1. One hundred and fifty years ago, Marx’s Capital (volume 1) was published. Nobody, OK, almost nobody thought it was a big deal.
One hundred years ago, the event voted “least likely to succeed” by the senior class attending the Second International’s Karl Kautsky Gymnasium, occurred. Everybody, everywhere knew the Russian Revolution was a really big deal.
And that’s OK. Marx was first, foremost, last, and always a revolutionist. “Economics” is, in his own word, shit.
Revolution, in Lenin’s words is “the festival of the oppressed.” Everybody, well almost everybody, knows how much Marx and Engels loved to party.
If there were still a Soviet Union around, the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution would be marked by some big-ass parades in Red Square– rocket launchers, tanks, armored personnel carriers, airborne troops, with the usual gray eminences standing appropriately/inappropriately atop Lenin’s Tomb, looking like they were just three hours either side of the cardiac intensive care unit; clapping hands (their own), pounding chests (each other’s) to keep warm enough, breathe long enough to have time for one more cigarette, one more shot of vodka.
