HANDS OFF KARL MARX GRAVE IN LONDON!

By Nikos Mottas.

Karl Marx, the greatest thinker of all times whose revolutionary teachings became a guide for the struggles of the working class throughout the world, continues giving nightmares to fascists, reactionaries and anti-communists. 

His grave memorial at Highgate cemetery in North London has been a target of cowardly attacks and vandalism by far-right thugs. In 2019, in a space of a month, the grave was vandalized twice by fascists who caused extensive damages in the marble plaque. 

Recently, during mass protests for George Floyd’s murder, demonstrators tore down the statue of slave-trader Edward Colston in Bristol, while the statue of arch-imperialist criminal Winston Churchill was defaced by anti-racist protesters. In the U.S., a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was toppled in Richmond, Virginia and numerous statues of Christopher Colombus, from Miami to Boston, became the target of angry demonstrators. 

A bunch of conservatives and fascists in Britain thought this is the right time to take revenge. They created a petition, addressed to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, asking the removal Karl Marx’s grave from Highgate cemetery. In their text accompanying the shameful petition, the fascists repeat the same old anti-communist nonsense about the supposed “100 million victims of Communism”, while they accuse Karl Marx for “anti-Semitism”. 

Responding to this filthy initiative, the Marx Grave Trust, which is the legal owner of Marx’s family grave and its monument, said: “In the wake of the welcome campaign to remove or resite the statues of racists and slave-owners, these has been a blacklash by pro-fascist elements and their right-wing supporters […] All he has is a grave, together with his wife and family. This has now been targeted. Such threats are not only rank desecration but an insult to the worldwide socialist movement for whom Marx is an inspiration” (Morning Star, 12/6/2020).

The trust said it had taken measures to secure evidence should it be attacked again and “calls on everyone to support the world of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery and the Marx Grave Trust… and by countering every attempt to damage the grave of a man who challenge exploitation and oppression”. 

Endorsing every single word included in the statement of the Marx Grave Trust, we urge all Communists living in Britain, every person who supports and admires Karl Marx’s legacy, every man and woman who stands against fascism and exploitation, to rise up against any attempt to desecrate the grave of the greatest philosopher humanity has ever seen. 

Marx was, is and will always be a thorn in the eye of the bourgeois class, an enemy for exploiters and oppressors. Today, the struggle for Socialism-Communism is more necessary and timely than ever. It is a certainty that the 21st century will be the century of new socialist revolutions despite the current unfavorable correlation of forces. 

To the fascists and their allies, there is one message: HANDS OFF KARL MARX GRAVE MEMORIAL!

* Nikos Mottas is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of "In Defense of Communism".