Which marx played better chess: karl or groucho? | thearticle

One game of chess played by Karl Marx does exist (see the link below) but it must be regarded as apocryphal. In this game, Marx achieves a level of chessboard brilliance, matching that of

games attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, which are known to be fabricated. Surely, if Karl Marx had been that strong at chess, other game records would have survived. Sadly, they do not. In

contrast, the monumental biography of Lenin by Robert Service provides more convincing evidence of chess prowess. It seems that the revolutionary founder of the Soviet state, which was to

become the greatest chess power the world had ever seen, or ever likely to see, was in fact a passionate devotee of chess. According to Service, the young Lenin assiduously studied those

authors who were at the centre of European cultural discussion in the 1880’s: Charles Darwin, Henry Thomas Buckle, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Vladimir Ulyanov, as Lenin was then known,

wanted to educate himself on a broader plane. He could not take himself seriously unless there were convincing intellectual foundations for his arguments. Ulyanov not only visited the opera

but also frequented the chess club in Kazan. Such was Lenin ’ s fascination with chess that he played games by post against the Samara barrister Andrei Khardin. This was no mean attainment.

Khardin was accomplished enough to be taken seriously by the most famous Russian chess Grandmaster of the day, Mikhail Tchigorin, who had twice challenged Wilhelm Steinitz for the

championship of the world. The mention of Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862) among the components of Lenin ’ s early education is also of great interest, since it was Buckle who won the first

recorded tournament, held at what was to become the epicentre of world chess, Simpson ’ s-in-the-Strand. The tournament in 1849 was a national event, soon to be overshadowed by the first

ever international tournament, that of 1851,  masterminded by Howard Staunton. Both Staunton and Buckle were extraordinary Victorian polymaths. Staunton, essentially world chess champion

from 1843 until 1851, was also a Shakespearean scholar as well as the Chronicler of the English Public School system.   Buckle, however, notably outperformed Staunton in the erudition

department, his ambitious goal being the completion of his projected 14-volume magnum opus, _The History of Civilisation_. When he died prematurely in Damascus, Buckle ’ s famous lament was:

“ My book, my book! I shall never finish my book!” As we have seen, in Lenin ’ s day, Buckle was mentioned in the same breath with such authors and thinkers as Hobbes, Darwin, Kant, Marx,

Hegel, Feuerbach and Engels. Indeed, the Marxist philosopher G. Plekhanov, another major influence on Lenin, was particularly anxious to refute Buckle ’ s principle, based on Montesquieu ’ s

experiments with fibrillation of the tongues of sheep, that geographical location was the key determinant of social development. Buckle ’ s thesis would obviously have been inimical to the

inevitable rise of the communist state. Plekhanov wrote in refutation of Buckle:  _ The doctrine of the influence of the geographic environment on mankind _ _ ’ _ _ s historical development

has often been reduced to a recognition of the direct influence of “ _ _ climate _ _ ” on social man: it has been supposed that under the influence of “ _ _ climate _ _ ” _ _ one _ _ “race”

becomes freedom-loving, another becomes inclined to submit patiently to the rule of a more or less despotic monarch, and yet another race becomes superstitious and therefore dependent upon a

clergy, etc. This view already predominated, for instance, with Buckle.  _ Inspired, or perhaps, provoked by Buckle, who today would undoubtedly have himself been recognised as a chess

Grandmaster, and fortified by his games against Khardin, it is alleged that Lenin played chess against Adolf Hitler, while both were in Vienna during 1909. There is even a picture allegedly

showing the future dictators squaring up against each other on the chessboard. If true, this would be fascinating. However, as with the alleged brilliance of Karl Marx over the chessboard,

such evidence must be regarded as being at the extreme frontier of apocryphal veracity.    No, the Marx who took an undoubted interest in chess was, according to that authoritative source

Chessbase,  the immortal comedian Groucho Marx, of Marx Brothers fame, who hosted a quiz show, “You bet your Life”, both for radio and TV, from 1947. It was mainly used to demonstrate his

huge talent for firing off ad lib jokes to the greatest advantage. In one show Groucho Marx invited as special guest the chess Grandmaster Isaac Kashdan, whom he refers to as “Ashcan”.

Kashdan had been US Open champion and defeated some of the world ’ s top Grandmasters. His victims included Nimzowitsch, Flohr, Reshevsky, Maroczy and Bogoljubov. The jokes centred around

chess. Part of the fun was to see if the guest would mention a secret word, specified to the audience only, in advance. If the word came up, a Groucho-modelled version of a rubber duck would

descend from the ceiling with a 100 dollar bill as a reward. The show was otherwise notable for Groucho ’ s decision to abandon his slapstick moustache from his films and to grow a real

one.  Isaac Kashdan, whom I personally met at several chess Olympiads, was one of the most respected figures in world chess. Born in New York, 1905, he was awarded the Grandmaster title in

1954 and the International Arbiter title in 1960. He played on five US Olympiad teams between 1928 and 1937, winning two individual gold, one silver, and two bronze medals on teams that

finished first on three occasions.  Kashdan was US Open Champion in 1938 (jointly) and 1947 but never won the Closed Championship.  Without a doubt, Kashdan was the most successful

international player from the United States in the early 1930s. His successes included 1st place at Berlin 1930, 2nd at Frankfurt 1930 behind Aron  Nimzowitsch,  1st at Stockholm, 1930, and

=1st at Mexico City 1932 with  world champion Alexander Alekhine.     Links to all of the contests mentioned this week, as well as to Groucho’s TV show, are here below: Groucho Marx show

‘You bet your Life’ Kashdan win v Nimzowitsch Karl Marx v Meyer Khardin’s win v Tchigorin   Buckle win against Anderssen _ Raymond Keene’s latest book “Fifty Shades of Ray: Chess in the year

of the Coronavirus”, containing some of his best pieces from TheArticle, is now available from  _ Blackwell’s _ . _ __ A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s

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