I feel comfortable being blatantly sarcastic here lol. I’ve been telling people to read The Civil War in the United States by Marx for years on this site.
Obviously the US Civil War had an effect on the revolutionary consciousness of the world. English workers were actively organizing against the textine owners and holding rallies/striking. Marx was running around documenting the working class movements in the North and in England.
The positions of the Abolitionists were later absorbed by many Communists, and expanded on with the concepts of Wage Slavery. The black revolutionaries in America all built their consciousness in the context of the Civil War.
Reconstruction is used frequently as an example of liberal failure and the need for an organized vanguard (“tankies”) to solidify the gains of revolution.
Lenin’s dual revolution idea was derived from the failure of the American workers and liberated slaves to sieze power.
I’ll def check that work out, but I’d have to recommend reading Black Reconstruction in America before any other work. I’ve never read another book as thorough and soaring of an analysis on every level, and its beautifully written.
But the M&E collection will be interesting to do a comparison, I don’t know much about the movement in Europe to oppose trade with the south. I’ve heard that workers movements in England had kept these efforts at bay, but Dubois cites northern fears of the South resuming trade with England, Spain, etc., as one of the catalysts for arming former slaves who self emancipated into the Northern armies.
Only recommending M&E because they had a large influence on all Communist movements (obviously), and this was after the Manifesto, so you get to see a lot of the “newer” ideas taking hold (the ones that evolved into ML/“tankie” theory).
For understanding the Civil War from the perspective of the slaves, anything else is probably much better since Marx was interfacing mostly with American and English workers at the time. I will say that all of this ended up combining into ML over time though. The US Civil War had a massive influence on all theory that came after.
Other than Anti-Duhring and Capital, what works in the m&e canon evolved into ML? I also think there’s a major omission in this statement since The German Ideology has been commonly referenced by any ML I’ve had the privilege of discussing theory with.
The major theories that I’m aware of that Marx mostly abandons by Capital is the idea that socialism only develops out of Capitalism, and he kinda drops the theory of Lumpen Proles, although his class analysis in the 18th Brumaire is so insightful and important that I’d be reluctant to.say he completely abandoned this theory (although I used to kinda think that.)
Im just saying that you can see the influence there Civil War had on Marx’s later works. He realized that American slaves had much more in common with the proletariat than he previously saw (tacit abandonment of the concept of lumpenproletariat).
He also saw that the working classes of both America and England were capable of understanding longer term goals that may be immediately harmful to them (striking to prevent the supply of raw material from a slave source).
It has been a while since I’ve read the book though, so I’m a bit rusty. I just know that you get to see a lot of his internal thought processes hitting points that were later adopted by ML leaders.
Thanks for the recc, I’ve read Marx’s letter (on behalf of the English IWMA) to Abraham Lincoln, but hadn’t considered there was a collection of writings from that time. I think of the years before 1867 as Marx being like shut up in the library of England so yeah I’m curious about his correspondence and organizing outside of that work.
Dubois mentions some early American Marxists before the civil war but said they didnt really know what to make of the issue of slavery. I’m actually not very aware of the early history of American Marxists, I don’t know of any real serious showing of American Marxists until the St. Louis commune of 1877
I feel comfortable being blatantly sarcastic here lol. I’ve been telling people to read The Civil War in the United States by Marx for years on this site.
Obviously the US Civil War had an effect on the revolutionary consciousness of the world. English workers were actively organizing against the textine owners and holding rallies/striking. Marx was running around documenting the working class movements in the North and in England.
The positions of the Abolitionists were later absorbed by many Communists, and expanded on with the concepts of Wage Slavery. The black revolutionaries in America all built their consciousness in the context of the Civil War.
Reconstruction is used frequently as an example of liberal failure and the need for an organized vanguard (“tankies”) to solidify the gains of revolution.
Lenin’s dual revolution idea was derived from the failure of the American workers and liberated slaves to sieze power.
I’ll def check that work out, but I’d have to recommend reading Black Reconstruction in America before any other work. I’ve never read another book as thorough and soaring of an analysis on every level, and its beautifully written.
But the M&E collection will be interesting to do a comparison, I don’t know much about the movement in Europe to oppose trade with the south. I’ve heard that workers movements in England had kept these efforts at bay, but Dubois cites northern fears of the South resuming trade with England, Spain, etc., as one of the catalysts for arming former slaves who self emancipated into the Northern armies.
Only recommending M&E because they had a large influence on all Communist movements (obviously), and this was after the Manifesto, so you get to see a lot of the “newer” ideas taking hold (the ones that evolved into ML/“tankie” theory).
For understanding the Civil War from the perspective of the slaves, anything else is probably much better since Marx was interfacing mostly with American and English workers at the time. I will say that all of this ended up combining into ML over time though. The US Civil War had a massive influence on all theory that came after.
Other than Anti-Duhring and Capital, what works in the m&e canon evolved into ML? I also think there’s a major omission in this statement since The German Ideology has been commonly referenced by any ML I’ve had the privilege of discussing theory with.
The major theories that I’m aware of that Marx mostly abandons by Capital is the idea that socialism only develops out of Capitalism, and he kinda drops the theory of Lumpen Proles, although his class analysis in the 18th Brumaire is so insightful and important that I’d be reluctant to.say he completely abandoned this theory (although I used to kinda think that.)
Im just saying that you can see the influence there Civil War had on Marx’s later works. He realized that American slaves had much more in common with the proletariat than he previously saw (tacit abandonment of the concept of lumpenproletariat).
He also saw that the working classes of both America and England were capable of understanding longer term goals that may be immediately harmful to them (striking to prevent the supply of raw material from a slave source).
It has been a while since I’ve read the book though, so I’m a bit rusty. I just know that you get to see a lot of his internal thought processes hitting points that were later adopted by ML leaders.
Thanks for the recc, I’ve read Marx’s letter (on behalf of the English IWMA) to Abraham Lincoln, but hadn’t considered there was a collection of writings from that time. I think of the years before 1867 as Marx being like shut up in the library of England so yeah I’m curious about his correspondence and organizing outside of that work.
Dubois mentions some early American Marxists before the civil war but said they didnt really know what to make of the issue of slavery. I’m actually not very aware of the early history of American Marxists, I don’t know of any real serious showing of American Marxists until the St. Louis commune of 1877