorical power of the manifesto, it went almost unnoticed.
0:36:38 > 0:36:40The ink was still wet on the first German edition
0:36:40 > 0:36:43when revolts erupted across Europe.
0:36:44 > 0:36:48Here in Paris, workers barricaded the streets.
0:36:48 > 0:36:50After three days of frenzied fighting,
0:36:50 > 0:36:53they overthrew the monarchy and proclaimed a republic.
0:36:56 > 0:37:00You can just imagine the atmosphere of expectation.
0:37:00 > 0:37:03Something equivalent perhaps to the experience of the Arab Spring.
0:37:03 > 0:37:06The world changing in front of your eyes.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09People power overturning the status quo.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12A domino line of radicalism.
0:37:16 > 0:37:19The Belgian authorities, fearing an uprising,
0:37:19 > 0:37:22gave Marx just 24 hours to clear out.
0:37:24 > 0:37:26He needed a little encouragement to leave
0:37:26 > 0:37:30and to take up a lead role with the revolutionaries.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35But the insurrections quickly collapsed in chaos.
0:37:35 > 0:37:38In France, an attempt by the new Republican government
0:37:38 > 0:37:42to quell a workers' protest spiralled out of control.
0:37:43 > 0:37:46Over 10,000 died or were injured.
0:37:46 > 0:37:50And across Europe, the old ruling classes
0:37:50 > 0:37:52quickly re-established control.
0:37:55 > 0:37:59Marx ended up in Prussia, hoping to ferment revolution.
0:37:59 > 0:38:02But he was arrested, put on trial for inciting rebellion
0:38:02 > 0:38:05and narrowly escaped prison.
0:38:07 > 0:38:09There was just one haven left.
0:38:09 > 0:38:12A relatively stable kingdom that was still prepared
0:38:12 > 0:38:15to take on refugees with radical views.
0:38:15 > 0:38:18In August 1849,
0:38:18 > 0:38:20Marx set sail for England.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35Arriving here aged 32,
0:38:35 > 0:38:40Marx consoled himself that the uprisings of 1848 had failed
0:38:40 > 0:38:44because the historical conditions weren't yet right for change.
0:38:44 > 0:38:48The ultimate revolution that his philosophical theories
0:38:48 > 0:38:50predicted was yet to come.
0:38:50 > 0:38:55But life in London would offer little else in the way of solace.
0:38:56 > 0:39:00With over two million inhabitants, this challenging, unforgiving,
0:39:00 > 0:39:04dystopian metropolis was the biggest city in the world.
0:39:06 > 0:39:11Even back then, the cost of living in London was crushingly expensive.
0:39:13 > 0:39:15Marx, Jenny and his four children
0:39:15 > 0:39:20could only afford to live in what were then the slums of Soho,
0:39:20 > 0:39:24alongside other immigrants in cramped, debasing conditions.
0:39:24 > 0:39:29Jenny actually wrote that it cost more to rent one room here
0:39:29 > 0:39:33for a week than the biggest house in Germany for a month.
0:39:35 > 0:39:39In London, Marx set out to write a definitive account
0:39:39 > 0:39:41of the driving forces of capitalism.
0:39:42 > 0:39:46But his plans were complicated by the turmoil of his personal life,
0:39:46 > 0:39:49which was still subject to Prussian surveillance.
0:39:52 > 0:39:55A spy who'd managed to gain access to Marx's home
0:39:55 > 0:39:59described the household as squalid and chaotic.
0:40:00 > 0:40:05"Washing, grooming, and changing his linen are things he does rarely
0:40:05 > 0:40:07"and he often gets drunk.
0:40:07 > 0:40:10"Though often idle for days on end, he will work day and night
0:40:10 > 0:40:12"with tireless endurance.
0:40:12 > 0:40:17"He has no fixed time for going to sleep and waking and he often
0:40:17 > 0:40:18"stays up all night
0:40:18 > 0:40:22"and then lies fully clothed on the sofa at midday."
0:40:28 > 0:40:32Marx's all-consuming theorising and political agitating
0:40:32 > 0:40:34dragged his family down.
0:40:35 > 0:40:38Unemployed and destitute, they pawned everything
0:40:38 > 0:40:41and ran up tabs with local businesses
0:40:41 > 0:40:44while Jenny went to beg her parents for a hand-out.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48And then we're told Marx made things worse.
0:40:50 > 0:40:54Living with the family was a feisty woman called Helene -
0:40:54 > 0:40:55she helped around the house,
0:40:55 > 0:40:58she was a fellow radical and a friend.
0:40:58 > 0:41:03But Marx slept with her and fathered an illegitimate son
0:41:03 > 0:41:05at the same time that Jenny was pregnant again.
0:41:07 > 0:41:09This was not Marx's finest hour.
0:41:12 > 0:41:14Jenny was furious.
0:41:14 > 0:41:16They'd all known each other
0:41:16 > 0:41:17for a long time, so clearly,
0:41:17 > 0:41:20there is some drama and upset that goes on.
0:41:20 > 0:41:22And it is really, really heavy going.
0:41:22 > 0:41:24Marx is sending notes to Engels, saying,
0:41:24 > 0:41:26"I can't go home, because it's an absolute storm
0:41:26 > 0:41:29"and everybody is really upset and Jenny is furious.
0:41:29 > 0:41:32"Please come and have a drink with me in the pub on Great Russell Street."
0:41:32 > 0:41:36You know, he has slept with somebody who is not his wife. She's pregnant.
0:41:36 > 0:41:38This is a terrible stigma at the time. It's tough now,
0:41:38 > 0:41:42it was really, really tough in the middle of the 19th century.
0:41:42 > 0:41:44Well, is it?
0:41:44 > 0:41:46Because they are quite conventionally unconventional
0:41:46 > 0:41:48and at that time, illegitimacy -
0:41:48 > 0:41:50particularly in the circles
0:41:50 > 0:41:53that they were moving in politically and socially -
0:41:53 > 0:41:57isn't such a stigma, but at the same time, quite a lot of the evidence
0:41:57 > 0:42:00points towards the fact that Jenny wanted it covered up.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03So who takes responsibility for all this?
0:42:03 > 0:42:05Who makes it OK is Engels.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09He even lets it be understood that he is the father.
0:42:09 > 0:42:13And Engels take the rap for his best friend.
0:42:13 > 0:42:16What do you think this incident tells us about Marx?
0:42:16 > 0:42:17Marx is a man!
0:42:18 > 0:42:22And ultimately, also a Victorian patriarch -
0:42:22 > 0:42:26a man like any other that needs to be understood in context.
0:42:26 > 0:42:28And all heroes have their flaws.
0:42:31 > 0:42:35Throughout his troubles, Marx was always propped up by Engels.
0:42:36 > 0:42:40He compromised his revolutionary ambitions
0:42:40 > 0:42:42and returned to his father's factory -
0:42:42 > 0:42:47somewhat paradoxically, to bankroll Marx's theorising.
0:42:49 > 0:42:54But despite this, Marx's family life was mired in tragedy.
0:42:57 > 0:42:59Three of his children died in infancy.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05The nadir was the death of Marx's eight-year-old son, Edgar,
0:43:05 > 0:43:07the apple of his eye,
0:43:07 > 0:43:11who died in his father's arms on Good Friday, 1855.
0:43:15 > 0:43:19When Edgar's body was lowered into his grave, other mourners
0:43:19 > 0:43:21thought that Marx was so distraught,
0:43:21 > 0:43:24he was actually on the brink of throwing himself in.
0:43:42 > 0:43:45But after the heartbreak came a modest reprieve.
0:43:45 > 0:43:49Jenny received two inheritances, allowing them to move to the
0:43:49 > 0:43:52relative prosperity of the suburbs.
0:43:53 > 0:43:57Yet even here, Marx was still plagued by debt -
0:43:57 > 0:44:00much of it self-inflicted, as he lavished money
0:44:00 > 0:44:04trying to maintain a respectable middle-class lifestyle
0:44:04 > 0:44:08with private education and dancing lessons for his girls.
0:44:08 > 0:44:12You do wonder just how much he was trying to replicate the bourgeois,
0:44:12 > 0:44:15comfortable world that he'd been born into.
0:44:20 > 0:44:25By the time Marx turned 40, he was a regular at the new Reading Room
0:44:25 > 0:44:26of the British Museum.
0:44:26 > 0:44:30Here, he spent 12 hours a day gathering evidence for his
0:44:30 > 0:44:35definitive critique of capitalism, Das Kapital.
0:44:40 > 0:44:44By the 1860s, Britain was the world's industrial powerhouse.
0:44:45 > 0:44:50The UK population had doubled since the turn of the century,
0:44:50 > 0:44:51with terrible social impact.
0:44:53 > 0:44:58Sifting through public records, Marx would find what he was looking for -
0:44:58 > 0:45:02traces of the destructive consequences of rampant capitalism.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08This is a Children's Commission report, 1863, so exactly
0:45:08 > 0:45:11at the right time for Marx to be writing Kapital.
0:45:11 > 0:45:15And there's a nine-year-old kid, working a 15-hour day.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20Marx looks at that and he understands that in that story
0:45:20 > 0:45:24lies the whole secret of how this system works.
0:45:24 > 0:45:28The secret of capitalism is this idea of surplus value.
0:45:28 > 0:45:30Where does profit come from?
0:45:30 > 0:45:32Marx says it comes from work.
0:45:32 > 0:45:36When this little boy turns up to work, everything that's gone
0:45:36 > 0:45:39into getting him there - the food, the clothing, maybe the
0:45:39 > 0:45:44education, certainly the housing - cost some money and his
0:45:44 > 0:45:47labour is worth all of that.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51But the amount of work he does during that working day, that
0:45:51 > 0:45:5515-hour working day, is way above what he needs to and the
0:45:55 > 0:45:59difference between what it should take, what his work is really worth,
0:45:59 > 0:46:03and what he's actually working, is a surplus.
0:46:03 > 0:46:06That's where profit comes from and we know, actually, that
0:46:06 > 0:46:12he is trawling through this stuff for these acute examples of
0:46:12 > 0:46:15exploitation, because he wants to shove the concept of
0:46:15 > 0:46:20exploitation right down the throats of mainstream economics.
0:46:20 > 0:46:24Mainstream economics - then and today - doesn't even accept that
0:46:24 > 0:46:26exploitation exists.
0:46:26 > 0:46:27When a factory falls on the head
0:46:27 > 0:46:30of a bunch of Bangladeshi garment workers, that's an accident.
0:46:30 > 0:46:35To Marx, it's one of the most fundamental laws of capitalism,
0:46:35 > 0:46:40that the capitalist will extract the maximum amount of
0:46:40 > 0:46:43surplus value that they can.
0:46:43 > 0:46:45Where's this system heading?
0:46:45 > 0:46:47What does he think the future of capitalism is?
0:46:47 > 0:46:50Marx isn't predicting the imminent doom of capitalism.
0:46:50 > 0:46:54He understands that it is a fully functioning system.
0:46:54 > 0:46:58But he identifies the fragility that in this system based on profit,
0:46:58 > 0:47:03where all the profit is extracted from the work of people,
0:47:03 > 0:47:05then you hit limits.
0:47:05 > 0:47:07The first limit you hit is the working day,
0:47:07 > 0:47:10because you can't extend the working day forever.
0:47:10 > 0:47:11You must innovate.
0:47:11 > 0:47:16You must create machines and the machines squeeze the worker
0:47:16 > 0:47:20more and more out of the production process, then the very source
0:47:20 > 0:47:24of all the profit is squeezed into a tiny area,
0:47:24 > 0:47:27so you get repeated crises of profitability.
0:47:27 > 0:47:33People in Marx's time were asking whose fault was it that X, Y, Z company went bust?
0:47:33 > 0:47:35Marx says it's not anybody's fault.
0:47:35 > 0:47:38It's the fault of the profit system, which is based on the exploitation
0:47:38 > 0:47:44of workers and the exploitation of workers cannot go on producing the
0:47:44 > 0:47:48profit at the rate it is required to expand the system forever.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55Marx believed there were too many contradictions
0:47:55 > 0:47:57within the capitalist system for it to survive.
0:47:57 > 0:48:01The cycle of boom and bust and expansion and recession
0:48:01 > 0:48:04meant that it was inherently unstable.
0:48:10 > 0:48:17After 16 years, Das Kapital Volume I was finally finished in 1867.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21But it didn't have the impact that Marx had hoped for.
0:48:24 > 0:48:27Engels actually ghost-wrote some reviews,
0:48:27 > 0:48:29to try to drum up interest on the Continent.
0:48:30 > 0:48:33Now Marx suspected that the indifferent response
0:48:33 > 0:48:38was a conspiracy of silence orchestrated by his enemies,
0:48:38 > 0:48:42but I think it's probably much more straightforward than that.
0:48:42 > 0:48:46Kapital is really long and although some of the writing is very vivid,
0:48:46 > 0:48:49much of it is dense and demanding
0:48:49 > 0:48:53and reading this cover-to-cover is a serious commitment.
0:49:00 > 0:49:04Also, Europe was experiencing economic growth,
0:49:04 > 0:49:06thanks largely to expanding global markets.
0:49:07 > 0:49:10While the British government was passing laws to improve working
0:49:10 > 0:49:17conditions, the crisis of capitalism - the touchpaper of revolution -
0:49:17 > 0:49:19showed no sign of arriving.
0:49:23 > 0:49:26This seems to me to be one of the great ironies of Marx's life.
0:49:27 > 0:49:32Marx had identified the need for change but then things did change
0:49:32 > 0:49:36at such an exponentially rapid rate that by the time
0:49:36 > 0:49:40he'd worked out a coherent solution to society's problems,
0:49:40 > 0:49:43the world had already moved on -
0:49:43 > 0:49:45leaving him behind.
0:49:49 > 0:49:53With the help of a generous pension from Engels, Marx gradually
0:49:53 > 0:49:56settled into comfortable, middle-class respectability.
0:49:58 > 0:50:01He spent his time with his beloved grandchildren
0:50:01 > 0:50:04and enjoyed family walks here on Hampstead Heath.
0:50:07 > 0:50:10Marx even admits to speculation on the stock market, which of
0:50:10 > 0:50:15course, you could argue is wildly hypocritical and at the very least
0:50:15 > 0:50:19is probably a sign that he thought capitalism was here to stay.
0:50:21 > 0:50:24In his 60s, he became crippled by worsening health
0:50:24 > 0:50:29and heartbroken by the death of his wife Jenny.
0:50:29 > 0:50:33Knowing he was nearing his end, he had this photograph taken as
0:50:33 > 0:50:36a lasting memory for his daughters,
0:50:36 > 0:50:40before symbolically shaving off his trademark beard and hair.
0:50:46 > 0:50:52When Marx finally died in March 1883, a photograph of his father,
0:50:52 > 0:50:56who had strived to give his son a good start in life, was found in the
0:50:56 > 0:51:00breast pocket of his jacket and it was buried together with
0:51:00 > 0:51:05Marx in a simple grave here in a remote corner of Highgate Cemetery.
0:51:12 > 0:51:16Engels paid for Marx's original burial plot.
0:51:16 > 0:51:18Just 11 mourners attended the funeral.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23Engels' words by Marx's graveside -
0:51:23 > 0:51:26"His name and work will endure through the ages" -
0:51:26 > 0:51:30must have seemed more optimistic than prophetic,
0:51:30 > 0:51:32but as it turned out,
0:51:32 > 0:51:35he was absolutely right.
0:51:50 > 0:51:54Marx's ideas were codified and clarified by Engels,
0:51:54 > 0:51:57promoting Marx as a great thinker.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01Socialist movements across the world
0:52:01 > 0:52:04started to translate Marx's persuasive works.
0:52:05 > 0:52:08His ideas began to gain momentum.
0:52:09 > 0:52:14Finally, in one country, a Communist revolution succeeded.
0:52:16 > 0:52:20COMMENTARY: 'A human sea, joyous and wrathful, overflowed out of the city streets
0:52:20 > 0:52:24'in mighty demonstrations. The revolutionary fire of the masses
0:52:24 > 0:52:26'was finally unleashed.'
0:52:27 > 0:52:30But it defied all Marxist logic,
0:52:30 > 0:52:33because the conditions for change -
0:52:33 > 0:52:36a highly developed capitalist economy - had barely emerged.
0:52:37 > 0:52:40Russian communism had been kick-started
0:52:40 > 0:52:44by the Bolshevik Revolution in Moscow in 1917
0:52:44 > 0:52:47and seven decades later, it became crashing down here
0:52:47 > 0:52:49with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
0:52:51 > 0:52:55Revolution wasn't just powered by the proletariat as Karl Marx
0:52:55 > 0:53:00had predicted, but by a whole range of radicals and agitators.
0:53:03 > 0:53:07Top-down revolutionaries, notably Stalin, claimed to be
0:53:07 > 0:53:10disciples of Marx and his theories.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14But their authoritarian ideologies
0:53:14 > 0:53:17crushed the liberty that Marx cherished.
0:53:18 > 0:53:22Paradoxically, he would have been condemned by their regimes.
0:53:25 > 0:53:28Their distorted appropriation of Marx
0:53:28 > 0:53:32is demonstrated by recent analysis of one famous text -
0:53:32 > 0:53:33The German Ideology.
0:53:35 > 0:53:39Well, we've got Engels' handwriting here and he had
0:53:39 > 0:53:41quite good handwriting.
0:53:41 > 0:53:44Marx's handwriting was absolutely terrible.
0:53:44 > 0:53:47And so, we can tell from this page
0:53:47 > 0:53:49that Marx is making insertions
0:53:49 > 0:53:52into Engels' draft.
0:53:52 > 0:53:55And what's it actually aiming to do? What are they working on here?
0:53:55 > 0:53:58Well, from the draft by Engels,
0:53:58 > 0:54:01we get this story about communist society -
0:54:01 > 0:54:05will it allow people to do what they want?
0:54:05 > 0:54:08Because they would not be constrained
0:54:08 > 0:54:12by the economically imposed division of labour.
0:54:12 > 0:54:16So, he's developing a vision
0:54:16 > 0:54:19which includes livestock herding,
0:54:19 > 0:54:24hunting and fishing, but I think he gets a very sharp message from Marx,
0:54:24 > 0:54:26saying, "Let's get back on track here."
0:54:26 > 0:54:30And he does it in a kind of indirect way.
0:54:30 > 0:54:32He doesn't just write, "Well, you're wrong."
0:54:32 > 0:54:35He writes something quite sarcastic,
0:54:35 > 0:54:39so he inserts the words, "and criticise after dinner".
0:54:40 > 0:54:44This work-in-progress draft was rejected by Marx and Engels.
0:54:44 > 0:54:49But in the 1920s, it was resurrected, taken at face value
0:54:49 > 0:54:52as a blueprint for communism and printed in smooth text,
0:54:52 > 0:54:57obscuring its knock-about origins.
0:54:57 > 0:55:01So this is very much a draft and yet, this will become the kind
0:55:01 > 0:55:05of foundations for a big political ideology.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09Yes, and a lot of people have an investment in making him simple
0:55:09 > 0:55:13and making him dogmatic and you can get political mileage
0:55:13 > 0:55:15out of that, but we don't have to do that.
0:55:15 > 0:55:19He was a man with questions and went looking for answers.
0:55:19 > 0:55:21He wasn't a man who had a big idea,
0:55:21 > 0:55:26one answer, and then that's what he found everywhere.
0:55:26 > 0:55:29He actually went on the record saying he didn't want to be
0:55:29 > 0:55:33a kind of guru or prophet or great teacher.
0:55:33 > 0:55:35So when we look at evidence like this,
0:55:35 > 0:55:39should we remember Marx - should we think about him differently?
0:55:39 > 0:55:42Yes, I hope so and I think we need to be prepared
0:55:42 > 0:55:45for a much more exploratory, much less dogmatic Marx.
0:55:51 > 0:55:57I think Marx's genius lies in his determination to think abstractly about capitalism -
0:55:57 > 0:56:01to look beneath the surface reality, to ask about its destiny.
0:56:04 > 0:56:06The idea that I find most compelling
0:56:06 > 0:56:08is his idea about the alienation of labour.
0:56:10 > 0:56:13If you're cut off from the fruits of your labour,
0:56:13 > 0:56:15if you're cut off from your creativity,
0:56:15 > 0:56:17then you lose your sense of self.
0:56:20 > 0:56:22The challenge he leaves us with is -
0:56:22 > 0:56:26can we live under a capitalist system and retain healthy,
0:56:26 > 0:56:31functional, non-exploitative human relationships?
0:56:35 > 0:56:41Marx stated that communism is the riddle of history solved.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44I'd argue that that is demonstrably untrue.
0:56:44 > 0:56:48His prediction that a communist utopia would emerge to
0:56:48 > 0:56:53emancipate humanity is yet to be realised and as a historian,
0:56:53 > 0:56:58I just can't accept that one single idea can solve the
0:56:58 > 0:57:01complex riddle of the human experience.
0:57:05 > 0:57:08There's a dreadful paradox that the man who said that he hated
0:57:08 > 0:57:13ideology inspired one of the most rigid ideologies in history.
0:57:14 > 0:57:19It seems to me that Marx's life-story trumpets a warning that
0:57:19 > 0:57:24ideas can acquire their own inherent power and that charismatic,
0:57:24 > 0:57:28explosive thoughts - particularly if set down on the page as writing -
0:57:28 > 0:57:32can be twisted from their original intention
0:57:32 > 0:57:35and manipulated for malign ends.
0:57:37 > 0:57:42But Marx's desire to find the root cause of human distress,
0:57:42 > 0:57:45of suffering and inequality,
0:57:45 > 0:57:47is surely a laudable goal.
0:57:47 > 0:57:52So whether you choose to read Marx as a hero or a villain,
0:57:52 > 0:57:58his philosophical journey must be interrogated and never forgotten.
0:58:09 > 0:58:12If the mind of Marx has made you think, then explore further
0:58:12 > 0:58:16with the Open University to discover how other great minds have
0:58:16 > 0:58:18influenced our world today.
0:58:18 > 0:58:21Go to the address at the bottom of the screen
0:58:21 > 0:58:23and follow the links to the Open University.