Marx Centenary

Scan page 8

Marx campaigned for Fenian pr and remained here more or less continuously until his death 33 years years later in Hampstead, on March 14 1883.

Although he achieved an excellent mastery of the English language and was certainly well acquainted with English life and politics, Marx probably retained his German accent, and certainLy his somewhat eccentric benaviour and life-style. Yet he took part in the workers' movement; and as Wilhelm Liebknecht later wrote, "Marx could only become what he has become in England"

This was not only because of the economic writings and the Blue Books that he found in the British Museum, but also his contact with the socialist and working class movement in TRIC country. Hven whes not actively participating, Marx followed the main movements closely.

He arrived in Britain at the time of the decline of the Chartists. However, he met the leaders who were still trying to hold the movement together.

He argued with George Harney, who wanted to revive the movement through closer association with bourgeois radicals. Harney • nevertheless found Marx 'one of the most warm-hearted, genial and attractive of men"

Marx got on better politically with Ernest Jones, who was closer to the Chartists' traditions of independent class politics.

Even after the decline of the Chartist organisations and the defeat of the great strike movements of the early 1850s, Marx constantly watched for signs of the resurgence of the workers' movement. Thus he was excited to see old Chartists giving out leaflets at a massive demonstration in Hyde Park in 1855 against proposed laws to restrict Sunday leisure.

He noticed the 'hatred that could be read on the faces of the workers" as some of them attacked the carriages of the rich wastrels who happened to be about and broke windows on Park Lane. He even wrote that: "Yesterday in Hyde Park the English revolution began". Not for the last time, his expectations were not realised.

As is well known, Marx regarded his theoretical writings as his most important task in this period. However, as is also well known, he never published more than a small part of Capital in his lifetime, and never got to the end of the writing.

One reason for this was the political work he carried out, especially in the International Working Men's Association, the First International.

With the resurgence of the workers' movement in the mid 1860s. Marx got involved in activities in support of popular resistance in Poland against foreign rule. The setting up of International Working Men's Association (IWMA) at a massive public meeting close to Trafalgar Square in September 1864 brought Marx into his most feverish period of political activity.

George Odger, secretary of the London Trades Council at the time and no revolutionary, argued that for drafting the statements of the International, "the right man in the right place would be Dr Marx"

Thus Marx drew up the Inaugural Address and Rules of the Association.

These showed very clearly the extent to which he was prepared to work with varied political tendencies, including the most rank reformists. He wrote privately to Engels of the need "to arrange the thing in such a way that our view appeared in a form that made it acceptable to the present standpoint of the workers' movement" • As he later explained, 'The International was founded in order to replace the socialist or semi-socialist sects by a real organisation of and America. Therefore it. t. could not set out from the principles laid down in the [Communist] Manifesto" , wrote Engels in 1890. 'It was bound to have a programme which would not shut the door on the English trade unionists, the French, Belgian, Italian and Spanish Proudhonists (socialists who favoured a system of small cooperatives linked by 'fair exchange') and the German Lassalleans [who also favoured cooperatives, but with state aid)... For the ultimate triumph of the ideas set forth in the Manifesto Marx relied solely and exclusively upon the intellectual development of the working class, as it necessarily had to ensue from united action and discussion. The events and vicissitudes in the struggle against capital, the defeats even more than the successes, could not but demonstrate to the fighters the inadequacy hitherto of their universal panaceas and make their minds more receptive to a thorough understanding of the true conditions for the emancipation of the workers"

On this basis, in the public statements that Marx drafted he emphasised, for example, the great value of the victory of 'the political economy of the working class" represented by the legal ten hour working day.

Marx worked closely with Agaris impuris us scuus. inte Anninot annstonfanahr tho nt 4I604 workers' leaders with whose political views he had little sympathy. One of the worst of them, George Howell, later a leading Liberal, nevertheless wrote of Marx as "simple, confiding, yearning for the redemption of humanity"

There were at least two major political issues of the period which Marx insisted on taking up whatever the problems. The first was the Irish movement for national independence.

He supported the political rights, though not necessarily. the methods, of the Fenian armexpuri uf class sorturiy ed conspiracy: He actively campaigned on behalf of Fenian prisoners, and in 1868 wrote to Engels that, 'The English proletariat will never achieve anything until they have got rid of Ireland"

Two years later, arguing ainst the anarchists within International, he wrote:

"It is a precondition to the emancipation of the English working class to transform the present enforced union (i.e. the enslavement of Ireland) into equal and full confederation if

Scan page 9

world into one huge army United for action - and for learning possible, into complete tion if need be"

The other issue that Marx took up through the International was the defence of the Paris Commune - the workers' govemment established in Paris in March/May 1871 following the defeat of France in war with Prussia.

Marx was privately critical of the opinions and political errors of the Communards, but he nevertheless persuaded the International to defend their was less active. No doubt he agreed with Engels, who argued in 1874 that the need was form anew a strong workers' party with a definite programme, and the best political programme they could wish for was the People's Charter" [the radical-democratic programme of the Chartists, centred round the demand for workers to have the vote].

Marx took an interest in early Meyer Ass efforts to popularise his, ideas, though he did not agree with the philistine version - 'England for All' - published by Henry Hyndman, the maverick exTory businessman who founded the first would-be Marxist organisation in Britain, the Social Democratic Federation..

However, Marx was increasingly preoccupied by his failing health and domestic tragedy, especially the death of his beloved eldest daughter Jenny in the January before he himself died in 1883.

Marx's grave in Highgate Cemetery has been often visited since then. On the first anniversary in 1884, the socialist William Morris 'trudged all the way from Tottenham Court Road' 'with a red ribbon in my button hole" , accompanied by "a very bad band, to do honour to the memory of Karl Marx and the isnsionittiioidi.ss:4809940passsisss Commune"

It is much to be wondered what Marx might have made of the many visitors since then and the ugly marble block that was erected above his bones in 1956.

It cannot be thought that Marx would be very keen on the fat bureaucrats who hold state power today with a hypocritical nod towards his teachings. However, there can be no doubt that Marx would devote particular attention to the fighting, breathing workers' movement.

He would no doubt see that he would not have been the same without the workers' movement of his day. But he would see also that we would not be the same, either, without his understanding of our struggles, or his vision - transmitted down the generations, - of our historic destiny.