Love and Capital

Title: Love and Capital – Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution

Author: Mary Gabriel

Publisher: Back Bay Books, 2012 (First published 2011)

ISBN: 9780316066129

Pages: 707

 

To say that the fall of Napoleon was a turning point in European history would be an understatement. Alongside the political changes, it wrought a profound transformation on economy with the rise of capitalism. Capitalism created a class called bourgeoisie which employed its capital in enterprises that utilized the physical effort of the proletariat to generate profits. In the early stages, the working class was a thoroughly exploited lot who stood even lower in status to machines. Replacement of a machine cost money but a worker could be easily substituted because there were so many of them waiting outside the factory gate for a chance to work. Workers began to unite in many countries under various guises. In Europe, Karl Marx created a theoretical framework that tried to explain the relationship between the modes of production and its effects on the development of social classes. At capitalism’s infancy, Marx set to work chronicling its rise and predicting its fall. As we now know, he was only partly right. But this book is not about his theory – this is all about his personal life. It is the story of a love between a husband and wife that remained passionate and consuming despite the deaths of four children, poverty, illness, social ostracism and the ultimate betrayal when Marx fathered another woman’s child. Scores of biographies of Marx exist, with every possible political perspective. However, there was not one book in English that told the full story of a family that sacrificed everything for an idea the world would come to know as Marxism. This book satisfies that function admirably. Mary Gabriel worked as journalist at Reuters for two decades and authored two more biographies. She now lives in Italy.

 

Marx was the son of a Jewish lawyer who was forced to convert to Christianity to keep his profession in the face of rampant anti-Semitism in Germany. His wife Jenny von Westphalen belonged to an aristocratic family and was four years his senior. Close proximity to her younger brother enabled Marx to fall in love and obtain her hand in marriage. Undoubtedly, Marx was the lucky partner in this union. He was without work or income many times in his family life. He spent his life stressing the primacy of economics but was chronically irresponsible when it came to his own finances. Jenny never appeared to lose patience with him. Marx devoted his time to study and Jenny facilitated his work wholeheartedly. The book includes an amusing incident which throws light on Marx’s scholarly inclinations. After marriage, his mother-in-law paid for a short honeymoon for the couple in Switzerland. He went along with 45 volumes of books on Hegel, Rousseau, Machiavelli and others to read during his spare time. His honeymoon studies and reflections produced two of his most famous declarations: religion is the opium of the people and the heart of the emancipation of mankind is the proletariat. However, his literary pursuits did not otherwise seem to impede their relationship as Jenny became pregnant the next month itself!

 

Gabriel treats her subject – the giant of communist thought – with respect and sympathy but never tries to hide or obscure some flaws in his personal life. The greatest of them would be his illicit liaison with Helene Demuth, his wife’s maid, who was sent by his mother-in-law to their Brussels home. She was to help Jenny devote more time to assist her husband with his work and prepare for the second expecting baby. A son was born to Demuth whose paternity Marx was loathe to bear. As always, his dear friend and benefactor Engels came to his rescue and shouldered that vicarious responsibility. He was sent away and grew up to become a friend of Marx’s daughters. It was on Engels’ deathbed that he confessed to Marx’s daughter that her father was indeed this man’s father too. The author had made a thorough search of the extant letters and other correspondence between the Marx family members, some of which contained racist remarks which are not included in the book. She claims that they were not germane to the story and entirely consistent with the norms of that period.

 

Marx did not aspire to be a popular leader. He considered the masses ‘a brainless crowd whose thoughts and feelings are furnished by the ruling class’. But he wanted to teach them because only they could defeat the ruling class. This book is remarkable for its poignant portrayal of the first half of Marx’s wedded life. Poverty and misery were the hallmarks of their existence as Marx eagerly awaited financial returns for the articles and books he produced. Often he took advance money from the publishers and then quickly spent them only to be in hot water with the lender later. He borrowed freely from others and when that source dried out, suffered the pitiless episodes fate threw in his way. One of his infant daughters died due to disease and he had to keep her lifeless body in a room till he could find the money to buy a small casket for that unfortunate child who could not enjoy a moment of comfort while she lived. Such moving incidents there are many in this book. Once a journal under Marx’s editorship collapsed with the very first issue. Its proprietor declined to pay salary and instead offered him unsold copies of the journal. However, the Marx family entertained fellow-travelers of the movement who knocked on their doors in a dignified manner. Both Marx and Jenny were never reluctant to share whatever little they had with their friends and accomplices. When some of his wealthy relatives were nearing their end, Marx keenly looked forward to the share of his inheritance from them. Sometimes he borrowed money pointing to such inheritances as a kind of collateral.

 

An area in which this book excels in is the highlighting of Marx’s role in the organisation of working men of Europe. Marx himself belonged to the class which he pejoratively called bourgeois, but worked for the emancipation of the working class. He was a profound scholar who could not mingle freely with the workers. Despite the severe and scornful public façade, Marx had a depth of feeling for his fellow men that his detractors have not recognized. Many remark that Marx had more hate in him than love. This may not be entirely true and we might have to conclude that he had a healthy dose of each. The masses did not even recognize themselves as having a political voice much less power. They had no conception of how the economic or political system worked. Marx was convinced that if he could describe the historical path that led to their condition, he could provide a theoretical foundation on which to build a new, classless society. He believed that a sustained and successful revolution was impossible without a clear understanding of the history that had brought man to that juncture and a blueprint for the future once the old system was obliterated. Marx’s path to communism consisted of distinct phases such as the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which rests on the antagonism of classes and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property.

 

After reading the book one can’t help envy at Marx’s good fortune to meet two people without whom he would not have risen to the stratosphere of Leftist thought. One is his totally devoted wife Jenny and the other was his unbelievably selfless friend Friedrich Engels. Jenny was not just his wife, but acted as secretary too, copying and drafting his voluminous papers. She, her daughters and Engels were the only people who could decipher Marx’s handwriting. She helped in the editorial offices of newspapers Marx was running and took care of sundry tasks like attending to personal requests from party refugees and those in jail seeking help for their families. Jenny truly understood the needs of the rare genius she had chosen as a husband. For all his faults, she loved Marx deeply and trusted him completely. She saw his life’s work as her own. Engels was a rich man who ran a textile mill that earned good profit. He financed Marx and his family and never asked to return his money. Marx family always received a good share of Engels’ income, including that of the final settlement when Engels sold the mill off so as to be free to work in politics. When he died, a large portion of his wealth was distributed among the Marx children. Of the two men, Engels had the more successful writing career up to Marx’s move to London. But he regarded Marx so highly that he volunteered to put his own aspirations aside so his friend could write without hassles. Engels even claimed to be the father of Marx’s illegitimate child. He cared nothing about his reputation, especially with regard to women.

 

After several decades of loving companionship, Jenny died in 1881 followed by Marx in 1883. However, the book continues its narrative till 1910 when the last of the three Marx daughters died. These were the only children of Marx who reached adulthood and two of them committed suicide. These children had a very difficult childhood raked by biting poverty. Poor nutrition and unhealthy living conditions caused four children to die in their infancy. Marx needed the anchor Jenny and the children provided. All of them substituted Marx’s scholastic interests above their own preferences. He ordered his thoughts only in the midst of their disorder. Throughout his life, theirs was the society he craved. There is a moving section in the book in which Marx acknowledged the sacrifices made by his wife and daughters. In a letter to his daughter’s fiancé, Marx wrote: “You know I have sacrificed my whole fortune to the revolutionary struggle. I do not regret it. Quite the contrary. If I had to begin my life over again, I would do the same. I would not marry however. As far as it lies within my power I wish to save my daughter from the reefs on which her mother’s life was wrecked”.

 

The book has a fine diction which is witty, direct and incisive. The author possesses a fine capability to take the readers along the vicissitudes and ecstasies of the book’s protagonists. Readers get absorbed in the narrative and that’s what makes this work a page-turner. The book is somewhat big with 600+ pages, but we don’t feel the fatigue. However, the book begins with an intimidating character list of 353 individuals which even includes infants who died while four months old. Gabriel takes special care not to delve deeper into Marx’s theoretical work. She is only interested in what the man is and not what he did. In spite of this, there are concise, informative references to labour unrests in Europe and a very good description of the 1871 Paris Commune. Whatever theoretical aspects the author has handled is tempered to suit the general reader. She transforms the forbidding scholar which a portrait of Marx shows into a loving father and husband who had to rush through the backdoor of his house to fetch food and comforts for his daughter’s fiancé who was waiting in the front room to meet him. I think that if the twentieth century communist revolutions had not taken place, Marx would have been revered as a great thinker cutting across political affiliations. At least, that is the man Mary Gabriel introduces to us in this book.

 

The book is strongly recommended.

 

Rating: 4 Star