At the Party
Centre...
by New
Worker correspondent
Comrades
and friends returned to the New Communist Party’s London Centre on Saturday to
recall the outstanding achievements of Karl Marx.
Marx
spent most of his active life in Britain working with Frederick Engels building
the international working class movement and writing a corpus of books that
provides the basis for scientific socialism.
 |
| Andy Brooks and Alex Kempshall on the night |
Throughout the world communists and
progressives commemorate the immense contribution to the socialist movement on
the anniversary of his death on 14th March 1883. And this was
reflected in the tributes from a large spectrum of the communist movement in
Britain at the NCP’s annual reception in honour of the Marx and the philosophical
thinking that inspired the great revolutionary movements of the 20th century.
The print shop was once again
transformed for the bar and buffet and comrades and friends gathered in the
main meeting room for the formal part of the celebrations that was opened by
National chair Alex Kempshall.
NCP leader Andy Brooks, Michael Chant
from the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML) and John McLeod of the
Socialist Labour Party all paid tribute to Marx, whose entire life was
dedicated to the struggle of the working class. Andy Brooks pointed out that
Marx wasn’t the first to call for the emancipation of the working class, nor
was he the first socialist. His greatest contribution to humanity was in
devising the framework for scientific socialism, which has provided the working
class with a powerful ideological and theoretical weapon of liberation
struggle.
The Communist Manifesto, written by Marx
and Engels in 1848, is as valid today as it was on the day that it was written
and the torch that it lit led to the raising of the Red Flag in Russia in
October 1917 and the establishment of the international communist movement that
ended the First World War and defeated the Nazis in the Second. No more so than
in Democratic Korea that, together with Cuba, stands on the front-line against
imperialism today.
Thae Yongho from the London embassy of
the DPR Korea highlighted the importance of Marxism in the development of
Korean-style socialism and the Juche Idea while Dermot Hudson from the UK
Korean Friendship Association thanked the NCP for its long-standing and
consistent solidarity with the Korean revolution. Marx was a practical
revolutionary who worked to unite the socialist movement in Britain. He was
also an internationalist who called on workers of all countries to unite –
points stressed by comrade from the Communist Party of Greece and Marie Lynam
from the Posadist movement and taken up by other comrades during the informal
discussion that continued late long at the bar.
No NCP event can ever end without a
collection for the New Worker and
Daphne Liddle from the Politburo of the NCP made the call for the money crucial
to ensure the survival of the New Worker.
The comrades responded by raising £294 for the fighting fund.
...By
Marx’s Tomb
By
New Worker correspondent
Karl Marx died in his study at half-past
two on the afternoon of Wednesday 14th March 1883. He was buried
three days later at Highgate Cemetery. To commemorate his passing the Marx
Memorial Library has for many decades held an annual graveside oration at his
burial place in the cemetery in North London. The Marx Memorial Library is the
trustee of the Marx monument in the cemetery where over a hundred comrades
gathered around the tomb on Sunday to celebrate the life-time achievements of
the founder of scientific socialism.
The event was organised by the committee
of the Marx Memorial Library, and conducted by Library chair Alex Gordon, a
former president of the RMT transport union, who welcomed everyone to the
commemoration and introduced the speakers.
 |
| Prof Emilianov, Jean Turner and Alex Gordon at the tomb |
This year the graveside oration was
given by Yuri Emilianov, a Soviet academician and a member of the Communist
Party of the Russian Federation, and Jean Turner of the Communist Party of
Britain.
New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks
laid the NCP’s floral tribute at the tomb together with a procession of other
communist representatives that included diplomats from the Vietnamese
embassy and comrades from Venezuela, the
Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the
Progressive Party of Working People of Cyprus (AKEL), the Communist Party of
Italy’s British Pietro Secchia branch and many more from other workers’ parties
in the Middle East and the rest of the world that have members studying or
working in Britain.
Finally the Internationale was sung around
the monument bedecked with dozens of wreathes and floral tributes. The comrades
then departed – some to a reception at a nearby public house while others went
to hear Professor Emelianov give a talk on the defeat of fascism in 1945 and its significance
today at the Marx Memorial Library in the evening.
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