Marxist works on American history

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Besides mere advocacy and campaigning, Joseph Weydemeyer and Adolph Douai had a more direct influence. A conference was held at the Deutsches Haus in Chicago in May 1860. This was a meeting of German-American representatives from around the country who hoped to influence the proceedings of the Republican National Convention which would be held days later in the same city. Both men were sent to the conference and Douai was one of two participants tasked with preparing resolutions to be presented to the Convention on behalf of German-Americans. The proceedings of the conference worried the Convention's organizers, who feared the Republicans losing the large German-American vote in various states. As a result the conference had an important (some say decisive) impact on the Convention's decision to nominate Lincoln as the Republican Presidential candidate owing to his strong ties to that community.

THE MORE YOU KNOW.

Very interesting, tbqh. I wonder how Marx and the early communists themselves viewed the American Revolution and earlier such revolutions like in France.

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>>66473084
Well, historical materialism got its start in Marx's readings of Thierry and Guizot, two bourgeois historians who wrote about the importance of class struggle in the French Revolution, and Marxists have always regarded Robespierre as a great example of a revolutionary leader.

As for the American Revolution, it seems that early American socialists considered it a progressive event, as a bourgeois revolution against colonial rule and the remnants of feudalism in the colonies. Lenin referred to it as "one of those great, really liberating, really revolutionary wars."

>required all members to "recognize the complete equality of all persons—no matter of whatever color or sex."
>in the forefront of the struggle against slavery
What a surprise! Marxists cause trouble and do evil wherever they go.

Let's try some thinking, though. Why should non-Negro workers have been in favour of abolishing the enslavement of Negroes?

>>66473464
>Let's try some thinking, though. Why should non-Negro workers have been in favour of abolishing the enslavement of Negroes?
That was actually a big source of disagreement in the labor movement. The Democrats demagogically argued that abolitionism was a plot to flood the labor market with unskilled, unorganized labor, and as a result many labor leaders sided with the Democratic Party.

Marxists sided with the Republicans because the latter argued that the westward expansion of slavery threatened the status of both free land and free labor, i.e. it denied the ability of workers to become pioneers and homesteaders on one hand, and because this option would be closed off to them it would weaken the ability of the workers to resist the pressure of the bosses (since they couldn't threaten to go west.)

>>66473581
Both of which arguments, I think, deserve greater attention. This silly humanitarian myth about abolitionism does nobody any good.

>>66473464
>Why should non-Negro workers have been in favour of abolishing the enslavement of Negroes?

>ummm so... yeah... remember slavery?
>therefore my 21st century political views are like... exactly the same as the ones that ended that shitlord?

nah you're just beating the world's deadest horse

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Marxism is alive and well

>>66473638
>This silly humanitarian myth about abolitionism does nobody any good.
As Marxists pointed out, the abolitionist movement was not particularly supported by the industrial bourgeoisie. Even after the Civil War the northern bourgeoisie ended up sabotaging Reconstruction.

As for the conduct of the bourgeoisie during the Civil War, I'll quote from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (the USSR's answer to the Encyclopedia Britannica):
>During the first stage of this war, Lincoln considered the goal to be the crushing of the rebel slaveholders and the restoration of a unified country. K. Marx and F. Engels criticized Lincoln for his foot-dragging and inconsistencies on the question of abolishing slavery, which reflected the hesitations of the bourgeoisie. They pointed to the need to conduct a revolutionary kind of war. Under pressure of the masses and of the Radical Republicans, who represented the most revolutionary part of the bourgeoisie, Lincoln changed his position in the course of the war and instituted a series of increasingly revolutionary measures. In May 1862 the Homestead Act was adopted. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation became law on Jan. 1, 1863. The proclamation signified the complete evolution of Lincoln’s political views. He had gone from a policy of territorial containment of slavery to the areas where it was already established to a new course involving the abolition of slavery. In 1864, Lincoln was elected to a second term. The shift by Lincoln’s government to revolutionary-style warfare led to the military destruction of the slaveholder forces and the abolition of slavery throughout the USA.

>>66473695
What are you talking about?

>>66473044
Interesting.
How were Marxists after the Civil War?

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>>66474253
This book deals with that: https://archive.org/details/MarxismUSHistoryBeforeRussianRev

In short: Marxists continued having a small but significant following throughout the 1865-1900 period, influencing the labor movement and getting elected to statewide offices. With the founding of the Socialist Party in 1901 this influence became much bigger. Eugene Debs, who ran multiple times as Socialist candidate for President, won nearly a million votes in 1912 and in 1920, the latter while in prison. The Socialist Party had numerous elected persons (including congressmen) and its literature and press had a large influence on American political and cultural life.

As a result of the US entering World War I, there was patriotic fervor in the country which also swept up a considerable number of Socialists. This led to a fracturing of the party, as many of its left-wing supported the October Revolution in Russia and formed parties modeling themselves off of Lenin's theories. At the same time the "Red Scare" scared many people away from socialism, which, now that it was seen as the embodiment of an enemy country (Soviet Russia), became a dirty word.