Karl Marx and the American Civil War

The four years between the bombardment of Fort Sumter and the surrender at Appomattox comprise a period of great effort and great achievement in the life of Karl Marx. He was forty-three years old in the spring of 1861, and his intellectual powers were at their height. He was, however, destitute financially and without influence politically. His old promise of a big book on socialist ideology had not been kept, and the despised Lassalle was the acknowledged leader of the German socialists. He was soon to experience great pain from physical afflictions, and to consider declaring bankruptcy. In February 1862, he told Engels, 'A lousy life like this is not worth living.' But by the end of 1865 Marx had written drafts of the three volumes of Capital, found a publisher, and attained political leadership in the newly founded International Workingmen's Association. By the time the North claimed victory over the South, Marx could claim substantial success as a socialist theoretician and as a political leader. The ordeal of Karl Marx coincided with the ordeal of the American Federal Union

Ancient history · Bankruptcy · Capital (architecture) · Disarmament · Economic history · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Spanish Civil War · Surrender · Trial by ordeal · Victory · American History and Culture · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society

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