How do you guys see the american civil war?

Please summarize Marx's thoughts on the subject, comrade.

Didn't Marx write to Lincoln?

He praised Abraham Lincoln for his work in a letter once, he took the side of the North and supported the abolitionist movement.

This actually doesn't surprise me in the slightest, not just because he clearly was in favor of violent methods of ending slavery, including wage-slavery, but also because of his silly idea that societies had to pass through an industrial capitalist phase before achieving communism. I'm sure he considered southern abolitionist agrarians to be backwards.

Obligatory
marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm

Okay, I don't doubt this is the case, but that doesn't make it socialist. Socialism has a specific definition.

...

JOHN BROWN DID NOTHING WRONG

Honestly though, northern victory was a natural part of the dialectical progression of the US. I mean Marx wrote a letter to Lincoln calling him a good egg.

BRUV I HOPE YOU ARE FUCKING JOKING I SWEAR DOWN.

The confederacy was an ethnostate like you know that European country in the 1950s. Yeah, so there's no scenario in which the confederacy were our guys regardless of how you feel about the Union.

…what does this even mean?

Im saying ethnostates are inherently anti-worker. Please tell me you're not disagreeing while using that flag.

SILLY

...

The least bourgeois war America ever fought which isn't saying much.

The abolitionist movement was one of the few good things America ever did. However it only sped up the westward expansion and extermination of the natives.
Also the workers freed the slaves, in their wartime role as soldiers, not the "Union" or the "government", or any bourgeois legal maneuvering.

What about the Revolutionary War? Maybe you would say that was a war between the bourgeois (America) and nobel classes (Great Britain)?

Marx basically thought the union was not only worth supporting but that it was an inherently revolutionary act to destroy the planter aristocracy and abolish slavery. Marx was extremely optimistic about the result of the civil war until Lincoln was assassinated and replaced by a cuck who reconciled with the planter aristocracy.
marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm

That seems consistent with Marx's other positions.

critically support the confederate states of America against imperialist aggression.

Neil Davidson would disagree with you

isreview.org/issue/83/bourgeois-revolution-and-us-civil-war

THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN AND WILL BECOME SOCIALIST
WORKERS BOTH BLACK AND WHITE UNITE
LONG LIVE DIXIE
LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION

kek

WE MUST UPHOLD NATIONAL-DIXIEISM AS THE VANGUARD OF THE SOUTHERN REVOLUTION
NAZDIX GANG, ASSEMBLE!

Glorious northern proletariat crushing southern peasants/Slave owners

D A N K P O S T

greanvillepost.com/2016/04/11/the-war-nerd-why-sherman-was-right-to-burn-atlanta/

Here is John Dolan from Radio war nerd explaining why burning Atlanta was actually very good

Why is there a sickle in the symbol, again?
☭

The South was a hierarchical, evil, backwards shithole oligarchy. A couldron of oppression hate, slavery, white poverty, all for the benefit of a small oligarchy of Southern Belles, billiards players and general fail sons. Sherman made only one mistake, he didn't burn up enough of the south

yes.
marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm

So it sounds like they were mostly an oppressed people to be liberated, not vermin to be massacred.

the plantation owners absolutely had to be massacred though. Letting them live sabotaged Reconstruction and led to Jim Crow and the Klan.

I think a non-cooperation strategy against such people would have been more effective.

naah, the pathology of white oppression was spread out among the populace, the 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧white working class🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 participated in it and were invested in it

but yes the main effort was to fight the plantation owning class, unfortunately they had enough power to mobilize their poorer peoples, the war could have looked more like a liberation if reconstruction was fulfilled and every single plantation owner had their fucking heads cut off

I seem to recall that the only Southern states that had referendums about secession actually lost to unionists, but then seceeded anyway because they were the elite

the southern elites brought the war upon themselves, unfortunately too many of the peasantry and not enough of the rich were killed

Burning Atlanta was good though

what the hell does that mean?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cooperation_movement

Capitalist North didn't want to buy slaves. Proletariat is cheaper. So they were demanding to "free" the slaves of the South.

Since Capitalist mode of production >>> Slavery (once industry exists), the South was doomed to go the way of dodo one way or another (even winning nigh unwinnable Civil War would mean that US would be weaker and become prey to industrial nation who will "emancipate" slaves). Historical inevitability, yes.

I couldn't. Given that Capitalism is more progressive, it is strongly advised for Socialists is to support North. This, however, does not imply any illusions about North. Capitalists simply wanted cheap workforce they could exploit - which will also be used as a tool to suppress Proletariat of the North.

In this light, situation could be compared to modern refugee problem, where helping or hindering refugees is not the primary objective of Socialists (it's going to happen one way or another) - it is to ensure that refugees get organized - and get full support in getting their wages as high as local workers - thus reducing any benefits to Capitalists (simultaneously restricting Capital outflow into Third World - preferably, through seizing control over factories).

Distortion through oversimplification. Moreover, going from Slavery to Capitalism is already jumping one mode of production (Feudal).

oh yeah cool, I have some admiration for this movement like most decent people. I actually have some relatives who were very actively Tolstoyans, pacifists, anarchists and socialist (not marxist, religous). The family myth goes that Gandhi apparently was inspired by the civil disobedience that was practiced in Finland by my relatives.

With all that said, that approach is literally "ethical consumption". It's liberal ideology *sniff*!! India would literally still be a colony if it wasn't for two world wars destroying all British economic and military power. India got free because of luck, not because of moral superiority.

If one took that approach to American slavery black people would have been walking around in chains for several more decades.

The southern elite (not the people) seceeded and those motherufkcers had it coming.

By the way, I recently watched gone with the wind, comfy movie but racist af, the black slaves are literally fighting the Yankees for the masters, some of the main good guys are in teh fucking KKK lol

I'd like to clarify that I am not "decent people".

Gandhi was a reactionary (literally, religious fanatic) who should've gotten the bullet - but got put in charge of India by British, who wished to keep exploiting India. The fact that modern India is a shithole is a result of "decent people" being "decent".

A few massacres by bloodthirsty "Stalinists" would've straightened out situation immeasurably, with India becoming a richer version of China.

I'm not saying I like Gandhi, but some of the ideals of the movement

interesting, what makes you say this? You mean British India could have stayed unified, or that a corrupt imperialist class should have been wiped out?

In many ways I like India more than China (until Modi) because its more democratic, more tolerant and chaotic. Someone like Nehru seems like a proto social democrat, that almost reminds me of someone like Olof Palme, unfortunately he got owned by Mao in war.

Yes. I understand this as tentative support of those bits that intersect with Tolsoyan ideas and non-violence. Which I abhor absolutely. Unconditional love is no different from unconditional hate. Probably, worse - since it is not as obviously destructive.

I mean abandonment of reformist ideas and reliance on legality as a basis of statehood.

I.e. I am primarily talking not about massacres as such, but resolve to resort to those massacres (though, imo, they are inevitable) - should there be any resistance to collectivization and transition to some sort of Social Democracy (as in China).

It is more tolerant - to Capitalism. Democracy exists in a castrated version that cannot infringe on "basic" rights (primarily, proprietary rights - also effective freedom from persecution to corrupt state officials) and, consequently, does not actually express public will.

Instead of a normal total war like the Civil War, the North could have totally decimated the Southern economy through subversion. They could have stolen/freed slaves, given poor southerners free land in the North and territories, armed slave revolts, and used Christian arguments to convince southerners to abandon slavery, all while instituting a boycott on southern good until they abolished slavery. I think this would have actually improved the living conditions of freed slaves faster, because Southern infrastructure wouldn't have been decimated.

When you put it that way, maybe I should become a Maoist lol

lmao cool take, Tolstoy is bit of a boring writer anyway

On the topic of Tolstoy, here is some liberal hack that claims that the reason Putin invades countries is because he didn't read enough Tolstoy and too much Dostoyevsky, for some reason American liberals think Dostoyevsky is for rubes or something
thedailybeast.com/how-tolstoy-can-save-putins-soul

They seceded over much less than that in reality. War and session were interrelated because of the south's imperial ambitions.

valid idea, but I'm not convinced

I was scammed by my history teacher in Finland as a 14-5 year old that the civil war was fought for "economic reasons" and that slavery only was a revisionist excuse. Decent teacher otherwise, but when I learned more about the war it was kinda shocking that my teacher was aping the "lost cause" bullshit.

So I've reacted by assuming that the civil war actually was extremely good. And its a satisfying thought to contemplate Alabamian plantation owners rightously getting bayonetted by black piipo

It was a terribly destructive and sad war that pitted comrade against comrade, and I think it could have been avoided, all while ending slavery in a way that wouldn't have lead to as long a period of widespread racism in the South that continues today. Because the South would have ended slavery on their own, Christian terms, and not forced to gun point, race relations would be much better today.

Fuck you

Yes, so let the secede, but continue the subversion campaign.

lmao u r an ancap

Enjoy the raids on every border for slaves seeking the freedom of what is now a free nation. Also the open warfare in the western territories not yet integrated to either country.

As soon as southern troops/militias entered the North, the North could claim the South had started the war, and that they had honored the South's right to secede from the union. It would have dramatically improved the North's political position.

Eat a dick m8, Sheldon church was beautiful

Like the Europeans elites cared which group of sweaty refugees shot first. Foreign opinion was a matter of where a handful of countries stood in relation to the US.
There were far more advantages to refusing to recognize the secessionists, insisting they remained in the union.

The North didn't just want to free the slaves, they didn't just want to put the old plantation owners out of business, they wanted to put the South, as a people, down. There were regionalist motivations for the Civil War, among other motives.

so where the churches of Berlin you disgusting slave apologizer

Believe it or not you can defeat a military without destroying half the fucking region. Particularly without also fucking over the southern proles

I know, fucking yanks like to think they were pure and virtuous

By "advantages" do you mean how the North used the Civil War as an excuse to centralize political and financial power?

Sin can only be cleansed with blood.

The Union winning the war was good. Slavery was bad. People that dick suck the Union and act like Sherman's march and reconstruction were good are fucking retards ignoring how much poor people, former slaves included, suffered from these.

Breddy gud post

How Christian of you.

All that and more, the north was clearly better at exterminating the natives and appropriating their lands.
Americans are felled like wheat in a field to free the slaves
While the Bear River Massacre is taking place

What sort of a perverted "leftist" would think this is a good thing!?

I'm saying america's history is a bloodsoaked nightmare of racial violence and mechanized imperialism. I am a leftist.

t. butt-blasted Georgian

What was Sherman supposed to do? March to the sea and leave the important rail way hub Atlanta untouched in his back? Not go into the South but simply stay on the front line in Northern territory and get murdered in a genltemanly way?

It's fucking war, the sooner it ends the better. Fucking up the actual south was the quickest way to do this

True. But had people acted differently, it wouldn't have been, no? Here, you might like this poem of mine:

= Things Would Be Different =

Had only Andrew Jackson taken 'shrooms,
there wouldn’t be so many Indians in tombs.
Got not they even that;
left to lay there on their back
to rot where they got shot.

= Things Would Be Different =

that's actually not very christian at all

You see what I did there.

NAZDIX GANG NEEDS TO SEE THOSE PIX OF TITS GURL

Don't you agree that the North took advantage of reconstruction to exploit the South?

dont see how thats relevant

Well they did start and lose a war.

The post you replied to mentioned Reconstruction, and I was wondering your opinion on it.

So you think certain members of the proletariat should be exploited if they have ever been drafted into a war?

The slavery issue was largely peripheral to the actual reasons underlying the war, Lincoln didn't give a shit about the slaves.

The southern proletariat was now limbless, dead, or a slave until very recently. Reconstruction had be to carried out by the north.
The south was devastated by years of mass warfare, they needed to be reintegrated into the country.

Sure, but on what terms?

Well it would have been nice if the corrupt as hell northern government had the skill or wherewithal to carry out a friendly and egalitarian rebuilding effort. I'm not defending them. Greedy capitalists kicked it into high gear after the civil war.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

ah
edginess is more common than cleverness here, so I missed the joke

Where are the situationalists posting at my dude?

I think most of us are pretty sincere here. (actually jk NSA, I'm being ironic.)

The Confederacy was the antithesis of an ethno state.

Ethno states are the prime vehicle for a Socialist movement, ethnic diversity divides and weakens the workers.

that's the single most retar-

Hebrews. Read it.

Not refuting anything lad. Why is multiculturalism going to mobilise the proletariat?

burden of proof is on the assburger who claimed that racial diversity somehow weakens the workers
historically speaking some of the most militant socialists in America were immigrants who were driven out of reformist organizations because of their ethnicity. The IWW drew a lot of its strength from immigrant workers and black workers. A united proletariat is necessary for the success of any workers movement.

All you're claiming is a migrant is potentially more militant. All it looks like to me is minorities engaging in ethnic vanguardism against the established majority while using the cloak of egalitarianism to deflect criticism.

no, i'm claiming that migrants can and should be radicalized and work with ethnic workers to fight a common enemy (the capitalists)
what the fuck are you talking about.

Okay. So again how is multiculturalism going to mobilise the proletariat? You can't just jump between everyone's a potential revolutionary and immigrants make better revolutionaries.

As for the other bit I'm saying they use politics to advance their own ethnic interests not a common economic interest.

No one is claiming that. The point is that ethnic homogeneity isn’t going to help the proletariat.
Again, no ones claiming that. The point is that they shouldn’t be excluded from class struggle.
The petit-bourgeois and middle class idpol people might but that’s not true for all migrants.

But multiculturalism is?
I wasn't asking to exclude them, just asking why a nation needs foreigners at all to engage in class struggle.
It isn't true of all migrants but you're deluded or sheltered if you thing it's limited the group you put forward.

like it or not these people exist so your only options are a) willfully exclude them, losing out on potential comrades and leaving an entire demographic of people open to recruitment from the right wing or b) acknowledge reality and work with them. We aren't debating whether multiculturalism is good or bad-multiculturalism exists and theres nothing that can change that.

So why is that immutable yet capitalism isn't?

Because capitalism is a man-made economic system riddled with internal contradictions while "multiculturalism" just refers to people of different ethnic backgrounds living in the same community ,has no inherent positive or negative connotations and thus there is no point in trying to promote or oppose it?
I'm confused as to what you're arguing for right now. Do you agree with the naziposter that ethnostates make socialism easier?

teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/address-of-south-carolina-to-slaveholding-states/
-US Declaration of Independence

It was their right to secede, the court in Texas V. White was only speaking from a constitutional law perspective as they could, the declaration espouses natural law, secession is extra-legal, it's beyond man-made law. They didn't secede cause they lost the war and the constitution is irrelevant in that regard and it's as simple as that. They detested Northern industrial society and wageslavery just like we do. Sure you can whine about muh literal slavery but they had the right idea nonetheless.
-George Fitzhugh
And just read these
occidentaldissent.com/2012/10/15/slavery-myths-southern-slavery-and-human-development/
occidentaldissent.com/2012/09/16/free-labor-vs-slave-labor/comment-page-1/
Sounds ebin if you're white :)

I'm pretty sure different peoples move into alien cultural spaces due to material conditions and those are effected by people. Two cultures don't just appear and share the same space naturally.

I'm just saying it doesn't happen in a vacuum like you imply and yes it has some draw backs like measurable decreases in the populations altruism. I'm assuming some of that's required for a successful workers movement.

literal slavery is worse than wage labor dumbass.

How so? If you read the links you'll see slavery increased the life expectancy of the slaves.
Ad hom
And?

this is a communist imageboard, we shouldn't be trying to go back to precapitalist society just because it seemed nice according to a southern aristocrat who directly benefited from slavery and a nationalist-propagandist website.

Post-capitalism is going full circle with all the new toys invented by capitalism instead of not having them which is the difference between post and pre capitalism. Marx detested blacks and it's not like he could have known a whole lot about the situation in America all the way from Europe at the time so his Lincoln letter is at best misguided.

Which is meaningless in context. Life expectancy of slaves went down after abolition because slave states tried to force blacks into de facto economic slavery when actually owning people became illegal. Bourgies lost their investment, so they didn't care whether they died from poverty.

Hasn't this been debunked a thousand times by now? Use of blunt language does not a racist make. This isn't an American blog where you can accuse anyone who calls you out on this a liberal hypocrite that supports political correctness.
Apparently he had ESP, since he was right about a lot of things.

They didn't lose their investment. In Texas V. White it was ruled that because they never actually seceded all bonds sold by the Confederate government were invalid sales so they got their shit back.
Yeah, wageslavery, which is worse, and why the South proceeded to become a backwater. Before then it was flush with cash. Former owners had no obligation to feed them or give them shelter or the healthcare they got as slaves, just whatever money comes from sharecropping.

Marx wouldn't have read

I mean they lost their extremely cost efficient labor source.

I doubt Marx would have seen such a declaration as anything other than the bourgeois protecting their interests when the state apparatus fails them. His analysis of how economic forces shaped race's role in American culture was pretty brilliant.

And yet you contradict yourself and forget sharecropping and are unaware of the crop lein system and the convict leasing system that targeted blacks for several decades after. Race has nothing to do with economic class, there are rich blacks, even black slaveowners, and poor whites.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ellison
As I've said, Marx was not well-aware of the situation in America and wouldn't have understood how American slavery had come to be relativel very humane unlike the rest of the world, not to mention he wouldn't have ever been around slaves in his life. Those in Britian for example thought the war was about tariffs, international news wasn't what it is today.

Actually, American slavery rapidly became worse. It started off as indentured servitude, but this was a poor foundation for a frail economy when civil rights were rapidly growing in popularity. The slave industry was instrumental in the development of modern American racism as a way to ensure its own existence: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws_in_the_United_States

You mean anti-miscegenation laws that almost every state had, even ones that never had slavery?
Life expectancy of slave increased and decreased after abolition, it's not rocket science. One of the key reasons for opposing slavery was the idea that if slavery spread it meant more blacks competing with free whites for work, and surely enough the slaves would get hired more since they didn't need to be paid. Lincoln also straight up said he didn't believe in equal rights for blacks, the 14th amendment didn't come along until after his assassination and that amendment's original purpose was just undoing the Dred Scott decision that said slavery's spread couldn't be constitutionally restricted as it had under the Missouri and 1850 compromises.
Here's his speech on the Dred Scott decision, he wanted to deport all the blacks and condemend alleged miscegenation between white masters and black slaves.
teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/speech-on-the-dred-scott-decision/

Yes. Anti-black racism still existed in the North after all. The point was to influence American culture through propaganda in order to maintain their trade.

The international slave trade was banned from the US in 1808 and the domestic slave trade wasn't a Northern thing except for some illicit underground dealing.

The status quo was preserved though. Th his was not possible when slaves had legal rights.

That's slave mentality. If you care more about your life preservation and expectancy than being free from the will of others you didn't submit to then you are a slave!

If you truly believe that slavery is better than wage-servitude then do you support non-racist slavery (e.g. "black" masters owning "white" slaves) over racist wage-servitude (e.g. "white" bosses only hiring "white" workers)? And would you like to be a slave?

Being a slave in Rome was more desireable than being a slave in the South.

Paul was controlled opposition. Fuck Pauline Christianity!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Christianity

The Christian scriptures worth reading are the Gospels and John's works, and the Gnostic Gospels.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nag_Hammadi_library