Context for Critique; Marx and Engels

      Karl Marx considered in this world to the heart in the human body. This is confusing because the heart is the most important organ in the human body, yet Marx, an atheist, was a critic of religion. Unlike Freud who analyzed the effect of religion on human behavior, Marx’s doctoral dissertation (1841) and subsequent works analyzed the influence of religion on the class structures and power dynamics of society. 
Marx’s critique of religion is better understood when considering the context within which his ideology and worldview emerged. As a child of the post-enlightenment era, Marx recognized the lingering effects of absolutist monarchy, the feudal system and other medieval political and cultural systems of oppression. Similar to the victim of domestic violence who uses heroin to numb the pain of abuse; Marx was frustrated to see his fellow country men, and the working poor around the world, use the opium of religion to avoid the harsh realities of capitalism. The central powers of his time exploited the rest of society, he categorize this as class conflict. The frustration of this injustice was an important factor that he believed should have incited the working class to fight for their freedom through a social and political revolution.
Although Marx was not polemical and did not engage in theoretical debates on the existence of God, it is possible to sympathize with his rejection of organized religion, given the political context and the social function religion served at the time he lived. Contextualizing Marx’s economic philosophy is especially important to honestly acknowledging that Marx was not an anti-theist and certainly did not advocate for religious persecution as did his disciple Stalin.
Marx did not suffer childhood trauma from religion nonetheless, through understanding his life events a greater understanding of the source and contacts for this thesis can be gleaned. Marx was born to a jewish family and his father was a lawyer. However, his family converted to christianity, and at the age of six he was baptized. They converted for social mobility rather than a true belief in the trinity or the divinity of Jesus as the son of god or a saviour. In 1848 Marx wrote his seminal work, The Communist Manifesto, with his close friend and benefactor Friedrich Engels. During that time they both worked and lived in Brussels. Due to the controversial nature of his work, Marx was exiled and expelled from several counties until he finally settled in England. Marx’s vision of freedom for all involved the abolishment of all forms of social stratification and the complete eradication of private property, courts, cops and the military. He argued that the economy should be equal and there should be no government or king ruling over the people. Politicians and lawmakers were concerned that his work would incite an armed rebellion, therefore he was exiled from Germany, France, Brussels, and England. During his time in France Marx studied philosophy and economics. Germany charged him with sedition and inciting a rebellion; charges that were later dropped. Still he was expelled from this country a second time and banished to London, England where he lived with his family and continued to build the foundations for communism for the rest of his life (1849 1883). 
Marx could not have spread his ideas and developed his framework without the help of his close friend Friedrich Engels. Engels was born to a wealthy family in Barmen, Germany; his father owned cotton mills, and it is through his work at the family owned mill in England that Engels was able to support Mark for many years. Raised in a Protestant Christian household, Friedrich Engels father was a Calvinist, which means they followed the theological tradition of John Calvin, a french theologian. Engels first  became interested in the communist worldview working in England for his father’s cotton mill. He documented his impressions and experiences of the English slums in his book, “The Conditions of the Working Class in England,” when he returned to Germany.  Marx and Engels met each other in the year 1840, and eight years later, they wrote The Communist Manifesto, in 1848. Outliving his friend Marx, Engels died in 1895.
In their lifetime Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels could not have dreamed the influence their ideas would eventually bring to the world. Until this day there are great debates on the morality and efficacy of the communist framework for an ordered world.