The tomb of legendary philosopher, Karl Marx in London has been vandalised for the second time in less than two weeks.
This time, vandals splashed the monument to the 19th-century political philosopher in Highgate Cemetery — which is listed among British structures with exceptional historical interest — with bright red paint.
The words “doctrine of hate” and “architect of genocide” were found daubed in red paint across the Grade I-listed monument in the north London graveyard on Saturday.
The latest attack comes less than two weeks after the marble plaque on the tomb was defaced by an apparent attempt to scrape and chip Marx’s name off the marble slab with a hammer.
At the time the group who manage the cemetery said they feared the memorial would never be the same again. Maxwell Blowfield, 31, who visited the cemetery this morning with his mother admitted he was “quite shocked” by the attack.
This month, someone took a hammer to the monument and tried to scrape and chip Marx’s name off the marble slab — an attack that Ian Dungavell, the chief executive of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, described as “very upsetting,” according to the British newspaper The Guardian.
German revolutionary philosopher Marx moved to London in 1849 and lived in the city for the rest of his life. His theories became the basis for communism before he died on March 14, 1883, aged 64. The granite slab monument in north London, 12 feet (3.7 metres) tall and topped with a bronze bust of Marx, was funded in 1956 by the Communist Party of Great Britain.
