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A story about Karl Marx and his controversial love for Jenny, his near-lost friendship with Engels, the evolution of philosophy and dialectics, the thought of transforming the world through political economics and his contribution to the revolution of the working classes.

In honor of the 225th anniversary of Engels’ birth, at November 28 30th, 2025, we're watching it in full, if not again.

::: spoiler Episode summaries:

Episode 1: Different Youth

The episode begins with Karl Marx's funeral and flashes back to Trier High School, where he is giving his graduation speech. As Jenny von Westphalen hears his words, she remembers their time together. After the speech, Jenny invites Marx to a ball. They dance together, and Marx says that he intends to go to the University of Bonn. Jenny's brother Ferdinand, who dislikes Marx's peasant background, throws Marx off the ball while she is not looking. They meet secretly, and Marx promises to marry her; he is disappointed when Jenny misses his departure for Bonn. Marx is fascinated in Bonn by Immanuel Kant's philosophy, but gets involved in bar fights and spends too much money. His father, Heinrich, forces Marx to transfer to the more serious University of Berlin to study law. Marx befriends Bruno Bauer there, and abandons Kantian philosophy in favor of Hegelianism.

Episode 2: Defending the Rights of the People

Marx joins the Young Hegelians and prepares his doctoral thesis, The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature. Because of the thesis' atheist positions, Bauer suggests that Marx not submit it to the conservative professors at Berlin; instead, he receives his PhD from the University of Jena. Marx begins working for the Rheinische Zeitung and becomes a constant critic of the Prussian government; this increases the newspaper's circulation among the poor and attracts the government censors. When the censorship increases after Marx criticized a forestry law that forbade peasants from collecting wood from landowners' properties, Marx quits his job. Concluding that the state protects the ruling class, he leaves the Young Hegelians because they criticize religion instead of taking real political action. Furious with Bauer, Marx ignores Friedrich Engels' invitation to talk to him. He joins Arnold Ruge, who is also politically persecuted, and goes to France with him to establish a new newspaper. With a new salary, Marx buys an engagement ring for Jenny, who agrees to marry him, despite a furious argument with her brother.

Episode 3: A New World View

Marx and Jenny move to Paris after their marriage, and Marx writes articles for the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher newspaper. He likes an article about political economy by Engels, who is impressed by Marx's article on the critique of Hegel and his ideas about the proletariat as a revolutionary force. After a disagreement with Ruge about his lack of revolutionary ideas, Marx meets and befriends Engels. Engels shows him his manuscript for "The Condition of the Working Class in England", and introduces Marx to socialism. They begin co-authoring critiques of thinkers they perceive as confusing the proletariat. To overcome idealism, they publish The Holy Family as a critique of Bauer. After Marx is exiled to Brussels, they write The German Ideology as a critique of the Young Hegelians and Ludwig Feuerbach's materialism. Although it is not accepted by any publisher, Marx and Engels are happy to have created a materialist conception of history.

Episode 4: Scientific Socialism Shines Brightly

As working conditions deteriorate, a variety of socialist philosophies emerge. Marx and Engels advocate scientific socialism, opposing both League of the Just leader Wilhelm Weitling's Christian communism and Hermann Kriege's idea of love as a unifying factor of classes in the Communist Correspondence Committee. After writing a letter criticizing those concepts, Marx and Engels are invited to join the League. In Paris, Engels learns about Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's book The Philosophy of Poverty and his ideas of mutualism and opposition to revolutionary violence. Marx writes The Poverty of Philosophy in response to Proudhon, and Engels attends a League meeting in London. When he returns, he announces that the League has changed their name to the Communist League and he and Marx have been assigned to write their political program. They write The Communist Manifesto during the revolutions of 1848, and Marx is exiled from Belgium under suspicion of fomenting the revolution in Brussels. After a brief trip through Paris, Marx establishes the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne. The newspaper's articles annoy the German government and, after several acquittals, Marx returns to Paris in exile.

Episode 5: The Great Work - Das Kapital

The Marxes are exiled from Paris and emigrate to London, where they are so poor that Marx must sell his clothing to buy food. They are almost evicted, but Engels pays their rent. While the Marxes are grieving the death of their children Guido and Franziska, another son (Edgar) dies. When Marx is researching in the British Museum for A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, he is asked by Tom (a child laborer) why his father lost his job when there was overproduction at his coal mine. Marx explains that labor creates value, labor is exploited through surplus value, and capital has a "natural instinct" to pursue profit; workers must control the means of production to overcome this situation. Marx works on Das Kapital and elaborates his crisis theory, surviving on a legacy from his friend Wilhelm Wolff. During the twenty-year writing process, Marx struggles with his perfectionism, develops pneumonia, boils, and insomnia, and debates Carl Vogt and Proudhon followers at the First International until he publishes the first volume of his magnum opus.

Episode 6: The First International

At the First International, some say that Marx should be its leader but he declines. He also turns down Otto von Bismarck's offer of a government job and the restoration of his citizenship. During a supportive speech about the Paris Commune Marx meets the grown-up Tom, who volunteers to fight in France and exchanges letters with him. Marx eulogizes the Commune in "The Civil War in France", describing it as the first "dictatorship of the proletariat". He becomes ill again after working to provide asylum for a French deportee, and he and Engels decide to write a new preface for The Communist Manifesto in homage to the Commune. The Austrian, Prussian, and Russian governments decide to attack the International, and Marx must deal with the anarchist ideas of Mikhail Bakunin. During the Hague Congress, he proposes that Bakunin and his followers be expelled from the International for their conspiracy in creating the Alliance of Socialist Democracy. Marx becomes well-known but declines an offer from The Atlantic for a cover story.

Episode 7: Marx Forever

Marx is pleased with Capital's sales in Germany and Russia, and the bedridden Jenny shares his happiness. He and Engels are concerned about the rise of Eugen Dühring's ideas in the socialist movement, but Marx is too preoccupied with Jenny, the two remaining volumes of Capital, and studying Russia to write a critique of Dühring's work. Marx regrets not having published their Critique of the Gotha Program about Ferdinand Lassalle and the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany. Engels stops writing Dialectics of Nature to publish a text criticizing Dühring and clearly explaining Marx and Engels' ideas about historical materialism and political economy. Marx becomes interested in anthropology and the material culture of ancient societies, believing that family and private property probably developed into classes and nations. When Jenny dies, he cannot work and becomes ill. After the death of another of his children, (Jenny Longuet), Marx also dies. Engels complete the other two volumes of Capital during the eleven years after Marx's death. In an epilogue, Marx's legacy and his impact on the Russian and Chinese revolutions are highlighted.

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We’ll start at 5:10 PM EST on Blorptube, right here: https://blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

https://letterboxd.com/film/the-leader-karl-marx/

Imdb

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9878732/

Source

EP1: https://tankie.tube/w/c81yWBzYkU4F5nFCKdaRcg

Ep2: https://tankie.tube/w/atpvnx3V9ipdWEwuVPuGbq

Ep3: https://tankie.tube/w/tcYBMu4xRfQZMeCeBCMQTT

Ep4: https://tankie.tube/w/jp4yFSC8GRF7tjZzTF89Vj

Ep5: https://tankie.tube/w/e8sESfNbLRvUeHEmqmBdFe

Ep6: https://tankie.tube/w/kfhpufMK6nWGjXgGMcR92H

Ep7: https://tankie.tube/w/fBC2DWXwDTdAaRcnNQJC8o