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An Unfinished Revolution: Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln by [Abraham Lincoln, Karl Marx, Robin Blackburn, Raya Dunaevskaya]

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Robin Blackburn

An Unfinished Revolution: Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln Kindle Edition

by Abraham Lincoln (Author), Karl Marx (Author), Robin Blackburn (Editor, Introduction), Format: Kindle Edition

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The impact of the American Civil War on Karl Marx, and Karl Marx on America.

Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln exchanged letters at the end of the Civil War, with Marx writing on behalf of the International Working Men’s Association. Although they were divided by far more than the Atlantic Ocean, they agreed on the urgency of suppressing slavery and the cause of “free labor.” In his introduction Robin Blackburn argues that Lincoln’s response to the IWA was a sign of the importance of the German American community as well as of the role of the International in opposing European recognition of the Confederacy.

The International went on to attract many thousands of supporters in over fifty regions of the US, and helped to spread the demand for an eight-hour day—enacted by Congress in 1868 for Federal employees. Blackburn shows how the International in America—born out of the Civil War—sought to radicalize Lincoln’s unfinished revolution and to advance the rights of labor, uniting black and white, men and women, native and foreign–born. The International contributed to a profound critique of the capitalist robber barons who enriched themselves during and after the war. It inspired an extraordinary series of strikes and class struggles in the postwar decades.

In addition to a range of key texts and letters by both Lincoln and Marx, this book includes Raya Dunaevskaya’s assessment of the impact of the Civil War on Marx’s theory and a survey by Frederick Engels of the progress of US labor in the 1880s.

Print length

270 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Verso
Publication date

May 16, 2011
File size

1305 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robin Blackburn teaches at the New School in New York and the University of Essex in the UK. He is the author of many books, including The Making of New World Slavery, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, Age Shock, Banking on Death, and The American Crucible.

Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States and the author of several seminal speeches and writings, including the Gettysburg Address. He died in 1865.

Karl Marx was born in 1818, in the Rhenish city of Trier, the son of a successful lawyer. He studied law and philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Berlin, completing his doctorate in 1841. In Paris three years later, Marx was introduced to the study of political economy by a former fellow student, Frederick Engels. In 1848 they collaborated in writing The Communist Manifesto. Expelled from Prussia in the same year, Marx took up residence first in Paris and then in London where, in 1867 he published his magnum opus Capital. A co-founder of the International Workingmen’s Association in 1864, Marx died in London in 1883.

Frederick Engels was born in 1820, in the German city of Barmen. Brought up as a devout Calvinist he moved to England in 1842 to work in his father’s Manchester textile firm. After joining the fight against the counter revolution in Germany in 1848 he returned to Manchester and the family business, finally settling there in 1850. In subsequent years he provided financial support for Marx and edited the second and third volumes of Capital. He died whilst working on the fourth volume in 1895. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN : B00G2DO2EO
Publisher : Verso; Illustrated edition (May 16, 2011)
Publication date : May 16, 2011
Language : English
File size : 1305 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 270 pages
Lending : Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #2,643,030 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,066 in Abolition History of the U.S.
- #1,142 in Labor & Industrial Relations (Kindle Store)
- #1,323 in Reconstruction History of the U.S.

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Richard Harrold

Not quite what I expected

Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2019

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I was expecting more examples of direct correspondence between Marx and Lincoln. However, the book was nonetheless enlightening with regards to Marx's interest in the American Civil War. He wrote to Engels a great deal about it, and published several articles about the war as well. Interesting also in describing a fairly strong workers movement in the US at the time.

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Leven

Unfinished Story

Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2013

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It's a good book,but I was thinking it might have an analysis of the influence of Charles Dana on Lincoln. It did not,which was a disappointment. Charles Dana's influence in history is downplayed due to his socialist Republican politics. Dana was responsible for getting Karl Marx a job with the NY Tribune,and,with his office near Lincoln's office (as Undersecretary of War), it was Dana, who communicated to Lincoln, Marx's ideas on a labour theory of value. This ommission I found regretable. However,the book has value toward making the case that true "government of,by,for the people",must bring about a victory for the working class in America. Which was clearly Lincoln's vision, evolving as it was,in the context of the war to liberate blacks from landed slavery and the northern whites from wage-slavery. But,as I said,the book fell short, missing important historical points of view. I still find the book worthwhile to read. I liked it.

28 people found this helpful

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pmX

Approachable History

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2012

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I finally got around to reading this. It had been on my shelf for so long as I was afraid it would be dry and/or misguided (and I am not terribly interested in the American Civil War) but it was neither. It was good history, in that it was thoroughly annotated and footnoted, and it was good writing, in that it did not present dry facts, but rather drew one into the narrative and premise.

Basically the book traces Karl Marx's efforts as a cheerleader for the Civil War and for Lincoln, in opposition to mainstream Europe (especially England) which favored the south. Marx, however, saw the opportunity, long before hostilities commenced, to unseat slavery and enter a revolutionary period in The United States which would unite the freed slaves with the workers of the Industrial north and force the question of where power truly lay in society.

The author traces the causes of the war, the many opinions on the matter both domestically and internationally, the rise of the International Workingmen's Association in America, and the role of Socialists and labor in the battle against slavery.

We are brought through the successes and ultimately the failure of Reconstruction and the rise of the first political labor organizations in America and their ultimate betrayal at the hands of the bourgeoisies.

In addition to the book itself, we are given many original documents to read, at the end, which are given real life and color, once you are done the book. Among these are:

- Marx's (on behalf of the IWA) correspondence with President Lincoln.
- Marx's several writings on the American Civil War including his most famous and several works of criticism and concern which he published for Die Presse and others.
- Marx and Engels correspondence concerning the civil war and reconstruction.
- Several contemporary articles that highlight the issues raised in the book.
- An excellent interview with Karl Marx discussing the IWA and The Paris Commune.
- Engels introduction to the American edition of "The Condition of the Working Class in England"
- Lucy Parsons' speech at the founding of the IWW. (This speech is particularly motivating.)

If you are a fan of history, The Civil War or of the history of American Marxism or labor, this might be a good book for you.

14 people found this helpful

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JMB1014

A Valuable Progressive Perspective on the Civil War

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2011

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This unusual book of readings is ballyhooed as presenting correspondence between Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx,concerning, we presume, slavery and involuntary labor. It is disappointing that there is really no such correspondence. Instead, we read a letter from the International Workingmen's Association, doubtless by Marx, and a response from Charles Francis Adams, head of the U.S. legation in England, on behalf of Lincoln, which contains sentiments ascribed to Lincoln that are generally sympathetic to the views espoused in Marx's letter, though they are very general indeed. There is another letter from the IWA to President Andrew Johnson, expressing loss over the death of Lincoln and encouraging Johnson not to "compromise with stern duties" and to help "initiate the new age of the emancipation of labor." That's it. In fact, these materials, like others in the book, have been available in other volumes of Marx's and Lincoln's writings for years.

The rest of this volume consists of useful and interesting materials, including four writings of Lincoln (all widely available: his two inaugurals, the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation), writings by Marx on the Civil War and its ramifications, correspondence by Marx and Engels and Marx and Annenkov, some writings from the feminist journal "Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly" on rights of women and children and including an interview by R. Landor with a brusque Marx, the conclusion of "Black and White" by Thomas Fortune, the preface to the American edition of "The Condition of the Working Class in England," by Engels, some speeches from the founding meeting of the IWW, and a good, 100-plus page introduction by Robin Blackburn which is inevitably rather compressed and not as well edited as it might have been. To take one annoying example, the excellent recent book by Eric Foner is erroneously cited in a footnote as "The Fiery Trail," not "The Fiery Trial."

There is real value in putting these readings together under the heading "An Unfinished Revolution," with appropriate scholarly commentary and historical context. I am just disappointed that we are asked to believe that there was some genuine correspondence between Marx and Lincoln. Hence the 4-star rating. Who would not want to read such letters? Obviously, the two would be expected to have their differences, yet Lincoln's pre-presidential writings on labor reflect a strong bias in favor of the worker's being able to enjoy the fruits of his labors, and Lincoln's general acceptance of the labor theory of value, which was considered orthodox from Sir William Petty through John Locke, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Marx, at least. Lincoln's views on labor are usually given short shrift. I speculate that it is because those views were so very progressive and because they can be read merely as part of his discussion of the evils of slavery.

Marx, for his part, was as brilliant and insightful about the American Civil War as he was about economics. His predictions about the war, from across the ocean yet, coincide remarkably with the strategic views of Grant and Sherman, which were ultimately vindicated by events. Marx of course was steeped in relevant history and well-informed. Already in August 1862 he had taken McClellan's measure, as he recounted how the little general had served at the Chicago Central Railroad: Marx's source related that McClellan had never been able to make a decision without spending at least an hour trying to come up with the answer. He "never decided a single important controversial question" while there. Moreover, Marx's comment in an April 1866 letter to Engels, that "After the Civil War the United States are only now really entering the revolutionary phase," is characteristically accurate and more prescient than many Americans still care to acknowledge. Similarly acute was Lincoln's prediction that shortly after the war, the political and social character of the United States would be seen very differently around the world and the nation would have need of the army and navy the war had provided it. Efforts to "settle" the frontiers of the West, however, delayed the fulfillment of this prophecy as America's rise as an imperialist power was postponed.

While the bulk of this volume is writings by Marx himself, other progressive voices speak of issues that resonate remarkably to this day. Foner, in "The Fiery Trial," hints at the nascent progressivism that appeared among states as they were being re-united during the Civil War. They provided by law for limitations on the work day, progressive income taxes, minimum wages on government contracts, and the like. Such reforms are similar to or among many that are discussed and contemplated in the writings assembled here. In other words, the Civil War was part of a movement to recognize equality and promote democratic and otherwise progressive measures. Its successful prosecution provided further impetus for that movement. Even though controversy continues to exist over the extent to which the plight of blacks was ameliorated by the Civil War and Reconstruction, a more general progressive movement arose from the Northern victory over Southern exploitationists.

The merits of this collection are more apparent as one reads more of it. We are not often enough invited to see the Civil War in this progressive context. The readings, illuminated by the introduction and plenty of annotations, are fascinating. I do wish a bibliography and index had been provided however, as this is a good reference work to return to time and again. As with many publications from Verso, this book will not merely teach, but stimulate and provoke new thought about our history and society.

79 people found this helpful

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Bill Balderston

Workers of the World read this

Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2017

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Unknown history

2 people found this helpful

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Landis Potter

Great book!

Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2013

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A lot of information that some people don't want to talk about. History that is pushed to under the table.

10 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Michael Wolff

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 8, 2018

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A great book, and it arrived on time.

Peter

No point

Reviewed in Canada on October 16, 2013

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The book contains no material that cannot be found in other compilations of Marx's correspondence. The material from Lincoln is all public domain. There is little in the way of original scholarship that couldn't be better produced as a short article in a journal. Not worth the money.

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An Unfinished Revolution: Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln Kindle Edition