Karl Marx in his own words at 205: Nothing to celebrate, much to remember and condemn

 Anti-Semite, racist, advocate of terrorism, and genocide honored in Cuba and in Germany.

Karl Marx's heirs in Cuba: Miguel Diaz-Canel (left) and Raul Castro (2nd from left).

 The Castro regime finally celebrated May Day, four days late, on Friday, but Cuban workers have nothing to rejoice about. In Cuba, there are no legal independent unions, and workers do not have the right to strike or bargain collectively. 72% of Cubans live in poverty, defined by the World Bank as a daily income of less than $1.90. 

Prior to Cuba's 1959 communist revolution, that was supposed to empower workers, but stripped them of their rights and agency, Cuban trade unions over a half century had achieved much for their members, and Cuban society at large.

Labor legislation passed in 1938 guaranteed workers' rights such as the minimum wage, pensions that assumed a constitutional character; and the creation of the Central of Workers of Cuba  Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC in Spanish) on January 28, 1939. All of the above made trade unionism an important factor in Cuban civil society. 

In 1940 a new Constitution was drawn up that respected labor rights, and strengthened them, and ushered in a period of competitive elections in which power was contested. The right to strike was recognized in the 1940 Constitution. This translated into real world gains for Cuban workers. For example, the sugar union "managed to impose a guarantee clause, thanks to which the workers of the sector obtained an extra salary of 13.42%, known as the sugar differential." In 1945, with half a million affiliates, the CTC was the second largest trade union in the region.

Professor James W. McGuire and Laura B. Frankel in their paper published in the Latin American Research Review, “Mortality Decline in Cuba, 1900-1959: Patterns, Comparisons, and Causes” found that “Cuba's progress relative to other Latin American countries at reducing infant mortality was even greater from 1900 to 1960 than from 1960 to 1995. During the earlier period, Cuba led all Latin American countries for which data are available at raising life expectancy and reducing infant mortality. From 1960 to 1995, by contrast, it came in fourth and fifth respectively.”

Cuba celebrates International Workers' Day

Thousands of Cubans filled the country's squares on Friday to celebrate International Workers' Day and the 205th anniversary of Karl Marx.

#ALaPatriaManosYCorazón 🇨🇺❤ pic.twitter.com/Tij1xTvPtM

— Embacuba_Turquia (@Embacuba_Turqui) May 5, 2023

Marxism-Leninism took power in 1959, and worker's rights began to evaporate along with wealth generation in the wider society.

On January 22, 1959 the CTC was replaced by the CTC-Revolucionaria. In the X Congress, held in November 1959. And in the XI Congress, November 1961, the delegates renounced almost all the achievements of the labor movement: "the nine days of leave for sickness, the supplementary Christmas bonus, the weekly shift of 44 x 48 hours, the right to strike and an increase of 9.09%, among many others.

The Hotel Habana Libre that had been owned by the Hotel Workers Labor Union (Sindicato Cubano de Trabajadores de la Gastronomía ) retirement fund was seized by the revolutionary government. The Hospital Maternidad Obrera (built 1939) was taken and fell into disrepair without adequate funding and maintenance by the revolutionary government.Workers were required to do "voluntary work" that was not voluntary.

The original intellectual author of this debacle is Karl Marx, and unfortunately despite the repeated disasters his ideology has caused around the world, many continue to advance his political agenda. 

Bronze statue of Karl Marx given to German town by Communist regime in China.

Karl Marx's 18-foot bronze statue was unveiled in his hometown of Trier, Germany, on April 13, 2018. The statue was a gift from China's Communist regime to commemorate the 200th anniversary of German communist theorist Karl Marx's birth on May 5th. Communist China has the highest absolute death toll of any communist state.

Marx's writings demonstrate that the German philosopher is the father of the Communist ideology that has cost over a 100 million lives, and other endemic problems found in Marxist regimes.  Marx's early formulation of communism is antisemitic and offers a "solution" to the "Jewish Problem."

"Money is the Jealous God of Israel, beside which no other God may exist. Money abases all the gods of mankind and changes them into commodities.  The god of the Jews has been secularized and has become the god of the world. In emancipating itself from hucksterism and money, and thus from real and practical Judaism, our age would emancipate itself...by destroying the empirical essence of Judaism, the Jew will become impossible." Source Karl Marx-Engels Collected Works (London 1975ff),vol. iii,pp146-74

His early defense of using terror, one of the key elements of Totalitarianism is also problematic.

"We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you.  When our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism." Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, vol. vi pp 503-5

"Far from opposing the so-called excesses, those examples of popular vengeance against hated individuals or public buildings which have acquired hateful memories, we must not only condone these examples but lend them a helping hand." Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, vol. vii p 239

Karl Marx in the essay “Forced Emigration,” in the New York Daily Tribune, 22 March 1853 seems to view the elimination of classes and races as a necessary part of revolution:

Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way. 

In a July 30, 1862 letter to Frederick Engels, his chief benefactor, Marx described nineteenth-century German socialist, Ferdinand Lassalle, in a racist manner:

The Jewish Nigger Lassalle . . .fortunately departs at the end of this week . . . It is now absolutely clear to me that, as both the shape of his head and his hair texture shows – he descends from the Negros who joined Moses’ flight from Egypt (unless his mother or grandmother on the paternal side hybridized with a nigger). Now this combination of Germanness and Jewishness with a primarily Negro substance creates a strange product. The pushiness of the fellow is also nigger-like.

This may explain why the Soviet Union, the first communist regime, allied with Nazi, Germany in 1939 to divide Poland and plunge the world into World War II. It also might explain why 23 years later Fidel Castro would contract former Nazi SS Waffen members to train Cuban troops in 1962.

There is much to remember and condemn on the 205th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. There is nothing to celebrate. 

If you want to help Cuban workers, and the Cuban people more broadly then sign the petition to call on international labor unions to call on the Castro regime to restore labor rights in Cuba.