When I came to London, I found it very boring and not impressing. I was accustomed to general view of London by watching British TV shows, reading British novels and newspapers and learning about British political system in undergrad education. I’m now aware that I made a big mistake as I try to judge this city just by its looking. Because, a city can be only meaningful through learning its late residents, briefly its living history. More you read about an important person for this city, more you can feel its soul. Marx, apart from his reputation as a great mind, lived very hard life and found rather more comfort in London. Reading Marx’s history makes you understand better this city’s central role in the 19th century. Marx had to come to this city it is because France, Belgium and his home country Prussia didn’t want to host him. But London was welcoming every political refugee from every part of the world without real hardships. He sailed to Britain on 27 August 1849 and remained there until his death in 1883. He definitely impressed by the social classes and technical achievements of Britain. But he found his theoretical way by reading every economy book in British Museum and British Library.
A few months after his arrival in London, Karl Marx noticed a working model of an electric railway engine in the window of a Regent Street shop. (Yes! Regent Street: bars, cafes, and Marx… It is still interesting to see all kind of entertainment over there and feeling Marx’s soul. He was on this street, the thing is going to make me happy for a while.) Then he said, “The problem is solved- the consequences are indefinable… In the wake of the economic revolution the political must necessarily follow, for the latter is only expression of the former” Yeah, the consequences… He tried to study every day without getting bored and losing his attention. He had no money for his large family, and had to find a way out of his financial problem. His home was really a bad one, and starving made things very hard for the family. The Marxes’ youngest son, Guido, died suddenly from a fit of convulsions in November 1850; their one-year old daughter Franziska died at Easter 1852 after a severe attack of bronchitis. Another son died of consumption in March 1855. According to the witnesses, during the funeral of the son “Marx stepped forward as the coffin was lowered into the earth and convinced most of the mourners that he intended to hurl himself in after it.”
Marx wrote in February 1852, to his best friend Friedrich Engels, “for the past eight to ten days I have been feeding the family solely on bread and potatoes, but whether I shall be able to get hold of any today is doubtful... “ He wrote again to Engels in April 1858, “I don’t suppose anyone has ever written about “money” when so short of the stuff”
Yeah, I have to accept, I’m fascinated by reading tragedy of Marx, it is because this tragedy happened in these streets, in this city. I can even imagine Marx’s behaviors when he going to library and sleeping on the couch in the afternoons.
I read all of these things from a very good book, Marx’s Das Kapital by Francis Wheen. I bought it for nearly 3 pounds from Watersones. Begin to love this city now!
PS: Leftist history professor, Howard Zinn has a play, same name in the title. I have known the title before but assumed that he was trying to put Soho's cultural environment and Marx's materialistic point of view in a pot. (Latest academical fashion trying to put irrelevant things all together to impress people) I have never heard of Marx has lived in Soho before. I love Zinn because I had the chance reading his great book, A People's History of the United States.
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