Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T22:22:36.083Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Karl Marx's Vision of America: A Biographical and Bibliographical Sketch*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Robert Weiner
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Karl Marx and the United States is a subject which immediately elicits interest, but also surprise. Interest, because of its contemporary importance; surprise, because Marx and America have appeared so remote from one another. Marx has definitely influenced America, but that will not be the theme of this essay —instead, we will concern ourselves with the role of America in the thought of Marx. The magnitude of this role is illustrated by a statement made in Marx's letter to Abraham Lincoln, written in 1864 on behalf of the International Workingmen's Association:

The workingmen of Europe feel sure that as the American war of independence initiated a new era of the ascendency of the middle-class, so the American Anti-slavery war will do for the working-class.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , October 1980 , pp. 465 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Marx, , “Address of the International Workingmen's Association to Abraham Lincoln,”Google Scholar in Marx, and Engels, , Letters to Americans 1848–95, A Selection, trans. Mims, and ed. Trachtenberg, (New York: International Publishers, 1953), pp. 65–6Google Scholar (henceforth: LA). Marx, , Das KapitalGoogle Scholar in Marx-Engels Werke (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1972) 23:15Google Scholar (henceforth: MEW). Cf. also Marx's letters to Andrew Johnson and to the National Labor Union, LA pp. 71–76Google Scholar, his “Address to the German Workers of London” (MEW, 16:556)Google Scholar, and to the Internationale (MEW, 16:552–57).Google Scholar All of these statements were made between 1864 and 1869.

2 Preface to Kapital, MEW, 23:12.Google Scholar

3 This “universality” restricts itself to the “industrializing” countries. This approach reflects Hegel's statement regarding “… ein nicht nur abstrakt Allgemeines, sondern als das den Reichtum des Besonderen in sich fassende Allgemeine,” Friedrich, Georg Wilhelm, Werke 5Google Scholar, Wissenschaft der Logik I: Werkausgabe, Theorie (Frankfurt, 1969), p. 54.Google Scholar Cf. Lenin, V. I., “Konspekt zu Hegels ‘Wissenschaft der Logik,’”Google ScholarLenin, , Werke, vol. 38 (Berlin, 1973).Google Scholar Lenin merely writes “Kapital” next to Hegel's words, but there is certainly validity to that. Marx seeks to show the universal character of capitalism with a richness of detail based on the example of England, the wealthiest of countries. The national wealth appears as “ungeheure Warensammlung,” but these goods merely reflect the social relations characterized by universal want in opposition to particular wealth.

4 Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government (1690), bk. II, chap. 5, § 49.Google Scholar; de Tocqueville, Alexis, De la Démocratie en Amerique (Paris, 1835 and 1840).Google Scholar

5 Marx, Karl, “Einleitung” zur Kritik der Politischen ÖkonomieGoogle Scholar, published posthumously, in Die Neue Zeit, 1903.Google Scholar Cf. Part 4, § 6 of “Einleitung”: “Das unegale Verhältnis der Entwicklung…”

6 Kapital I (MEW, 23:682, 795)Google Scholar; Manifesto of the Communist Party.

7 Although reference is made here and above to Marx's version of the Hegelian dialectic, a full analysis of Marx's relation to Hegel is out of the question here, and in any case, the point shouldn't be overemphasized. It seems, however, plain that if this dialectic stresses (a) the interconnectedness of all things, (b) opposition, (c) resolution through historical movement, then Marx's view of America can best be seen in terms of its opposition to England, its necessary connection to the rest of the capitalistic world, its development beyond this antagonism to a higher synthesis and a higher antagonism.

8 Marx, and Engels, , The Civil War in the U.S., 2nd ed. (New York, 1961)Google Scholar (henceforth: CWUS); Richard Enmale's name is left unmentioned in this edition. Cf. Genovese, Eugene D., “Marxian Interpretations of the Slave South,” in Bernstein, Barton J., ed., Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History (New York, 1968).Google Scholar

9 LA (Mims and Trachtenberg).

10 Marx, Karl, On America and the Civil WarGoogle Scholar, vol. III of The Karl Marx Library, ed. Padover, Saul K. (New York, 1972), p. xxvi.Google Scholar

11 Morais, Herbert M., “Marx and Engels on America,” Science and Society, an Independent Journal of Marxism, 12 (1948).Google Scholar Among the less critical works on the subject, cf. Aptheker, Herbert, “Marx and Engels on the Civil War,” Toward Negro Freedom (New York, 1956)Google Scholar, and the various articles by Rostovski, Semion Nikolaievitsch, alias “Ernst Henry.” Somewhat more interesting is Heinz Neumann's “Marx and Engels on the Role of the Communists in America,” The Worker's Monthly, 1 (11 1925)Google Scholar, which at least perceives that America was a problem for Marx and Engels, but concludes that their insights, slightly modified by Lenin, have been completely borne out over the years, thereby eliminating America as an exception. Cf. also Petersen, Arnold, Karl Marx and Marxian Science (New York, 1943)Google Scholar; and Wolfe, Bertram, Marx and America (New York, 1934).Google Scholar

12 Bloom, Solomon F., The World of Nations: A Study of the National Implications in the Work of Karl Marx (New York, 1941).Google Scholar

13 Genovese, , “Marxian Interpretation of the Slave South”Google Scholar; Backhaus, Wilhelm, Marx, Engels und die Sklaverei, zu okonomischen Problematik der Unfreiheit (Dusseldorf, 1974).Google ScholarAptheker, “Marx and Engels on the Civil War”Google Scholar; Dunayevskaya, Raya, Marxism and Freedom … from 1776 until today (New York, 1958)Google Scholar; Runkle, Gerald, “Karl Marx and the American Civil War,” Comparative Studies in Sociology and History, 6 (01 1964), 2.Google Scholar For further details see below in our text. Moore, Barrington Jr., The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston, 1966)Google Scholar, does not directly deal with Marx in the chapter on “The American Civil War: The Last Capitalist Revolution,” but from the title it is apparent that Marx is being addressed.

14 Dunayevskaya's fifth chapter (Marxism and Freedom) carries this title. Cf. also Moore, R. Laurence, European Socialists and the American Promised Land (New York, 1970)Google Scholar, a very interesting work. Cf. further, Mehring, Franz, Karl Marx: Geschichte seines Lebens (Prague, 1933), esp. p. 358.Google Scholar Moore mentions (pp. 49–50) that Mehring was one of the only orthodox German socialists to think positively of America, and it is accordingly quite fitting that he noticed the role of America in the context of the IWA. Cf. below.

15 Feuer, Lewis S., Marx and the Intellectuals: A Set of Post-Ideological Essays (New York, 1969).Google Scholar Feuer implies that the concrete life of the American socialist communities continued to appeal to Marx and Engels even after their critique of “utopian socialism.” This may be somewhat true, but after 1871 it was certainly the Paris Commune which offered them a concrete example of socialism, and not any American scheme. And already in 1843 Marx rejected America's religious and political life without drawing any attention to the value of the communities in its midst.

16 Rubel, Maximilien, “Marx and American Democracy,” in Lobkowicz, Nicholas, ed., Marx and the Western World (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1967).Google Scholar

17 Harrington, Michael, Socialism (New York, 1972)Google Scholar, chap. 6. Cf. Sombart, Werner, Warum gibt es keinen Sozialismus in den Vereinigten Staaten? (Tubingen, 1906).Google Scholar

18 Henningsen, Manfred, Der Fall Amerika (Munchen, 1974)Google Scholar; Browder, Earl, Marx and America: A Study of the Doctrine of Impoverishment (New York, 1958)Google Scholar —this is the only book length work entirely dedicated to the subject yet available; Klehr, Harvey, “Marx's Theory in Search of America,” Journal of Politics, 35 (05 1973), 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Browder's concentration on the theory of impoverishment is truly misdirected — for Marx, capitalism equals exploitation, no matter how well the workers may be paid, and that is why Marx noted America's relatively high wages without feeling compelled to abandon his general theory.

Not of direct relevance to our subject, but perhaps of interest to the reader, are various works on Marx's economic theory by American writers such as Sachs, Corey, Rubinow, Bingham. An early account of this literature is given by Blech, William James (pseud: Blake), Elements of Marxian Economic Theory and Its Criticism (New York, 1939)Google Scholar — this of course does not include more recent works like those of Paul Sweeny and Ernst Mandel.

20 Cf., for example, Marx's critiqe of Grün, regarding America in Die deutsche Ideologie, MEW, 3:476Google Scholar, or the critique of Carlyle, in Kapital I, MEW, 23:270.Google Scholar Cf. also Henningsen, , Fall Amerika, p. 100Google Scholar; Moore, B., Dictatorship and Democracy, p. xviii.Google Scholar

21 Cf. Marx, 's letters of 17 10 1845Google Scholar and 10 November 1845 to the mayor of Trier; noted in Padover, , Marx Library, p. xiGoogle Scholar; and Marx's letter to Kugelmann, , 28 08 1866Google Scholar in MEW, 31:520–21.Google Scholar Cf. Schiel, H., Die Umwelt des jungen Karl Marx (Trier, 1954).Google Scholar

22 Franz, Eckhart G., Das Amerikabild der deutschen Revolution von 1848–9. Zum Problem der Übertragung gewachsener Verfassungsformen (Heidelberg, 1958), p. 83.Google Scholar Cf. also his references to Hulsemann, Karl von Rötteck, Gall, Brauns, G. Duden, and others, who contributed to this debate.

23 Hegel, , Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, vol. 11Google Scholar, Sämtliche Werke (Jubiläumsausgabe in 20 Bd.), ed. Glockner, H., 3rd ed. (Stuttgart, 1949), 126–30.Google Scholar Cf. also Henningsen, , Fall Amerika.Google Scholar

24 Cf. Rubel, , “Marx and American Democracy.”Google Scholar Marx had in his library a book presenting the state and federal constitutions of America, but there are no notations in this book; Marx seems to have learned about the Pennsylvania and New Hampshire constitutions solely from Beaumont, as seen in the Zur Judenfrage. Cf. Ex Libris: Karl Marx und F. Engels (Berlin, 1967)Google Scholar, Source No. 120.

25 Tocqueville, , Démocratie en Amerique.Google Scholar Cf. Henningsen, , Fall AmerikaGoogle Scholar; and Rubel, , “Marx and American Democracy.”Google Scholar

26 Marx, to Ruge, , 09 1843Google Scholar (MEW, 1:343f.)Google Scholar; and the Introduction to Marx, 's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right.Google Scholar

27 Marx, , Zur JudenfrageGoogle Scholar (MEW, 1).Google Scholar While Marx had defined his goal to Ruge, in 05 1843Google Scholar (MEW, 1:338f.)Google Scholar as a “republic and order of free humanity” as opposed to the “order of dead things,” the “religion” of exchange and possession showed that the American republic was nothing but this “order of dead things.”

28 Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. § 278–9, 298.Google Scholar

29 Marx, and Engels, , Die Deutsche IdeologieGoogle Scholar (MEW, 3:62, 73).Google Scholar

30 Marx, , Thesen über FeuerbachGoogle Scholar, No. 11, MEW, 3: p.535.Google ScholarEngels, 's article, “Beschreibung der in der neuerer Zeit entstandenen und noch bestehenden kommunistischen Ansiedlungen,” in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, 1:4, pp. 339–51.Google Scholar

31 Deutsche Ideologie.

32 Engels, , “Beschreibung … etc.” and Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England, 1844, MEW, 2:503–504Google Scholar; Marx, and Engels, , Deutsche Ideologie, MEW, 3:73.Google Scholar Marx certainly came across references to America in his readings of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, especially in regard to the “Rent Question” so important to Marx, in Kapital IIIGoogle Scholar and IV, but his discussion of the subject in the “Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844” (MEW, “Ergänzungsband,” 1)Google Scholar does not mention America.

33 Specifically, Marx said that while machinery was being introduced in America because of the competition with England, as was the case in the other countries of Europe, the development of machinery in America received an added, unique impulse from the lack of manpower available there.

Marx had already referred to the condition of the workers in Europe as slavery back in 1844 in the “Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte,” but Misère de la philosophie first makes the connection between black American slaves and European wage slavery.

In 1885 Engels felt the need to correct Marx's statement of 1847 that slavery was the basis of America's and the world's economy. According to Engels, this was true then, but is no longer. But this whole correction seems to be based on a misreading of the text, for both in the letter to Annenkov and Misère de la philosophie Marx is giving his sarcastic representation of Proudhon's views on slavery, views which could not have been more than partially acceptable to Marx.

34 Franz, , Amerikabild der deutschen Revolution.Google ScholarMarx, , Die moralisierende Kritik und die kritisierende MoralGoogle Scholar (MEW, 4)Google Scholar —this critique is mainly directed against Heinzen.

35 Ibid., MEW, 4:342–43, 353f.Google Scholar But Marx was under no illusions that America had in fact the most advanced governmental form in the world.

36 A lesson learned by every student of Smith and Ricardo, says Marx, , MEW, 4:348.Google Scholar

37 Where the corrupt and imperialistic America is still seen in a vastly more favorable light than the Prussian government (MEW, 6:156).Google Scholar

38 Marx gave up his hopes for the 1848 Revolution in 1850 (cf. Die Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich 1848–50), Neue Rheinische Zeitung, nos. 1–2, 1850Google Scholar, MEW, 7:220–21.Google Scholar Cf. Marx, 's letter to Weydemeyer, , 16 09 1851Google Scholar; to Engels, , 13 09 1851Google Scholar; and also Marx, 's Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Berlin, 1953).Google Scholar

39 Cf. Enmale, Padover, etc.: the NYDT was a Fournierist-leaning newspaper with one of the largest, if not the largest, reading publics of the English-speaking world.

40 Marx's article on Lady Sutherland and American slavery, NYDT 9 02 1853Google Scholar, (MEW 8, pp. 499–505).Google Scholar Cf. also Neue Rheinische Zeitung, nos. 5–6, 1850.Google Scholar

41 Carey was also praised by Marx in 1853 for realizing the connection between direct black and indirect slavery, but the contradictions in Carey's system regarding national and international, state and private economy, are roundly criticized by Marx. Cf. Marx to Weydemeyer letter, and Marx, to Engels, 14 06 1853Google Scholar, MEW, 28:264–69Google Scholar; as well as Grundrisse, pp. 843–48.Google Scholar

42 Note Marx's references to Wakefield, as well as Gallatin, Gouge Bray, Updyke, Johnston, Carey, etc. in Grundrisse.

43 Marx, , The Eighteenth BrumaireGoogle Scholar (MEW, 8:122–23).Google Scholar

44 Ibid. Also, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, no. 4, 1850.Google Scholar This takes up on Marx's point in Misère de la Philosophie.

45 Neue Rheinische Zeitung, nos. 5–6, 1850Google Scholar; Grundrisse, p. 843Google Scholar; Moralisierende Kritik, etc.

46 Two possible reasons for this are, according to Marx: (1) the role of climate, fertility, lay of land, racial characteristics, etc.; or (2) the fact that the Americans are more passionately concerned with acquiring than with possessing —but Marx is not willing to commit himself to a particular answer. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, 9th ed. (Berlin, 1974), p. 231.Google Scholar In Kapital, the second point is seen as the definition of capitalism (Cf. MEW 23:167–68, 185, 246).Google Scholar

47 Perhaps the above explains why America was seen by Marx and Engels as the most bourgeois country. This notion was clearly present in Marx's works of the 1840's, but it was explicit first in Grundrisse, pp. 843ff.Google Scholar, and then in a number of Engels' letters to Americans (cf. LA), Marx noted that Benjamin Franklin and William Petty were among the first to recognize the “labor theory of value,” and did so, looking at the specific example of America (Zur Kritik, pp. 53–55, 78, 252).Google Scholar

48 Grundrisse, p. 189.Google Scholar In Kapital, “bourgeois” property, gained at the expense of the other person, is not seen to exist significantly in the U.S. The difference between such property and the self-acquired property typifying America is something “bourgeois political economy” purposely ignores (MEW, 23:972).Google Scholar In addition to this complication, one must note that Marx speaks of “bourgeois society” in Jewish Question and the preface to Zur Kritik to describe civil society or private society.

49 Marx, , NYDT 7 11 1861Google Scholar, CWUS, p. 23Google Scholar; Kapital, MEW, 23:270.Google Scholar Engels wrote Weydemeyer 24 November 1864 that the “imposing experience” of the Civil War was unprecedented since the rise of the great modern states and would determine America's future for hundreds of years. Cf. also Marx, to Engels, , 19 10 1862Google Scholar, and CWUS, pp. 256–58.Google Scholar

50 Cf. Padover, , Marx Library, p. xxii.Google Scholar Padover also informs us that Marx read works by F. Moore, J. Spence, H. Wheaton on American history and national and international law. Marx also read Cairnes and Olmstead on slavery, as seen in Kapital. Cf. also Backhaus, , Marx, Engels und die Sklaverei.Google Scholar

51 Padover, Runkel, and Genovese disagree somewhat as to the meaning of Marx's Civil War articles in terms of their conformity to his “materialistic conception of history.” Without meaning to avoid the issue, one can say that all three views have merit, if one adds that some articles and some arguments within them are (1) good examples of Marx's general theory, (2) exaggerated or vulgar examples, or (3) leave his theory in the background.

52 Cf. Genovese, , “Marxian Interpretations of the Slave South,”Google Scholar who points out that Marx refused to see the powerful unity of Southern ideology (carried away as he was, with moral indignation against slavery), and unfairly criticized the war commitment of the Northeastern bourgeoisie, while overly praising the role of the British and American workers. Indeed, in other Civil War articles, Marx recognizes that it was the British “commercial public” which stopped England's intervention in the war (cf. CWUS).

53 Runkle, , “Karl Marx and the American Civil War,” p. 117.Google Scholar

54 Misère de la philosophie (MEW, 4:180)Google Scholar, and figuratively, throughout Marx's work.

55 LA, pp. 65–66.Google Scholar

56 Marx's inaugural address to the IWA. Cf. Marx, 's letter to Weydemeyer, , 29 11 1864.Google Scholar Mehring tells us that a revival of internationalism within the workers' movement began with the meeting of French and English workers at the London World Exhibition of 1862, and grew strong with the support of the workers' groups from these two countries of the Polish Rebellion of 1863. But already in his NYDT and Vienna, Presse articles of 1861–1862Google Scholar, Marx had drawn special attention to the reaction of the workers to the Civil War, and according to Mehring, this war is what really caused internationalism to flourish. It certainly is the case that the economic repercussions of that war shook all of English society — as Marx indicates in his chapter on the cotton crisis. Cf. Mehring, , Karl Marx, p. 375.Google Scholar Cf. Marx's Inaugural Address, IWA.

57 Marx, , “Value, Price, and Profit,” 27 06 1865Google Scholar lecture in English, first published 1898 (MEW, 16).Google Scholar Marx also noted the effect of the English ten-hour legislation and pointed to Thornton's work on traditional differences of living standard in various English counties. Whereas these two examples were used again two years later in Kapital, the United States — which certainly continued to be the most obvious example for Marx's point — was left unmentioned. Browder is clearly wrong that Marx thereafter ignored the importance of wage-and-price variations, but it is true that the failure to mention America corresponds to a diminution in the role of “social traditions” on such variations, even though Marx refers to it again in Kapital I (MEW, 23:185, 246, 270).Google Scholar This is because such habits affect merely slight modifications within the general dynamic of capitalism, according to Marx. Whereas Marx earlier viewed strikes as primarily political, he later came to realize that they could help the workers economically as well — this was a main argument of his against the “Anarchists” in the 1870's. Cf. Marx's Inaugural Address, IWA.

58 Cf. Engels, ' “Synopsis to Capital I” in the Fortnightly Review, 1868Google Scholar, given in Friedrich Engels on Capital, 3rd ed. (New York, 1974), p. 73Google Scholar; or cf. Engels, 's “Vorwort” to Kapital IIGoogle Scholar (MEW, 24, especially pp. 23–4).Google Scholar

59 Kapital I (MEW, 23:249).Google Scholar

60 Cf. the chapter on “Primary Accumulation” in Kapital I; Grundrisse, pp. 186–90Google Scholar; Marx's letter to the editor of the “Otetschestwennyji Sapiski” (MEW, 19:107ff.), etc.Google Scholar

61 Marx's discussion on rent is fairly tedious and generally treated as of secondary importance, but the “proof” of “absolute rent” is quite crucial to Marx, for it validates his historical method and shows “surplus value” even in American agriculture. Accordingly, Marx, writes Engels, 18 06 1862Google Scholar: “Endlich habe ich den Schwindel bei Ricardo gefunden: die Grundrentscheisze.” One and a half months later (2 August 1862) Marx writes again, presenting Engels with a critique of Ricardo, covering constant and variable capital, surplus value, value and cost price, and rent — the themes of Kapital (MEW, 30:263–8).Google Scholar It is perhaps significant that Marx discussed with Engels the North's financial situation, the U.S. state debt, and the rise of speculation at this time: 27 May 1862; 7 August 1862; 29 September 1862 (CWUS; MEW, 30:248–9).Google Scholar

62 Marx, to Engels, , 2 08 1862.Google Scholar Only in America is it clear that Ricardo was mistaken regarding prices and value, says Marx, . “Surplus value”Google Scholar is therefore proven. Kapital III (MEW, 25:680ff.)Google Scholar and IV(MEW 26:304–10, 296ff.).Google Scholar Cf. Wygodski, W. S., Wie “Das Kapital” entstand (“K istorii sosdanija ‘Kapitala’” — Russian) (Frankfurt, 1976).Google Scholar

63 Chaps. 23, 24, and 25 of Kapital I; cf. the last page of volume.

64 Kapital I (MEW, 23:793).Google Scholar

65 LA, pp. 65–66Google Scholar; and Kapital (MEW, 23:318–19).Google Scholar

66 Presse, 9 08 1862Google Scholar (CWUS, pp. 195–210).Google Scholar According to Marx, the move toward abolition of the slaves had altered the war from being a “constitutional” one to a “revolutionary” one (although the enactments for abolition mainly came from the constitutionally bound Congress). On the other hand, the fact that America's problems could only be solved by war seems to show the insufficiency of the Constitution (cf. Moore, B., Dictatorship and Democracy).Google ScholarMarx, wrote Engels, 23 04 1866Google Scholar, however, that only now was America entering the “revolutionary phase,” showing that it was social change and nothing else which deserved the name “revolutionary.”

67 Kapital I (MEW, 23:318–19).Google Scholar

68 Cf. Marx, 's speech on education, 08 1869Google Scholar (MEW, 16:562–64)Google Scholar; his proclamation of the IWA, July 1867 (MEW, 16:525–27)Google Scholar; to the German worker of London 15 August 1868 (MEW, 16:556)Google Scholar, and his Inaugural Address of the Marx, Iwa to Engels, , 26 11 1868Google Scholar (MEW, 32:401ff.), etc.Google Scholar

69 See, for example, Engels's letter to Sorge, 19 June 1883, in which Engels talks of organizing Marx's notes for Kapital III and IV, following Marx's death, and Engels's “Vorwort” to Kapital II.

70 Perhaps an even more important reason was the problem in Europe with the Bakunist-Blanquist faction. In any case, transferring the IWA to America was tantamount to letting it die. Cf. Marx's letter to Sorge, (who took over the presidency of the organization), 4 08 1874Google Scholar (LA, pp. 88ff.)Google Scholar, regarding the necessary unity of the political and economic efforts of the IWA. That the struggle might be more peaceful in the United States than England (perhaps even in France and Holland) is suggested by Marx in his address to the Congress in the Hague, September 1872 (MEW, 18:159ff.)Google Scholar, in his article on “Political Indifference,” 01 1873Google Scholar (MEW, 18:199ff.)Google Scholar, and in his interviews with the World, 08 1871Google Scholar (MEW, 17:639ff.)Google Scholar, and with the New York Herald, 3 08 1871Google Scholar (cf. Padover, , Marx Library, p. 35).Google Scholar It is of significance that all of these utterances are of a tactical nature, and are not to be found in Marx's theoretical works or personal letters. Just the same, Marx continued to discuss this possibility as late as his interview with the Chicago Tribune, 5 01 1879.Google Scholar Cf. AIMS: Occasional Papers no. 10 (1972), ed. Porter, Thomas; also MEW, 34:508ff.Google Scholar

71 Interviews, MEW, 34:508ff.Google Scholar Cf. also Foner, Philip S., When Karl Marx Died: Comments in 1883 (New York, 1973), chap. 4.Google Scholar

72 Marx to Nikolai on Danielson (Alias “Williams, A.”), 15 11 1878Google Scholar (MEW, 34:358–60)Google Scholar; and 10 April 1879 (MEW, 34:370ff.)Google Scholar, and Marx, to Engels, 27 07 1877Google Scholar (MEW 34:59)Google Scholar; cf. also Engels, ' article, “Die Arbeiterbewegung in Deutschland, Frankreich, U.S. und Russland,” MEW, 19:113.Google Scholar

73 Marx, to Danielson, , MEW, 34:358–60.Google Scholar Cf. also the interview with the Chicago Tribune. Marx recognized that the American middle class often opposed the government; therefore, less violent change is possible there than in a country like Germany, where the middle class is fully passive.

74 Cf. Marx, 's letter to Sorge, , 20 06 1881Google Scholar (LA, pp. 127ff.)Google Scholar, criticizing Henry George's backwards brand of socialism — which Marx had already debunked in Misère; also Engels, 's article “The International in America,” 07 1872Google Scholar (MEW, 18:97ff.).Google Scholar Marx's critique of George — who in 1886 rose to lead the American workers' movement, becoming a serious candidate for the mayor's office in New York — is a continuation of the arguments against Proudhon, Kriege, Carey, Bastiat, and Dürhing regarding the land question. All of them failed to see that the real problem was capitalistic “surplus value” and wage labor, and that the land was only one of the means of production swallowed up by the capitalist system. Engels was active from 1872 through his death in 1895 combating the “quackery” of various American reform groups as well as the inflexible dogmatism of party members. But both Marx and Engels remained true their lives long to the dictum of the Manifesto, to work with all progressive forces while aiming at the ultimate communist revolution; accordingly, Engels did not hesitate to support George, Henry in 1886. Cf. LA.Google Scholar

75 Manifesto, Preface of 1882Google Scholar, and the unpublished letter to the editor of “Otetschestwennyji Sapiski.” Cf. Schonfeld, William R., “The Classical Marxist Conception of Liberal Democracy,” Review of Politics, 33 (07 1971), 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

76 Engels, to Wischnewetzky, F. K., 10 02 1885Google Scholar (LA, pp. 144–45)Google Scholar, and his “preface” to the American edition of the Condition of the Working-class in England in 1844, 26 01 1887Google Scholar (LA, pp. 285ff.).Google Scholar Cf. also Engels, 's letters to Wischnewetzky, 7 01 and 3 June 1886.Google Scholar Marx happily reported to Sorge 5 November 1886 that the French leader Clemenceau had finally given up on America and become a socialist.

77 Engels, to Sorge, , 6 01 1892Google Scholar; 16 January 1895; 24 October 1891; 2 December 1893; and to Schleuter, , 30 03 1892Google Scholar in LA. Cf. also Engels, 's article on capital concentration in the United States, 06 1882Google Scholar (MEW 19:306ff.).Google Scholar

78 Engels, to Sorge, , 8 02 1892Google Scholar; 6 January 1892; 18 March 1893; to Sorge, , 10 06 1891Google Scholar; 24 October 1891; 2 December 1893; 12 June 1894; to Sorge, , 24 10 1891Google Scholar; to Schleuter, , 30 03 1892Google Scholar; to Sorge, 6 01 1892Google Scholar; to Schleuter, , 30 03 1892Google Scholar; to Sorge, , 2 12 1893Google Scholar; 16 January 1895; to Schleuter, , 11 01 1890Google Scholar; to Sorge, , 16 01 1895Google Scholar, etc. Regarding the movement in America, it is interesting to contemplate the possible changes in American history had Engels accepted the invitation of Samuel Gompers to mediate between the American Federation of Labor and the Socialist Labor party. Cf. Engels, to Sorge, , 6 01 1892.Google Scholar

79 Letters to Sasslitsch and the editors of “Otetschestwennyji Sapiski” (MEW, 18:108–112, 242–34).Google Scholar

80 Trotsky, Leon, Marxism in the United States (New York, 1947)Google Scholar — originally appearing as the introduction to The Living Thought of Karl Marx, ed. Trotsky, (New York, 1939).Google Scholar

81 Istoria rabochego dvizheniia v. SShA v. noveishee vremia 1918–1965 (editorial collegium, B.Ia. Mikhailov, N.V. Mostovets G.N. Sevost'ianov). Cf. Sivachev, N. V. and Savel'eva, I. M., “American Labor in Recent Soviet Historiography,”Google Scholar trans. Peskin, Alexander, “Review Essay” in Labor History, 18 (Summer 1977), 3.Google Scholar

82 Whereas the proletariat is the “negation of the negation” in the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and “positive communism” has this role in the Paris Manuscripts of 1844, it is only in chapter 24:7Google Scholar of Kapital I, “The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation,” that the “negation of the negation” is portrayed in its finality. The transition in American property relations, which is the subject of the next chapter, is a concentrated example of the negation which capitalism imposes on self-acquired property relations.

83 MEW, 23:270.Google Scholar

84 Kapital III (MEW, 25:614)Google Scholar; Wygodski, , Wie “Das Kapital” enstand, n 97Google Scholar

85 Mehring, , “Eine Fahrt nach Amerika,” Leipziger Volkszeitung, 14 07 1906Google Scholar; cf. Moore, R. L., European Socialists, pp. 45–46.Google Scholar