Help with Marxist analysis of the American Civil War

[G4b3n]

I have read nearly everything Marx and Engels wrote (in the internet archive) on the American civil war and I feel that there is still much to be desired in terms of the class structure of the conflict. They had a lot to say about its significance on the world stage but I want an internal class analysis.
As contemporaries they did not have the privilege of historiography as a tool, so I feel that is a major factor.


Can anyone recommend me some good works of class analysis on the American Civil War perhaps written in the 20th century (preferably from a Marxist perspective but Anarchists are okay too I guess).

Or if you want to type out your own detailed analysis i would read it but I'm not asking you to. But if you do, I'm looking for something beyond "a victory for bourgeois labor relations" or something simple like that.

[Emmett Till]

I have read nearly everything Marx and Engels wrote (in the internet archive) on the American civil war and I feel that there is still much to be desired in terms of the class structure of the conflict. They had a lot to say about its significance on the world stage but I want an internal class analysis.
As contemporaries they did not have the privilege of historiography as a tool, so I feel that is a major factor.


Can anyone recommend me some good works of class analysis on the American Civil War perhaps written in the 20th century (preferably from a Marxist perspective but Anarchists are okay too I guess).

Or if you want to type out your own detailed analysis i would read it but I'm not asking you to. But if you do, I'm looking for something beyond "a victory for bourgeois labor relations" or something simple like that.

Actually, I think Marx's class analysis of the American Civil War was excellent.

It was the Second American Bourgeois Revolution, the capitalists vs. the slaveowners. You don't even need to be a Marxist for that understanding, the phrase was coined by Charles Beard a century ago, and many of the better bourgeois historians, like Eric Foner, have followed suit.

Want something more recent? Here's a good elementary popular presentation from the Spartacists.

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/979/civilwar.html

[Dire Helix]

Great Soviet Encyclopedia had an article dedicated to the Civil War in the US:

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Civil+War+in+the+United+States,+1861%E2%80%9365,+a nd+the+Reconstruction+of+the

[Luís Henrique]

Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made by Eugene Genovese.

Luís Henrique

[Absolut]

I don't know if you can get a hold of it, but I read an essay by someonenamed Conrad Schuler called (freely translated from Swedish) Towards the Consolidation of the Class Struggle in the US. It deals primarily with the Black Panthers, but also has a section on the history of black struggle in the US from the 19th century until the 1950's.

In short, he claims that three modes of production existed parallel in the US: capitalism in the north, an feudal/slave-based society in the south and a system of agrarian production in the west. At this time, the goods produced in the south were shipped primarily to the United Kingdom, where they were used in manufacturing. As a result of this, the north could not get the raw material they needed for their industry, creating a contradiction between the capitalists in the north and the slave-owners in the south. This contradiction eventually led to the civil war.

When we add the conflicting interests between the slave-owners and the slave to the aforementioned contradiction, it is easy to see why the northern capitalists wanted an abolition of slavery. It didn't have anything to do with moral indignation concerning slavery, but rather, the interests of the slaves and the northern capitalists coincided. The slaves wanted to be free, and the northern capitalists wanted to subdue the slave-owners. When the war ended, Schuler claims, the north had won the war but not the peace. Even though the slave-owners had been defeated militarily, they still held the political power. This had to be broken, and thus Reconstruction commenced.

During the Reconstruction-era, black people and former slaves, were admitted into the various legislatures in the south, protected by their allies in the north. This went on for around ten years. In 1877, the norther capitalists and the southern slave-owners finally settled their differences and agreed to get along. This had several reasons:

-The rise of the workers' movement in the north, where the issue of race became increasingly important
-The huge terror-campaign directed against black people in the south, conducted by the slave-owners through organisations like the KKK
-The slave-owners in the south had been politically and economically weakened, and could no longer offer the same resistance to the north, thus being forced to accept their position as resource base for the US, instead of the UK
-The northern capitalists needed/wanted cheap labor, which could be provided by black people migrating northwards

As soon as this agreement had been made, Reconstruction was over, and the former slaves were returned to the plantations or migrated northwards. When returned to the plantations, the former slaves were nominally free, but through various systems, for example being paid in vouchers that were only accepted in the plantation's store, they were kept in place. This later developed into sharecropping, in which both black and white people were engaged.

I hope that my outline helped you somewhat, and I'm sorry that I couldn't give you a link to the text, but if you are able to find it, I really recommend it.

[Hit The North]

In short, he claims that three modes of production existed parallel in the US: capitalism in the north, an feudal/slave-based society in the south and a system of agrarian production in the west.


There's no way that the southern states were feudal.

Also, "agrarian production" is not a mode of production.

...

[BIXX]

I don't know if you can get a hold of it, but I read an essay by someonenamed Conrad Schuler called (freely translated from Swedish) Towards the Consolidation of the Class Struggle in the US. It deals primarily with the Black Panthers, but also has a section on the history of black struggle in the US from the 19th century until the 1950's.

In short, he claims that three modes of production existed parallel in the US: capitalism in the north, an feudal/slave-based society in the south and a system of agrarian production in the west. At this time, the goods produced in the south were shipped primarily to the United Kingdom, where they were used in manufacturing. As a result of this, the north could not get the raw material they needed for their industry, creating a contradiction between the capitalists in the north and the slave-owners in the south. This contradiction eventually led to the civil war.

When we add the conflicting interests between the slave-owners and the slave to the aforementioned contradiction, it is easy to see why the northern capitalists wanted an abolition of slavery. It didn't have anything to do with moral indignation concerning slavery, but rather, the interests of the slaves and the northern capitalists coincided. The slaves wanted to be free, and the northern capitalists wanted to subdue the slave-owners. When the war ended, Schuler claims, the north had won the war but not the peace. Even though the slave-owners had been defeated militarily, they still held the political power. This had to be broken, and thus Reconstruction commenced.

During the Reconstruction-era, black people and former slaves, were admitted into the various legislatures in the south, protected by their allies in the north. This went on for around ten years. In 1877, the norther capitalists and the southern slave-owners finally settled their differences and agreed to get along. This had several reasons:

-The rise of the workers' movement in the north, where the issue of race became increasingly important
-The huge terror-campaign directed against black people in the south, conducted by the slave-owners through organisations like the KKK
-The slave-owners in the south had been politically and economically weakened, and could no longer offer the same resistance to the north, thus being forced to accept their position as resource base for the US, instead of the UK
-The northern capitalists needed/wanted cheap labor, which could be provided by black people migrating northwards

As soon as this agreement had been made, Reconstruction was over, and the former slaves were returned to the plantations or migrated northwards. When returned to the plantations, the former slaves were nominally free, but through various systems, for example being paid in vouchers that were only accepted in the plantation's store, they were kept in place. This later developed into sharecropping, in which both black and white people were engaged.

I hope that my outline helped you somewhat, and I'm sorry that I couldn't give you a link to the text, but if you are able to find it, I really recommend it.

http://weeklysift.com/2014/08/11/not-a-tea-party-a-confederate-party/

[oneday]

At this time, the goods produced in the south were shipped primarily to the United Kingdom, where they were used in manufacturing. As a result of this, the north could not get the raw material they needed for their industry, creating a contradiction between the capitalists in the north and the slave-owners in the south. This contradiction eventually led to the civil war.

When we add the conflicting interests between the slave-owners and the slave to the aforementioned contradiction, it is easy to see why the northern capitalists wanted an abolition of slavery. It didn't have anything to do with moral indignation concerning slavery, but rather, the interests of the slaves and the northern capitalists coincided. The slaves wanted to be free, and the northern capitalists wanted to subdue the slave-owners. When the war ended, Schuler claims, the north had won the war but not the peace. Even though the slave-owners had been defeated militarily, they still held the political power. This had to be broken, and thus Reconstruction commenced.


Can you elaborate on why the northern capitalists wanted the end of slavery? Why did they think ending slavery would allow them to get more/cheaper goods they needed for their industry? I guess it worked?

[mutualaid]

"Armed spreading of slavery abroad was the avowed aim of national policy; the Union had in fact become the slave of the three hundred thousand slaveholders who held sway over the South. A series of compromises, which the South owed to its alliance with the Northern Democrats, had led to this result. On this alliance all the attempts, periodically repeated since 1817, to resist the ever increasing encroachments of the slaveholders had hitherto come to grief. At length there came a turning point."
Marx goes on to say that the Kansas Nebraska Bill, which left the issue of slavery in new territories up to the settlers, resulted in brutal raids organized by slaveowners who wanted to secure the expansion of slavery. Marx notes that the federal government endorsed these raids. A consequence of the relief efforts was the creation of the Republican party, which limited the expansion of slavery and a growing population base in N and NW. Marx argues that slavery has to expand, in part because it exhaust the soil, and so - with the Republicans drawing a red line and the slave system needing more land for its survival - the war, according to marx, was inevitable.
I can't post it yet, but the article is titled "The North American Civil War" and can be found online

[Emmett Till]

Can you elaborate on why the northern capitalists wanted the end of slavery? Why did they think ending slavery would allow them to get more/cheaper goods they needed for their industry? I guess it worked?

That's a predtty simplistic way of looking at it. If anything, ending slavery made cotton more expensive.

That the southern half of the USA worked under an utterly outmoded and backward system of chattel slavery was holding back American development. No railroads, illiteracy, practically no cities in the South, just wall to wall cotton plantations.

Sure slavery was extremely profitable, but it was holding back the development of the American nation. America's rise to world dominion could not have happened without getting rid of chattel slavery, the last of the great, liberating bourgeois revolutions.