The Moment When an Era’s Thinking Stopped
By Gamini Muthukumarana
On 14 March 1883, at exactly half past one in the afternoon, one of the world’s greatest intellectuals breathed his last. Reflecting on that moment, his lifelong friend Friedrich Engels famously said, “The greatest living thinker has ceased to think.”
Today marks 143 years since the death of Karl Marx, the extraordinary man whose ideas reshaped political thought and social struggle across the globe.
As Engels said during the funeral at Highgate Cemetery, Marx was not merely a philosopher who wrote books. Above all else, Marx was a revolutionary. He was the guide who showed oppressed people—crushed under the iron boots of capitalism—the pathway toward their own liberation.
I first heard the name Marx about 45 years ago. From that moment, his name became familiar to me. Yet even though I grew accustomed to hearing it often, the depth of his ideas truly began to resonate only through life’s experiences.
When one looks at the injustices, inequalities, and social contradictions that still exist in the world today, the value of Marx’s thought becomes clearer than ever—perhaps a thousand times more meaningful than it once seemed.
A Grave Not Far Away
From where I live today, the cemetery where Marx rests in Highgate is less than an hour away. I have visited that quiet burial ground several times.
Every time I go there, a particular thought crosses my mind.
It feels like one of history’s great ironies that many of the world’s oppressed people—whose lives could be transformed by the philosophical foundation this man provided—still remain unaware of the depth and significance of his ideas.
Is Marxism Outdated?
Some people today claim that Marxism has become outdated.
But such thinking is not a flaw in Marxism itself—it reflects only a misunderstanding of how society moves and evolves.
If the world still revolves around exploitation, then Marxism can never become obsolete.
What made Marx exceptional was his profound understanding of social dynamics. Society, he argued, is not something that remains stagnant in one place. It is constantly changing and moving. Through human intervention and struggle, societies evolve and progress.
Although Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed this philosophical framework together, it came to be known as Marxism for several key reasons.
The central discoveries that form the core of the philosophy—such as the theory of surplus value and the materialist interpretation of history—are primarily credited to Marx himself.
Even Engels once acknowledged that although he was a capable thinker, Marx was truly a genius.
An Extraordinary Friendship
Throughout his life, Engels always tried to place Marx in the forefront.
After Marx’s death, it was Engels who edited and published the second and third volumes of Das Kapital, which Marx had left unfinished.
Yet Engels humbly described his own role as merely “playing the second violin.” By this he meant that the principal leadership of their intellectual project belonged to Marx.
The bond between them was one of the most remarkable friendships in intellectual history.
Understanding and Changing the World
Marx did not teach us merely to interpret the world.
He taught us to change it.
Even today—and tomorrow as well—in every voice raised by oppressed people in the struggle for justice, in every breath taken in resistance against injustice, the living spirit of Marxism continues to exist.
The name of Karl Marx will endure throughout human history.
And so too will the immortal significance of his work.
🌹🌹🌹🌹
Note:
The photographs referenced show Rohana Wijeweera visiting Highgate Cemetery in London to pay tribute at Marx’s grave, as well as a moment when the current Miguel Díaz‑Canel, President of Cuba, paid his respects at the same site.
