#Anaconda plan definition us history full
The First American Revolution, which saw thirteen colonies win independence from the greatest imperialist power of the age, is full of heroic examples of mass struggle and sacrifice. They forcefully put their stamp on the course of history, even if they don’t have a clearly worked out plan, or a leadership up to the tasks posed by events. Time and again throughout history, we’ve seen how, when deep divisions emerge at the summit of society, the masses sense an opportunity and rise up from below to seize their destinies in their hands.
Marx wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln, congratulating him on his reelection in 1864 / Image: public domainĪs Marxists, we are especially interested in understanding the role of the masses in these processes. We must study the inter- and intra-class dynamics, contradictions, and tensions, and follow the changing class and property relations as they develop within a given society.
The study of the revolution cannot be separated from the study of counter-revolution, as these processes are dialectically interrelated. Revolution and counter-revolutionĪs we prepare for the revolutions of the not-too-distant future, we must soberly analyse the revolutions and counter-revolutions of the past – not only the inspiring victories, but also the defeats and betrayals, the periods of demoralisation and reaction. The Black Lives Matter movement following the police killing of George Floyd was a forceful reminder that institutional racism is alive and well, that the fight against inequality and oppression cannot be separated from the fight against class exploitation, and that the only way to bring about serious, systemic change is through mass struggle. The events of 160 years ago have a direct bearing on the struggle against exploitation, racism and all forms of oppression, and the struggle for socialism today. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” It’s not even past.”Īs Marx explained: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. As the great novelist of the American South, William Faulkner, put it: “The past is never dead. A clear conception of the significance of this period is essential if we are to understand the country as it exists today. It was the foundry that transformed our conception of this country from “the United States are” to “the United States is”. The Civil War was four years of the most brutal warfare the United States has ever seen, followed by the smouldering revolution and counter-revolution of Reconstruction. In this article from issue 38 of the In Defence of Marxism magazine, John Peterson of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) in the United States looks at these titanic events that shaped world history.Ĭlick here to listen to a podcast on the American Civil War made by the comrades of Socialist Revolution, the US section of the IMT.
This episode in the class struggle graphically demonstrated the dynamics of revolution, and should be studied by all class-conscious workers and youth. This revolutionary war, which consumed US society for four long and bloody years, overthrew slavery as a mode of exploitation and laid the ground for the rapid development of US capitalism. The American Civil War is an event of world-historic significance.
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