Karl Marx Brand Cigars
A worker-owned cigar brand inspired by the man himself.
The majority of the cartoons featured so far on The Vulgar Marxist appeared in the New York City based monthly magazine The Masses. Even radical socialist publications have to pay the bills and The Masses was no exception. In his first editorial in 1912, editor Max Eastman described the mission and purpose of the magazine:
A Free Magazine — This magazine is owned and published cooperatively by its editors. It has no dividends to pay, and nobody is trying to make money out of it. A revolutionary and not a reform magazine; a magazine with a sense of humour and no respect for the respectable; frank; arrogant; impertinent; searching for true causes; a magazine directed against rigidity and dogma wherever it is found; printing what is too naked or true for a money-making press; a magazine whose final policy is to do as it pleases and conciliate nobody, not even its readers — There is a field for this publication in America. Help us to find it.
The publication was offered free to readers and supported by a few advertisements. Ads included everything from public speaking lessons, bowler hats, typewriters, other socialist publications, "Imperial Plumes," and highly questionable patent medicines. One frequent advertiser was "Karl Marx Cigars." With such a big name attached to the brand, I was compelled to investigate further.
Under the bold "Smoke KARL MARX 5¢ Cigar" headline, the reader learns the cigars are made from "Sumatra wrapper" (which apparently tends to be "on the sweeter side.") and Havana filler. Unlike your average cigar, Karl Marx cigars are manufactured by the "Socialist Co-Operators of Reading" Pennsylvania. The customer could be sure their five cents were contributing to a good cause because the profits are "used for the Socialist propaganda."
What would Marx think of all this? He was certainly a smoker himself. According to Paul Lafargue in Reminiscences of Marx
Marx was a heavy smoker. “Capital,” he said to me once, “will not even pay for the cigars I smoked writing it.” But he was still heavier on matches. He so often forgot his pipe or cigar that he emptied an incredible number of boxes of matches in a short time to relight them.
In addition to being organized as a worker's cooperative, the Reading, PA Commonwealth Co-Operative Association was also unionized under Cigarworkers Local 236. The Reading cigarmakers may have had similar politics to The Masses since they shared a mutual support of The Socialist Party founded by Eugene V. Debs. According to their own meeting minutes "One of the largest unions." Maybe they were right? Cigarmakers had their own international craft union. Samuel Gompers himself was even a member. Cigarmakers were skilled laborers and surely benefited from organizing—until their jobs were crushed by automation (but the union did not disband until 1974.)
If you’re interested in learning more about these early 20th century experiments in worker owned cooperative enterprises, this 1911 issue of The Masses is dedicated to the topic. Personally I am skeptical cooperatives will ever be successful enough in a capitalist world, but it’s always interested to learn from those that struggled before us.
Personally I am skeptical cooperatives will ever be successful enough in a capitalist world, but it’s always fascinating to learn from movements that struggled before us.
Whatever you think of cigars and smoking—we can agree the finer pleasures in life should not be left for only the capitalists to enjoy.
— VM
The Vulgar Marxist
Cartoons, propaganda, art and design from working class movements
Twitter | Instagram | Facebook