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KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK

ownership under capitalist production upon his mind, and exposed to him the source of the innumerable contradictions so peculiar to capitalist society. Following these thoughts to their logical conclusion, it was but natural, and also only the consequence of a firmly established historical conception, to conceive of the economic necessity of converting the private ownership in the means of production into communistic property. And in the above rough, imperfect and still vague conclusions and appreciations, we can see the raw material out of which the Materialist Conception of History was constructed, and which together with this theory furnished the basic elements necessary for the establishment of scientific Socialism. It was up to Marx and Engels to clarify, amplify and develop these elementary truths, and this they have masterfully accomplished in the many years of joint efforts. Today the fruit of these efforts can be seen in the classical Socialist philosophy: a philosophy which has withstood the onslaughts of the master-minds of bourgeois intelligence; a philosophy, which furnishes scientific and incontrovertible knowledge appertaining to the cause, goal, driving forces and course of historic life; and a philosophy which is truly the beaconlight of the proletariat in its struggle for emancipation.

The intellectual struggle of these two men for clarity, this slow process full of doubt, speculation and relentless self-criticism, has been productive of brilliant documents. In these days Marx wrote "Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie" (a criticism of Hegel's Philosophy of Law), "Zur Judenfrage" ("The Jewish Question"), being a reply to Bruno Bauer's metaphysical treatment of the subject as visioned by a historical materialist, and "Die Heilige Familie" ("The Holy Family") to which I have already referred in the preceding paragraph, and to which also Engels contributed. From Engels we find "Umrisse zu einer Kritik der Nationalokonomie" ("An Outline to a Critique of Political Economy"), "Die Lage Englands" ("England's Situation"), and later that masterly sociological study "Die Lage