History

To mark the anniversary of the death of Karl Marx, we republish the Speech delivered at his grave by Frederick Engels March 17 1883. From the archive, 14 March 2025 On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep — but for ever. An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by the militant proletariat of Europe and America, and by historical science, in the death of this man. The gap that has been left by the departure of this mighty spirit will soon enough make itself felt. Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth 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 the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case. But that is not all. Marx also discovered the special law of motion governing the present-day capitalist mode of production, and the bourgeois society that this mode of production has created. The discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem, in trying to solve which all previous investigations, of both bourgeois economists and socialist 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 such discovery. But in every single field which Marx investigated — and he investigated very many fields, none of them superficially — in every field, even in that of mathematics, he made independent discoveries. Such was the man of science. But this was not even half the 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 whose practical application perhaps it was as yet quite impossible to envisage, he experienced quite another kind of joy when the discovery involved immediate revolutionary changes in industry, and in historical development in general. For example, he followed closely the development of the discoveries made in the field of electricity and recently those of Marcel Deprez. For Marx was before all else a revolutionist. 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. His work on the first Rheinische Zeitung (1842), the Paris Vorwarts (1844), the Deutsche Brusseler Zeitung (1847), the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (1848-49), the New York Tribune (1852-61), and, in addition to these, a host of militant pamphlets, work in organisations in Paris, Brussels and London, and finally, crowning all, the formation of the great International Working Men’s Association — this was indeed an achievement of which its founder might well have been proud even if he had done nothing else. And, consequently, Marx was the best hated and most calumniated man of his time. Governments, both absolutist and republican, deported him from their territories. Bourgeois, whether conservative or ultra-democratic, vied with one another in heaping slanders upon him. All this he brushed aside as though it were a cobweb, ignoring it, answering only when extreme necessity compelled him. And he died beloved, revered and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow workers — from the mines of Siberia to California, in all parts of Europe and America — and I make bold to say that, though he may have had many opponents, he had hardly one personal enemy. His name will endure through the ages, and so also will his work. An introduction to the Work of Karl Marx can be found here.

14 March 1883 Karl Marx died. In truth, the validity of Marx’s theory of class struggle has been borne out by the history of the working-class movement. Eddie McCabe Socialist Party Ireland first published in 2018, 14 March 2025 Without the labour power of workers, capitalists can’t make profits. The system can’t function. Of all the things a capitalist can buy to build their business, only labour power adds value; meaning the business can produce something worth more than the original cost of the components that went into the finished product. The time, thought and energy applied by workers in the production process — whose efforts are only partially compensated by the employer who keeps the output — is the ultimate source of profit (or surplus value) in a capitalist economy. Put simply, all profits come from the unpaid work of workers. And, of course, the drive for profit is the beating heart of capitalism.1 This revolutionary discovery by Karl Marx paved the way for a comprehensive explanation of the workings of the capitalist system — identifying exploitation, and therefore injustice, at its core. It underlies the socialist understanding of the world’s economies and societies today; the contradictions and antagonisms in social relations and the inherent instability and conflict arising from the fundamental division of the world into those who own capital and exploit others, and those who own little or nothing and are exploited; namely, capitalists and workers. Workers and capitalists Workers are those who have none of the necessary premises, equipment, materials, or the money to acquire these things, that are needed to engage in production or exchange. To make a living on the market, they and can trade only their ability to work (labour power). Capitalists do have the above, but to put them to use efficiently enough to make a profit they need other people to work them. So, they offer wages to workers that will (a) allow the workers to subsist, and (b) allow the capitalist to profit from everything made after this subsistence is paid for. The lower the wage and the more hours worked for that wage, the more the capitalist is exploiting the worker, i.e. the more money they’re making at the worker’s expense. It’s true that this arrangement is one that both the employer and the employee enter into freely, and centuries of ideological sugarcoating have created the impression that this is a fair deal for both parties. From a certain point of view, with a narrow focus on individuals, this can seem reasonable — both worker and capitalist get paid at the end of the day. The problem is that they both get paid from the work that only one of them engages in. This reality becomes clearer when looked at from the perspective not of individuals but classes. When the above scenario is generalised across the whole economy we find two main classes: (1) a majority-class of labourers who do virtually all of the work and create all of the wealth, but own very little, and (2) a minority-class who do very little work and create none of the wealth, but own virtually all of it. Competition in the market and their insatiable need to make more profits compels the capitalists to expand their enterprises by intensifying the exploitation and amassing greater numbers of — increasingly restless — employees. They, who in order to defend and extend their rights and conditions, are likewise compelled to organise together. This instinctive desire on the part of both capitalist and worker to push the rate of exploitation in opposite directions creates a constant tension in capitalist society: the class struggle (with all its social manifestations in conflicting ideas, organisations, institutions). The very existence of class struggle is denied by right-wing ideologues: but it, with its ups, downs, swings and roundabouts over time, in the last analysis, decisively influences all social and historical change. Recognising this ingrained friction (which heightens significantly in times of crises) and their central role in production (which gives them huge potential power), Marx identified the working class as key to challenging the rule of the exploiters; and moreover, establishing a society where the wealth that’s produced collectively would be enjoyed collectively. Backlash and confusion For socialists, this analysis remains valid in its essentials. It has withstood not just the test of time and the innumerable challenges from economic and political theorists from across the spectrum, but has been reaffirmed by the history of the working-class movement in the century and a half since Marx worked out his ideas. Conservative ideologues have always disputed the validity of Marxism, fearing most of all its revolutionary conclusions. But over time and increasingly — in the face of the failure to as yet achieve the aims of the socialist movement — even those who are critical of the system and recognise its deep-rooted and insoluble problems, deny the potential for revolutionary change and in particular the revolutionary capability of the working class. The weakening of the traditional working-class organisations (the trade unions and the social democratic parties), both numerically and ideologically in the wake of the collapse of Stalinism and the rise of neo-liberalism, has left a major political vacuum. In the years since then the leaderships of these organisations in almost every country have made a wholesale accommodation to the system, dumping even their nominal support for an alternative to capitalism. As a result, the workers’ movement, which was a clear point of reference for millions of workers and young people in the past, is now seen as a mere auxiliary to social struggles, not its base and leadership. On top of this the capitalist establishment, sensing this weakness, has gone on an offensive against the ideas of socialism. Their aim has been to disguise the existence of a class divide at all, but especially the existence of a potentially powerful class that can act independently, and in the interests of all of those who struggle against the system. And