In April 1845, Karl Marx's mother-in-law sent the Marx family a nanny named Helene Demuth, affectionately called "Lenchen". Marx's suffering wife, Jenny, was thrilled since she had long desired Karl to "make some capital instead of just writing about it".
However, Karl refused to earn money, as well as neglecting personal hygiene, which resulted in boils covering his body. As the late historian Paul Johnson observed, Marx's boils, which appeared all over his body, including his genitalia, led to a nervous breakdown marked by tremors and explosive bouts of anger.
Thus, when Jenny's mother sent Lenchen, Marx's wife breathed a sigh of relief.
On the other hand, it is incorrect to say that Lenchen worked for the Marx family, as she worked unpaid. A Marx biographer described Lenchen as "property to be exploited" by Marx. Karl, a champion of the proletariat, never paid her a penny. The unsophisticated, frail, and poor girl gave her all to the Marx household, including her body – to Karl.
Marx had an affair with Lenchen behind Jenny's back, the frequency of which remains unknown to historians. "He would take his comfort where he could," wrote one of Marx's biographers, indicating Marx's disregard for Lenchen’s status as virtually his slave. "Whether he raped or seduced the maid will probably never be known." Eventually, a child was born.
In June 1851, Lenchen gave birth to a boy. Marx, who had several children with Jenny, refused to acknowledge the boy as his own and naturally declined to provide any financial support. The illegitimate son was named "Freddy" – after Marx's infamous co-author, Friedrich Engels.
Marx and his family lived largely off Engels, or more specifically, off Engels's capitalist father's inheritance. Engels was Karl Marx's financial supporter. Here, Engels came to the rescue once again.
"Engels had accepted paternity of Frederick," wrote Marx biographer David McLellan. He agreed to claim the child as his own. As another Marx biographer stated, "Engels cared little for his reputation, especially regarding women." Like Marx, the vagrant, Engels also refused to provide Freddy with a home. Freddy was sent to foster parents.
Marx's dedicated yet desperate wife was undoubtedly not surprised. What else could she expect from the man she referred to as her "wild boar" and "the devil"?
I revisit this sordid story (detailed thoroughly in my biography of Marx) because of the unsavory event that our perverse Western culture celebrates today: International Women's Day.
What Karl Marx did to Lenchen is a metaphor for what communism has done to billions of humans and how Marx viewed women. It's also a fitting omen for International Women's Day, which has long been a communist holiday.
Yes, that's right. If you're shocked and outraged by what I just said about this date, well, you have my sympathy. You are a victim of the appalling government schools and university indoctrination factories of this country, which have led modern youth who celebrate this annual day to not even know its Marxist origins.
For me, personally, it has become my unfortunate custom to write about International Women's Day for The American Spectator every March, when this miserable thing re-emerges. And re-emerge it does. The world's dominant search engine highlights International Women's Day immediately as the clock strikes 12:01. I would name this search engine, but doing so would trigger its faceless censors to flag this article and publication. We are at its mercy.
Not unlike how we are at the mercy of the useful idiots who now celebrate International Women's Day every March 8, completely oblivious to its socialist origins. When I try to inform them that they are celebrating a day championed by the Bolsheviks, they ignore me. In friendlier cases, they incredulously object: “Well, so what? It's not a Marxist or socialist holiday to me!”
Indeed, for most people celebrating today, it is not (although, for many, it is). Here, in the United States, we have long had a significant problem with the broader progressive left and the general culture that cluelessly adheres to causes and campaigns cleverly launched by Marxists. Indeed, it's telling that one of the longest books I've ever published was titled Fools. The far-left has been so successful precisely because of the non-leftists they've snagged as fools for over a century.
International Women's Day is another example of this. Just as committees were able to entice broader swaths of the American public into their various front groups by simply giving them appealing names like the American Mobilization for Peace or the American League Against War and Fascism, so they have done with events like International Women's Day.
If you want proof, just visit the websites of the Communist Party USA, People’s World, or
the Trotskyist rag The Militant. Yes, go there. See how they mark International Women's Day. Read and learn. By the way, I'll make it easy for you: click here and here. Or click here for a large and dense archive of International Women's Day. Or click here and celebrate International Women's Day with the widow of Vladimir Lenin!
These links should make you red (pun intended) in the face. And if you're still willing to celebrate the Bolshie holiday after that, then you're what the communists used to call a sucker. Ladies, wake up! It's essential to understand that International Women's Day, like Vladimir Putin, was promoted by the KGB. Would you joyfully celebrate a day celebrated by fascists or Nazis?
I'm not happy to write this (well, maybe a little). Believe me, it often hurts to know what I know and what others do not. The naive need to realize that their new date for women is old, rotten fruit from a poisoned tree. The tree of Karl Marx.
Speaking of him, old Karl is undoubtedly laughing from the grave. Karl Marx would love to see millions of non-Marxists going to bed with International Women's Day. Just like he went to bed with Lenchen.
By: Paul Kengor