Eleanor Marx (1855-1898)

[This review by Desmond Greaves of the second volume of Yvonne Kapp’s biography of Marx’s youngest daughter, titled “Eleanor Marx: the Crowded Years 1884-1898”, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 775 pages, £12, was carried in the February 1977 issue of the “Irish Democrat”, under the title below.]

A Brilliant Biography

At last there is a book costing twelve pounds that is worth every penny of this vast price. It is a splendid work, monumental in every sense of the word.

it is indeed two works in one. It has the story of the multifarious activities of Karl Marx’s youngest daughter, the one closest to him in temperament. But it also tells the story of the British, indeed the international, working-class movement during some of the most crucial years of its history. It was of course the tragedy of that generation that the onset of imperialism robbed them of the fruits of their work, which were indeed reaped in other lands.

Mrs Kapp provides over a thousand references. Every detail is checked with scrupulous care. In the result the story carries the reader forward like a huge river where the individual waves are completely discernible. She is obviously an extremely clever woman, and it is something that Eleanor Marx’s monument should be erected by such a biographer, who brings out all the vital conclusions without ever succumbing to the temptation to moralise.

For example, she never herself condemns the anarchists. But after reading the facts nobody could be in any doubt that the International was always right to exclude them. And I can think of some on the lunatic Left that correspond to them exactly and should be excluded from all decision-making today.

As for Eleanor Marx herself, it takes the book’s eight hundred pages to do justice to her. She is shown as a dedicated compiler and popularizer of her father’s thought, as a trade union organiser of great accomplishment who was right in the forefront of those who were converting the great unrest into greater organisation, as a secretary, stenographer, interpreter at one international congress after another, translator and writer. Mrs Kapp notes her pride in her Jewish origins, in which she was right too, because Judaism never descended to the depths of degradation that marked the much-vaunted Greco-Roman civilization. And she shows Eleanor Marx as a champion of women’s rights, substantial ones too, not what Engels called the “formal” ones, which one presumes were the nineteenth century equivalent of being called “mizz” or “chairperson”. As Engels put it: “an irrelevant form of warfare between the sexes, leaving the employers of labour totally unmoved.”

Perhaps Eleanor Marx’s greatest achievement was the building up of the Gasworkers’ Union, now the NUGMW [National Union of General and Municipal Workers], and its story is told in fine detail. Eleanor Marx’s last visit to Ireland was when she attended its second conference which was held in Dublin.

This is a book that is not only carefully written in the literary sense but has a sensitivity of presentation that inspires total confidence. It is full of unobtrusive commonsense about the way John Thompson’s bairns do in fact go about their business – the one abiding wonder that lasts you right through your life and is always liable to augmentation.

This is especially true in her treatment of Edward Aveling. Of course he was a scoundrel. But Mrs Kapp refrains from tearing him apart. She leads carefully up to Eleanor’s judgement, that he suffered a weakness in moral sense, as somebody else might have a weak sense of balance, or bad teeth. She acknowledges that there must have been something in him that was good, but just what it was is hard to say. His treatment of Eleanor was abominable to the last degree. Yet his political loyalty never wavered.

One throws one’s mind back to the gossip of former years. T.A. Jackson used to say that Aveling – it used often be pronounced Avvel-ing, but Mrs Kapp does not say whether it should be a Ave-ling – was the most brilliant man he ever met. “But, mind you,” he would add, “`He’d f … a cat!” He used to tell the story that at Aveling’s funeral there were dozens of sorrowing women, all dressed in black, with babies of variable sizes in arms or in tow. But Mrs Kapp disposes of that, and perhaps throws light on the man. He had no children. He was not able for them. She is not completely convinced of the reason for his universal unpopularity, natural enough in such a dogged borrower. Perhaps, she suggests, it was partly due to national prejudice because of Aveling’s Irish connections.

It used to be said years ago that the two Avelings committed suicide because they felt they could no longer be of service to the Labour Movement. This would be too old at forty with a vengeance. But in disposing of this myth, Mrs Kapp traces it to its origin in police evidence given at the inquest.

In her moving last and penultimate sections, where she deals with the last days of Engels, when the ailing genius fell into the hands of the unscrupulous Doctor who had married Kautsky’s first wife, the author sighs for the pen of a Balzac or at least the novelist’s artistic licence. But she makes a fair fist of it without them. These chapters are indeed fascinating reading, and no novelist could better portray the characters and the clash of character. There is little doubt that the last few months of estrangement from Engels, followed by his death, formed part of the background against which Aveling’s shabby behaviour precipitated the suicide.

If only she had lived! The last sentence in the book has however just the slightest touch of an anti-climax, which is a pity. It is a quotation from Shakespeare, but inapposite because the sense demands “thereafter” instead of “hereafter” in 1977. It might be better to quote Joe Hill, who didn’t die at all.

This book is a monument to its author’s wide learning and humane culture. It is moreover full of glorious wee items of gossip. Whoever is tired of gossip is tired of life. Did you know for example that Thomas Carlyle’s maidservant was engaged in giving birth in one room, while Carlyle entertained his lady friends in the adjoining one? It doesn’t make any difference but it’s very nice to know.

And did you know that Frederick Engels bought his wine in Dublin?

There is quite a bit about Ireland in the book, but you would never think so from looking at the index. It is an inadequate index for a book of this kind. Naturally if you are interested in some particular branch of the movement, you will wish to read what Mrs Kapp says about it, without reading or re-reading the entire text. I marked twelve distinct references to Ireland that should have been indexed. The author had somebody do her index for her. I’m not sure it is good practice. Do your own, for you alone know what should be put in.

Of course there are one or two little things one can just mention. John Lincoln MacMahon is always referred to as J. L. Mahon, the name he adopted when he went to Leeds in order to escape the consequences of a blacklisting. We would like to have on record in a place like this his connection with Co. Monaghan, especially as his son was born in Dublin. And then in connection with the Scottish tour of 1895, it would have been interesting to know more details, for it was then that Eleanor Marx met James Connolly.

The printing and production are excellent – a misprint in a footnote on page 77 notwithstanding – and the pictures of Aveling are a study in Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Usually one says of a highly priced book like this, see it in your library. But this time the reviewer says pawn your television.