New Delhi, May 1 -- Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, journalist and revolutionary thinker born in Trier in 1818. He is widely known as the co-author of The Communist Manifesto and the author of Das Kapital, works that went on to shape modern socialism and critiques of capitalism. His career spanned academia, journalism and political exile across Paris, Brussels and London. A key turning point came in the 1840s, when he moved beyond abstract philosophy toward a sharper engagement with real social and political conditions.

"Reason has always existed, but not always in a rational form."

This line appears in Marx's 1843 letter to Arnold Ruge, in which he argues that criticism should begin with the contradictions already presen...