19th century philosopher Karl Marx – the ‘greatest’ theorist of the Communist movement – made 3 visits to the Isle of Wight.
Marx’s works – in particular The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital – were the main inspiration behind 20th century revolutions that took power in countries such as Russia and China.
Some countries – such as North Korea and Cuba – remain Communist to this day.
Of the estimated 169million killed by genocidal regimes in the 20th century, over 69million fell victim to the Soviet state and more than 35million to Mao’s murderous regime in China. This compares with around 21million deaths at the hands of the Nazis.
Marxist theories remain influential – even in the 21st century – within British academic institutions.
Marx was preceded in his visits to the Isle of Wight by fellow philosopher Fredrick Engels – co-author with Marx of the Communist manifesto – who holidayed on the Isle of Wight for his health.
Engels wrote of the Island:
“The climate here is really marvellous and the vegetation, except for things needing very hot sunshine, is so southern one might almost be in Naples.”
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Marx first visited the Isle of Wight with his wife Jenny in July 1874 when he stayed at 11 Nelson Street in Ryde. Marx had suffered a bout of illness the previous year – he had been so unwell that his physician forbade him from carrying out any kind of work, including reading.
He had come to the Island to recuperate. Despite his doctor’s orders, Marx studied all the Island newspapers as well as reading books. He took an interest in local affairs, even commenting on local electioneering. Above all, he enjoyed many long walks and explored much of the Island.
Marx wrote to Engels that:
“This Island is a little paradise”.
While in Ryde, Marx bizarrely encountered a group of inebriated temperance while seeing off his daughter Laura at Ryde pier.
The philosopher related his strange experience as follows:
“When we went down to the pier to see her off we witnessed the arrival from Brighton of a temperance gang back from an excursion. Half of them were drunk.
“As an old Englishman next to me remarked ‘it was the worst lot he had ever met with in his life’ and neither have I ever encountered such a mob of stunted, loutish and smutty-minded idiots all at once…”
His first stay ended abruptly when he heard of his grandson’s death, and he and his wife returned to London.
Marx returned to the Isle of Wight in the winters of 1881/82 and 1882/83. He took lodgings at 1 St Boniface Gardens, which was rented out by a Miss McLaren. The house had a large garden and wonderful sea views. Marx liked the place and came back for a second Ventnor sojourn. Despite his ill-health he took regular strolls up the downs.
His winter visits to Ventnor were a result of the town’s reputation as a health resort following the publication of James Clark’s book: The Influence of Climate in the Prevention and Cure of Chronic Diseases. The book recommended the Undercliff climate as suitable for chest complaints.
Marx suffered liver and gall problems caused by an unhealthy lifestyle of nocturnal work and a poor diet. The philosopher was said to have liked wine and liqueurs to have smoked an excessive number of cheap cigars.
He experienced headaches, eye inflammation, neuralgia and rheumatism. He also took patent medicines – many of which contained opiates – for insomnia. Local physician Williamson prescribed disulphuricum brews and morphia as well as chloroform.
Marx still enjoyed strolls in the fresh air but needed to carry a respirator. He would walk up the downs to the highest house and then along a footpath to Bonchurch.
The founding father of communism died on 14th March 184, aged 64. His death was commemorated in a mosaic created by Ken Knapman in Ventnor’s central car park, which was part of a Ventnor Past and Present Display.
The mosaic was vandalised in 2011 then disappeared completely in April 2015.
Was it right to remove Marx’s mosaic from the Ventnor car park – should the philosopher be commemorated or consigned to the dustbin of history? Let us know in the comments…
150 years of total failure, yet this government still follow him..
Governments have not learned anything in all
these years.
It’s always been about control, they claim we
live in a democracy, somehow I don’t think so.
“The pandemic proved that”
It was 1 law for them and 1 law for us
Nothings changed and nothing ever will!
Now they keep extending the state pension age
for people.
You think Starmer is a Socialist? Ha ha ha ha ha.
Woah.
You can’t compare either of those regimes against Nazism and call them genocidal, any more than you could call the UK Govt genocidal for what happened in Ireland and India in the 1800s. Both Russia and China (and us) had political failures which CONTRIBUTED to famines which had a multitude of factors, and killed more than deliberate eradication of political opponents…something which every country has been known to do whatever their ideology of the day.
Furthermore, Nazism had a short life of just over a decade in total, and systematic intensity of roughly 6. The total is closer to 18 million, which includes deliberate murder, deliberate executions, deliberate starvation and neglect. Of the Russian figure (closer to 20m not 69m?) less than 2m were targeted deliberate executions across a number of decades and it still continues to this day in spite of the fact that Russia abandoned communism in the early 1990s after over 70 years. The rest of the deaths were through war, poverty, illness and famines. Similarly China, although their policy has been going far longer but now embraces capitalism to grease the hands of the powerful….a far cry from Marx’ philosophy of fairness and his advocacy for change, the word ‘revolution’ being seized by those wanting power as a call to fight. Marx simply got the blame, and he was a pacifist.
So what can we take from this? That power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely regardless of whichever political ideology one initially aspires to, and that the more those in power are determined to hang on to that power, the more controlling they become and their willingness to step over the bodies of the innocent and shrug off the collateral damage becomes apparent.
Marx was right in one thing though; that capitalism will eventually implode as greed of power and wealth has no off switch. Trouble is, it will take us all with it one way or another.
The figures are taken from Holocaust historian and statistician R J Rummel in his book Death by Government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide#Application
The Holocaust victims were not the only victims of Nazism, an ideology of political origins, which is surely what your piece was about and using Marx (?!) for comparison. Other victims were Sinti, Romani, Poles, disabled, freemasons, Jehovah’s, homosexuals etc…the total is from anywhere between 17 and 20 million. Estimates from Stalin’s Russian gulags and Holodomor etc is also anywhere between 6-20m, although some figures plucked from gawd knows where have put it at 90+. The trouble with totalitarian regimes is lack of evidence; they know it’s wrong so destroy it.
The IDEAS of a communist (or communAL) society were certainly chewed over by Marx., and his mate Engels and yes, his ideas ended up on the publication the communist party fabricated as a political manifesto. The implementation however left a lot to be desired and he objected, as did Engels, and was why they both ended up as refugees over here eventually.
The necessary homogenisation that a communist system requires never did take into account self-determination and as such leans towards the old saying ‘idealisation is fine but the closer one gets, the more the costs become prohibitive’.
Marx was a product of his time politically (see also his views on slavery!) but a good social philosopher nonetheless, and contributed significantly to today’s ideas of democratic socialism.
A….a WIKI entry for a reference??? :-p 🙂
I personally don’t see anything wrong with using Wikipedia as a reference. Would you rather I gave you the page numbers from his book and you could order it from Amazon?
Ha, no, but most history (or any) professors would shoot you! Fine for a quick precis though.
My friend Simon Bell has a better book on the Holocaust drawing parallels to today’s world and hatred and genocide in general. Only available from bookshops though.
Exactly how many were killed by various despotic regimes is disputed. However, Rummel is regarded as an ‘authority’ and therefore I quoted his figures. Their accuracy would depend on what you chose to factor in and out but they have been painstakingly researched.
I didn’t make his figures wrong, just subjective, narrow, and little to do with a comparison to political non-ideological deaths of other regimes (deliberate rather than stupid). The accuracy of the piece also is dependent on what you chose to factor in and with what bias.
Are you replying or writing a dissertation,your one failing is your belief that capitalism will ultimately fail,many have tried to row back from it and when they realised they had no money left they sacked that idea, even corbyn doesn’t believe in Marx.
I see where our superior leader starlin starmer gets it all from..
Only the Nazis built factories to kill people next time you see a production line at a factory think about that
Well there you go, politics, philosophy, history, all expertly covered by the usual Islandecho hacks.