Imperialist tendencies in Marx and Engels

### **Magazine Articles**

* "Lincoln and Marx" by Robin Blackburn https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/08/lincoln-and-marx [EN] (says Marx wanted to settle Texas)

### **Documents**

* "Democratic Pan-Slavism" by Frederick Engels https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1849/02/15.htm [EN] (direct quote: "And will Bakunin accuse the Americans of a "war of conquest", which, although it deals with a severe blow to his theory based on "justice and humanity", was nevertheless waged wholly and solely in the interest of civilization? **Or is it perhaps unfortunate that splendid California has been taken away from the lazy Mexicans, who could not do anything with it?** That the energetic Yankees by rapid exploitation of the California gold mines will increase the means of circulation, in a few years will concentrate a dense population and extensive trade at the most suitable places on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, create large cities, open up communications by steamship, construct a railway from New York to San Francisco, for the first time really open the Pacific Ocean to civilization, and for the third time in history give the world trade a new direction? The "independence" of a few Spanish Californians and Texans may suffer because of it, **in someplaces "justice" and other moral principles may be violated; but what does that matter to such facts of world-historic significance?**" Another quote: "**Then there will be a struggle, an “inexorable life-and-death struggle”, against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and ruthless terror — not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!**")
* "The Magyar Struggle" by Frederick Engles https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1849/01/13.htm [EN] (Direct quote: "But at the first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis Napoleon is striving with all his might to conjure up, the Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. **The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names. The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.**")
* A letter from Friedrich Engels to Karl Kautsky In Zurich by Frederick Engles https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/letters/84\_02\_16.htm [EN](Direct Quote "It would be a good thing if somebody took the trouble to explain state socialism, which is now so prevalent, by the example of *Java* where its practice is in full bloom. All the material for that can be found in *Java, or How to Manage a Colony*, by JWB Money, Barrister at Law, London, 1861, two volumes. Here it will be seen how on the basis of the old community communism the Dutch organised production under state control and secured for the people what they considered a quite comfortable existence. The result: the people are kept at the stage of primitive stupidity and 70 million marks (by now presumably more) are annually collected by the Dutch national treasury. **This case is highly interesting and the practical conclusions can easily be drawn. Incidentally this demonstrates that today primitive communism (so long as it has not been stirred up by some element of modern communism) furnishes the finest and broadest basis of exploitation and despotism there, as well as in India and Russia, and that in the conditions of modern society it turns out to be a crying anachronism (which has either to be removed or almost made to retrograde) as much as were the independent mark communities of the original cantons.**")
* "Extracts from the New York Tribune on the Crimean War" by Karl Marx https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/russia/crimean-war.htm [EN](Direct quote "The real point at issue always is Turkey in Europe – the great peninsula to the south of the Save and Danube. **This splendid territory has the misfortune to be inhabited by a conglomerate of different races and nationalities, of which it is hard to say which is the least fit for progress and civilisation.**" He then goes on to blame Islam for much of this)
* "The British Rule in India" by Karl Marx https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/06/25.htm [EN] (Direct quote: England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? **If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.** Then, whatever bitterness the spectacle of the crumbling of an ancient world may have for our personal feelings, we have the right, in point of history, to exclaim with Goethe: “Sollte these Qual uns quälen Da sie unsre Lust vermehrt, Hat nicht myriaden Seelen Timur’s Herrschaft aufgezehrt?” [“Should this torture then torment us Since it brings us greater pleasure? Were not through the rule of Timur Souls devoured without measure?”] [From Goethe’s “An Suleika”, *Westöstlicher Diwan]"*]

### **Videos**

* "Stolen Anarchy: Playing Indian & The Roots of Collectivism | TwinRabbit" uploaded by Twin Rabbit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFvxkvpi2w [35:54, EN SUB, EN]

### **Notes**

* Marx did change his views on colonialism over time after studying indigenous peoples and versions of agrarian collectivism see: "Karl Marx and the Iroquois" by Franklin Rosemont https://libcom.org/library/karl-marx-iroquois-franklin-rosemont [EN] but notably Engles opposed the study that produced this shift and never made such a change himself.