Karl Marx and Marxism

I. Marx and Engels

A. Karl Marx

1. Family--father was of Jewish ancestry, who apparently converted to Protestant Christianity--possibly to advance his career as a government official, since Jews were discriminated against even in the 1810s in Germany (and most of the rest of Europe).

2. Education--Germany was in the midst of forming the modern academy in the years before Marx began his education (which much of Europe and North America would soon copy). Received doctorate in Philosophy at 24.

3. Clashes with the Prussian government officials led to Marx being exiled to Paris by 1847, where he met Engels and other exiled German socialists.

B. Frederick Engels

1. Family--father was a prosperous manufacturer, with factories in Rhineland (western Germany) and Manchester (northern England).







2. Manchester--Engels was sent to Manchester by his father to manage the factory in Manchester, where Engels was introduced to the misery of the working-class first hand. As a result, Engels joined the Chartists and wrote The Condition of the English Working Class. Engels ended up in Paris by 1847, like Marx.

C. The Young Hegelians--Marx utilized the philosophy espoused by Georg Wilhem Hegel as the basis for his own new philosophy, particularly Hegel’s argument about the dialectic basis of history--but he also borrowed and adapted ideas from other Young Hegelians, who also reacted to the work of Hegel.

1. Bruno Bauer--turned Hegel’s notion that everything changes through contradiction into a liberal critique of the then-present German society.



2. Ludwig Feuerbach--developed the materialist philosophy (also known as Physicalism) that Marx and Engels relied upon to develop their own theory of historical materialism. Feuerbach argued that only physical objects possess reality, and in particular that spirituality was delusional. Feuerbach argued that man created god, rather than the other way around, and this resulted in man’s alienation. This philosophy goes hand-in-hand with atheism

D. The Communist Manifesto--became famous because of the events in the months after its publication (the various revolutions in 1848), but this work also laid out the work that Marx and Engels pursued the rest of their lives.

1. Alienation--the “market” was nothing more than the interaction or workers labor. A worker’s labor solidified into a thing, a product of that labor--but in capitalism, the object produced did not belong to the worker who produced it, but to the capitalist paying wages for the worker’s labor. The product of labor therefore became objectified, as Marx termed it, in exchange for a cash payment.

a) Alienation occurred because of the efforts of successive generations of people to wrest a livelihood from nature, and this led to differing relations between people, eventually forming into economic classes.

b) Marx and Engels argued that Feuerbach neglected the role of human agency in changing the physical world, which they set out to correct with their own arguments about alienation.

2. Historical materialism--Marx and Engels argued that every historical epoch was defined by the prevailing economic system (called the mode of production) determined the character of the social and political organization of that society.

a) Thesis--Antithesis--Synthesis--for Marx and Engels, society was continually undergoing a struggle for control, epitomized by the above formulation.

II. The Revolutions of 1848

A. The Specter Haunting Europe--Marx and Engels finished writing The Communist Manifesto in late 1847. In December of that year there was a brief civil war in Switzerland; that was followed by a brief uprising in Sicily in January. In February, there was an uprising by workers in Paris, forcing the king to flee and helping to create the establishment of the Second Republic.

B. Famine

1. Ireland and the Great Famine--the immiseration of the Irish peasant due to enclosure continued apace, and they were shunted to smaller and smaller plots and poorer land. This had resulted in the 1820s and 1830s in increased numbers of Irish leaving their homes to work in the factories of England and the United States, as well as building the transportation infrastructure.

a) Potato cultivation--despite increased emigration even before the advent of the potato blight, the population of Ireland increased exponentially during the early decades of the 19th century; according to the 1841 census, the population of the island was over 8 million people; in the 1851 census, the population dropped to about 6.5 million. An estimated million people died from starvation or disease during the Hunger; another million or so immigrated during those years.



b) The failure to counteract the Great Hunger--initially the British Prime Minister Robert Peel ordered that food be imported from the US and sold at market rates (which many of the poorest Irish could not afford); but under his successor, even these minimal efforts were abandoned, as the reliance upon the “invisible hand” of the market was going to deliver food to people who had no means to purchase it.

c) This same blight effected other areas of Europe, as well, but not with the same level of devastation and death. Other governments in Europe reacted in a similar fashion to that of Great Britain; this helped create a crisis of confidence in these governments, and to also create the political atmosphere that fostered support for the revolutions that followed.

C. Democratic reformers

1. Bourgeois protest--middle class protest stirred workers to take on the army and police in many cities in Europe in 1848.



2. Proletariat protest--just as in the earlier French revolution, when the lower class began to agitate for a voice in the forming government, the middle class (the bourgeois, in Marx’s term) allied with the upper class, and used armed force to crush the rebellion

Conclusion: From the results of the failed 1848 revolutions--the forces of reaction throughout Europe were largely able to regain political control, although feudalistic remnants of society were expunged, paving the road for capitalism to develop--the arguments of Marx and Engels and other socialists, that bourgeois democratic revolutions were a step on the way to control of governmental functions by the proletariat, gained a significant number of adherents.

Written Assignment 8

Much of the material covered in class has dealt with the rise of nationalism. What makes up a nation? Is it a shared ethnic origin, a shared language, a shared political ideology—or is it an “imagined community,” as the political scientist Benedict Anderson argues it is? Or does it share all of these attributes in differing measures. Your answer should constitute at least two full page of double-spaced typescript, and is due on March 14, 2013 (after Spring Break) at the beginning of class.

The Native American Revolution

Tippecanoe and the Prophet, Too

I)                   The Treaty of Greenville

A)    Battle of Fallen Timbers

1)      Defeat of Indian Confederacy – Gen. Anthony Wayne decisively defeated combined Indian Forces, who were again abandoned by their British allies, in the late summer of 1794.

B)     Terms

1)      Shawnees big loser – the Shawnee people were perhaps most effected by the treaty, since the terms made Indians cede “title” to 2/3rds of Ohio; a line stretching from the Cuyahoga River in the east southwest to the site of Fort Recovery, near the present Indiana border, as well as the sites of Fort Defiance and Fort Wayne

C)     Area of white settlement

1)      South of Greenville Treaty Line

2)      Chillecothe – a Shawnee name (and one they chose to use frequenly)

D)    Areas of Indian Settlement

II)                 Indian Settlements

A)    Wapakoneta

1)      Black Hoof—followers of Black Hoof agreed to live on farms, raise crops in fenced plots as well as farm animals like cows and sheep.

2)      Gnadenhutten massacre (1782) – a group of Delaware Indians were massacred by white settlers in retaliation for Indian atrocities—which none of the Gnadenhutten Delawares had been a part of, but for which they were made to suffer.

B)     Au Glaize

1)      Trading area – the Glaize was located near the confluence of the Au Glaize River and the Maumee River, near present-day Defiance, Ohio

2)      Multi-ethnic – the Glaize was home to several white traders, their Indian wives, mestizo children—as well as several villages of Indian peoples, including the Miami and Shawnee

C)     White River (near present-day Anderson)

1)      Delawares and Shawnees—after the Treaty of Greenville, Shawnee Indians split into several factions. Some followed Black Hoof to Wapakoneta; other followed Blue Jacket to near Little Turtles settlement near Fort Wayne; still other (including Tecumseh and Lillawetheka) followed Captain Johnny, who set up a village by 1804 on Swan Creek, near a blockhouse built for them by the British, which was eventually taken over by American forces and named Fort Industry, forcing the group to move once again; many followed Tecumseh at this point to settle near a group of Delaware on the White River.

III)              Indians and Prophecy

A)    Delaware Prophets

1)      Prophetess Beata – Beata was a Delaware women, who had lived among the Moravians. During the winter of 1806, many Delaware were dying of some sickness (flu?); Beata began preaching that this sickness was in fact inflicted upon them by the Great Spirit because of their wickedness as a people—those who contined to live in this manner would suffer the same fate.

(a)    Malevolent witches – Beata also preached, and many Delaware believed, that this sickness was also the work of witches. In Indian belief, witches tended to be older people in the village, whose longevity could often be attributed being particularly conversant with the spirit world.

2)      Neolin – and earlier Delaware prophet, who also preached a Christian-influenced doctrine. What is particularly important in noting this, I believe, is that we now are talking about doctrines and Indians—something that was not present before.

B)     Return to the “true religion” – in the period from the 1780s forward, native religions begin to adopt more Christian aspects: messages from a Supreme Being, a moral code including monogamy, prohibitions against drinking, and so forth. Before this time period, morality is not really much of an issue. Strictures are also issued against the adoption of white mores—the eating of domesticated animals, the consumption of alcohol, selling goods for money (especially game and pelts)

IV)              Tenskwatawa—The Shawnee Prophet

A)    Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh

1)      Sources of knowledge about the brothers

(a)    Draper Collection – collected years after the fact

(b)   Indian sources – from the Prophet, years after the fact, and from metis named Anthony Shane, who hated the Prophet

(c)    White sources – tended to favor Tecumseh, because he fit the white image of the “noble savage”—he was tall, good-looking, fierce warrior; Tenskwatawa, on the other hand, fit the devious image of the Indian—short, missing an eye, a shaman (religious figure—but not Christian).

2)      The Shawnee Prophet

(a)    Tenskwatawa’s vision

(b)   Religion of the Prophet

(i)                 Abandon white ways, including all animals except the horse

(ii)               Take up monogamy

(iii)             Forsake the sale of goods

(iv)             Sever all contact with whites as far as possible; Indian women who had white husbands were to leave those families, including any children fathered by whites.

(v)               Tenskwatawa also called for the end of fighting between Indian people, especially the abuse of spouses and children; but he also attempted to undercut the influence of women in tribal politics (again, an European influence)

(c)    Not all Indians completely followed all strictures, but the power of Tenskwatawa’s preaching was extremely attractive to many

(d)   Move to Greenville (1807)

(i)                 Initially, government officials allowed the Prophet and Tecumseh to establish their village at Greenville; however, the number of Indians traveling to Greenville to hear Tenskwatawa, and carry his message to other Indians, prompted many whites to suspect that an uprising was being planned.

(e)    Removal to Prophet’s Town – in order to diminish white hostility toward their band, Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh remove their band to a location near the mouth of the Tippecanoe River in what is now northwestern Indiana. Here the followers of the Prophet built a substantial village, consisting of about two hundred dwellings.

(i)                 Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809) – this treaty, negotiated by William Henry Harrison at the encouragement of former president Thomas Jefferson, upset great number of Indians living near the Great Lakes, and caused them to be even more receptive to Tenskwatawa’s message.

(f)     Harrison’s attack on Prophetstown – negotiations with the Shawnee leaders deteriorated in the intervening years, in part because Harrison was unable to stop the growing influence of the Prophet. In November of 1811, while Tecumseh was away, Harrison led a contingent of Kentucky Riflemen and Indiana militia volunteers north from Valparaso to near Prophetstown; Indian forces attacked, but were defeated, and the force under Harrison’s command scattered the remaining Indians, and burned the village and the cache of corn.

(g)    This is generally seen as a great victory, and thirty years later became the successful campaign slogan for Harrison; at the time, however, this “victory” was much less clear-cut, since the scattered Indian forces attacked a number of isolated white settlements, and by the spring of 1812, Tenskwatawa has been able to re-establish his village.

B)     War of 1812

1)      Death of Tecumseh – Tecumseh was killed during the War of 1812 at the Battle of the Thames, near Amherstburg. Tenskwatawa, never very good as a warrior (his role was more of a religious leader/civil chief) remained in Canada, until a decade later or so, when he sought a pardon and the be allowed to live with his fellow Shawnee in the land that they had been granted in Kansas, which he was allowed to do.

V)                Conclusion—how are we then to judge the influence of Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh

Imagined Communities

I. Imagined Communities--most of us from the United States take the idea of nationalism for granted, but national identity has not always been important in peoples lives--for much of history, local identity was of paramount importance.

A. Definition--nationalism is often difficult to define, but for our purposes we can define the term as the belief that persons living within a defined political boundary, sharing a common language and culture, who identify themselves and others as citizens of a political body.


B. Early examples

1. Monarchies--although the upper classes in a kingdom pledge fidelity to the monarch, others in this early imagined community were asked to view the king as the embodiment of the nation itself.


2. “Free-Born Englishmen”--the English were perhaps the first people to begin to re-imagine this idea of national identity, beginning with the English Civil War.

3. United States--in 1757, most white English speakers viewed themselves as Englishmen; by 1787, these same people viewed themselves as a citizen of a new nation, and a new people--Americans. Ruling elites in the United States also had to integrate non-English speakers into their “imagined community,” and which of these people would be allowed within the community, and who would be excluded.

a) Whiteness as a community marker--very quickly, white English speakers in the United States began to delineate who was a member of their imagined community by using a shifting standard of racial identity called “whiteness.”


b) How the Irish became white--when Irish Catholics began arriving in the United States in large numbers in the late 1840s and early 1850s, they were seen by native whites as “not quite white,” and questionably worthy of being permitted within the imagined community. The Irish were able to use their early ostracization against northern Protestants whites, however, by finding allies within the Democratic Party. By turning out in large numbers on election day, and largely voting as a bloc, they were able to swing votes in urban enclaves, helping the development of urban political machines.

c) Later immigrant groups used this model to carve out places of their own, especially in the larger urban centers. Irish politicians often fostered the growth of this practice, and often were the direct beneficiaries of the practice, winning political office and the benefits that came from that.




4. France--another shift in the ideology of nationalism. With the ending of the monarchy, revolutionary leaders realized that they needed to stir the population to keep foreign political and military leaders from re-establishing a monarchy in the country. They appealed to the people of France to fight the invaders of the homeland; later, that ideology shifts again to spread the benefits of the revolution. Later still, this ideology shifts a third time (under Napoleon), to fighting wars to further their own glory and the prestige of France.



C. Printing press--nationalist ideas were promulgated by the proliferation of affordable books, thanks to the printing press. The rise of the printing created a demand for more material printed in vernacular languages--the languages that people spoke everyday.

1. Histories of national greatness ... the most powerful nations in Europe began to produce histories that sought to explain how they came to their dominate political position--which inevitably portrayed this position happening because of their national superiority over other peoples.

2. ... and Histories of national oppression--minority language and ethnic groups within dominate political groups began to develop their own narratives to explain their inferior positions, narratives that often incorporated tales of betrayal by rival minority groups.

II. Growth of Nationalist Fervor

A. Ireland--the Emerald Isle was a very early colony, where England development many of the techniques of colonial control that they then used on other colonies they came to possess.

1. 1797 United Irishmen--group led by Ulster Protestant Theobold Wolfe Tone, but group itself was nonsectarian, promoted greater independence for Ireland and the re-establishment of full political rights for Roman Catholics in Ireland. This group was defeated by English appeals to Irish Protestants involved in the Orange Order, who were fearful that the rehabilitation of Catholics would undermine their own precarious position.


2. 1810-1847 Daniel O’Connell the Great Emancipator--O’Connell was a young lawyer in Dublin at the time of Wolfe Tone’s armed rising; although he sympathized with the movement’s political objectives, he contended that the objectives had to come from political reform rather than force of arms. Although O’Connell eventually won Catholic Emancipation (the right of Catholic who met other qualifications--largely having to do with the amount of property owned--to participate in political life), he was unsuccessful in other endeavors.


3. Charles Stewart Parnell and Home Rule--after O’Connell’s death in 1847, an Anglo-Irish politician by the name of Isaac Butt established an organization called the Home Rule League to agitate politically for greater Irish independance, while remaining a part of the British union. Parnell joined Butt’s organization, was elected to Parliament, but advocated harder-nosed political action (obstructionism)




a) Irish Republican Brotherhood--group that believed in direct actions to win Irish independence (predecessor of the Irish Republican Army). Also known as Fenians, although that group largely operated outside of Ireland itself. In 1867, the group attempted an armed uprising both in Ireland and in Canada, which failed. Parnell worked closely with the groups, although it is not clear whether he actually joined.



b) Gaelic League--by 1880, a group called the Gaelic Union was formed to “keep alive” the Gaelic language; by that time the number of speakers was limited to only a few pockets in the western regions of Ireland (to this day, the language is only spoken in a few pockets in the western region, although all school children in the country are taught the language). By 1893, the organization was called the Gaelic League, and was promoting “ancient” Irish sports like hurling and Gaelic football, in addition to language instruction.

c) Parnell’s brilliance as a politician, working in conjunction (if in secret) with direct force advocates, advanced the Irish political cause, principally by working with the Liberal Party and its leader, William Gladstone, to further that party’s agenda while also gaining concessions on Irish political concerns short of Home Rule. His involvement with married woman, Kitty O’Shea, ends his political career; Parnell dies shortly afterward.


4. Playing the Orange Card--the struggle for home rule continued without Parnell. The continued dominance of the Liberal Party in British politics led the opposition party, the Conservative (Tory) Party, to return to the Orange Order to disrupt the political cohesion between Liberals and the Irish Party. The Orange Order threatened to secede from a Home Rule Ireland in order to remain “loyal” to the king of England; this helped stall Irish Home Rule from being considered before World War I broke out.


5. Partition of Ireland



a) 1916 Easter Rebellion--radicals within the IRB decided to stage a coup d’etat in Dublin beginning Easter Sunday 1916. Small group managed to hold out in the Main Post Office for a week, but howitzer guns finally forced their surrender. In typical British fashion, they made martyrs of the rebels, who to that point had little public sympathy.


b) 1920 Anglo-Irish War--between British troops (the “Black and Tans”) and the IRB, who fought a guerilla war before accepting a peace treaty which provided most of Ireland with Home Rule--except for six counties in Ulster

Written assignment 7

During this week’s lectures have attempted to show the relationship between slavery and capitalism. Do you find the argument persuasive? Why, or why not? This assignment should be at least one full page long, with a top margin no greater than inches from the top (meaning the text of your paper, not that your name and date should be two inches from the top edge of the paper). This assignment is due at the beginning of class on February 28.