Draft in Engels's hand, written in English in March 1883 for his speech at Marx's graveside (Highgate Cemetery, 17 March 1883); untitled, the title is the editors'. Manuscript preserved at the IISG (Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels Papers, inv. H 75), transcribed from the digital facsimile by the Escuela de marxismo, 2026. Diplomatic transcription: spelling, capitals and punctuation as in the manuscript; deletions as text only where they can be read with certainty, otherwise [ilegible]; interlinear and marginal additions inserted where marked, with a note; [?] after an uncertain reading; [ilegible] for an illegible word.1 Traducción al español

Scarcely 15 Months ago most of us assembled round this grave, then about to become the last resting place of a proud & noble hearted woman. Today we have it reopened, to receive what2 [ilegible] remains of her husband.

Karl Marx was one of those preeminent men of whom a century produces not many. Charles Darwin discovered the law of the3 development of organic nature upon our planet. Marx is the discoverer of the fundamental4 law according to which human history moves & develops itself, a law so simple & selfevident that its statement simple enunciation is almost sufficient to secure assent. Not enough with that, Marx has also discovered the fundamental law [ilegible] has created5 our actual state of society with its great class-division of Capitalists & wages-labourers; the law according to which that society has become organised, has grown until it almost outgrows itself, & according to which it6 must ultimately [ilegible] perish like7 [ilegible] all previous [ilegible] prehistorical phases of society. Such results render it all the more painful that he should have been taken from us in the midst of his work, & that, much as he did, still more he left uncompleted.

But Science, though dear to him, was far from absorbing him entirely. [ilegible] No man could feel a purer joy than he when a new scientific progress was secured8 anywhere, no matter whether practically applicable or not, but he looked upon Science above all things as a grand historical lever, as a [ilegible] revolutionary power in the most eminent sense of the word. And as such he used [ilegible] it [?],9 to such purpose he wielded that immense knowledge especially of history in all its branches of which he disposed.

For he was indeed, what he called himself, a Revolutionist. The struggle for the emancipation of the class of wages-laborers from the fetters of the present capitalistic economic10 system of production, was the his real element. And no more active Combatant than he ever existed. [ilegible]11 The crowning effort of this part of his work was the creation of the Intern. W. M. Assoc. of which he was the acknowledged leader from 186412–72. The Ass. has disappeared, as far as outward show goes; but the fraternal bond of union of the working men of all civilized13 countries of Europe & America is established once for ever, & continues to live even without any outward, formal bond of union.

No man can struggle fight without for any cause without creating enemies, And he has had plenty of them. For the greater part of his political life he was the best hated & best slandered man in Europe. But he scarcely ever noticed Calumny. If ever man lived Calumny down, he did. And at the time of his death he could look with pride upon the millions of his followers in the mines of Siberia as well as in the workshops of Eur. & Am.14 — he saw his [ilegible] economical theories adopted as the undisputed creed of universal Socialism, & if he still had many opponents, there was scarcely one personal enemy left.

  1. Two sheets folded together: page 1 on the right of the first image, pages 2 and 3 on the second; page 4 (outside) carries only the docket, in German script: «Entwurf zu Mohrs Grabrede 83». Page 1 ends «or not,» with a flourish; the comma is not quite certain. ↩

  2. «what» written above the line, over two deleted words. ↩

  3. «the» written above the line. ↩

  4. «fundamental» written in the left margin, with a stroke to its place. ↩

  5. Thus in the manuscript: no relative pronoun survives between «law» and «has created»; at the end of the line there is a sign like «+» or «x». ↩

  6. «according to which it» written above the line. ↩

  7. «perish like» written above the line, over the deleted words; the deletion runs on to the beginning of the next line, where a word that may be «exist» [?] is also struck through. ↩

  8. After «secured», at the end of the line, a sign like «x» or «+»; its purpose is not clear. ↩

  9. «it» [?] written below the deleted words (four or five words, possibly beginning «that science of history» [?]). ↩

  10. «economic» written above the line. ↩

  11. Two and a half lines struck through here, legible only in part (two dates, «1842» [?] and «1848 & 49» [?], can be made out); not transcribed. ↩

  12. The «6» is written over another figure. ↩

  13. «civilized» written above the line. ↩

  14. «in the mines of Siberia as well as in the workshops of Eur. & Am.» written in small letters between the lines, with a caret after «followers». ↩