Remembering Laura and Paul

On this day in 1911, Laura Marx and Paul Lafargue committed suicide together, having decided they had nothing left to give to the movement to which they had devoted their lives. Laura Marx was 66 and Paul Lafargue was 69. Laura and Paul first met on the landing of the Marx’s house in London: the  young medical student was bringing  Marx documents for the development of the newly found International Workingmen’s Association in Paris, whereas she was hurryingly taking her father some books she had just brought from the British Museum.

Paul Lafargue and Laura Marx got married by civil ceremony in London. Witnesses to their wedding were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Paul Lafargue left a suicide note saying:
“Healthy in body and mind, I end my life before pitiless old age which has taken from me my pleasures and joys one after another; and which has been stripping me of my physical and mental powers, can paralyse my energy and break my will, making me a burden to myself and to others. For some years I had promised myself not to live beyond 70; and I fixed the exact year for my departure from life. I prepared the method for the execution of our resolution, it was a hypodermic of cyanide acid. I die with the supreme joy of knowing that at some future time, the cause triumph to which I have been devoted for forty-five years will triumph. Long live Communism! Long Live the Second International.”

The Socialist Standard commented at the time:
 “Readers know the circumstances in which Paul Lafargue and Laura Marx have ended life together, with their last words expressing their belief in the early triumph of the cause for which they laboured. We bow before death. Nevertheless we rejoice that, although Lafargue has laid down his pen, his words still fight on behalf of the workers.”