The First American Revolution

In 1861, the eleven Southern states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia collectively seceded from the union of the United States and formed a separate country called the Confederate States of America. The balance of the states in the North, led by President Abraham Lincoln, refused to accept that these states had the right to secede and promptly went to war with the Confederacy.

To this day, the American history books claim that the war took place because the states do not have the right to secede from the union, and in fact, slavery was not the cause of the war. As I have pointed out in a previous article, the country first broke apart in 1812. The United States did not go to war with the breakaway republic of New England, so the states definitely have the right to secede from the union.

Without a doubt, the history books are wrong, which is not too surprising, as such books are written by the bootlickers of the 1 percent. And by the 1 percent, I mean the capitalists, the billionaires, the bourgeoisie, the class of people who are running the country.

These bootlickers are belly-crawling lowlifes who are careful to write only that which their political masters want them to write. The idea of being honest probably never crosses their mind, or if it does, such heretical thoughts are quickly brushed aside.

As far as they are concerned, the important thing is to deceive the working people, the proletarians, the 99 percent, to tell us precisely that which the 1 percent, the capitalists, the billionaires, want us to believe. Any remote resemblance to the truth is strictly coincidental.

In fact, the Civil War did lead to the abolition of slavery, and it is only natural that most Americans think that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. But there was more to it than that. The roots of the Civil War go back to the colonial rebellion of the previous century, as in the year 1776 when the American colonies declared independence. There followed a rather lengthy war with Great Britain before the new country of the United States could truly be said to have come into existence. Even though it no doubt came into existence, it was absolutely not united. In fact, the fledgling country was deeply divided, and these deep divisions were the root cause of the ensuing Civil War.

The time of the Revolutionary War was a time of great change, of revolutionary change, such as the world had never seen before. The Industrial Revolution, which first saw the light of day in Britain in the early seventeen hundreds, did more than create new classes. These changing conditions gave rise to ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity, as were most evident in the country of France. New, revolutionary classes were being created as the merchants or burghers of the time saw the opportunities provided by the Industrial Revolution, and they became transformed into capitalists, or bourgeoisie. That also created a corresponding class of workers, or proletarians, those who had nothing to sell but their labor power, as no class can exist in isolation.

In the mother country of Great Britain, the merchants, or burghers as they were called, embraced capitalism and had visions of becoming quite wealthy. They became bourgeois and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

These newly minted capitalists invested in mills, factories, mines, railroads, shipping lines, and anything else of any considerable value and became quite wealthy. It was simply a matter of procuring the raw materials from the colonies — such as wool, cotton, tobacco, and hides — working them into a finished product, and selling that product back to the colonials.

Other classes were also effected, such as the peasantry, artisans, and tradesmen, many of whom were wiped out, forced to become laborers, proletarians.

To a certain extent, the slaves were also effected, depending on their location in the world, and slave revolts did happen with varying degrees of success. As the American Civil War can attest, capitalists and slave owners are natural enemies.

Within the American colonies, there was an aristocracy, and these people were deeply divided along class lines. In the Northern colonies resided the burghers, or merchants, as they preferred to call themselves, and these people were ambitious, anxious to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the Industrial Revolution.

They too had visions of investing in industrial machines and becoming capitalists, just as the merchants in the mother country of Great Britain were doing. Naturally, the newly minted British capitalists took a dim view of this ambition of the upstart colonials. If there is one thing capitalists do not appreciate, it is competition.

By contrast, in the Southern colonies, there were the slave owners, although they preferred to think of themselves as farmers and referred to their slaves as servants. The Southern class of slave owners was quite content to grow their crops and wanted everything to stay precisely as it was. They were determined to keep capitalism out of the South.

This was another way of saying that the slave owners were completely reactionary but not entirely stupid. They could see the writing on the wall, so to speak, and knew full well that the British Empire, under capitalism, was moving toward the abolition of slavery, which was the last thing they wanted. They thought it best to separate from the mother country of Great Britain before the mother country separated them from their slaves.

Strangely enough, this led to an alliance of two classes in the American colonies — the merchants of the North and the slave owners of the South. It is safe to say that the members of the two classes hated each other, but they had a common enemy — the British Empire. The Northern merchants, burghers, the would-be capitalists, were in competition with the capitalists of the mother country, and the slave owners of the South saw the British Empire as a threat to their way of life.

Such an alliance is strange, but not unusual. It is frequently necessary to enter into such a temporary alliance with people who are as unreliable as they are reactionary. Political necessity gives birth to strange bedfellows.

Of course, it is clear that the two classes, the burghers of the North and the slave owners of the South, were on a collision course. But first they put aside their differences in order to face a common enemy, which was the mother country of Great Britain. This gave rise to the first Revolutionary War of 1776.

After several years of war, the alliance was successful in the sense that the American colonies achieved independence and a separate country was created. But then there was no further reason for an alliance of the two classes, and it was just a matter of time before the classes, one completely reactionary and the other with certain progressive features, went to war with each other.

For many years after the end of the Revolutionary War, tensions built up between the North and the South, which is to say between the capitalists of the North and the slave owners of the South. The Northern capitalists resented the fact that the Southern slave owners were preventing them from expanding their business into the Southern states. They were well aware of the opportunities presented by an abundant supply of raw materials, especially that of cotton and wool, which could be worked up into articles of clothing, bedding, and other items in suitable mills. They were also well aware that there was an abundant supply of unskilled laborers, those who could be expected to work at very low wages. The only thing standing between them and huge profits was the Southern slave owners, the aristocracy of the South, which was completely unreasonable and absolutely opposed to capitalism.

The years between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War had allowed the merchants in the North to develop capitalism, so that they can properly be referred to as capitalists, or bourgeois. It is safe to say that they had succeeded or at least made great progress. The North was becoming ever more highly industrialized, and the factories and mills were producing a vast quantity of goods. A great deal of railroad tracks was being placed, and the capitalists were becoming ever wealthier.

The Southern aristocrats had also succeeded. There was almost no industry in the South. The plantations continued to produce cotton, wool, tobacco, and not much else, and the slavery upon which the economy was based remained in effect. There was almost no change. It was a reactionary dream come true. In fact, the Southern aristocracy was quite well prepared to fight the war of the previous century. This is characteristic of reactionaries to this day.

As a result, the North became ever stronger, while the South became ever weaker. This is the natural result of the rule of reactionaries.

The capitalists have been accused of a lot of things, but stupidity is not one of them. As a result, it was completely obvious to them that the simplest way to destroy their class enemies, the Southern slave owners, was to emancipate their slaves and eventually abolish slavery altogether. The Confederates would still own the plantations, but without slaves to do the work, they would be financially ruined. Along with financial ruin came political ruin.

After the declaration of war, both sides mobilized. Armies were raised, and troops were trained, armed, and equipped. The troops of the Southern Confederacy went to war with the weapons they had on hand, mainly muskets. As they had virtually no industry, there was little choice in the matter. They were forced to rely mainly upon weapons shipped in from Britain, as well as weapons they could capture from their enemies. All other weapons and supplies had to be made by hand.

By contrast, the Northern factories were able to produce a vast amount of war material, everything an army needs to conduct a war. These included lever-action rifles, which were far superior to the muskets of the Confederacy, as well as cannons and vast quantities of ammunition. They also had the rail lines in place to move this material to the war zone very quickly.

It is true that in the early months of the war, the South won some impressive victories, but then it took a while for the factories of the North to convert to the production of war material. As well, it took time for the American navy to establish an effective blockade of the ports of the Confederacy, so that the British supply ships were unable to get through.

The American Civil War can properly be seen as a class war, with the reactionary slave owners on one side and the bourgeois or capitalist class on the other side. At that time, the capitalists had certain progressive features, in that they were opposed to slavery.

The defeat of the slave-owning class served to open up the Southern part of the country to the capitalists of the Northern states. The slave owners were defeated when their slaves were first released from slavery, and only later was slavery completely abolished in the United States. The only way this could be accomplished was through war. Slavery was abolished in the United States because it was a hindrance to capitalism.

The Civil War in the United States was a result of the class war between the slave owners and the capitalists, the bourgeois. With the victory of the capitalists, capitalism was able to spread its tentacles over the whole country and the bourgeois were able to become ever richer and more powerful.

The Second American Revolution

The revolutionary motion, which is currently sweeping the world, has now touched down in North America. The winner of the presidential election, in the person of Donald Trump, has galvanized people all across the continent. The idea that such an arrogant, bigoted, racist ignoramus may soon become the next president has roused people to a fury.

As for those who may think that Trump is nothing more than a loudmouthed fool and merely made empty threats in order to get elected, I can only point out the fact that in the last century, a similar thing happened. In the country of Germany, an individual was elected chancellor, someone who was every bit as reactionary as Trump. He too made various threats, and most people did not take him seriously. Then the world was shocked and appalled when Hitler did precisely that which he threatened.

No doubt Trump has every intention of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, as well as building a great wall, reducing taxes on corporations and banks, banning Muslim immigrants, hunting down Spanish-speaking people whom he considers thieves and terrorists, and treating all minorities and women as second-class citizens. That man has got to be stopped. He is the current focus of the revolutionary movement, properly so.

Yet Trump is a mere figurehead, a member of a class of capitalists commonly referred to as the 1 percent, the billionaires, technically referred to as the bourgeoisie. They are the class of people who are in charge, parasites that leech off the working class, the proletarians, commonly referred to as the 99 percent.

This is not the first time a revolution has touched upon North America. In the 1770s, the revolutionary motion built up until, in 1776, thirteen squabbling British colonies came together long enough to declare independence and establish themselves as a separate country — the United States of America. There followed seven long years of war before the British crown recognized their independence. The fact that these few weak colonies could defy Great Britain, which was a world power at that time, and succeed in establishing a new country speaks to the power of revolution. The American people have every right to be proud of their revolutionary history.

That was then and this is now, as people are quick to point out. At that time, different classes were involved and the goals were far different. As I have written about this in a different article, there is no need to go into it again. Suffice it to say that the situation was far different.

Since that time, there have been a great many revolutions in various parts of the world, including France, Germany, Iran, Cuba, Libya, and Egypt, to name a few. The revolution that most concerns us is the revolution in Russia, in the fall of 1917, as it has striking similarities to our own revolution of today. We can learn from the experience of previous revolutions, or we can repeat their mistakes.

By the fall of 1917, the people of Russia were seasoned veterans, tempered in the class struggle. They had cut their teeth, so to speak, in the revolution of 1905-1907, when the Russian Empire had been shaken to the core but not toppled. Any and all illusions the people of Russia might have had were completely smashed as the Russian government violently crushed any discontent. The czar was exposed as the butcher that he was, concerned only with himself and his immediate family. The capitalists were no better, content to take part in the crushing of the working people. They were only concerned with their profit.

After the revolutionary motion of 1905 died down, reaction set in, and all the leaders of the revolution, the Marxists, were either killed or exiled. The Russian officials were of the opinion that it was the Marxists, also known as Bolsheviks or Communists, who were responsible for the revolution. So they quite reasonably assumed that with the leaders, who were Marxists, out of the country, peace and tranquility would reign. The czar could live as the medieval despot that he was, and the capitalists could enjoy their life of luxury, at the expense of the working people, of course. They could not possibly have been more mistaken. In fact, it was the people who made history.

To this day, the nobility and the capitalists, which is to say the ruling classes in almost all countries, cling to the belief that great people with great ideas make history. Any and all evidence to the contrary is quietly ignored. The experience of the French Revolution, when the common people rose up and overthrew the nobility, is completely overlooked. They refuse to face these facts as such facts are inconvenient, and they prefer to believe that which they want to believe.