Karl Marx5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883

InternationaleWritten by Eugene Pottier after the murderous assaultagainst the Paris Commune in 1871.

The melody was added later by Pierre Degeyter.

Arise, ye starvelings, from your slumbersArise, ye criminals of wantFor reason in revolt now thundersAnd at last ends the age of cantAway with all your superstitionsServile masses, arise, ariseWe'll change forthwith the old conditionsAnd spurn the dust to win the prize

Then comrades, come, rally,And the last fight let us faceThe InternationaleUnites the human raceThen comrades, come, rally,And the last fight let us faceThe InternationaleUnites the human race

We peasants, artisans and othersEnrolled among the sons of toilLet's change the earth henceforth for brothersDrive the indolent from the soilOn our flesh too long has fed the ravenWe've too long been the vulture's preyBut now farewell the spirit cravenThe dawn brings in a brighter day

IN NOVEMBER of last year—1912—it was twenty-fiveyears since the death of the French worker-poet, EugènePottier, author of the famous proletarian song, the

Internationale (“Arise ye starvelings from your slumbers”,etc.).

This song has been translated into all European andother languages. In whatever country a class-consciousworker finds himself, wherever fate may cast him, howevermuch he may feel himself a stranger, without language,without friends, far from his native country—he can findhimself comrades and friends by the familiar refrain of theInternationale.

The workers of all countries have adopted the song oftheir foremost fighter, the proletarian poet, and have madeit the world-wide song of the proletariat.

And so the workers of all countries now honour thememory of Eugène Pottier. His wife and daughter are stillalive and living in poverty, as the author of the Internationalelived all his life. He was born in Paris on October 4, 1816.He was 14 when he composed his first song, and it wascalled: Long Live Liberty! In 1848 he was a fighter on thebarricades in the workers’ great battle against thebourgeoisie.

Pottier was born into a poor family, and all his liferemained a poor man, a proletarian, earning his bread as apacker and later by tracing patterns on fabrics.

From 1840 onwards, he responded to all great events inthe life of France with militant songs, awakening theconsciousness of the backward, calling on the workers tounite, castigating the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisgovernments of France.

In the days of the great Paris Commune (1871), Pettierwas elected a member. Of the 3,600 votes cast, he received3,352. He took part in all the activities of the Commune,that first proletarian government.

The fall of the Commune forced Pettier to flee toEngland, and then to America. His famous song, theInternationale, was written in June 1871—you might say, theday after the bloody defeat in May.

The Commune was crushed—but Pottier’sInternationale spread its ideas throughout the world, and it isnow more alive than ever before.

In 1876, in exile, Pettier wrote a poem, TheWorkingmen of America to the Workingmen of France. In ithe described the life of workers under the yoke ofcapitalism, their poverty, their back-breaking toil, theirexploitation, and their firm confidence in the coming victoryof their cause.

It was only nine years after the Commune that Pottierreturned to France, where he at once joined the Workers’Party. The first volume of his verse was published in 1884,the second volume, entitled Revolutionary Songs, came outin 1887.

A number of other songs by the worker-poet werepublished after his death.

On November 8, 1887, the workers of Paris carried theremains of Eugène Pottier to the Père Lachaise cemetery,where the executed Communards are buried. The policesavagely attacked the crowd in an effort to snatch the redbanner. A vast crowd took part in the civic funeral. On allsides there were shouts of “Long live Pottier!”

Pottier died in poverty. But he left a memorial which istruly more enduring than the handiwork of man. He wasone of the greatest propagandists by song. When he wascomposing his first song, the number of worker socialistsran to tens, at most. Eugène Pottier’s historic song is nowknown to tens of millions of proletarians.

First published in Pravda No. 2, January 3, 1913. Source:Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow,Volume 36, pages 223-224. Translated: Andrew Rothstein Transcription\Markup: S. Ryan credit Marxists Internet Archiv

V I Lenin on the the 25th anniversary of the death of Eugène Pottier

ON THE 14th of March, at a quarter to three in theafternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased tothink. He had been left alone for scarcely two

minutes, and when we came back we found him in hisarmchair, peacefully gone to sleep -- but for ever.

An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by themilitant proletariat of Europe and America, and by historicalscience, in the death of this man. The gap that has been leftby the departure of this mighty spirit will soon enough makeitself felt.

Just as Darwin discovered the law of development ororganic nature, so Marx discovered the law of developmentof human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by anovergrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat,drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics,science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of theimmediate material means, and consequently the degree ofeconomic development attained by a given people or during agiven epoch, form the foundation upon which the stateinstitutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas onreligion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and inthe light of which they must, therefore, be explained, insteadof vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.

But that is not all. Marx also discovered the special law ofmotion governing the present-day capitalist mode ofproduction, and the bourgeois society that this mode ofproduction has created. The discovery of surplus valuesuddenly threw light on the problem, in trying to solve whichall previous investigations, of both bourgeois economists andsocialist critics, had been groping in the dark.

Two such discoveries would be enough for one lifetime.Happy the man to whom it is granted to make even one suchdiscovery. But in every single field which Marx investigated --and he investigated very many fields, none of themsuperficially -- in every field, even in that of mathematics, hemade independent discoveries.

Such was the man of science. But this was not even halfthe man. Science was for Marx a historically dynamic,revolutionary force. However great the joy with which he

welcomed a new discovery in some theoretical science whosepractical application perhaps it was as yet quite impossible toenvisage, he experienced quite another kind of joy when thediscovery involved immediate revolutionary changes inindustry, and in historical development in general. Forexample, he followed closely the development of thediscoveries made in the field of electricity and recently thoseof Marcel Deprez.

For Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His realmission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to theoverthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutionswhich it had brought into being, to contribute to theliberation of the modern proletariat, which he was the first tomake conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious ofthe conditions of its emancipation. Fighting was his element.And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such asfew could rival. His work on the first Rheinische Zeitung(1842), the Paris Vorwarts (1844), the Deutsche BrusselerZeitung (1847), the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (1848-49), theNew York Tribune (1852-61), and, in addition to these, a hostof militant pamphlets, work in organisations in Paris, Brusselsand London, and finally, crowning all, the formation of thegreat International Working Men's Association -- this wasindeed an achievement of which its founder might well havebeen proud even if he had done nothing else.

And, consequently, Marx was the best hated and mostcalumniated man of his time. Governments, both absolutistand republican, deported him from their territories.Bourgeois, whether conservative or ultra-democratic, viedwith one another in heaping slanders upon him. All this hebrushed aside as though it were a cobweb, ignoring it,answering only when extreme necessity compelled him. Andhe died beloved, revered and mourned by millions ofrevolutionary fellow workers -- from the mines of Siberia toCalifornia, in all parts of Europe and America -- and I makebold to say that, though he may have had many opponents, hehad hardly one personal enemy.

His name will endure through the ages, and so also will hiswork.

Frederick Engels’ speech at the grave of Karl MarxHighgate Cemetery London March 17 1883

Karl Marx oration 2015 Yury Emelyanov Communist Party of the Russian Federation

Karl Marx and the victory of 1945

Comrades!

AS WE celebrate the 70th anniversary of the victoryover Nazi Germany and its allies it is necessary to callattention to the crucial fact that before the Second

World War was launched its instigators declared their rabidanti-communism and virulent anti-Marxism.

Out of 680 pages of Mein Kampf 110 were filled withvicious attacks on Marxism and Karl Marx himself. (Only twotopics – “Jews” and “National Socialist Party” – occupiedmore space in Hitler’s book.) Assaults on communists andassassinations preceded the ban on the Communist Party ofGermany and the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship. Thesame happened in Italy and other European countries wherefascists came to power. The bloc of 12 fascist and militariststates was organised in the Anti-Comintern Pact concluded in1936 by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Its participantspledged to destroy the international communist movement.

Although the USSR was attacked by Nazi Germany and itsallies only on the 22nd month of the Second World War thefighting on the Eastern Front against the Red Army was thelongest German military engagement. 73% of the combatcasualties inflicted on the German military took place on theEastern front. No other country attacked by the armies ofthe anti-communist bloc suffered as many human losses as theSoviet Union.

In my country 27 million were killed, tens of millions werewounded. The first victims executed by the invaders were thecommunists and the political commissars – the propagandistsof Marxism.

The Nazis and their allies did their worst – to annihilatethe Soviet people, who resisted with their motto – the lastwords of the Communist Manifesto – “Workers of all lands,unite!”. These words were written on the coats of arms of theUSSR and its 16 Soviet Socialist republics.

Contrary to the Marxist theory – of the inevitablecollapse of capitalism and its replacement by the social orderof human justice and fraternity of nations – Hitler and otherNazi leaders preached the advent of the “Millennium Reich”

based on the principles of social, political and nationalinequality.

They outlined plans for the enslavement and brutalextermination of those whom they considered “creatures oflower order”. In his speech to Wehrmacht officers the SSchief, Heinrich Himmler, said in January 1937: “We are morevaluable than others, who outnumber us… The next decadeswill be occupied by a prolonged struggle. It will be terminatedby the extermination of all those subhuman creatures whichoppose Germans – the main nation of the Aryan race, theonly standard-bearer of the world’s culture”.

These, and other pronouncements of the Nazi leaders,were practically realized in destructive wars against peacefulpopulations and the plunder of occupied countries whichresulted in mass hunger.

And in the construction of extermination camps.The Second World War showed that the communists –

who were the most consistent followers of Marxism – werealso the staunchest fighters against these attempts to thwartthe course of history and return the mankind to barbarismand the mass extermination of human beings. In all thecountries which were invaded by Nazi Germany and its alliescommunists were at the vanguard of those who fought theaggressors. This was true in China where the 8th army andthe 4th army led by the Communist Party staged the moststubborn resistance to the Japanese invaders. This was thecase in Vietnam, Malaya, Indonesia and Philippines.

The communists took the most active part in theResistance movement of France and other Europeancountries. They led the armed guerilla formations inYugoslavia, Greece, Albania and Italy.

From 22 June 1941 – under the leadership of theCommunist Party which in1917 had become the first Marxistparty in power – the Soviet peoples defended their countryand the whole of mankind from the threat of enslavementand genocide. Every second Red Army soldier or officer killedduring the war was a member of the Communist Party of theSoviet Union.

>>

Many newly enlisted soldiers and officers joined the partyand by the end of the war every fourth person serving in theRed Army was a communist.

At the frontlines and behind them the study of Marxisttheory continued. Despite wartime hardships 17 millioncopies of five hundred books by Marx, Engels and Lenin werepublished in the USSR. A collection of articles Marx andEngels against the reactionary forces of Germany was publishedand widely read. Every year anniversaries of the birth anddeath of Karl Marx were marked in the press. His biographiesand the memoirs of his contemporaries were printed. ThusKarl Marx aided the fight against the invasion of Nazibarbarians.

The decisive role of the USSR in the victory over Hitler’sGermany and its allies was provided by the socialist orderwhich embodied Marxist principles of economic and socialorganization that proved superior to capitalism. This is areason why the USSR managed to overtake capitalistGermany and its European allies in armament production.Soviet engineers and workers produced a number ofweapons which were superior to those of Germany andother Western European countries. By the middle of the warthe Soviet war industry had overtaken the enemy in thequantity of arms production.

In his speeches during the Great Patriotic War, the Sovietleader Joseph Stalin said that the Soviet peoples – in defendingtheir Fatherland and the conquests of socialist revolution –demonstrated their moral superiority over the aggressors.Whether fighting at fronts or toiling in factories or oncollective farms the Soviet people withstood severe hardshipsand displayed heroic courage.

Despite the defeat of socialism in the USSR and otherEuropean countries the memory of the victory over NaziGermany inspires the communists of Russia to continuestruggle for the restoration of the Soviet socialist order. Thecommunists of Russia are aware of the great part played byKarl Marx in the past victories of our country. This is a reasonwhy every year the communists of Russia’s capital convenetheir meetings on the 1st of May and on the 7th of

November at the foot of the huge monument of Karl Marxwhich stand at the center of Moscow.

Russian communists are aware that profound study ofMarxism and active use of Marxist dialectical methods willagain help them to pave the way for new victories.

IT IS A GREAT honour to be speaking on behalf of theCommunist Party of Britain alongside a member of theCommunist Party of the Russian Federation. Comrade

Yuri Emilyanov represents the continuation of the finesttraditions of the Russian working class in its defence ofpeace and socialism and opposition to fascism.

98 years ago in the turmoil of the imperialist war of1914-1918 the victory of the Bolsheviks over Tsarism andthe Russian bourgeoisie marked the introduction of a newsociety in the world, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

From the outset it was attacked, invaded and isolated butsurvived under the leadership of the CPSU.

The rise of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s in Italy, Spainand Germany was the capitalists’ answer to popularresistance to mass unemployment and hunger in thosecountries and to the growing success of the Five Year Plansin the USSR.

The imperialists determined to destroy the Soviet Unionto stem further advances of communism in other countries.Thus, the arming of fascist forces and the refusal of theLeague of Nations to prevent their takeover in manycountries in Europe led to the Second World War.

Having occupied most of Western Europe the Nazisturned to invade the USSR. There, the people united underthe Communist party leadership to defend their country,their people and their socialist system. It was at a terriblecost to themselves but, 70 years ago, in alliance with Britainand the USA, the Soviet peoples achieved their ownliberation and those of others countries in Western Europefrom the evil of fascism.

Now in 2015, with rising unemployment and thecapitalist demolition of welfare and progressive programmesfought for by the working class in Western Europe over the70 years, the same forces of racism and fascism that arose inthe 1920s and 1930s are stalking Europe. Their aim is todrive the working people by poverty and despair into thearms of the bigots who will use this disunity to destroytrades unions, communists and peaceful advance in ademocratic society.

Meanwhile the capitalist class is amassing huge wealth tofund their programme for the domination of worldresources for their own benefit by wars, intervention intothe economy of sovereign states and political corruption atthe highest level.

Ironically, once again Russia has become their target.Using fascism and racism as a useful tool to fool the masses,the imperialist’s aims are to attack the two greatest obstaclesto their world domination, Russia and China.

Fortunately, people’s memories of the horrors of theSecond World War are still fresh, not only amongst the oldbut by a new generation who have learned the lessons ofhistory and are not prepared to surrender their liberty anddemocracy to the schemes of a worn out capitalist classdefending itself against oblivion, A rising tide of youthfighting for justice, equality and a better and moresustainable world free from war and climate change is onour side.

We in the Communist Party support Russia’s attempts tobring peace and racial harmony to the Ukraine and to endthe civil war. We know that the Russian Communist Party isin the forefront of the fight against the neo-fascists, for thedefence of its own country and for socialism. We salute youin this struggle and wish you all success.

Karl Marx oration 2015 Jean Turner Communist Party of Britain

DURING THE last ten years of his life, after thecollapse of the International and the slaughter ofthe Communards, Marx's health began to fail and

he settled into the routines of an old man. Indeed, many ofthe people he had known best had already disappeared fromthe scene. Some, like Joseph Moll, had been killed fighting forthe revolution, but most succumbed to poverty, age, and theloneliness of exile. As early as 1864, on the death ofFerdinand Lassalle, he complained to Engels that 'the crowd isgetting even smaller and no new blood is being added'.Sometimes he would attend a London funeral, like that ofJohn Rogers, a tailor and the President of the ManhoodSuffrage League, at Finchley Cemetery in 1877.

His meal times were regular and he took frequent walkson Hampstead Heath, often with his old friend Engels, whofrom 1870 to 1895 lived nearby at 122 Regent's Park Road,close to Primrose Hill. Indeed, it was Jenny Marx who hadhelped him find the house. In the last year of his life, longafter Marx was dead, Engels was to move very near to theZoological Gardens in Regent's Park.

Like so many people of sedentary, nocturnal habits, andgiven to smoking and drink, Marx had misused his physique.Into his sixties he had impressed people he met as a powerful,untamed man, whose sparkling brown eyes displayedtremendous intelligence, but the last decade of his life wasmarked by increasingly debilitating ill health. One of thedoctors he consulted attributed his complaints to poornourishment and over-work, and prescribed regular meals,compulsory exercise and wine with soda. He also managedfor a time to limit Marx's working day - when he was fit towork at all - to only two hours in the morning and two hoursin the evening.

Yet Marx was restless under such conditions, and in 1875,for example, rallied himself to write a strong criticism of theGotha Programme drafted by the German Social Democrats.Once again he attacked Lassalle's followers, but he alsoprojected his own vision of a future society underCommunism, whereby 'freedom consists in converting thestate from an organ superior to society into one completelysubordinate to it. In a passage with great resonance for the

future, Marx realised that even after a successful revolutionthere would be enormous problems and difficulties ahead,for:

What we have to deal with here is a communist society,not as it has developed on its own foundations but, on thecontrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which isthus in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually,still stamped with the birth marks of the old society fromwhose womb it emerges.

He envisaged a long process of change: after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the

division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis betweenmental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour hasbecome not only a means of life but life's prime want; after theproductive forces have also increased with the all-rounddevelopment of the individual, and all the springs of co-operativewealth flow more abundantly - only then can society inscribe on itsbanners: From each according to his ability, to each according tohis needs!

Marx was also trying desperately to finish his study ofKapital, but his notes for the vast manuscript just swelledfurther, and the task was, in the end, left for Engels tocomplete. A Russian translation of the first volume of Kapitaldid appear in 1872, however, and Marx eagerly threw himselfinto a study of the Russian language, in order to betterunderstand events in the Tsarist Empire. He also worked ontranslating Kapital into French.

The visits he made, on medical advice, to watering placesand spas brought only temporary relief, for his health alwaysbroke down again as soon as he had returned to London.Moreover, to his list of troubles he had to add growingconcern over his wife's worsening health.

Cancer of the liver, 'a beastly illness', finally confined herto bed. 'That was a terrible time, Eleanor wrote later. 'Ourdear mother lay in the big front room, Moor in the smallroom next to it.

They who were so much to each other, whose lives hadcome to form part of each other, could not even be in thesame room together'.

Eventually, Jenny died in Karl's presence in December

The last years Death in Highgate

1881, her last word being an emphatic 'good'. She was sixty-seven years of age. It was a terrible blow to Marx, for, sincehe had been a teenager, Jenny had shared all his hopes,disappointments and hardships, as well as their many happytimes together. Marx could not attend Jenny's funeral,because he had very recently been laid up in bed with pleurisyand bronchitis, and the weather was appalling. So, it fell toEngels, who had shown 'kindness and devotion that beggareddescription', to deliver a short speech over her grave inHighgate Cemetery.

In it he claimed eloquently that she had 'lived to see thecalumny which had showered down upon her husbandscattered like chaff before the wind'.

Yet he offended Eleanor by saying - though she believedit, too - that Karl himself was now also dead. It was true. Karlreceived many warm letters of condolence paying tribute toJenny's character and urging him to soldier on despite hisdreadful loss. Yet he lived for only another fifteen months.

The final blow, from which he was never to recover, camein January 1883, with the death from cancer of the bladder ofthe younger Jenny, his firstborn child. Again, Engels was onhand to write her obituary, and Eleanor, who travelled toVentnor where her father was staying to tell him the news,felt that she was carrying with her her father's final deathsentence.

Marx lingered on for two more months, but he nowdeveloped laryngitis and a lung tumour to add to his othercomplaints, and he finally died on 14 March 1883. Engelscalled at the house in Maitland Park Road in the afternoonand was taken by Lenchen up to the study where she had leftMarx sleeping. They entered and found him dead in hisfavourite armchair.

Engels took care of all the funeral arrangements, sendingtelegrams and letters to announce the death. Marx wasburied in the same grave as his wife in Highgate Cemetery, on17 March 1883. About twenty people were present, amongthem his son in law Charles Longuet, who read a message inFrench from peter Lavrov in the name of the Russiansocialists. It was fitting that the funeral, small though it was,was something of an international affair.

extract from Marx in London by Asa Briggs and John Callow is available from Marx Memorial Librar

KARL MARX, was born on May 5, 1818 (New Style),in the city of Trier (Rhenish Prussia). His father was alawyer, a Jew, who in 1824 adopted Protestantism.

The family was well-to-do, cultured, but not revolutionary.After graduating from a Gymnasium in Trier, Marx enteredthe university, first at Bonn and later in Berlin, where he readlaw, majoring in history and philosophy. He concluded hisuniversity course in 1841, submitting a doctoral thesis on thephilosophy of Epicurus. At the time Marx was a Hegelianidealist in his views. In Berlin, he belonged to the circle of“Left Hegelians” (Bruno Bauer and others) who sought todraw atheistic and revolutionary conclusion from Hegel’sphilosophy.

After graduating, Marx moved to Bonn, hoping tobecome a professor. However, the reactionary policy of thegovernment, which deprived Ludwig Feuerbach of his chairin 1832, refused to allow him to return to the university in1836, and in 1841 forbade young Professor Bruno Bauer tolecture at Bonn, made Marx abandon the idea of anacademic career. Left Hegelian views were making rapidheadway in Germany at the time. Feuerbach began tocriticize theology, particularly after 1836, and turn tomaterialism, which in 1841 gained ascendancy in hisphilosophy (The Essence of Christianity). The year 1843 sawthe appearance of his Principles of the Philosophy of theFuture. “One must oneself have experienced the liberatingeffect” of these books, Engels subsequently wrote of theseworks of Feuerbach. “We [i.e., the Left Hegelians, includingMarx] all became at once Feuerbachians.” At that time, someradical bourgeois in the Rhineland, who were in touch withthe Left Hegelians, founded, in Cologne, an opposition papercalled Rheinische Zeitung (The first issue appeared on January1, 1842). Marx and Bruno Bauer were invited to be the chiefcontributors, and in October 1842 Marx became editor-in-chief and moved from Bonn to Cologne. The newspaper’srevolutionary-democratic trend became more and morepronounced under Marx’s editorship, and the governmentfirst imposed double and triple censorship on the paper, andthen on January 1 1843 decided to suppress it. Marx had toresign the editorship before that date, but his resignation did

not save the paper, which suspended publication in March1843. Of the major articles Marx contributed to RheinischeZeitung, Engels notes, in addition to those indicated below(see Bibliography),[1] an article on the condition of peasantwinegrowers in the Moselle Valley.[2] Marx’s journalisticactivities convinced him that he was insufficiently acquaintedwith political economy, and he zealously set out to study it.

In 1843, Marx married, at Kreuznach, a childhood friendhe had become engaged to while still a student. His wifecame of a reactionary family of the Prussian nobility, herelder brother being Prussia’s Minister of the Interior during amost reactionary period—1850-58. In the autumn of 1843,Marx went to Paris in order to publish a radical journalabroad, together with Arnold Ruge (1802-1880); LeftHegelian; in prison in 1825-30; a political exile following 1848,and a Bismarckian after 1866-70). Only one issue of thisjournal, Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, appeared;[3]publication was discontinued owing to the difficulty ofsecretly distributing it in Germany, and to disagreement withRuge. Marx’s articles in this journal showed that he wasalready a revolutionary who advocated “merciless criticism ofeverything existing”, and in particular the “criticism byweapon”,[13] and appealed to the masses and to theproletariat.

In September 1844, Frederick Engels came to Paris for afew days, and from that time on became Marx’s closestfriend. They both took a most active part in the thenseething life of the revolutionary groups in Paris (of particularimportance at the time was Proudhon’s[4] doctrine), whichMarx pulled to pieces in his Poverty of Philosophy, 1847);waging a vigorous struggle against the various doctrines ofpetty-bourgeois socialism, they worked out the theory andtactics of revolutionary proletarian socialism, or communismMarxism). See Marx’s works of this period, 1844-48 in theBibliography. At the insistent request of the Prussiangovernment, Marx was banished from Paris in 1845, as adangerous revolutionary. He went to Brussels. In the springof 1847 Marx and Engels joined a secret propaganda societycalled the Communist League;[5] they took a prominent partin the League’s Second Congress (London, November 1847),

Vladimir Ilych Lenin on Karl Marx

at whose request they drew up the celebrated CommunistManifesto, which appeared in February 1848. With the clarityand brilliance of genius, this work outlines a new world-conception, consistent with materialism, which also embracethe realm of social life; dialectics, as the most comprehensiveand profound doctrine of development; the theory of theclass struggle and of the world-historic revolutionary role ofthe proletariat—the creator of a new, communist society.

On the outbreak of the Revolution of February 1848,[6]Marx was banished from Belgium. He returned to Paris,whence, after the March Revolution,[7] he went to Cologne,Germany, where Neue Rheinische Zeitung[8] was publishedfrom June 1, 1848, to May 19, 1849, with Marx as editor-in-chief. The new theory was splendidly confirmed by thecourse of the revolutionary events of 1848-49, just as it hasbeen subsequently confirmed by all proletarian anddemocratic movements in all countries of the world. Thevictorious counter-revolution first instigated courtproceedings against Marx (he was acquitted on February 9,1849), and then banished him from Germany (May 16,1849). First Marx went to Paris, was again banished after thedemonstration of June 13, 1849,[9] and then went toLondon, where he lived until his death.

His life as a political exile was a very hard one, as thecorrespondence between Marx and Engels (published in1913) clearly reveals. Poverty weighed heavily on Marx andhis family; had it not been for Engels’ constant and selflessfinancial aid, Marx would not only have been unable tocomplete Capital but would have inevitably have beencrushed by want. Moreover, the prevailing doctrines andtrends of petty-bourgeois socialism, and of non-proletariansocialism in general, forced Marx to wage a continuous andmerciless struggle and sometime to repel the most savageand monstrous personal attacks (Herr Vogt).[10] Marx, whostood aloof from circles of political exiles, developed hismaterialist theory in a number of historical works (seeBibliography), devoting himself mainly to a study of politicaleconomy. Marx revolutionized science (see “The MarxistDoctrine”, below) in his Contribution to the Critique of PoliticalEconomy (1859) and Capital (Vol. I, 1867).

The revival of the democratic movements in the latefifties and in the sixties recalled Marx to practical activity. In1864 (September 28) the International Working Men’sAssociation—the celebrated First International—wasfounded in London. Marx was the heart and soul of thisorganization, and author of its first Address[11] and of a hostof resolutions, declaration and manifestoes. In uniting thelabor movement of various forms of non-proletarian, pre-Marxist socialism (Mazzini, Proudhon, Bakunin, liberaltrade-unionism in Britain, Lassallean vacillations to the right inGermany, etc.), and in combating the theories of all thesesects and schools, Marx hammered out a uniform tactic forthe proletarian struggle of the working in the variouscountries. Following the downfall of the Paris Commune(1871)—of which gave such a profound, clear-cut, brillianteffective and revolutionary analysis (The Civil War In France,1871)—and the Bakunin-caused[12] cleavage in theInternational, the latter organization could no longer exist inEurope. After the Hague Congress of the International(1872), Marx had the General Council of the Internationalhad played its historical part, and now made way for a periodof a far greater development of the labor movement in allcountries in the world, a period in which the movementgrew in scope, and mass socialist working-class parties inindividual national states were formed.

Marx’s health was undermined by his strenuous work inthe International and his still more strenuous theoreticaloccupations. He continued work on the refashioning ofpolitical economy and on the completion of Capital, forwhich he collected a mass of new material and studied anumber of languages (Russian, for instance). However, ill-health prevented him from completing Capital.

His wife died on December 2, 1881, and on March 14,1883, Marx passed away peacefully in his armchair. He liesburied next to his wife at Highgate Cemetery in London. OfMarx’s children some died in childhood in London, when thefamily were living in destitute circumstances. Three daughtersmarried English and French socialists; Eleanor Aveling, LauraLafargue and Jenny Longuet. The latters’ son is a member ofthe French Socialist Party. >>

Notes[1] This “Bibliography” written by Lenin for the article is not included. —Ed.[2] The reference is to the article “Justification of the Correspondent from the

Mosel” by Karl Marx.—Ed.[3] The reference is to the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher (German-French

Annals), a magazine edited by Karl Marx and Arnold Ruge and published in German inParis. Only the first issue, a double one, appeared, in February 1844. It included worksby Karl Marx and Frederick Engels which marked the final transition of Marx andEngels to materialism and communism. Publication of the magazine was discontinuedmainly as a result of basic differences of opinion between Marx and the bourgeoisradical Ruge.—Ed.

[4] Proudhonism—An unscientific trend in petty-bourgeois socialism, hostile toMarxism, so called after its ideologist, the French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon.Proudhon criticized big capitalist property from the petty-bourgeois position anddreamed of perpetuating small private ownership. He proposed the foundation of“people’s” and “exchange” banks, with the aid of which the workers would be able toacquire the means of production, become handicraftsmen and ensure the justmarketing of their produce. Proudhon did not understand the historic role of theproletariat and displayed a negative attitude to the class struggle, the proletarianrevolution, and the dictatorship of the proletariat; as an anarchist, he denied the needfor the state. Marx subjected Proudhonism to ruthless criticism in his work ThePoverty of Philosophy.—Ed.

[5] The Communist League—The first international communist organization ofthe proletariat founded under the guidance of Marx and Engels in London early inJune 1847.

Marx and Engels helped to work out the programmatic and organizationalprinciples of the League; they wrote its programme—the Manifesto of theCommunist Party, published in February 1848.

The Communist League was the predecessor of the International Working Men’sAssociation (The First International). It existed until November 1852, its prominentmembers later playing a leading role in the First International.—Ed.

[6] The reference is to the bourgeois revolutions in Germany and Austria whichbegan in March 1848.—Ed.

[7] The reference is to the bourgeois revolution in France in February 1848.—Ed.[8] Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung (New Rhenish Gazette)—Published in Cologne

from June 1, 1848, to May 19, 1849. Marx and Engels directed the newspaper, Marxbeing its editor-in-chief. Lenin characterized Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung as “thefinest and unsurpassed organ of the revolutionary proletariat”. Despite persecutionand the obstacles placed in its way by the police, the newspaper staunchly defendedthe interests of revolutionary democracy, the interests of the proletariat. Because ofMarx’s banishment from Prussia in May 1849 and the persecution of the other editors.Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung had to cease publication.—Ed.

[9] The reference is to the mass demonstration in Paris organized by theMontagne, the party of the petty bourgeoisie, in protest against the infringement bythe President and the majority in the Legislative Assembly of the constitutional ordersestablished in the revolution of 1848. The demonstration was dispersed by thegovernment.—Ed.

[10] The reference is to Marx’s pamphlet Herr Vogt, which was written in reply tothe slanderous pamphlet by Vogt, a Bonapartist agent provocateur, My Process Against“Allgemeine Zeitung”.—Ed.

[11] The First International Workingmen’s Association was the firstinternational tendency that grouped together all the worlds’ workers partiesin one unified international party.—Ed.

[12] Bakuninism—A trend called after its leader Mikhail Bakunin, an ideologist ofanarchism and enemy of Marxism and scientific socialism.—Ed.

[13] These words are from Marx’s “Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right:Introduction.” The relevant passage reads: “The weapon of criticism cannot, of course,replace criticism by weapon, material force must be overthrown by a material force;but theory, too, becomes a material force, as soon as it grips the masses.”—Lenin

MARX HOUSE was built in 1738 as a WelshCharity school. It educated boys and later a fewgirls – the children of Welsh artisans living in

poverty in Clerkenwell. Gradually the intake became toolarge and the school moved to new premises in 1772. Afterthis the building was divided into separate workshops oneof which became the home to the London Patriotic Societyfrom 1872 until 1892.

The Twentieth Century Press occupied 37a and 38, andexpanded into 37 by 1909 – thereby returning the Houseto single occupancy for the first time since its days as acharity school. The Twentieth Century Press was foundedby the Social Democratic Federation as printer for itsjournal Justice. It was the first socialist Press in Clerkenwell.An early benefactor was William Morris, who guaranteedthe rent of the Patriotic Club to the Twentieth CenturyPress. During its time in Clerkenwell Green, the TwentiethCentury Press produced several of the earliest Englisheditions of the works of Marx and Engels. The TwentiethCentury Press remained at the building until 1922.

Lenin was exiled in London and worked in the buildingfrom April 1902 to May 1903. During this period he sharedthe office of Harry Quelch, the director of the TwentiethCentury Press, from there he edited and printed thejournal ISKRA (The Spark), which was smuggled into Russia.The office is still preserved and open to visitors.

In 1933, the fiftieth anniversary of the death of KarlMarx, a delegate meeting comprising trade unionists,veteran socialists belonging to the Labour Party andCommunist Party, and representatives of the LabourResearch Department and Martin Lawrence Publishers Ltd.,considered setting up a Permanent memorial to him. Thatyear also saw the Nazis in Germany burning books. In thesecircumstances the meeting resolved that the mostappropriate memorial would be a Library. Thus the MarxMemorial Library and Workers School (as it was then

known) was established at 37a Clerkenwell Green that year.Study classes, held in the evenings, became thedistinguishing feature of the Workers’ School, which wasdivided into faculties of science, history and politicaleconomy.

In 1934 Viscount Hastings, who had studied under thegreat Mexican artists Diego Rivera, executed a large frescostyle mural on the wall of the first-floor reading room.Titled, the Worker of the Future Clearing away the Chaosof Capitalism, it illustrates events and leading thinkers in thehistory of British Labour.

The Library expanded to occupy the whole buildingover the years. The premises achieved Grade II listedbuilding status in 1967 and in 1969 the façade was restoredto the way it had originally looked in 1738. During furtherrefurbishments in 1986, tunnels were discoveredunderneath the Library. Their origins are obscure but theysignificantly pre-date the building.

Since its establishment the Marx Memorial Library hasbeen the intellectual home of generations of scholarsinterested in studying Marx and Marxism The Library ishome to an impressive number and variety of archives andcollections including the full run of the Daily Worker andMorning Star, The International Brigade Archive, BernalPeace Library, Klugnmann Collection and an extensivePhotograph Library. As a registered charity we rely on yoursupport to continue our work as one of the foremostinstitutions serving the British Labour Movement andworking people, in preserving their past and in providingpractical education for the future.

Marx Memorial Library and Workers School

Building an economy for thepeople An alternative economicand political strategy for 21stCentury BritainEdited by Jonathan White£6.95 (+£1 p&p) ISBN 978-1-907464-08-9

Contributions from: Mark Baimbridge;Brian Burkitt; Mary Davis; John Foster;Marjorie Mayo; Jonathan Michie;Seumas Milne; Andrew Murray; RogerSeifert; Prem Sikka; Jonathan Whiteand Philip WhymanThis book challenges the consensusthat has confined political economy tothe options that the banks and bigbusiness will accept. Based on thepolicy agenda that Britain's trade unionand labour movement have begun toshape it analyses what is wrong withthe British economy, arguing that thecountry's productive base is too small,that the economy has become toofinancialised and that power hasbecome concentrated on a narroweconomic fraction based in the City.model’ now seems a distant memory.

Lone Red PoppyA biography of Dimiter Blagoev

by Mercia MacDermott£14.95 (+£1.50 p&p), 252 pages 32 illustrations,ISBN 978-1-907464-10-2

Mercia MacDermott’s latest book,Lone red poppy, is the first substantialand authoritative account in English ofthe life of Dimiter Blagoev, founder ofthe first marxist circle in Russia and ofthe Bulgarian Communist Party.

The book traces his personal andfamily story against the background ofBulgaria’s struggle for a popularsovereignty and the rising workers’ andrevolutionary movements.

Mercia MacDermott reveals, withgreat insight and human detail, thepersonal, political and ideological life ofthis great revolutionary pioneer and indoing so makes a compelling case forthe contemporary relevance of hisguiding principles.

Granite and HoneyThe story of Phil Piratin,Communist MP

by Kevin Marsh and Robert Griffiths£14.95 (+£1.50 p&p)256pp illustratedISBN 978-1-907464-09-6

This pioneering new biography tells thestory of Phil Piratin, electedCommunist MP for Stepney Mile Endin the post-war General Election thatswept Labour to office on a radicalmanifesto.

The book reprises the commandingrole that Piratin played in the 1936Battle of Cable Street against thefascist Blackshirts. For the first time inprint, it shows how he sent a mole intothe British Union of Fascists on thatday who provided Piratin withinvaluable information.

This book also recounts Piratin'stenacity as the MP who helped exposenumerous colonial massacres, includingthe infamous Batang Kali case in Malaya.

www.manifestopress.org.uk

Amicus was the product of a mergerbetween the AEEU and MSF, and afteronly five years it merged again with theT&G to become Unite the Union. Butits impact during its short period ofexistence was considerable.

Change the World documents the briefbut eventful story of Amicus, and itsbattle to defend the rights of tradeunionists in the constantly shiftingglobal environment.

£10 Paper back £20 Hard back

Recently recovered from the archivesThe Art of Revolution: How postersswayed minds, forged nations and playedtheir part in the progressive movements of the early 20th century islavishly illustrated.

Written by John Callow, Grant Pookeand Jane Powell the book is a windowinto the Marx Memorial Library Russiaand Sovietcollection.

Currently available from the library ata limited half-price offer of £15 pluspostage & packing

Profusely illustrated with originaldocuments and photographs, and withspecially commissioned artwork, TheRe-Conquest of Ireland exploresConnolly’s conception of nationhood,its loss and the continuing quest forsocial justice. It brings together acollection of previously unseen familypapers and writings from Ireland’sgreatest modern revolutionary.

Through the building of the tradeunion movement in Ireland, side-by-side with Jim Larkin; to the DublinLock-Out; the outbreak of war andthe Proclamation of the Irish Republic,James Connolly emerges as a leader ofenormous integrity, bravery andvision, whose ‘business’ first andforemost was always revolution.

Marx Memorial Library 37a Clerkenwell Green London EC1R 0DU (0) 207 253 1485info@marxlibrary.org.uk

The Marx Memorial Library has a range of facilities for hire and is a great place to use formeetings, lectures, rehearsal space, film shows, book launches and conferences. It isconveniently located with excellent transport links We provide access to wifi at no

Communist Party event

'The Defeat of Fascism in1945 and its significancetoday: the position ofRussian Communists'

Speaker Yuri EmelianovCommunist Party of theRussian Federation

Chair Alex Gordon6.30 p.m. Sunday 15 March

Marx Memorial Library, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU

theory & struggle Marx memorial Library theoretical bulletin individual price £5 plus p&p

IntroductionAlex GordonWhat can we say about the crisis?Costas LapavitsasBritain 2013-2014Andrew Murray2014 Marx OrationJohn DouglasGlobalisation Is Marx still relevant?Eric RahimArt of the Soviet avante gardeChristine LindeyBob CrowAlex Gordon

http://www.marx-memorial-library.org/

Communist Party

Ruskin House23 Coombe RoadCroydon London CR0 1BDoffice@communist-party.org.uk0208 6861659

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Marx Memorial Library

37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU 0 207 253 1485 www.marx-memorial-library.org

The Marx Memorial Library was founded in 1933 to mark the 50th anniversary of Marx’s death. It is housed in the building used from the 1890s by the Social DemocraticFederation, where Eleanor Marx lectured and where in 1901-02 Lenin edited Iskra.

£3 solidarity price