Born in 1818, Marx was baptized a Lutheran in 1824, attended a Lutheran elementary school, received praise for his ‘earnest’ essays on moral and religious topics, and was judged by his teachers ‘moderately proficient’ in theology (his first written work was on the ‘love of Christ’)8-10 until he encountered Darwin’s writings and ideas at the University of Berlin. Marx wrote tirelessly until he died, producing hundreds of books, monographs and articles. Sir Isaiah Berlin even claimed that no thinker ‘in the nineteenth century has had so direct, deliberate and powerful an influence upon mankind as did Karl Marx’.11 Marx saw the living world in terms of a Darwinian ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ struggle, involving the triumph of the strong and the subjugation of the weak.12 Darwin taught that the ‘survival of the fittest’ existed among all forms of life. From this idea Marx believed that the major ‘struggle for existence’ among humans occurred primarily between the social classes. Barzun13 concluded that Marx believed his own work to be the exact parallel of Darwin’s, and that,
‘like Darwin, Marx thought he had discovered the law of development. He saw history in stages, as the Darwinists saw geological strata and successive forms of life. … both Marx and Darwin made struggle the means of development. Again, the measure of value in Darwin is survival with reproduction—an absolute fact occurring in time and which wholly disregards the moral or esthetic quality of the product. In Marx the measure of value is expended labor—an absolute fact occurring in time, which also disregards the utility of the product. Both Darwin and Marx [also] tended to hedge and modify their mechanical absolution in the face of objections.’14
Marx owed a major debt to Darwin for his central ideas. In Marx’s words: ‘Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural selection for the class struggle in history. … not only is it [Darwin’s book] a death blow … to “Teleology” in the natural sciences but their rational meaning is empirically explained’.15 Marx first read Darwin’s Origin of Species only a year after its publication, and was so enthusiastic that he reread it two years later.16 He attended a series of lectures by Thomas Huxley on Darwin’s ideas, and spoke of ‘nothing else for months but Darwin and the enormous significance of his scientific discoveries’.17 According to a close associate, Marx was also
‘ … one of the first to grasp the significance of Darwin’s research. Even before 1859, the year of the publication of The Origin of the Species [sic]—and, by a remarkable coincidence, of Marx’s Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy—Marx realized Darwin’s epoch-making importance. For Darwin … was preparing a revolution similar to the one which Marx himself was working for … . Marx kept up with every new appearance and noted every step forward, especially in the fields of natural sciences … .’18
Berlin states that after he became a communist, Marx detested passionately any ‘belief in supernatural causes’.19 Stein noted that ‘Marx himself viewed Darwin’s work as confirmation by the natural sciences of his own views … ’.20 Hyman included Darwin and Marx among the four men he considered responsible for many of the most significant events of the 20th century.21 According to Heyer, Marx was ‘infatuated’ with Darwin, and Darwin’s ideas clearly had a major influence not only on him and Engels, but also on both Lenin and Stalin. Furthermore, these men’s writings frequently discussed Darwin’s ideas.22 Marx and Engels ‘enthusiastically embraced’ Darwinism, kept up with Darwin’s writings, and often corresponded with each other (and others) about their reactions to Darwin’s conclusions.23,24 The communists recognized the importance of Darwin to their movement and therefore vigorously defended him:
‘The socialist movement recognized Darwinism as an important element in its general world outlook right from the start. When Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859, Karl Marx wrote a letter to Frederick Engels in which he said, “ … this is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view”. … And of all those eminent researchers of the nineteenth century who have left us such a rich heritage of knowledge, we are especially grateful to Charles Darwin for opening our way to an evolutionary, dialectical understanding of nature.’25
Prominent communist Friedrich Lessner concluded that Das Kapital and Darwin’s Origin of Species were the ‘two greatest scientific creations of the century’.26 The importance of Darwinism in the estimated 140 million deaths caused by communism was partly because:
‘Clearly, for Marx man has no “nature”. … For man is his own maker and will consciously become his own maker in complete freedom from morality or from the laws of nature and of nature’s God. … Here we see why Marxism justifies the ruthless sacrifice of men living today, men who, at this stage of history, are only partly human.’27
Halstead adds that the theoretical foundation of communism
‘ … is dialectical materialism which was expounded with great clarity by Frederick Engels in Anti-Dührüng and The Dialectics of Nature. He recognized the great value of the contributions made by geology in establishing that there was constant movement and change in nature and the significance of Darwin’s demonstration that this applied also to the organic world. … The crux of the entire theoretical framework, however, is in the nature of qualitative changes. This is also spelt out by Engels in The Dialectics of Nature, “a development in which the qualitative changes occur not gradually but rapidly and abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state to another”. … Here then is the recipe for revolution.’28
Conner adds that communism teaches that by ‘defending Darwinism, working people strengthen their defenses against the attacks of … reactionary outfits, and prepare the way for the transformation of the social order’, i.e. a communist revolution.29
Once again you cite an article of astoundingly shoddy scholarship in addition to irrelevancy.
As but one example:
“....and was judged by his teachers ‘moderately proficient’ in theology (his first written work was on the ‘love of Christ’)8-10 until he encountered Darwin’s writings and ideas at the University of Berlin. Marx “
In point of fact, Marx resided in Berlin only between 1835 and 1841, which, of course, surfaces the question of what particular “writings and ideas” of Darwin he might have encountered there. While there are a couple of inconsequential scientific papers and a few private notes that it is hard to believe Marx would have ever picked up (or that would have had any influence upon him at all), other than the First Edition of the Voyage of the Beagle published in 1839 there is nothing Marx could have gotten his hands on. It did not exist.
The general intelligensia of Europe found Darwins account of the second Beagle voyage highly entertaining as a journal and travel log in the same sense that we might view the PBS National Geographic Special entertaining today and the natural scientists among them found lots of astute and useful natural observations. This was the first of Darwins works to be widely or popularly read.
Now, someone who had read Origin of Species might return to this book and find hints of Darwin’s later theory of evolution and certainly lots of observations that are later explained in interpreted in light of that theory, But no one would ever read the First Edition and depart with a glimmer of Darwin’s later theory. The 2nd Edition (published in 1845) is a different story because Darwin updated it with his first conjectural thoughts that later became part of his Theory. But the point is that Marx departed Berlin 4 years earlier than the publication of the 2nd edition and any idea that Darwin somehow corrupted a good Christian university boy is logically pathetic and possibly an intentional lie. It is certainly the typically shoddy scholarship of the Cretin Science type.
Skipping over the irrelevancy of Marx’s life to Darwin, the delusions continue:
“... Marx saw the living world in terms of a Darwinian ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ struggle, involving the triumph of the strong and the subjugation of the weak.12 Darwin taught that the ‘survival of the fittest’ existed among all forms of life. From ...”
Darwin thought no such thing, though Cretin Science types persist in perverting the sophisticated Darwinian concept of “natural selection” into a “tooth and claw” vision of dominance and subjegation. To the best of my knowledge and though he may well have in disgust with Herbert Spencer, Darwin never used the phrase “survival of the fitest.” The phrase was in fact coined by Herbert Spencer in 1864 as one of the popularized distortions of Darwin’s Theory. But, if the above is an accurate characterization of Marx’s view, it is prima facea evidence of how little he might have been influenced by Darwins Theory (when it was finally available in clearly described and complete form 11 years later).
The rest of your citation is similar gibberish or irrelevancy. Doubting that you even know what “Teleology” is, science is indeed the death of it, or at least its usefulness as explanation within scientific inquiry. To the degree that Darwin helped so much the better because it separates mysticism from science and allows science to make progress. Teleology is the domain of faith and I encourage you to have it. But stop using bad logic, flawed “facts”, and shoddy scholarship to justify it.
“Prominent communist Friedrich Lessner concluded that Das Kapital and Darwin’s Origin of Species were the ‘two greatest scientific creations of the century’.26” Certainly, and with reference to the 19th Century, most competent scientists would agree that Lessner was at least half right.
Narrowed to the period of time following say 1860 when Marx had had opportunity to read and understand Darwin’s Theory (and well after he had laid the intellectual foundation for communism), there may be substance including Karl Marx as among many “Darwin Groupies.” Virtually all good scientists today fall into that camp and nobody has ever accused all communists of being completely stupid or rejecting valid scientific conclusion.
In the mean time, I think it is time for you to prove to us that you are not a George Soros plant paid to post in a manner that makes Christians and Conservatives look like idiots.