I can certainly appreciate the Marxes—Groucho’s wit, Harpo’s pantomime, and Chico’s piano playing are legendary. But Karl Marx? That is a different story entirely. As Thomas Sowell famously noted: “Marxism is a wonderful system for the people who run it. For everybody else, it’s a disaster.”
To understand the darker side of the 20th century, one must look at a specific "rogues' gallery":
Hitler*
Lenin
Stalin
These three were arguably the greatest destroyers of Jewish life—both spiritual and physical—since the Roman Empire. While their respective defenders hate to admit it, this unholy triad shared more than just a penchant for totalitarianism; their worldviews were all originally forged in the furnace of Karl Marx’s philosophy. Perhaps most damningly, they shared Marx’s visceral, documented contempt for the Jewish people.
The Myth of the "Jewish" Prophet
The most common defense of Marx against the charge of antisemitism is:
“How can he be an antisemite? He was a Jew! His grandfather was an Orthodox Rabbi!”
These are misdirections. As Sowell points out in Intellectuals and Society, many intellectuals are more in love with their visions than with humanity. Marx didn't care for his "roots"; he viewed them as a shackle to be broken. To understand why, we have to look at his origins in 19th-century Germany.
An Effervescent (and Hostile) Germany
Marx was born in Trier in 1818. At the time, Trier was a deeply Catholic city, home to one of the oldest cathedrals in the world. However, the broader German landscape was dominated by a Lutheranism still infected by Martin Luther’s own late-life vitriol against Jews.
Germany was also in the throes of an intellectual "renaissance." Figures like Hegel, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer were reshaping the world's view of the "Teutonic" mind. The Jewish world was not immune to this earthquake. This era saw the rise of the Maskilim (enlighteners)—Jews who wanted to "Germanize" Judaism. They introduced organs into synagogues, moved the Sabbath to Sunday, and declared Berlin to be their "Jerusalem."
But there was a "Third Way" even more radical than Reform: total abandonment.
The Baptism of Convenience
Heinrich Marx, Karl’s father, converted to Lutheranism around 1819 to escape the professional restrictions placed on Jews. Karl’s mother, Henriette, was more reluctant, but she eventually acquiesced to the baptism of her children in 1824 (not 1924), when Karl was six.
Marx grew up as a Lutheran, eventually trading his faith for the militant atheism of the Young Hegelians. He never received a Jewish education, never attended a cheder, and had no Jewish friends. As Sowell observes: “The more I study the history of intellectuals, the more they seem like a biological species unto themselves.” Marx was a German intellectual who viewed his Jewish ancestry as a "stain" of the old world. When he wrote On the Jewish Question, he wasn't speaking as an insider; he was relying on the tropes of non-Jewish German critics.
"Das KKKapital": Marx the Bigot
Marx didn't just dislike Judaism; he harbored a visceral racism that extended to almost everyone. His son-in-law, Paul Lafargue—who was of Cuban descent—was a frequent target. Marx referred to him as "the negrillo" and "the gorilla."
Writing to Engels, Marx sneered:
"Lafargue has the blemish customarily found in the negro tribe—no sense of shame, by which I mean shame about making a fool of oneself."
Engels, Marx’s benefactor and "partner in hate," was no better. He wrote to Marx’s daughter Laura, suggesting that because her husband Paul lived near a zoo, he was in his "rightful place," being "one degree nearer to the animal kingdom than the rest of us."
The Marx-Engels correspondence reads less like a political manifesto and more like a transcript from a radicalized message board. Marx’s descriptions of his contemporary, Ferdinand Lassalle, are particularly foul, utilizing a cocktail of racial and ethnic slurs: "the Jewish Nigger," "greasy Jew," and "Baron Itzig." Marx even attempted to use "science" to justify his hatred, claiming Lassalle’s cranial structure proved he was descended from "Negroes who joined in Moses' flight from Egypt."
The "Satire" Defense
Apologists like Robert Fine claim this was just "irony." But as Thomas Sowell notes: “If you want to help people, tell them the truth. If you want to help yourself, tell them what they want to hear.” Marx wasn't telling "truths" or "jokes"; he was expressing a genuine, obsessive contempt.
In 1879, while vacationing in Ramsgate, Marx complained to Engels that the resort was plagued by too "many Jews and fleas." He described the "Jewish type" as shriveled and cursed with a "guttural voice." To Marx, any undesirable trait—haggling, diplomacy, or calculation—was inherently "Jewish."
The Narcissist’s Manifesto
Perhaps the most revealing trait of Karl Marx was his parasitic nature. He loathed the "bourgeoisie" but spent his life mooching off his parents and then Engels. He treated his "friends" like ATMs. When Lassalle visited him, Marx was enraged—not because of Lassalle’s politics, but because Lassalle wouldn't lend him more money. Marx complained that Lassalle "would sooner throw money down the drain than lend it to a 'friend'."
While he theorized about the "proletariat," he never worked a day in a factory. He lived in squalor, neglected his children’s health, and reportedly fathered a child with his housemaid—whom he never paid.
Conclusion
If Marx were alive today, he wouldn't be leading a union; he’d be a "NEET" (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) posting vitriolic, racist screeds on 4chan.
His ideology provided the blueprint for the 20th century's greatest horrors. As Sowell summarizes: “The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy them.”
Marx promised a utopia built on the hatred of the "other"—whether that other was a class, a race, or a religion. The rogues' gallery of Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin simply took the "Prophet of Hate" at his word.
*Note on Hitler: While Hitler eventually turned against "Judeo-Bolshevism," the early Nazi party shared significant DNA with anti-capitalist, revolutionary socialism, and Hitler himself expressed early admiration for the "totalizing" nature of Marxist organization, even as he swapped "Class" for "Race" as the primary engine of history.
