How was Karl Marx regarded in his time?

Answer 1

From the very beginning of his political activities in the early 1840s up until the late 60s he was fairly unknown to an extent. After the publication of the first volume of Capital in 1867 he became a bit more well-known. Political economists either did not understand it and thought Marx was just a radical Ricardian or they figured that he was revolutionary and denounced him. It did not have much of an immediate effect within the revolutionary movement though. After the Paris Commune in 1871 he gained a degree of infamy for his support of the Commune. From there on his and Engels' influence steadily grew in the revolutionary movement while establishment figures started to denounce Marxism a bit more vigorously. His name was not really world famous like it is today until after the Russian Revolution.