Marx and Engels on Revolution in America/Chapter 7
VII.
The Modern Development of America.
IN the third preface to the Communist Manifesto, written in 1883, Engels pointed out the change in America's position in the capitalist world. Marx and Engels often spoke in the last few years of their lives of the predominating participation of the United States in the fight for breaking British monopoly. In one passage of his correspondence, which has received altogether too little attention, Engels speaks directly of the possibility of an American monopoly, of the coming domination of American capitalism over the whole world. In his letter to Sorge dated January 7, 1888, he speaks of the danger of the European war which Bismarck threatened to bring about. "Ten to fifteen million combatants" would take part. "There would be devastation, similar to that in the Thirty Years' War."
"If the war would be fought to a finish without inner movements, a state of exhaustion would result such as Europe has not experienced for two hundred years. AMERICAN INDUSTRY WOULD THEN WIN ALL ALONG THE LINE AND WOULD SET US ALL BEFORE THE ALTERNATIVE: either a relapse to pure agriculture for our own needs (American grain forbids any other kind), or—SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION."
Engels thus foresees the imperialist World War and the resulting world monopoly of American imperialism. His prediction that under these circumstances Europe would relapse into pure agriculture has not been literally fulfilled. Its place has been taken by the specifically imperialist method of pillaging and subjugating old European industrial countries through the loans and investments of the Dawes system. The historical perspective sketched by Engels, however, remains unchanged; the monopoly of American finance capital is not to be compared with the former monopoly of British industrial capital. It cannot maintain itself for a long period of time; it is no monopoly in the true sense of the word. It must break down in consequence of the unequal development of the various imperialist powers, of the competition of British finance capital, and principally as a result of the rebellion of the working masses in Europe and the colonies. In the words of Engels, it sets "us all before the alternative" of the proletarian revolution.
Even more clearly than the development of American imperialism did Engels foresee the future course of the American labor movement. He knew that the progress of capitalist production must unavoidably lead to the revolutionization of the American labor movement:
"As for those nice Americans who think their country exempt from the consequences of fully expanded capitalist production, they seem to live in blissful ignorance of the fact that sundry states, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, etc., have such an institution as a Labor Bureau from the reports of which they might learn something to the contrary."
Engels sees the difficulties in the path of the development of the revolutionary labor movement. After the defeat of the Knights of Labor movement, he writes to Sorge on October 24, 1891, as follows:
"I readily believe that the movement is again at a low ebb. With you everything happens with great ups and downs. But each up wins definite terrain and thus one does go forward. Thus for instance, the tremendous wave of the Knights of Labor and the strike movement from 1886 to 1888, despite all defeats, did bring us forward. There is an altogether different spirit in the masses than before. The next time even more ground will be won. But with all that, the standard of living of the native American working man is considerably higher than that of the British and that alone is sufficient to allot him a back seat for some time to come; added to that, immigration, competition, and other things. When the point is reached, things will move forward over there with colossal rapidity and energy, but until then, some time may have to elapse."
The chief obstacles, the high standard of living of the majority of native workers and the competition caused by the incessant stream of immigrants have been eliminated to a certain degree. The World War brought with it the increase of wages of all unskilled workers in America. The economic crisis after the war led to radical reductions of wages not only among the foreign-born, but in even greater degree among the native workers. The competition of foreign workers has been considerably reduced by the restrictions upon immigration.
Another obstacle, the diversion of the workers from the class struggles by the hope of obtaining land, has for the most part been removed by the disappearance of the possibilities of free settlement. There exists "a generation of native-born workers who have nothing more to expect from speculation:"
"Land is the basis of speculation, and the American possibility of and craze for speculation is the chief influence of the bourgeoisie. Only when we have a generation of native-born workers who have nothing more to expect from speculation, will we have firm ground under our feet in America." (Letter to Sorge dated January 6, 1892.)
Engels time and again emphasized that the revolutionization of the American labor movement, which he foresaw as unavoidable, would begin under tremendous difficulties and would experience incessant ups and downs, but would then develop "with colossal rapidity and energy." His letter to Schlueter dated March 30, 1892, concludes with the sentence:
"When the Americans once begin, they will do so with an energy and virulence, in comparison with which we in Europe will be children."