The Spirit of Marx awashed in a Sea of Consumerism



Ruis (Eduardo del Rio), a noted underground comic artist of leftist tracts in Mexico, wrote and drew 'Marx para Principiantes' which was a huge bestseller when it was published and translated into English in 1976 as 'Marx for Beginners'. The illustrated primer introduced Marx the historical figure and Marxist principles in a comic book form. Zany illustrations and dialogue balloons abound throughout the enthusiatic and sympathetic volume and the primer soon flew off shelves in great volumes. Cash registers rang, ka-ching! ka-ching! and the wheels of capitalism rolled.

Over the years, 'Marx for Beginners', festooned with an attractive trendy cover, continued selling and selling and selling and soon became the pioneering volume of a whole series of 'For Beginners' books, characterised by cartoons illustrating principles. Over the years, the books sold steadily and was reprinted many times.



Books often get re-titled and re-packaged with new covers especially if they are bestsellers. The 'For Beginners' series is no exception and 'Marx for Beginners' was soon transformed into 'Introducing Marx' with a cute and friendly new cover. For a book about Marxism and preaching violent revolution, this is certainly ironic. Cuteness and violence. Then again, the cute Karl Marx figure had a clenched fist. 'Violent Cuteness'.

A prominent commie once said that Capitalism would even sell its own tools for destruction if there were a profit to be made. I can't remember which commie and the exact statement. Well, in this case, capitalism is certainly assisting in spreading the commie propaganda. Marx, if he were alive, would have been delighted!

Still, the attitudes of the editor and the uncritical writer and illustrator Ruis made for compelling reading mainly due to their apparent, undoubted commitment and adherence to the commie creed. The Marxist glossary at the end where definitions of various terms are expressed in Marxist terminology is telling as the world is re-defined in their own terms. Dangerous!



And like all recent tracts advocating socialism and communism, this one (by the editor in the foreward) explains away the abysmal failures of Communism in the Soviet Union and China as not being the real thing! That, in the best tradition of communism, is doublespeak!

Like any good commies, they will all probably act in the interests of their deterministic view of history and explain it away as being inevitable and 1989 as being only a hiccup...