Karl Marx as a poet of modernity
Prof. Agata Bielik-Robson

In this lecture, we will be dealing with Marx as an apologist for the modern age. We will analyse the first pages of the Communist Manifesto, which begins with a vehement and poetically inspired praise of early capitalism as a phenomenon launching modernity: “the new era” (die Neuzeit) in the relationship between the individual, the society and the surrounding material world.

Based on the existential interpretation of Marxism, provided by Marshall Berman in his book entitled "All That is Solid, Melts into Air", we will show how Marx understood the vital promises and hopes of the modern era, and why he regarded communism as the only logical way of fulfilling them. We will also consider whether the communist vision, which crowns the Manifesto, is actually the last possible word in the development of modernitas, which – despite the claims by postmodernists – we are still living in.