"A frightful hobgoblin stalks throughout Europe. We are haunted by a ghost, the ghost of Communism.”
Those stirring words were written in 1850 by a woman who for a few months played a sparkling role in the history of 19th century socialism - and then disappeared into obscurity, apparently because she was snubbed at a do.
Helen Macfarlane was born in Barrhead, near Glasgow, on 25th September 1818, the daughter of a mill owner. But in 1842 her father died and his business collapsed, and Helen tumbled down through the social ranks to end up as a governess in Vienna. It was there that she witnessed – and was greatly impressed by – the revolutionary uprisings of 1848.
She returned to Britain, again working as a governess, and in her spare time became involved in the same political circles as Marx and Engels. Marx, in particular, admired her analysis and her writing. By now, she was a full-blooded revolutionary, who in modern terms would probably be described as a Christian Marxist. She was a pantheist, who believed that all people were equal, regardless of class, sex or race, and should have equal rights, because everyone contains god within them. Jesus, she argued, was the “first martyr” of the proletarian revolution, while established churches were enemies of the people, and of true religion. Only a revolution led by the working class could abolish capitalism and bring about democracy; Helen had no time for reformists. She sought nothing short of the common ownership of all capital, in “A republic without poor; without classes,” composed “not only of free men, but of free women.”
As far as is known, Macfarlane was active in radical journalism only during the single year of 1850. All her articles appeared in journals edited by George Harney, a leader of the left-wing faction in Chartism. It’s perhaps unsurprising, but nonetheless an injustice, that the only piece of journalism for which she is now remembered (when she is remembered at all) is the first translation into English of The Communist Manifesto.
Her career as a revolutionist ended suddenly on 31st December that year, during a banquet held at the British Museum by a coalition of left-wing groups called the Fraternal Democrats. Mary Harney, the wife of Helen’s editor, “declined her acquaintance” - cold-shouldered her, in other words – for reasons which are no longer known, if they ever were. According to Marx, reporting the affair in a letter to Engels, Harney himself “was idiotic and cowardly enough” not to make any effort to repair matters, and so the fruitful relationship between writer and editor came to an end.
Life had far worse insults in store for Helen Macfarlane. She married a Belgian revolutionary refugee, named Proust, and they decided to emigrate, along with their baby, to South Africa, where some of Helen’s family were now living. Proust, unwell, was taken off the ship early in the voyage, but mother and baby continued on. Within days of arrival in South Africa, the baby died. Helen returned alone to Britain, where Proust had also died.
Helen’s life had one last chapter – she married a clergyman in Cheshire, becoming step-mother to eleven children, and giving birth to two more. We can only hope that this was a happy time for her, despite her view that the church should have its property confiscated and its vicars should be forced to get proper jobs. Perhaps she and her reverend husband enjoyed lively debates together. She died of bronchitis in 1860, at the age of 41.
The Red Republican for 9th November 1850 gave Helen’s work this introduction: “The following manifesto, which has since been adopted by all fractions of German Communists, was drawn up in the German language, in January 1848, by Citizens Charles Marx and Frederic Engels. It was immediately printed in London in the German language and published a few days before the outbreak of the Revolution of February. The turmoil consequent upon that great event made it impossible to carry out, at that time, the intention of translating it into all the languages of civilized Europe. There exist two different French versions of it in manuscript, but under the present oppressive laws of France, the publication of either of them has been found impracticable. The English reader will be enabled, by the following excellent translation of this important document, to judge of the plans and principles of the most advanced party of the German Revolutionists.”
Helen’s translation, published in a small-circulation paper, did not attract much attention. Although The Times, and one or two self-publicising politicians, tried to get a red scare going about it (“the wildest and most anarchical doctrines”), nobody took a lot of notice. It wasn’t until 1888, with a new translation by Samuel Moore, a close ally of Marx and Engels, that one of history’s most influential (and bestselling) texts began to register with English speakers.
It is Moore’s version we know today, the one that begins “A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of communism.” Which I think is a pity: a hobgoblin beats a spectre hands down, surely?
Sources:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-20475989
https://imhojournal.org/articles/you-dont-know-helen-the-overlooked-and-forgotten-contributions-of-helen-macfarlane/
Karl Marx by Francis Wheen (Fourth state, 1999)
www.chartistancestors.co.uk/red-republican-a-socialist-internationalist-voice/
www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/helen-macfarlane