A Portrait of Karl Marx

It is not uncommon to find children of Jewish socialists with first names like “William Morris,” “Lassalle,” or “Bebel.” But we will definitely not find any children named after Karl Marx.

Morris, Lassalle, and Bebel were great, important socialist leaders, deep socialist thinkers. They were just as important figures among socialists as the rabbis and rebbes in the world of Jewish learning after whom our forefathers once named their children. But with all their greatness, importance, and depth they were still only human. Their life and work elicit acknowledgment, gratitude, and respect, but they are not idolized, they are not viewed with mixed feelings of awe and ecstasy.

Karl Marx is completely different. For the masses that came under the influence of the socialist movement, Marx was more than a leader, more than a rebbe, more than just a brave fighter for justice. His teachings brought blessings that are as great as the world, deep as the sea, and expansive as the heavens. The shame he brought upon capitalist thinkers by proving the scientific rigor of socialism; the deep knowledge that lies in the thick volumes of his works filled with thoughts, facts, and arguments are not comprehensible to everyone, and his penetration into the deepest depth of history in order to emerge from there with strong proofs for the case of the workers of the whole world—all this was woven together in the fantasy of the people into a half-mythical, unreal, half-divine personality.

Well, you can name your child after Moses, but not after the Lord of the Universe. You can be in close contact with a person, no matter how great he is (and the greater the person the greater the honor), but not with a symbol, a flag, or a spirit. Even the pictures we have of socialist leaders show us the difference. We see Lassalle standing tall, leaning on a table with one hand while his nice clothes and tall collar are fully visible. Bebel is shown seated at a desk covered with papers and books; his entire figure is visible, too, along with the everyday trinkets that surround him.

But the image we have of Marx shows only his head, a large, round head in a frame of gray hair with two small but sharp eyes in the middle. A head that is round like the sun, strongly built like a rock, and sunk deep in melancholy thoughts, as if about to be swallowed by stormy waters. Just draw a ring of rays, a halo above this head, and you get the Apostle Peter or Saint Cyril . . .

Similarly, the name Marx has always possessed a spirit of enchantment, with a magic sound. What made the legend of Marx possible, and maybe even necessary? What wove a golden web around his name? Was it his stormy life of wandering? Was it his participation in revolutions? His clashes with Bakunin? The fiery style of his articles? No, his biography is almost unknown to the broad masses. Of all the socialist leaders with whom people are most familiar, it is the biography of Lassalle, on account of his stormy love affair and his tragic death. And everyone knows that Bebel started his career as a simple worker, a wood carver, and managed to become the leader of German socialists due to his innate ingeniousness. But the biography of Marx is barely known.

The broad masses are not familiar with his theory of surplus value or his economic determinism. Despite all attempts to popularize Marx and to acquaint the broad masses with the essence of his economic and philosophical teachings, they have remained a sealed book for most people.

The only explanation I can find for Marx’s extraordinary impact, for his incredible, we could even say religious influence, lies in two ideas, or facts, or teachings, in connection with Marx’s philosophy in a general and maybe not exact form.

First, his optimism. The world is improving constantly, and sooner or later an order of true freedom and happiness will unfold from the violent mess of history: the socialist order. Let them—the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, together with all their learned scholars and leaders—wander around lost in the dark. Let them resist and try to prevent progress and improvement with all their power—they will not prevail. History has its path marked out, it has an inevitable plan, and it cannot be made to veer off its path.

And no matter how dejected and robbed and neglected the workers may be, no matter how bad and hopeless everything seems, no matter how boundless and brutal the laws of our present are—justice and freedom must triumph, and the world must be liberated.

No religion has ever elevated dejected and helpless people to this extent; no teaching has ever nurtured and nourished the enfeebled soul of the worker masses like the optimism of the Marxist teaching. [ . . . ]

Class struggle and socialism are therefore not just a theory, not just an idea, but an obligation, a service to God, a commandment of history. Others may hustle and bustle and busy themselves with trade, conduct business and build their own fortune. We, who are strong in our unity and class solidarity, we will build for the world, for everyone, for the future. And the more we are and the more we believe—the better.

Those young revolutionaries, children who went on strike against their own fathers, individual artisans who declared general strikes in their own professions, those silent martyrs who denounced their old way of life forever to become good, devout socialists—they were all enchanted by Karl Marx and the golden magic of his fierce, optimistic teachings. Strikes have replaced fasting, the general assembly took the place of communal prayer, and the socialist pamphlet supplanted the ‘En Ya‘akov.¹ . . .

And even though thirty-five years have passed since his large, round head was placed into the ground, and even though nothing remains of Marx except his difficult treatise and one single picture, his eyes are still staring down from thousands of walls, and his flag is still waving on the battlefields of the world.

Translated by Vera Szabó.