The eternal memory of Marx

Italian comrades at the oration

by New Worker correspondent

Marx died in his study in London on 14 March 1883 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. To commemorate his passing the Marx Memorial Library has for many decades held an annual graveside oration at his tomb at the Cemetery in north London. And this year London communists joined other comrades and friends, including the ambassadors of People’s China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam, at his graveside last Sunday. 
Karl Marx, together with Friedrich Engels, wrote the Communist Manifesto and laid the foundations of modern scientific socialism. The immense contribution that Marx and Engels made in the struggle for the emancipation of the working class can never be forgotten.
After a life-time of struggle to build the revolutionary movement Marx passed away in London at the age of 64. "Marx was before all else a revolutionist” Engels said. “His real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival”.
Karl Marx was buried in the same grave as his wife in Highgate Cemetery; it was marked with a simple headstone in accordance with Marx's wishes. In 1954 the grave was moved to a better position and it was decided to commission a more impressive tomb. The current monument, a bronze head atop a granite plinth, was designed and made by Laurence Bradshaw who was commissioned by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). It was unveiled by Harry Pollitt, the General Secretary of the CPGB, in 1956.
The Marx Memorial Library is the trustee of the Marx monument in the cemetery and the event is organised by the Library, which was opened in 1933 with the aim of advancing education, knowledge and learning in all aspects of the science of Marxism, the history of socialism and the working class movement.