Karl Marx

Obituary

["L'Internationale" No. 53, 16 January 1870]

Citizen Robert Shaw, corresponding secretary of the London General Council for North America and one of the founders of the International, died this week of pulmonary consumption.

He was one of the most active members of the Council, pure in heart, of a manly character, impetuous temperament, truly revolutionary spirit, above all petty ambition or personal interests. Himself a poor worker, he always found a way to help a still poorer worker. In his personal relations as gentle as a child, in his public life he rejected every compromise with contempt. It is principally due to his unceasing efforts that the Trade-Unions rallied around us. But this very work created for him many irreconcilable enemies. The English Trade-Unions, all of which are of local origin and were originally founded exclusively for the purpose of maintaining wages, etc., were, without exception, more or less afflicted with the narrow-mindedness characteristic of the guilds of the Middle Ages. There was a small conservative group that wanted to cling at all costs to the original barriers of trade unionism. When the International was founded, Shaw set himself the goal of bursting these self-imposed fetters and transforming the Trade-Unions into organised centres of the proletarian revolution. Success almost always crowned his efforts, but at the same time his life became a terrible struggle to which his weak health had to succumb. He was already mortally ill when he went to the Brussels Congress (September 1868). On his return his good bourgeois masters outlawed him and closed the gates of their workshops to him. He leaves a wife and a daughter in poverty, but the English workers will not leave them without assistance.