Marx's beating heart

Marx's beating heart

Wednesday 13 May 2009Rene Mujica Cantelar Printable Email Once again, we have gathered before Karl Marx's tomb in a demonstration of gratitude, admiration and respect towards that giant of thought and action whose life and untiring efforts were entirely devoted to furthering the cause of working people.

The significance of Marx's total dedication to science and to the struggle for a world of social justice, human freedom and peace transcends time and geography. His ideas have been decisive for the destiny of all the peoples who have since embarked on the noble tasks of attaining their political and economic emancipation, ending the exploitation of man by man, transforming for the better their own societies and shaping - haphazardly, maybe, but inexorably - that new world that Marx envisioned.

'Human society faces the greatest challenge in history'
Marx's ideas exercise the strongest of influences on humanity's future, proving their universal value and becoming a fundamental reference for the emerging processes of revolutionary change against the inequities, injustices and moral bankruptcy of the prevailing imperialist order and its ideology.

This order has plunged human civilisation and our planet into the most dangerous predicament they have ever faced - the largest economic crisis on record and a set of other global crises equally fed by capitalism's voraciousness.

There is a long and deepening social crisis that affects not only the poor nations at the periphery but also increasingly the poor and middle classes closer to the centres of power.

There is an environmental crisis caused by the wasteful consumerism on which the fortunes of the rich depend, polluting natural habitats and pumping out massive amounts of global warming gases, threatening present and future generations.

There is a related energy crisis caused by the dwindling availability of fossil fuels due to their irrational exploitation for profit and the insufficient development of renewable energy sources proportional to rational human needs.

There is an agricultural crisis causing a steadily growing number of people, particularly in the underdeveloped world, to go hungry or malnourished.

And there is an ethical crisis brought about by the ideology of capitalism that has identified the notion of human progress with all of the above and that turns humans into predators moved by greed, individualism and profit.

As a result, human society faces the greatest challenge that history has ever posed. Its very existence hangs in the balance.

This makes Marx's insights and teachings more relevant than ever. His writings are being scoured for answers and have gained renewed popularity, notably among the young, while Das Kapital, his most outstanding work, has even entered the best-seller lists.

Marx and his close friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels, a great thinker and revolutionary in his own right, lived and developed Marxism amid maturing industrial capitalism and its evolution into finance capitalism in 19th century Europe.

Although capitalism has evolved since in ways Marx could not have predicted and given rise to socialist revolutions in its periphery, a development that he could not have anticipated, the basic tenets of his theories on capitalism and revolution have been confirmed in every case.

This year we are also commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, one of those world-shaking events that validate Marx's theories and that have incorporated his legacy into its people's specific historical experience, cultural tradition and struggles for social justice and against foreign domination.

Having taken control of their own affairs thanks to the revolution, under the leadership of revolutionaries of the stature of comrades Fidel and Raul Castro the Cuban people have built the new socialist society of justice, solidarity and freedom, becoming a beacon of hope for millions around the world.

This year we can also celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, led by President Hugo Chavez, that has brought real democracy and social progress to its people. And the fifth anniversary of President Evo Morales coming to power in Bolivia and setting in motion a true democratic revolution in that largely indigenous nation.

Socialist or progressive political processes are under way elsewhere in Latin America, supported by mass social movements. The whole region presents a new and improved political situation, with a unanimous demand from Latin America and the Caribbean to Washington to end the unfair and illegal policies against Cuba that have been in place for five decades.

New forms of economic and social co-operation are being developed. The Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America, the Commercial Treaty of the Peoples, Petrocaribe and other initiatives all aim to raise the quality of life for the largest number of people, as well as strengthening independence and letting countries turn their backs on international capitalism and its institutions.

In all of these developments the ideas of Marx are also alive today.

Cuba's national hero Jose Marti once said that "to honour someone else does honour to oneself."

On learning of Marx's death in 1883, Marti wrote from New York, where he lived in exile and prepared Cuba's independence from Spain, for the Argentinian newspaper La Nacion. He honoured the memory of a man who, wrote Marti, deserved such homage "because he stood on the side of the weak."

A few years later, in 1892, Marti founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party to lead the revolution for independence and for the establishment in Cuba of a republic "with all and for the good of all," having as its guiding principle "the cult of Cubans to the full dignity of man" that stands today in the preamble of our constitution.

He was joined among others by Carlos Balino, who was later one of the founders of the first Cuban Communist Party in 1925 together with Julio Antonio Mella.

In a further example of the often unexpected connections of history, Fidel Castro, who had just led the 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks - the opening salvo of the Cuban revolution - proclaimed Marti the intellectual author of that revolutionary action in the year of Marti's centennial.

We pay homage to Marx each year because of the beautiful example of his life, his unsurpassed contribution to the struggles for social progress and human dignity and the luminous source of inspiration that his works offer us in taking forward those struggles.

In so honouring Marx and as Marti would have seen it, let us recommit to being truthful to the honour that we are thereby conferring on ourselves.

Long live the ideas and legacy of Karl Marx.

This is an edited version of an oration by Cuban ambassador Rene J Mujica Cantelar at Highgate cemetery to mark the 191st anniversary of Karl Marx's birth.