Karl Marx Tomb and Memorial

Posted on 16/07/2019 by Michael

Karl Marx Tomb – Highgate Cemetery, London

Karl Marx Tomb and Memorial

The British working class have shown themselves somewhat reluctant to take on board the revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx in the past. This is a shame on a number of levels but especially as he formulated his ideas based upon the what he learnt of how the first real ‘working class’ – in the sense of a class that was totally divorced and separated from the means of production – developed as the industrial towns of England sprung up from the mid-18th century onwards. But as they were so central to the development of his political and economic theories he lived and died in England and the Karl Marx Tomb and Memorial is in Highgate Cemetery, northern London.

Original Location

Karl Marx original tomb – Highgate Cemetery, London

When Marx died on 14th March 1883 he was buried in the family plot which already contained his wife, Jenny, who had died a couple of years before. They weren’t alone for long as within a week of his death Marx was joined by his five year old grandson. The family’s life long friend and companion (who had started out as a servant) Helene Demuth joined them in 1890 – after helping Frederick Engels put together Marx’s notes that became the second volume of Capital – and then the last of the group to use the plot was Marx’s daughter, Eleanor, who died young in 1898.

This unremarkable and nondescript grave, tucked away in the central part of the cemetery, was Marx’s almost final resting place until the 1950s.

The plan for a Memorial

Coincidently or not (I’m not sure) very soon after the death of the great Soviet leader and Marxist-Leninist, JV Stalin, in March 1953, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) made plans for a much more substantial memorial to the founding father of Marxism. An application was made, and permission given, for all the remains in the original location to be disinterred and reburied (in 1954) in a much larger plot close to one of the main pathways through the cemetery.

A commission was then given to a member of the CPGB, Laurence Bradshaw, a sculptor and he designed the plinth (made of marble), the very large bust of Marx (bronze) and also choose the quotes and completed the calligraphy. One thing he did which I very much liked and that was in no place will you see mention the sculptor’s name. This is in line with arguments I have made in relation to art commissioned and carried out under a system where Socialist Realism is in operation, in particular Albanian lapidars, that the artist should step back from the art work and not make it all about themselves. The memorial was unveiled on 15th March 1956 in a ceremony led by Harry Pollitt, at that time the General Secretary of the CPGB.

The Memorial

It’s quite a simple, and striking, monument. Whether I like it is another matter.

It’s a basic marble clad monolith upon which sits a huge bronze bust of Marx. The plinth is about 3 metres high and the bust must be at least a metre high itself. I think what makes the bust seem slightly strange is that Marx’s beard is virtually touching the edge of the plinth. He looks as if he is crouching down. Perhaps if Bradshaw had given Marx more of his shoulders then it wouldn’t look so pressed down. Apart from that I think it’s a good likeness of the proletarian ideologist.

On the front of the plinth, just under the bust, are the words ‘ Workers of all lands unite’, the final word, the most important word in the phrase, being on a separate line underneath, placed exactly in the centre. These words come from the very end of The Manifesto of the Communist Party although in authentic texts they are written as ‘Working men of all countries, Unite!’ The meaning is the same but with a different construction taking into account the way of thinking in the middle of the 19th century. Then just about halfway down, and centred, is the name ‘Karl Marx’.

Karl Marx Tomb – central plaque

Beneath his name (also centred and slightly indented) is the white marble plaque placed at the original site of the tomb. Or should I say ‘was’. It was damaged in February 2019 and now there’s a plastic facsimile in its place. Whether the original is underneath or has been taken away – either for conservation or for repair – I wouldn’t know. This is inscribed with the names of the five individuals in the tomb, with there birth and death dates.

On the bottom third, or so, of the plinth are the words ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it’. These are the very final words from the Theses on Feuerbach, (point XI), which was written by Marx in the spring of 1845 – preceding the publication of The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848). One slight quibble here. In the written text the words ‘interpreted’ and ‘change’ are emphasised. As Marx thought it important to do so in his text it’s a shame that Bradshaw didn’t also include, in some manner, the importance of that stress. All the text is highlighted in gold.

On each side of the plinth is a single olive wreath, close to the top and centred, in bronze. This can be interpreted in a number of ways, as in the past such wreaths have come to have various meanings. One would be a celebration of the successes and the achievements of Karl Marx. He was the first to formulate a coherent ideology which, if implemented in the manner expressed in the quotes on his tomb, is exclusively of use to and benefit for the working class and all other oppressed and exploited peoples of the world.

It would be difficult to suggest that the olive branches represent peace. Like all great ideologists many of Marx’s words can be taken out of context and thereby remove the revolutionary nature of Marxism. In his early writings Marx was clear on the need to complete replace the old system and replace it with one that was designed purely for the working class. If he had any doubts about that (which I don’t think he did) before 1871 he was clear in his own mind, and in his writings, that such a change would invariably have to be violent after the experience of the Paris workers in 1871. The ferocity of the reaction and the slaughter that accompanied the defeat of the Commune showed the world that once capitalism’s power was truly challenged they would stop at naught to crush any such attempt. Events worldwide in the almost 150 years since the Commune has proven that thesis time and time again.

There is nothing on the back of the plinth.

As an aside here it’s worth mentioning that at the time that the CPGB was making moves to commemorate Marx with the structure in Highgate Cemetery the Party itself was making moves to go against the very revolutionary essence of Marxism. The Party had already adopted the revisionist British Road to Socialism as its programme. By the end of the same year as the unveiling of the monument the Party leadership would accept the attacks made on JV Stalin by Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Subsequently the CPGB took the revisionist, capitulationist, side in the upcoming Polemic in the International Communist Movement.

Target of Vandalism

From the early days the monument has been the target for anti-Communist and Fascist elements within British society. In 1960 it was painted with yellow swastikas and suffered a couple of inept bombing attempts in the 1970s. There was also a paint attack in 2011. However, things have heated up recently as there have been two attacks this year (2019).

The first was on the night of 5th February 2019 when Marx’s name was chipped away at by a hammer. This might have done irreparable damage to the original marble plaque but it wouldn’t take too much to get a replica made. Whether the money or the will is there is another matter. Then, less than two weeks later, on 15th February 2019 it was daubed on three sides with anti-Communist slogans. These were easily cleaned off but I think the strip of red that runs down the facsimile of the plaque when I visited (in June 2019) was a remaining sign of that paint attack.

For those who believe and follow the ideas of Karl Marx a visit would be recommended if in the vicinity. The Marx monument was the result of a local, British initiative. The raising of a statue to Frederick Engels in Manchester was as a result of the failing of the revisionist system in the Ukraine. That’s also worth a visit.

How to get there:

Get to the centre of Archway (by the underground station) either by Tube or Bus. Then walk up Highgate Hill, away from the centre, passing the hospital and a statue of Dick Whittington’s cat, and at the top of the hill, by the church on the left, turn into Waterlow Park and exit by the bottom entrance which is right beside the entrance to Highgate Cemetery.

Location:

GPS:

51.5662

-0.1439

DMS:

51° 33′ 58.32″ N

0° 8′ 38.04″ W

Highgate Cemetery (East) Plan

A paper map is given after paying at the entrance but if you want an idea before you arrive click on the above for a pdf version.

Opening Times and Entrance Costs:

Daily: (except 25 and 26 December)
10am to 5pm (March to October)
10am to 4pm (November to February)
last admission 30 minutes before closing.

Adults: £4.00 (capitalism even makes money out of revolutionaries – and the dead)

Under 18’s: Free

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Realism made a come back in Edinburgh – Autumn 2017

Posted on 04/02/2018 by Michael

The Moon Goes Round the Earth – Keith Henderson

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Realism made a come back in Edinburgh – Autumn 2017

Having some knowledge of Socialist Realist Art from the erstwhile Socialist countries it was a pleasure to be able to visit the exhibition in Edinburgh, in the autumn of 2017, on British Realist Painting of the 1920s and 1930s to see what was shared – and what wasn’t. After all the style fell out of favour here and became a victim of the Cold War – collateral damage in the propaganda war against Communism.

In the main, these examples of British Realism compared to Socialist Realism are as different as chalk and cheese. In Socialist Realism context is everything, the period in which a picture is painted, the reason for its creation, who or what is depicted and the audience at which the image is aimed are all important .

With the British paintings what is most obvious from the start is the difference in the subjects. British Realism was fine art in its most literal sense. Some of the painters used single sable hair brushes in their work. Some of these paintings took years to complete. There’s no doubting the skill and draughtsmanship of such creations but they were, in many ways, products of their time and the social relations that existed in the decades between the two world wars.

With few exceptions the principle of ‘art for art’s sake’ prevailed. They were vanity products of a privileged minority, who had private incomes, who came from ‘old’ wealth. Even those from working class backgrounds rarely reflected their heritage in the subjects and themes they chose to paint.

Many of the male painters had direct experience of the First World War – although a few were pacifists or conscientious objectors and one, Maxwell Armfield, even went to the US to avoid conscription. Their rank during the conflict indicated their class background but most bullets and gas don’t respect class and many returned from the war scarred physically or mentally. Instead of reacting against the carnage most chose to retreat into an idealised past, or a beautiful present, rather than use their art to prevent such atrocities from being perpetrated in the future.

This is especially obvious in an idealised view of the countryside, harking back to a time of innocence, before mechanisation, which had, as a corollary, produced the weapons of the early 20^th century which had turned once fertile farmland in France into a murderous quagmire. Their countryside is idyllic, the sun always shines and all is good with the world with happy workers bringing in the harvest or tourists enjoying the countryside in their spare time. In their pastoral images there is no reference to the almost feudal working and living conditions under which most agricultural workers existed. As a result they created paintings which included horse drawn rakes and workers harvesting with scythes – backbreaking and low productivity labour.

British Realism included no drama, narrative, or anecdote. It doesn’t really tell a story. It’s more like a photo of a specific time, location or individual but it’s a photo that doesn’t have a back story. It’s an image frozen in time but without any indication of a past or a future.

But ‘Realism’ doesn’t mean real.

By the Hills – Gerald Brockhurst

By the Hills (Brockhurst),

Woman Reclining – Meredith Frampton

Woman Reclining,

A Game of Patience – Meredith Frampton

A Game of Patience (both by Frampton) and

Pauline Waiting – Herbert James Gunn

Pauline Waiting (Gunn) are images of incredibly beautiful women, perfect in every way. But no one’s that perfect. All of them oil on canvas, the style which results in a ‘brushless, flawless finish’ is used to produce an impossibly flawless image.

The paintings look the same as they do in the catalogue – like large, blown up (and retouched, or, perhaps I should say Photoshopped) photographs. The only difference with the originals is that when close up you can actually see the small hairs on these women’s faces and arms. Their perfection is what gives them away as paintings – such technologies in retouching weren’t available at the time. The artists aimed for, and achieved, perfection before the ravages of time would take that away forever. Standing in front of these portraits you know Oliver Cromwell, with his ‘warts and all’, would not have been a welcomed sitter in these technicians’ studios.

Some artists during this heyday of British Realism also played around with materials, reverting to tempera (using egg yolks, the norm before the invention of oil based paints) which produces a much softer, watercolour effect. What had, half a millennium ago, restricted artists in their desires to depict the world around them was reinvented to depict contemporary society – the medium not as restrictive as once thought. They rejected oil for the previously rejected egg.

British Realism came closest to Soviet Socialist Realism with the works of Branson

Selling the ‘Daily Worker’ outside Projectile Engineering Works – Clive Branson

(Selling the ‘Daily Worker’ outside Projectile Engineering Works) and Rowe

The Fried Fish Shop – Clifford Rowe

(The Fried Fish Shop). This is not surprising. Both were Communists and used their art to comment on the capitalist society that had just come out of the worst economic crisis (to that time) and was rushing headlong into the worst and most destructive conflict so far known to mankind. In depicting ordinary working people, even in the mundane act of eating fish and chips, they were referencing those who could take society along another, more prosperous and peaceful road.

There was also a similarity to the Soviet example in the works of Matania

Blackpool – Fortunino Matania

(whose Blackpool was used as a poster advertising the seaside town) and that of Taylor

Restaurant Car – Leonard Taylor

(whose Restaurant Car was used to advertise luxury rail travel). In this way they paralleled the work of Soviet artists who were producing public information posters in all fields of Soviet life at exactly the same time.

Flawed but illuminating, museums and art galleries should hunt out further treasures of British Realism and present them to the public. Let the people decide what is ‘art’ and not leave it to the Turner Prize jury.

The National Galleries of Scotland produced a wonderfully illustrated book to accompany the exhibition, True to Life – British Realist Painting in the 1920s and 1930s, by Patrick Elliot and Sacha Llewellyn. Apart from the reproductions of the paintings that were in the exhibition the text puts the Movement into its context.

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Frederick Engels in Manchester

Posted on 12/08/2017 by Michael

Frederick Engels in Manchester

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Collected Works

Frederick Engels – pamphlets, books and commentaries

The Great ‘Marxist-Leninist’ Theoreticians

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Frederick Engels in Manchester

Frederick Engels – revolutionary fighter, philosopher, close comrade-in-arms of Karl Marx – has returned to Manchester. Almost 150 years since he worked in the city (and thereby being able to support Marx in his development of the theory of the working class that later became known as Marxism) and almost 125 years since his death in 1895 a statue now stands in a pedestrianised square in the city which is considered to be one of the ‘cradles of the industrial revolution’.

Life and work

Engels first went to Manchester in 1842 – and stayed for two years. During that time he produced the unique and seminal work The Condition of the Working Class in England which was published in 1844 – but only in German. It was not available in an English translation until the end of the 19th century in 1885.

But Engels was not an armchair revolutionary – something that is very often forgotten when his role in revolutionary Socialism is discussed. To confine Engels’ role in the development of Marxism to that of someone who; bank-rolled Marx during his (many) times of penury; was able to write penetrating and interesting studies on a diverse range of subjects such as the living conditions of the poor and the role of dialectics of nature; and the only person who could have brought Marx’s most important work (Capital – in all its four volumes) through to publication is to deny what made him able to do all that. Engels was first and foremost a revolutionary fighter, prepared to place his life on the line with other revolutionaries on the barricades of Europe when the workers rose up against oppression and exploitation in 1848.

That revolution ended in failure but Engels and Marx were two of the few who considered what had happened and attempted to work out the lessons of that failure to avoid them in the future. What was later to become the book Germany: Revolution and Counter-revolution first appeared as a series of articles in 1851. Mainly written by Engels (in Manchester), but in close collaboration with Marx (in London) this was an analysis of the failed German revolution which is a companion piece to Marx’s The 18th Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte about that situation in France, which was published at around the same time. And in the 1860’s he refined some of his military ideas and tactics in a series of articles that were published in the Manchester Guardian – something which wouldn’t happen now in such a ‘liberal’ newspaper.

It was after the defeat of the revolutions in Europe – Britain had seen some scuffles but never on the scale that ran through many European countries in 1848 – that Engels returned to London and then, the following year, to Manchester where he spent the best part of the next 20 years, working in a family owned textile mill. The monies from this work, and the proceeds of the eventual selling of his part in the partnership in 1869, helped pay for Marx’s living expenses as well as supporting various proto-revolutionary organisations existing in Britain at the time.

After Marx’s death in March 1883 it was Engels who ensured that the culmination of all of Marx’s life and study was to see the light of day, with Engels organising Marx’s notes into a coherent structure and then publishing them as the various volumes of Capital. No one but Engels could have done that work.

By this time Engels had moved to London and he died there in August 1895.

The Statue

The statue was originally erected in the town of Mala Pereshchepyna, in the Poltava region of Eastern Ukraine, in the 1970’s. Sometime in the 1990s it became a victim of the nationalistic counter-revolution and after being vandalised (by being daubed in blue and yellow paint – the colours of the Ukrainian nationalists) it was taken from its plinth, in a central location, and eventually found itself, in two parts, laying in a farmer’s field on the outskirts of the town.

There it lay for a couple of decades before being ‘discovered’ by British artist Phil Collins who was looking for a piece of Socialist Realist sculpture to be placed in Manchester, at the end of the city’s International Festival in August 2017, to stand as a celebration of the city and its people’s radical past – and future? A statue of Frederick Engels was ideal for this due to the time he spent in the city in the 19th century and the input he was able to make towards Marxist ideology through the knowledge he gained from studying the struggle and conditions of the industrial working class in the north-west of England.

The statue is made of a sandy coloured limestone and stands about 3 metres tall. There’s evidence of a join just about waist height. This is so precise it would seem to indicate that the original statue was made in two parts and then cemented together on installation in Mala Pereshchepyna. (It’s too precise a join to have happened when the statue was dismantled by the counter-revolution – there would have been no care used at that time.) Engels stands on a base about 10 cms thick of the same coloured stone.

Ф ЭНГЕЛЬС

The statue is raised above the ground by a plinth about 1.5 metres high which is faced with grey limestone and on one face, that in the direction where Engels is looking, is his name in Cyrillic, Ф ЭНГЕЛЬС = F Engels. Whether the name came from the original location is unlikely – finding the statue was one thing also finding a large piece of worked stone which would have other uses at the same location seems to stretch credibility somewhat. But it doesn’t look new so I assume from another deposed statue of Frederick.

Generally the stone is in a good condition. There are some indications of lichen but considering how it was ‘stored’ nothing serious. Apart from signs of blue and yellow paint around the lower legs, and on the lower edge of his coat on the left, there doesn’t appear to be any other structural damage. Once taken down from its original site it just seems to have been ignored.

Frederick Engels – vandalism

Engels is depicted when he was in his mid to late 50s – he has a full beard and moustache and a full head of hair. He’s dressed in the typical dress of someone with a certain amount of affluence in the late 19th century – formal trousers and a waistcoat over which is a knee-length frock coat with a high collar.

He stands upright, feet slightly apart and is looking straight ahead. His arms are folded across his chest (right arm under the left) and in his left hand he holds a small book, with the forefinger inside the closed book which rests against his right upper arm.

Frederick Engels

Here we get the impression that he has just read something that had caused him to pause, to think of what it might mean, of how important it might be to the project he is currently pursuing. This is reinforced by the pensive look on his face. The finger in the book is to ensure that he doesn’t lose his place when he returns to reading.

The present location is somewhat incongruous. All the buildings around the square are glass and steel monstrosities and something made out of ancient stone does clash with its surroundings. But better here than nowhere.

Frederick Engels – location

It will be interesting to see how the statue is accepted as it spends more time in its new location. Some will know of Engels’ relationship with the city, others will walk by and not even notice any statue there. Matters aren’t made any easier as there is no explanation (not that I think there should be) and for those who don’t understand the Cyrillic alphabet the letters on the plinth don’t offer any help.

(For those who might have been following the posts on Albanian lapidars they might be interested to know that there were never any open air public statues to either Marx or Engels in Socialist Albania. Capitalist Britain now has one of each – Engels in Manchester and the bust of Marx over his grave in Highgate cemetery in London.)

Other Works of Frederick Engels

Here are links to versions of some other of the works produced by Engels over his life time – but it’s important to remember that this list is not definitive.

Principles of Communism – the precursor to the Manifesto.

Communist Manifesto – the general principles of Marxism published in 1848

The Housing Question – the impossibility of the lack of adequate housing for workers being resolved under capitalism

The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man – Engels’ contribution to evolutionary theory with an emphasis on the part that labour played in that evolution

Anti-Duhring – an attack on early revisionism of Marxist theory

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific – a re-statement of the revolutionary aspect of Marxism

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State – a look at how society arrived from tribalism to capitalism

Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of Classical German Philosophy – an account of how Marxism found inspiration in Hegelian philosophy, but then left it behind