TRIBUTES

 

NEWS of the death of the great thinker and revolutionary, Karl Marx, on March 14, 1883, rapidly spread throughout the world and was reported not only by proletarian but also by bourgeois periodicals in many countries of Europe and America. Friends and enemies alike paid tribute to his intellectual powers. The Russian liberal journal Yuridichesky Vestnik said that Marx had been an “Outstanding personality,…a scientist of rare caliber.” The Austrain bourgeois newspaper Neues Wiener Taghlatt stressed on March 17 that “Karl Marx must be ranked among the most important and the most outstanding contemporaries.”

But even with his death, the bourgeois Press did not give any objective assessment of his role, and behind a barrage of talk about his high qualities, sought in every way to minimize his influence, to distort his doctrine and activity, and to pervert his life-story shamelessly. The advocates of the capitalist system, who had always hated Marx, intensified their slander after his death, and spread it to his followers.

Marx’s death evoked a totally different response in the workers’ and Socialist circles. Letters from working class leaders and rank-and-file Socialists arrived in London from all over the world with expressions of affection for the teacher and leader of the working-class and all oppressed people, expression of profound grief at the great loss toiling mankind had suffered with his death. These emotions abounded in the obituaries of the working-class Press of the various countries, and speeches at memorial meetings and rallies. All voiced firm faith in the immortality of Marx’s great ideas and the inevitable triumph of the cause to which he had devoted his life.

Among those who sent messages to Engels were veterans of the proletarian struggle; the old Chartist Harney, who was living in America, Becker, Sorge and Lochner. Lessner wrote to Eleanor Marx: “His name and his teaching will live for ever, so long as man exists on earth. Like the sun his genius will irradiate a wonderful light for all the peoples, and nothing on earth can prevent this.”

From Germany came telegrams from August and Julie Bebel, the Erfurt Social-Democratic organizations, and the Social-Democrats of Hannover. The Party leadership sent Liebknecht to London to attend the funeral.

A telegram was received from the Paris Association of the Workers’ Party of France, whose Federation of the Centre held a memorial meeting. Others arrived from Jose Mesa on behalf of the Spanish Socialist Party, from De Paepe on behalf of the Belgian Socialists, and Nieuwenhunis, on behalf of the Dutch Socialists. From Zurich came a resolution passed by a memorial meeting of the members of Slavia, the Socialist Slavonic Alliance, which proposed the establishment of a Marx Fund in aid of victims of the liberation struggle.

In London, a meeting was held by the Democratic Federation to honour the memory of the “great thinker and genius, a friend of the workers of all countries.” Memorial meetings were held by the Marylebone branch of the Democratic Federation in London, by the Cabinet Marker’ Society and other organizations. On March 19, memorial meeting was held by the American Socialists in York. The former member of the International, Cuno, informed Engels of the obituary he had written.

Numerous expressions of grief and profound respect were received from revolutionaries in Russia. A message from Russian Socialists, written by Lavrov, said: “The death of Karl Marx will evoke grief in the hearts of all those who have succeeded in understanding his ideas and in appreciating his influence on our epoch.” A telegram from the Society of Russian Emigrant Socialists, signed by Lopatin, Plekhanov and Sophia Bardina, was received by Engels from Geneva. On March 28, 1883, Lopatin wrote to Eleanor that Marx was a man whom he had “loved as a friend, respected as a teacher and revered as a father.” Wreath collections were made and the money sent to Engels in various ways by students of the Peter Agricultural Academy in Moscow, the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg, the Colleges of Odessa and by students of women’s college of Russia.

 

PUBLICATION

OF WORKS

Forward-looking Russian leaders arranged for the publication and extensive circulation of Marx’s works. In a letter to Eleanor, Danielson expressed his readiness to make available all the material and letters he had for a future publication of Marx’s literary legacy. A message of greetings sent by Plekhanov, Axelrod and Vera Zasulich to the German Social Democratic Congress in Copenhagen held in late March and early April 1883, expressed the wish to set up a special fund for a “popular edition of all the works of Marx.”

Progressive intellectual from various countries sent sincere messages of condolence at the death of the great thinker and revolutionary. The bourgeois radical, Edward Spencer Beesly, wrote to Eleanor Marx: “He was a very remarkable man and although I did not share his views, I appreciated his motives and had a great respect and regard for him.” On March 18, 1883, students of the Agricultural Academy in Berlin wrote to Engels to say that Marx’ side as would be enshrined in the ages, and that “the nineteenth century will be   named after him.”

Working class leaders voiced recognition of Marx’s tremendous achievements in the great cause of transforming Socialism into a science, and of this role as leader of the world proletariat. In a letter to Engels, Deville said that Marx was the man who “did the most for the emancipation of the workers, for the emancipation of mankind.” In an obituary published in the Dutch Socialist journal, Recht woor Allen on March 24, 1883, Nieuwenhis wrote: “He was the man who gave Socialism its scientific foundation.”

 

INTERNATIONALIST 

CHARACTER

The Socialist Press and the working class spokesmen emphasised the internationalist character of Marx’s doctrine. His death, they said, was an irreparable loss to the working people of the world, for all those who yearned for progress, and for the whole of world science and culture. This idea was best expressed by Engels when he said: “Mankind is shorter by a head, and that the greatest head of our time”. 

In those mournful days working class leaders were sustained by the thought that the cause of Marx would be carried on by his true associate Engels. Marx’s friend and disciples knew that scientific communism was the joint creation of these two brilliant thinkers, “who remarkably complemented each other.”

During Marx’s illness, Engels had gradually taken over the leadership of the working class movement and, together with Eleanor, he become Marx’s literary executor, in accordance with his friend’s wish which he expressed verbally before his death.

Marx was buried at Highgate Cemetery on March 17, 1883, in a section normally reserved for persons rejected by official society and the church. The ceremony was a modest one, as Marx himself had wished, for he disliked pompous funeral processions. Among those who attended the ceremony were his relatives, Paul and Laura Lafargue, who also represented the Workers’ Party of France, Longuet, and the men who had worked with Marx in the Communist League, Liebknecht, who spoke, Lessner and Lochner. Others present were two prominent scientists Edwin Ray Lankester, the zoologist and Carl Schorlemmer, the chemist. Wreaths were laid on behalf of the editorial board of the Sozial demokrat and the London German Workers’ Educational Society. The messages were read out by Longuet.

 

Revered and 

Mourned

By Marx’s graveside, where his wife already lay, Engels spoke impressively and with deep emotion about the importance of Marx’s brilliant scientific discoveries, and of his stature as scientist and revolutionary fighter. “Governments, both absolutist and republican, deported him from their territories. Bourgeois whether conservative or ultra democratic, vied with one another in heaping slanders upon him. All this he brushed aside as though it were cobweb, ignoring it, answering only when extreme necessity compelled him. And he died beloved, revered, and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow workers—from the mines of Siberia to California, in all parts of Europe and America—and I make bold to say that though he may have had many opponents he had hardly one personal enemy.  

“His name will endure through the ages, and so also will his work!” 

 

Box:

With this article, we conclude the series we had been running since May 20, 2018 on the life and works of Karl Marx, commemorating the bicentennial birth anniversary of the great thinker.