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Brandon's Impotent Rage
3rd August 2013, 05:36
I'm sure some of you have already seen this, but for those who haven't it's a great way to explore Marx as a human being.

"Marx in Soho", a one-man show written by Howard Zinn.

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The premise is basically that Marx comes back from the dead to 'clear his name'.

Personally, I think that the way Zinn portrays Marx is probably pretty close to the reality. Marx comes off as a man with a good sense of humor, a curmudgeon's streak for complaining, a loving (if imperfect) husband and father and, over all, a man of intellect. He even starts off with telling the story of where the "I am not a marxist" quote comes from. He talks about Engels, his arguments with Bakunin (who he thought was a pig), and extraordinary and gifted daughter Eleanor, and how his wife Jenny was often his biggest supporter and his harshest critic.

We often forget that Marx was a human being. This just shows him to be a rather affable person, on top of being the godfather of modern socialism.

G4b3n
3rd August 2013, 06:52
I have been meaning to watch this for some time now, thank for you posting. I am currently right in the middle of "A People's History of the United States".
Oh and for all anti-Stalinists, he shits on Stalin around 0:48:00, I was waiting for it.

Sasha
3rd August 2013, 10:54
I saw a live performance last year, it was pretty good and thats saying something because as a former theater student I normally hate anything that only remotely reeks of agit-prop...

Brandon's Impotent Rage
6th August 2013, 01:37
One of the things I personally found interesting were the stories he tells about Marx's boils. "I had boils on my ass!". Of how he couldn't sit down for very long and had to stand constantly. Of how Jenny would quickly get the cloths soaked in cold water whenever one of the boils would pop in his sleep, and lay them down on his behind to sooth the pain.

The reason it interests me is because of that famous photograph of Marx from 1875 (you know the one, with his big bushy gray hair and beard, his right hand in his jacket like Napoleon). I always thought that he looked rather awkward in the way he was sitting in that chair, how it looked like he was sitting almost on the edge of the seat.

Well, now I know why. ;)1