MARXS GHOST
MARXS GHOST
Midnight Conversations on Changing the World
BY
KARL MARX
AS TOLD TO
CHARLES DERBER
First published 2011 by Paradigm Publishers
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Derber, Charles.
Marxs ghost : midnight conversations on changing the world / by Karl Marx as told to Charles Derber.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-61205-065-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-161205-066-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Marx, Karl, 1818-1883Political and social views. 2. Political sciencePhilosophy. 3. World politicsPhilosophy. 4. CapitalismPhilosophy. 5. World politics1989- I Marx, Karl, 1818-1883 (Spirit) II. Title.
JC233.M299D47 2011
335.4dc23
2011022138
Designed and Typeset by Straight Creek Bookmakers.
ISBN 13 : 978-1-61205-065-2 (hbk)
ISBN 13 : 978-1-61205-066-9 (pbk)
To Noam Chomsky For his humanity and generosity And For Speaking Truth to Power
Its an unusually sunny Sunday afternoon in foggy London. I decide to make a trip to Highgate Cemetery, where many famous writers, including Karl Marx, were buried. The old revolutionary had influenced me in school way back in the 1960s.
Now, during the Great Recession, I was once again thinking about Marx. Time to pay my respects.
I took one of those bright red, double-decker London buses to the cemetery. At the cemetery entrance, a young woman with brown eyes and curly hair stood guard, telling me I had to pay a fee.
Do any people still come to visit Marx?
Oh, quite a few. I often see busloads of giggling Chinese tourists, carrying bouquets of red roses.
I didnt know you had to pay to visit a cemetery. How much to get in?
This is a special cemetery. She talked like she meant it, her eyes sparkling. One pound, please.
Ok, I can handle that. Here you are.
Thanks, and enjoy your visit with Mr. Marx. She laughed in a way that caught my attention. There was something both warm and mysterious in the way she looked at me. I sensed she thought I was going to get more than my moneys worth. I wondered what she was thinking.
She didnt say anything more, but directed me down a tree-lined lane in this ancient cemetery. As I walked away, I could still hear her sweet but mysterious laugh echoing through the cemetery.
Just five minutes down the path, Marxs tomb was hard to miss. It is a massive structure, with a huge head of the bearded Marx staring down at you from its perch on top of an imposing marble base. On the upper half of this giant pedestal, I saw the famous final words of The Communist Manifesto: Workers of All Lands Unite. On the bottom was engraved another famous quote from Marx: The Philosophers Have Only Interpreted the World in Various Waysthe Point However Is to Change It.
This seemed never more true than now, when we face nuclear conflict, global warming, and one of the most severe capitalist crises since the Great Depression. And when we have seen in 2011 astonishing revolutions in the Middle East and new labor struggles beginning in the Midwest and spreading across the United States. Could we be entering a new revolutionary era, rather like that of 1848 when revolutions swept across Europe and gave Marx great hope ? I decided to sit down and stay a while.
I found a stone to sit on, and gazed up at Marxs huge head. Several people walked by. Thinking I am a cemetery worker, they wanted to know where tombstones of other famous British intellectuals are.
I dont work here, just visiting, I say apologetically.
Three young men ask if I would take a photo of them next to Marxs tomb.
No problem. I get up and snap a few pictures.
I sit again. Let my mind float and enjoy the tranquility. Its a surprisingly peaceful final resting ground for a revolutionary who had not enjoyed a peaceful life.
About 20 minutes later, though, I feel agitation. The atmosphere suddenly changed, and a breeze began to blow. And then I saw the dim outline of what appeared to be some kind of entity in motion, flying up and around Marxs head. I dismissed it as a trick my eyes were playing on me.
I went back to my reverie, just daydreaming and enjoying the warm sun and beautiful trees and flowers around the tombs of all these famous personalities. I almost fell asleep.
Suddenly, though, a buzzing around my ears got louder, and I could have sworn something was brushing against my face. I got a little scared and got up to walk in a circle, something I do when Im nervous.
Then, I saw this weird, nearly transparent entity again, now shape-shifting from a blob into something more like the shape of a human. And hes buzzing and fluttering very close to me.
Believers in the paranormal would have wondered if this was a ghost. I thought, Lets play a game. Maybe Marxs ghost has come to see me. And the entity did seem to peer at me and wonder who was sitting for so long at the foot of this tomb.
I decided to play along. This must be Marxs ghost.
Hope Im not intruding, I say politely.
No response. Just more peering and a little more buzzing. Perhaps he was annoyed I was trespassing on his space.
BOO!! BOOOO!! BOOOOOOO!!! What else do you say to a ghost? I was just playing around to calm myself and show the ghost he couldnt scare me.
He didnt seem amused. He looked harder at me. I hoped that he would forgive my foolishness and trust me, and that he had something to tell me.
When I looked again, I noticed the blob had morphed into a clear outline of a human being, something like an avatar. I blinked my eyes and then closed them for a second, wondering if I was dreaming. When I opened my eyes, I saw a fully formed human male who was the spitting image of Karl Marx.
