ABSTRACT
Karl Marx's intellectual starting point was the idealistic, philosophic system of Hegel. Some fifty years later, Engels recalled what an impact Hegel had made on Marx and his contemporaries at the University of Berlin. By 1844 Marx had given his own answer to the central question which was being discussed by the young Hegelians, namely, the nature of man's self-estrangement and the way to freedom and self-fulfillment. Marx spent some time trying to construct a rival system, but, after three weeks' almost ceaseless reading, announced his conversion to Hegelianism. As a result, he joined a graduates' club, a group of free-thinking intellectuals who argued about theology and politics in Hegelian terms. The sociology of the proletariat was more complicated than Marx allowed. One of Marx's closest associates at this time was Bruno Bauer, a lecturer in theology. Marx begins to speak of his approach to politics as 'strictly scientific'.
