The Industrial Revolution in Europe helped the factories to produce goods on a large-scale. The surplus goods were exported to other countries. The owners of the factories earned huge profits and became rich. They started new factories and earned more profits, Thus a few businessmen and industrialists became very rich. This new class of people was called capitalists.Though the capitalists became rich, they did not pay enough wages to the workers.

During these days, Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Germany. He studied law, history and philosophy at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin. He thought about the miseries of the working people. He wanted to fight against the unfair and unjust situation. In 1848, revolution broke out against capitalism in many parts of Europe. Marx and his friend Engels took active part in it. The revolution failed and Karl Marx was expelled from Germany. He spent the rest of his life in London.

Marx thought that the modern factories producing large quantities of goods should not be owned by individuals. He wanted the workers or society to own them. The most famous of his early writings is The Communist Manifesto, which he and his friend Engels wrote together in 1848, It appeals to workers in all countries to unite and fight against the capitalists. He wanted a classless, communist society.

Marx further developed his ideas on economics and wrote them in a book which is known by its German title Das Kapital. Marx claimed that the struggle to make a living, had divided people into social classes. He wanted the working classes to revolt and make themselves masters of society. He also wrote many articles in different newspapers. Karl Marx died in England in 1883. His ideas provided the basis for communist thinking.