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
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