Chennai: Marcello Musto, a Marx scholar and an assistant professor of sociology at York University in Toronto, on Tuesday said that there is a renewed interest in reading Karl Marx across the globe after Capitalism crisis in 2008.
“There is a strong revival for ideas of Karl Marx. There is again a strong necessity to revisiting socialism and communist theories. The death of Karl Marx was declared after the fall of Berlin wall in 1989. After 2008, there is once again revival of Marx. Of course this revival is not political revival. Left is still weak in many parts of the world. This revival is opening again the space for us to rethink socialism,” said Mr Musto said
Mr Musto is the author of the first English-language anthology on the International Working Men’s Association (IWMA), Workers Unite! The International 150 Years Later. It contains 80 documents and resolutions from the period of the two decades the International was active.
Speaking at a function here to mark the release of Tamil translation of his book by S.V. Rajadurai, he dispelled many myths surrounding the IWMA, better known as the First International and role of Karl Marx. The First International, the first steps of the autonomous organization of the workers in world, was commonly believed to be founded by Marx but it was not so, he said, adding that Marx was not even among the organizers of the meeting that took place at St Martin’s Hall on September 28, 1864. “On that occasion, he sat “in a non-speaking capacity on the platform,” as he recalled in a letter to his friend Engels,” he noted.
Writer S.V. Rajadurai said that book release function helped fulfil his wish to see all the communist parties coming together in a same platform. Senior CPI leader D. Pandian, CPI (M) and CPI state secretary G. Ramakrishnan and R. Mutharasan and CPI (ML) leaders also spoke.
