Friends of Socialist China joined hundreds of comrades at the grave of Karl Marx in north London’s Highgate Cemetery on Sunday March 17 to mark the 141st anniversary of the death of the founder of scientific socialism.
In 2018, marking the 200th anniversary of his birth, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said that Marx is the “teacher of revolution for the proletariat and working people all over the world, the main founder of Marxism, creator of Marxist parties, a pathfinder for international communism and the greatest thinker of modern times.”
With noble ideals and no fear of difficulty or adversity, throughout his life, Marx devoted himself to perseveringly striving for the liberation of humanity, scaling the peak of thought in his pursuit of truth, and the unremitting fight to overturn the old world and establish a new one, Xi added.
This year’s Highgate commemoration, the largest for many years, was jointly organised by the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and the Marx Memorial Library (MML) and chaired by Mary Davis, Secretary of the Library and Executive Committee (EC) member of the CPB.
It heard orations from Lord (John) Hendy KC, a prominent labour movement lawyer on behalf of the MML, and from Alex Gordon, Chair of the Library, President of the railworkers’ union RMT and CPB EC member.
In his address, Alex noted that: “What Marx could not foresee, because no socialist planned economy arose in his lifetime, is that the world capitalist economy in 2024 would depend for its economic growth, technological and scientific innovation, and new developments in world trade on the rise of the economies of the global South, and the leading role of socialist China.”
Alex’s full speech may be read here. And Lord Hendy’s may be read here.
Following the speeches, floral tributes were paid by the CPB and MML, the Embassy of socialist Vietnam, the communist parties of Kenya, Cyprus, Spain, Malaya, India (Marxist), Iraq, Iran, Sudan, and Greece, the Communist Front (Italy), Friends of Socialist China, the Young Communist League, the UK branch of the Student Federation of India, the Morning Star, the London District of the CPB, and a delegation of Chinese students in the UK.
Representatives of the Cuban Embassy and the Irish party Sinn Féin also attended the ceremony, which closed with the singing of the Internationale. The Friends of Socialist China comrades accompanied Booker Ngesa Omole (National Vice-Chairperson and National Organising Secretary of the Communist Party of Kenya), who addressed our event Africa, China and the Rise of the Global South the previous evening.
