O túmulo de Marx

Karl Marx faleceu há 135 anos, na tarde de um dia 14 de março, como hoje. A foto abaixo, feita por Ricardo Bellofiore, mostra a lápide original de sua sepultura. Simples e digna, como ele gostaria. Muito mais digna do que aquela estátua horrenda que, mais tarde, seria colocada em seu lugar, em Highgate Cemetery. Registro aqui o comentário de Michael Heinrich:
 

"Whoever visits the grave of Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery in London encounters a gigantic pedestal upon which a gigantic bust of Marx is enthroned. One has to look up at him. Directly under the bust, “Workers of all lands unite” is written in golden letters, and further down, also in gold, “Karl Marx.” Below that, a simple, small headstone is placed within the pedestal, which names without pomp and gold those buried here: besides Karl Marx, there is his wife Jenny, his grandson Harry Longuet, and his daughters Eleanor and Helene Demuth, who led the Marx household for decades.

Marx selected the plain headstone himself after the death of his wife. Showing off was not his thing. He explicitly asked for a quiet funeral restricted to a small circle. Only eleven people took part. Friedrich Engels was able to prevent plans by the German Social Democratic Party to erect a monument to Marx at the cemetery. He wrote to August Bebel that the family was against such a monument, since the simple headstone “would be desecrated in their eyes if replaced by a monument”. (MECW 47, p. 17).

Around 70 years later, nobody was left to protect Marx’s grave. The present monument was commissioned by the Communist Party of Great Britain and unveiled in 1956. Only cemetery regulations prevented it from being even bigger. The Marxists had asserted themselves against Marx." (Michael Heinrich, "Je ne suis pas marxiste").