A Remarkable Man for all Times
When we study, teach, speak and write about the life and work of Karl Marx we tend to concentrate almost exclusively on his intellectual and political side. We rarely delve into the Karl Marx who was also a devoted husband, a loving family man; a poor, fulltime revolutionary who was hounded, harassed, persecuted and exiled most of his life. In fact, the life of Marx and his family was filled with much of the same pain and poverty that millions of Americans are suffering today.
Rejecting the comfortable life of a middle-class lawyer, Karl and Jenny took the path of revolution, hardship and self-sacrifice. Often unable to pay their rent, they were even evicted from their apartment and forced to sell all their belongings to pay their bills. Marx had a hard time trying to make a living and a harder one holding down a job. He was fired from jobs as a newspaperman and warehouse clerk because his handwriting was so poor.
And although he worked hard at it, he could never have made a living as a poet. In fact, after writing the following verse, Marx wrote to his father that he had come to the sad conclusion that his literary talent was extremely limited. Not being a poet myself, I would say that it could be worse:
Therefore let us always dare,
Never stopping, never resting,
Never made so dull with care
That we’ve finished with protesting.
Shall we brood and make a pact
to accept the yoke? No, never.
For to see, demand and act—
These remain with us forever.
We should be grateful that Marx was perceptive and objective enough to recognize where his talents were not.
Throughout their lives the Marx family faced poverty, and were it not for their beloved friend and colleague, Frederick Engels, it is unlikely Marx would have been able to make his monumental contributions.
It is important to study Marx the student, the philosopher, a poet, a scientist, a newspaperman; an organizer and revolutionary as well as a family man, friend and comrade—as a total human being in the process of development, growth and change.
Marx was a truly universal human being whose greatest passions were people, the working class and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and truth. This rich combination produced a world outlook which has shaken the world to its very foundations.
Acutely aware that Marxism is now the foundation of society for over one-third of the world and the guiding light for millions more fighting for a better life, many capitalist ideologies have given up trying to prove Marx outdated and irrelevant.
But they have not given up! On March 14th, the centenary of Marx’s death, the New York Times reached into the very bottom of their anti-Marxist offensive and came up with a four-column editorial diatribe, “What Marx Hid.” It is a piece of garbage slandering Marx’s private life. It is proof of the total ideological bankruptcy of the ruling class in its war against Marxism. It is the ultimate failure of an attempt to destroy the indestructible. For Marxism has become a great, powerful material force that is living and breathing and revolutionizing the world through the working class.
Marxism-Leninism is the theory and method of socialist revolution. And revolution is the “locomotive of history.” It has become a law of social development that the further humanity progresses from the age of Marx, the closer it moves toward Marxism-Leninism.
Today there is not a country in the world that does not have an active Marxist-Leninist movement. And, there is nothing the New York Times fears more than this. Yes, the “spectre” hangs ever heavier over the capitalist world.
As the sun was setting on the day Karl Marx died, Frederick Engels, his closest co-worker and dear: friend, penned a most perceptive epitaph: “… Mankind is shorter by a head, and the greatest head our times, at that”.
With keen dialectical insight Engels reflected the effects Marx’s Passing would have on the class struggle: “The final victory is certain, but circuitous paths, temporary and local errors—things which even now are so unavoidable—will become more common than ever”.
Engels premonition was right on target. As we know, there have been deviations and aberrations, both “temporary and local.”
To illustrate the profound impact of Marx’s death in 1883, let me quote some typical reactions:
On his passing, the New York Central Labor Council passed a resolution: The world of workers has lost one of its greatest teachers, one of its warmest friends… Karl Marx was the one who over 30 years ago called upon all workingmen of all countries to unite and organize for the purpose of establishing justice upon this earth. … Let us all unite in honoring his memory. . .
The present leaders of the New York Central Labor Council would do well to take a new look at what its “greatest teacher” and “warmest friend” advocated. A leading Boston daily newspaper editorialized:
“Karl Marx … was one of the most remarkable men of our time, . . . A great student and a remarkable organizer”. After one-hundred years we should add, remarkable for all times. A week after Marx’s death, Jose Marti, the great Cuban revolutionary wrote: Marx . . . showed great insight into the causes of human misery . . . [He was] a man driven by a burning desire to do good. He saw in everyone what he carried in himself: rebellion, highest ideals, struggle.
And, nearly fifty years later in Ohio, the Episcopalian Bishop, Montgomery Brown, observed: Marx, though dead, yet speaketh. He is speaking even more widely and more persuasively in death than in life” (Brown 1925, 46).
Of course, another fifty years later, we can add, “Marx still speaketh ever more widely and persuasively.” So it has been down through the years eulogies and tributes in every part of the world. They could fill volumes.
Who would argue today that Karl Marx has not earned these honors, tributes and bouquets to his life and work? Well, the one person who would have objected to all the praise and honors is Karl Marx himself. Marx would have expressed caution and reservation about such personalized praise—even from his colleague and co-thinker, Frederick Engels.
He would have said, self-consciously, something like “Thank you, my dear comrades; I certainly appreciate your expressions of appreciation and praise. But you must remember that we have to place the contributions of individuals, including myself, into the framework of the dynamics of real life. We must place the individual’s contributions within the context of their relationship with the real makers of history—the people.”
He would have thoughtfully added: “I may have influenced history. But I did not create it. I did not invent class struggle. simply explained its role as the prime mover of history.”
For more reasons than just his personal modesty, Marx would have been concerned that the honors and bouquets heaped on individuals may give the wrong lead, and would, in fact, appear in contradiction with one of his greatest contributions to human thought the role of the individual and ideas in history.
Gus Hall, from Karl Marx Beacon For Our Times – New Outlook Publishers
