Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Death: 14th March 1883
Location: Highgate Cemetery (East), Highgate, London, England
Cause of death: Bronchitis and Pleurisy
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German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist movement. He published various books during his lifetime, with the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (1867–1894); some of his works were co-written with his friend and fellow German revolutionary socialist, Friedrich Engels. 
Marx's theories about society, economics and politics — collectively known as Marxism — hold that all societies progress through the dialectic of class struggle: a conflict between an ownership class which controls production and a lower class which produces the labour for goods. 
Revolutionary socialist governments espousing Marxist concepts took power in a variety of countries in the 20th century, leading to the formation of such socialist states as the Soviet Union in 1922 and the People's Republic of China in 1949. Many labour unions and workers' parties worldwide were also influenced by Marxist ideas, while various theoretical variants, such as Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, and Maoism, were developed from them. Marx is typically cited, with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history. 
The Communist Party of Great Britain had Marx’s monumental tombstone built in 1954. The tombstone bears two carved messages: the first, "WORKERS OF ALL LANDS UNITE", is the final line of The Communist Manifesto, and the second is from the 11th Thesis on Feuerbach (edited by Engels): "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways—the point however is to change it". In 1970 there was an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the monument using a homemade bomb.

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