The London, U.K. tomb of Karl Marx has been vandalized for the second time this month.
Under cover of darkness, vandals defaced the tomb of the so-called “Father of Communism” -- which features a larger-than-life bronze bust of Marx atop a marble pedestal -- with red paint, writing epithets such as “architect of genocide” and “doctrine of hate” over the weekend.
“The paint was still fresh on Saturday morning,” Ian Dungavell, chief executive of Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, told CTVNews.ca in a telephone interview from London. The Trust maintains the 180-year-old cemetery where the tomb is located.
“It is a senseless physical attack,” Dungavell added. “I think regardless of what you think of Marx’s ideology, it’s actually upsetting to see people cause physical destruction.”
Marx’s tomb, however, has been a repeat target for vandals since it was unveiled in 1956, even being bombed in the 1970s.
The tomb was also damaged earlier this month when someone hammered away at the marble plaque featured in the centre of the monument.
“It looked to me like a hammer (was used by) someone who was trying to obliterate Marx’s name,” Dungavell recalled.
That plaque, which dates from the 1880s, was further damaged in the more recent attack.
“The marble plaque will never be the same again,” Dungavell explained. “It’s very upsetting to imagine someone standing there and banging at it with a heavy implement to smash it up... Why they can’t have a more articulate response to Marx’s ideas instead of just resorting to brute physicality?”
Born in Germany in 1818, Marx famously wrote “The Communist Manifesto” in 1848 with fellow German philosopher Frederick Engels. That document, with its famous call to action -- “Working Men of All Countries, Unite!” -- helped spur communist revolutions across the world, forever changing the geopolitical landscape.
Fleeing political persecution, Marx moved to London in his early 30s where he would go on to write other major communist canonical works, such as “Das Kapital.” He died in London in 1883 at age 64 and was initially buried at another site in the same cemetery. The tomb that was vandalized also houses the remains of Marx’s wife and other members of his family.
Police are investigating the incident -- though Dungavell said he is doubtful that the perpetrators will be apprehended.
“I don’t think people have ever been caught,” he said of past vandals. “I don’t know that there are any witnesses to the attack, so it’s going to be difficult for (police) to do much, I expect.”
The Marx Grave Trust, which owns the monument, will direct repairs.
“Most of us have a rightful horror of inflicting that sort of violence on the memorials to the dead,” Dungavell said. “It is a Grade I listed monument, which places it in the top three per cent of important structures within England, so it’s very, very important that it’s looked after properly.”
Other Grade I monuments include London’s Kensington Palace and St. Paul's Cathedral.
Located in north London, Highgate Cemetery is also the final resting place of luminaries such as writers George Eliot and Douglas Adams, musician George Michael and prominent Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, who was assassinated in 2006.
