“Last Years of Karl Marx – an Intellectual Biography” by Marcello Musto, 2016 (Second review)
The book pictures Marx in his last years, 1880-1883, but
dips into the 1870s in its discussion of his unfinished work on Capital Vols.
II and III, and various translations of Vol I.
This is when he wasn’t reading about electricity and immersing himself
in French novels for distraction due to sickness.
The final part of this book is a story of inability to
work, sickness and death. For almost a
whole year he could not really produce anything. Marx’s wife Jenny von Westphalen died of
liver cancer in December 1881; his eldest daughter Jenny Longuet died in January
1883, also of cancer of the liver, and he died on March 14, 1883 at the age of
64. He suffered from bronchitis,
rheumatism, a constant cough, pleurisy - eventually dying of heart failure
brought on by tuberculosis.
Prior to this, doctors sent him out of the drizzle of
London to Eastbourne, then the Isle of Wight; then to the Parisian suburb of Argenteuil
where his daughter’s family was living.
They sent him on to Algiers for a long stay, then Monaco, Cannes and Geneva
to try to get warmth and dry air into his lungs and body. Many of these places had rain instead, so he
was not ‘cured,’ while the travel exhausted him. He was not able to work and could only keep
up with the news. He had one meeting
with supporters of the French Workers Party in 1880. Oddly, both son’s-in-law had moved towards
anarchism and this upset him greatly. This is when he wrote his famous quote about
some ostensible ‘followers’ of his – “What
is certain is that I am not a Marxist.” This
was in reference to ‘revolutionary phrase-mongering’
by his sons-in-law.
Marx consulted on the relevant Electoral Program of the
French Workers Party. It
included: 1) Emancipation of the productive class will include every ‘race’ and
sex. 2) Producers can only be free when
they control the means of production. 3) Freedom of the Press. 4) Equality at
work between men and women, native and immigrant. 5) Defunding the religious
orders. 6) Elimination of the public debt. 6) Abolition of standing army and
arming of the people. 7) Ban on child labor; one day a week off; workers’ determination
of a minimum wage; equal pay for equal work. 8) Free, professional public
education. 9) Care of old and disabled; 10) Workers accident compensation. 11)
Labor power on the job. 12) Socialization of public property through workers’
control of banks, railways, mines. 13) A progressive income tax. 14) Suppression
of all inheritances over 20,000 francs.
Reading this, you will see that this program has been
partly enacted in many bourgeois democratic countries due to pressure by labor. It seems eerily familiar! The issue of immigrants came about partly due
to his readings of the unequal treatment of Chinese workers in the U.S. who
were especially used in railroad projects.
Algeria was the only country Marx visited outside of
Europe and he wrote anecdotal social observations in letters to Engels and
others. This location seems significant
given his nickname ‘The Moor.’ He noted in
Algiers that while classes existed, there was a level of social equality
between the well-dressed and the ones in tatters, perhaps attributing this to
Islam. The state, in the form of police
and soldiers, was almost invisible to him.
He even got a haircut, stripping his face of its imposing white ‘St.
Nick’ beard.
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| Marx in Algiers |
CAPITAL
Marx first published an edition of Das Kapital, Vol. 1 in 1867 in German, then 2 more revisions were
brought out. A French translation was
done by him during the late 1870s, as the translator was ignorant of economic terms. Translating took an immense amount of his
time. What is notable is that the French
translation included changes from the German editions. He was still working on various aspects of
these in the late 1870s and early 1880s. This shows you that, even at this
point, nothing was ‘set in stone’ in the details. Revision, like change, was a constant. That is a philosophic point too, as well as a
writer’s truth. Being 'done' is a decision, not a final understanding.
Capital,
Vol. 1 began to be read in Russia, Germany, France and even in
philistine England during this period, as Marx’s influence spread beyond his
role as the subversive devil of the First International, promoter of the Paris
Commune and author of the Manifesto. It’s not to say everyone understood it, but
some began to make headway. Blanqui,
Proudhon, LaSalle and Bakunin were still prominent influences in various
countries at this time. Marx’s Capital was almost unknown in the U.S.,
as an English translation only became available in 1887.
Marx studied what happened to Russian peasants after the
abolition of serfdom in 1861. He looked
at the role of solar energy, especially a writer who claimed socialism would
utilize it better than other social systems.
He studied books on banking and trade, the formation of joint-stock
companies and ‘loanable capital,’ geology, agrarian chemistry and mineralogy. He
asserted after some of his investigations that:
“The energy of the universe is
constant” so he did not limit himself to economics or politics. Marx wanted to flesh out
the relation between ground rent and profit, which became a section in Capital, Vol III. He noted that revolution was not a single
event, but a process, thus echoing his own phrase about permanent revolution from
1850. He stated: “Socialists invent no movement, but merely tell the workmen what its
character and its ends will be.” This
shows he was aware of the role of spontaneity.
His wide reading made it clear to him that no world-wide ‘schematic’
would account for all societal forms and development. He told Engels that he was ‘secretly ashamed’ for relying on him for
funds. Marx noted that, due to his age
and wisdom, he was careful about what ‘fights’ he engaged in, as so many were a
waste of time. A truth we can all
appreciate.
As you can see, even in ill-health, Marx continued his work towards socialism, which was his life-long passion. Musto’s work here is drawn from the voluminous Marx-Engels Gesamtaustaube (MEGA) which in 2016 reached 67 volumes, including many of Marx’s notes, letters and unpublished manuscripts. These documents were unavailable to earlier Marxists.
Prior blogspot reviews on this subject, use blog search
box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms: “Marx,”
“Engels,” “Capital.”
May Day has many books on Marx. This I got at a college library! I am waiting for them to discover, empty and
burn the Marxist section however, at the rate things are going.
Red Frog / April 20, 2025 /
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