Marx in London 
Every Sunday
11am - 1pm (approx) Piccadilly Circus

Our Guides
 

 Heiko Khoo

Heiko Khoo has studied Marxist ideas for  33 years. He completed his PhD in 2018. It examines China's social system and political economy using Marxist theory. You can download it here. Heiko is well-known orator at London's Speakers' Corner and he produces the weekly Speakers' Corner radio show for Resonance fm. He previously ran walking tours in Berlin specialising in the rise and fall of East Germany and has a detailed knowledge of East European and Soviet jokes, which he uses to enhance the Karl Marx story and to help explain the fate of Communist states. Heiko helped the German Historical Museum in Berlin to prepare a major exhibition Karl Marx and Capitalism in the spring of 2022. 

Heiko was the lead author and researcher for the guide book Karl Marx in London published 2018 by the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth.

Mark Bygrave

Our guides are experts in the field and have spent decades studying and unravelling the complexities of the life and ideas of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and their followers. On the walking tour we combine this knowledge with the didactic and entertaining style of a storyteller. We explain the intellectual influences of the time and delve into the secrets of Karl Marx's ideas. We explain the significance of the 1848 revolutions, and the dramatic and bloody events of the 1871 Paris Commune. We describe the life of struggle and hardship of an extraordinary community of European revolutionaries who made Victorian London their home. This circle of refugees developed ideas, organisations and political movements which would shape world politics in the twentieth century



The weekly Karl Marx walking tour 2 Oct 2022

This walking tour will help you to explain and understand how the modern world and its economic, social and political conflicts came about. The tour does not assume any previous knowledge and it is pitched at a level that will leave everyone from the complete novice to the seasoned expert satisfied. We welcome schools and universities, and provide specialist tours for visiting scholars, media outlets and embassies, etc. 

Join us as we walk you through the life, times and ideas of Karl Marx.

www.Marxwalks.com

admin@marxwalks.com

Tel 07722523629

 

KARL MARX WALKS IN THE NEWS
 

In search of Karl Marx in London

Radio show about Marx Walks on Deutschlandfunk

Interview on RT about the Karl Marx walking tour on George Galloway's Sputnik show click the image below to watch provided that you live in a country where you are allowed to look at Russia Today's archives that is!
Alternatively, you can download the Tor Browser to access websites like this that have been banned. 

Mick Brooks 1948-2021 RIP

Farewell comrade Mick Brooks

Mick Brooks died at 2am on 8 January 2021. He suffered a stoke in 2020 but appeared to be on the road to recovery. Then he contracted Covid-19 over the Christmas period, which his body was unable to fight off. 

Mick Brooks was a revolutionary whose whole adult life was dedicated to the development and exposition of Marxist ideas. He was active in the Militant Tendency, the International Marxist Tendency and in the Labour Party. Over the last eight years, we worked together running the Karl Marx walking tour.

I first met Mick around 1983 at the offices of the Militant newspaper in Mentmore Terrace, near Bethnal Green in London. I believe he was in charge of the bookshop at the time. To the casual observer Mick appeared to be aloof rather than inviting, and he was more than a little insecure when circumstance compelled him to engage in small talk. But this same Mick was transformed when he rose to speak at meetings, where his character, energy and strength resonated around the room. His voice pierced the air beginning with a firmly stated “comrades”. He would speak with clarity, authority and certainty, drawing on classical references from Marxist theory and weaving this into a clear and coherent analysis of the contemporary world.

Unlike many comrades in such meetings, Mick would not speak for the sake of speaking, but always to provide some unique view, or nuanced analysis of events. When Mick rose the emphasis in the discussion often changed course. His didactic skills in Marxism were used to explain the most complex theories in the most simple language possible, without ever compromising on precision.

Thus, Mick’s book “Capitalist Crisis: Theory and Practice” was designed to address the difficulties that readers have with reading something like Marx’s Capital. Indeed, when Capital was about to go to press, Engels wrote to Marx complaining about the long chapters, about ideas not being fully explained or reinforced before moving to a new concept, which made reading Capital into a struggle. No such difficulties exist for the reader of Mick’s book.

During bitter internal conflicts in the Militant Tendency and later in the International Marxist Tendency, Mick naturally inclined against bureaucratic and personal intrigues. He always remained on the high ground of theoretical analysis. And when these Marxist political groups adopted views that he found to be in contradiction to his interpretation of basic Marxist theory and practice, he would express exasperation.

He soldiered on inside the Labour Party’s left-wing faction the Labour Representation Committee, and what became its official magazine, Labour Briefing. For many years this relatively tiny organisation, composed mainly of older comrades, was directly linked to the Jeremy Corbyn/John McDonnell faction. Despite all the ups and downs of the Corbyn wave and its eventual defeat, Mick continued to doggedly pursue work in the LRC and Labour Briefing.

Mick’s dedication, motivation and energy despite innumerable setbacks is unique to those with an eye and sense for the broad sweep of historical processes. Drawing on the insights available through Marxist research, writing, and practical intervention in struggle, Mick stood as if on a mountain top, observing the motion of the masses with an almost other-worldly objectivity.

In April 2012, Mick led our very first Karl Marx walking tour with 4 students in attendance. They were delighted with the tour. Since then, we ran tours at least once a week, meeting many thousands of people from every corner of the world. Mick’s special didactic skills helped people at all levels of knowledge to grasp in a couple of hours what it might otherwise take weeks or months to learn. He drew on his entire life’s experience to furnish his exposition with the same precision and didactic clarity that marked his character and work.

It was always a pleasure to see Mick walking around Soho followed by a crowd. Often, in the British Museum’s Enlightenment Gallery, when he summarised the life and ideas of Marx, a cheeky sparkle flashed in his eye, as he drew Marx’s life story to an end. The story of Marx’s death was always followed by an affirmation of the vitality of his ideas.