After a minute or two of your extract, he does say that Marx saw importance in critiquing and understanding capitalism and its contradictions "to help it along" to die.

I'd say that part sums well how Marx saw it.

Marx saw himself as a critique and intellectual but instances we have of him getting involved in politics shows his concern are always resolvedly that history should move gradually. In Germany, he refused to advocate for his ideas fully, saying that the Bourgeoisie of Germany still had to overthrow feudalism. Late in his life, he split from communist movements wanting immediate or direct action, arguing that careful analysis and "waking up" the proletariat was the first steps towards change. Instances of Marx supporting revolutionary action was always careful to ensure that it was fitting within a rigourous analysis of history.

Even in the manifesto, he argues that education necessary to capitalism would lead to the Bourgeoisie giving the tools to workers to realise their condition and analyse what's happening.

So we do have a clear picture of Marx as a man who sees critiquing the system as his role but did believe this role to be essential in worker liberation.

In a way, he saw himself like a proletarian Hegel; he uncovered the mechanics of history and by teaching and reconstructing that system, he was helping workers get the tools to become conscious of it and take action when needed.

It is also why he had issues with many politically minded folks. When writing for the Parti Ouvrier de France, he accused its leaders of basically making capitalism comfortable by advocating for better wages and hours; the idea that such measures would make worker alienation more tolerable and a way to keep the Bourgeoisie in power. For him, this was a sign that capitalism hadn't run its course or worse, workers would lean into it as they would embrace capitalism if enough people were "bribed" into it. In his writings on the Gotha programme, he had also opposed however a hard revolutionary approach that would "skip" capitalism.

So yes he saw himself as a critique and philosopher but believed that such critique was necessary for class consciousness and meaningful actions to be taken. His critiques were like tools and he would comment when those tools were misused by his standards. He did support action when it was perceived as "the right time to act" but was critical of a lot of left-wing actions that he perceived as benefitting capitalism in the long term or trying to bypass what he saw as facts of how history function. Even when helping politicians or activists, he showed us he operated in a critical framework first and foremost, certainly not believing that any action from the proletariat was a good one like many activists of his time believed.

The world he envisioned is not contradicting his role as a critique; he just believed there was a way to get there and that way had to be carefully based in scientific, materialist analysis. His critique was a way to him to provide what is needed to gain consciousness and plan accordingly by understanding capitalism and history more broadly.