The legacy of a great communist thinker

Ma Hui addressing the crowd

By New Worker correspondent

Comrades and friends met last Sunday to salute the memory of Karl Marx at his tomb in Highgate Cemetery in London. They ignored a pathetic band of anti-communists who had gathered outside the gates to hurl abuse at those who had come to honour the revolutionary thinker and rally around the tomb, which had came under fascist attack earlier this year.

Last month the marble plaque was smashed and the tomb daubed with hate slogans in two separate attacks on the monument. Although most of the paint has been scraped away the plaque remains badly damaged. Plans are already afoot for an appeal to restore the monument designed by communist sculptor Laurence Bradshaw that was unveiled in 1956.

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.

This year the graveside address was given by Comrade Ma Hui from the Chinese embassy in London. Noting that this year also marks the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese diplomat said: “Marxism is still guiding China’s socialist development [to build] a community with a shared future for humankind and an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace.”

This was followed by Carol Stavris of the Communist Party of Britain, who argued that “new social relations … that do not rely solely upon a crude, alienated formulation of value” would be crucial to women’s liberation.

NCP leader Andy Brooks, along with London comrades, laid the Party’s floral tribute at the tomb together with a procession of other communist representatives that included diplomats from the Cuban and Vietnamese embassies, comrades from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the Progressive Party of Working People of Cyprus (AKEL), the Communist Party (Italy), 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 wreaths and floral tributes. The comrades then departed – some to a reception at a nearby pub and others to brave a sudden hail-storm to get back home.