Christopher Kempf’s What Though the Field Be Lost appears at a moment of profound crisis in American society. Staggering levels of social inequality ravage the United States, a political system in advanced decay, and a ruling class increasingly reliant on authoritarian methods to maintain its dominance. Under such conditions, the Civil War — the “Second American Revolution” — inevitably returns as a point of reference. It is the last moment in US history when the contradictions of the social order were resolved through revolutionary means. Any serious artistic engagement with the present must therefore confront the legacy of that conflict not as a cultural inheritance but as a historical process driven by class forces.

Kempf’s collection highlights the ideological deadlock facing modern American intellectuals. It is driven by a sincere desire to explore the past and its ongoing impact today. The work dismisses the superficial confessional trends common in American poetry, focusing instead on history, landscape, and the enduring material traces of the Civil War within the American consciousness. However, it is ultimately limited by the ideological frameworks—such as race, region, identity, and the elevation of “ambivalence” as a moral and aesthetic ideal—that shape how the liberal-academic world interprets reality.

The poem explores key questions of American history, though it stops short of fully addressing them. Kempf perceives the Civil War as a revolutionary break and senses the lingering contradictions it left unresolved. He also intuitively understands that today’s American capitalism crisis stems from the same class conflicts that ignited in 1861. However, he struggles to realise these ideas fully, instead adopting a stance of cultivated uncertainty, as if the poet’s role is to observe contradictions rather than resolve or comprehend them.

This ambivalence is fundamentally a social issue rather than an artistic one. It illustrates the stance of a segment of petty-bourgeois intelligentsia that exists anxiously between the working class and the ruling class, feeling the mounting pressures beneath but lacking the political and theoretical tools to understand their true meaning. Kempf’s poetry reflects this tension clearly: it hints at the revolutionary aspects of American history but stays grounded in culturalist ideas that hide that history’s true significance.

In this framework, the Civil War is seen not as a revolutionary clash between conflicting social systems but as a symbolic space where issues of identity, memory, and national belonging are explored. The working class is depicted not as an active historical force but as a cultural symbol — sometimes sentimentalised, sometimes ridiculed, admired for its “decency” yet often viewed humorously, as if its presence were an anthropological oddity rather than the cornerstone of modern society.

Kempf’s approach has limitations that go beyond aesthetics; they are political. As the American ruling class currently uses reactionary tactics—such as censorship, rewriting history, and fuelling racial and gender divisions—the artist’s role is to clarify the historical forces, not to aestheticise ambiguity. The Civil War was fundamentally a class struggle over the future of a social order, not merely an issue of identity politics. To relate its revolutionary fervour to today, one must pinpoint modern parallels, such as widening inequality, labour exploitation, and the global capitalism crisis.

Kempf’s poetry, despite its intelligence and craftsmanship, ultimately doesn’t make this leap. It stays confined within the ideological limits of the present, unable to see the past as a guide for the future. Therefore, criticism’s role isn’t just to evaluate the poems but to situate them within the larger crisis of American intellectual life—one caused by the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia’s failure to break free from the ideological frameworks that benefit the ruling class.

The Civil War as Historical Problem — Class, Revolution, and the Limits of Cultural Memory

The American Civil War holds a distinctive place in global history. It was more than just a regional conflict or a tragic internal rupture; it represented a revolutionary clash between two incompatible social systems: the industrialising capitalist North and the slave-dependent, semi-feudal South. The abolition of slavery—considered the largest expropriation of private property in the Western Hemisphere before the Russian Revolution—was not merely a consequence of the war but its core historical significance. To truly understand the Civil War, one must recognise it as a class struggle fought across the continent, with its outcome shaping the future of American capitalism for over a century.

However, prevailing ideological perspectives in modern American culture make this understanding nearly inaccessible. The Civil War is often viewed primarily through the lens of identity: as a clash among racial groups, regional cultures, or conflicting national narratives. This shift towards culturalist interpretation is intentional, serving the interests of the ruling class. It aims to hide the revolutionary roots of American history and to prevent the working class from realising its own historical power.

Kempf’s poetry, despite its historical interest, remains confined within a specific ideological framework. His portrayal of the Civil War is filtered through the lens of modern liberal concepts such as race, region, memory, and the obsession with “national identity.” These ideas are not just inadequate; they distort the true history of the conflict by turning a revolutionary war into a symbolic stage for cultural expression, emphasising ambiguity over social analysis.

Kempf’s portrayal of Confederate memory reveals an aesthetic focus on the monument’s “splendour,” which is not merely a mistake but a natural outcome of viewing the Civil War as part of cultural heritage instead of a class struggle. When the war is seen as a conflict of identities, even reactionary ones gain a degree of legitimacy. Consequently, the Confederate cause is depicted as a tragic regional pride rather than a defence of human bondage. The monument is thus seen as an object of beauty rather than a symbol of violent reaction. A Marxist cannot adopt this perspective. The Civil War was a clash between social systems, not cultures. The Confederacy epitomised the most reactionary class in American history: a slaveholding oligarchy whose economic goals were opposed to modern societal progress. Approaching its symbols with ambivalence conceals the underlying class struggle and blurs the distinction between revolutionary change and reactionary forces. 

Kempf’s poetry reveals a broader issue in how Americans perceive their history. The Civil War is fading from its specific origins and instead serves as a symbol of national trauma, division, and contemporary anxieties. This isn’t merely a misunderstanding; it is a political error. Detaching the Civil War from its class issues erases the working class’s revolutionary legacy. It conceals that America’s major advances—such as ending slavery, expanding democratic rights, and asserting federal authority—were achieved through mass struggles, not just cultural debates.

Kempf’s work engages with this process, even as it aims to resist it. His poems include historical fragments, archival remnants, and traces of the past. Yet these elements do not provide a clear, dialectical view of history shaped by class struggles. Instead, they remain in an aestheticised ambiguity, suggesting that the poet is cautious about making definitive claims about the material he references.

This passage explains the ideological role of “ambivalence” in modern American literature. It enables artists to acknowledge historical complexity without confronting its political consequences. Instead of interpreting contradictions, poets act as curators of them. Essentially, it represents a form of ideological stagnation—the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia’s failure to recognise the revolutionary significance of history when such awareness is critically needed.

The Civil War calls for clarity, requiring an understanding of history as a conflict among social forces rather than merely a collection of cultural identities. Kempf’s poetry, despite its intelligence and craftsmanship, ultimately falls short of this requirement. It mirrors the crisis of a social class that feels the looming Great Events but lacks the necessary theoretical and political tools to understand them fully.

The Ideology of Ambivalence — Petty-Bourgeois Paralysis in Contemporary American Poetry

In Christopher Kempf’s poetic universe, ambivalence functions as more than just a stylistic choice; it is the central ideological principle. It shapes the way history is perceived, informs the poet’s attitude toward the world, and offers a means of transforming urgent social issues into aesthetic concerns. To understand “What Though the Field Be Lost,” one must view ambivalence not merely as an artistic trait but as a mirror of a broader social problem: the stagnation of the contemporary American petty-bourgeois intellectual class amidst rising class conflicts.

Ambivalence as a Social Position, Not an Aesthetic Insight

Contemporary American poets, especially in academia, hold a conflicted social position. They encounter economic insecurity, become more proletarianised, and face pressures akin to those of the working class. Yet they remain ideologically connected to liberal institutions such as universities, foundations, and cultural organisations, which are strongly dedicated to maintaining the existing social order.

Ambivalence stems from this contradiction, illustrating a class segment that senses the system’s instability but cannot imagine an alternative. It embodies the worldview of a social layer that experiences the pressures of capitalism but lacks the political insight to oppose it. Here, ambivalence indicates ideological fatigue rather than sophistication.

Kempf’s poetry effectively depicts this condition. His poems contain numerous historical fragments, political echoes, and social snapshots. Yet, these components never fully coalesce into a coherent view of the world. Instead, they remain in a state of unresolved tension, suggesting the poet is cautious about drawing his insights to their logical end.

The Aestheticisation of Contradiction

Ambivalence allows the poet to treat contradiction as an aesthetic theme instead of a historical process. The Civil War is portrayed as a collage of conflicting narratives; the working class is represented through cultural symbols; and the current crisis is shown as a series of “echoes” or “parallels,” rather than as a reflection of deepening class conflicts.

This aestheticisation of conflict serves to disarm political engagement by transforming the poet’s role from a historian’s interpreter to a curator of fragments. It suggests complexity without the obligation to analyse, indicating a withdrawal from active comprehension of the world. The WSWS review rightly notes that Kempf’s poems “juxtapose” instead of explaining, “hint” instead of fully expressing, and “suggest” rather than present definitive conclusions. This is not about poor craftsmanship but about perspective. The poet’s ambivalence is not a quest for truth; it is a means to avoid the effort of discovering it.

The Working Class as Cultural Object

Kempf’s portrayal of the American working class exemplifies ambivalence. His mentions of hot dogs, AutoZone, homecoming queens, and small-town rituals do not show solidarity, but rather an outsider’s view. These references reflect a poet who watches the working class with affection and amusement, as if examining a cultural spectacle instead of engaging with a social group.

This perspective mirrors the wider liberal-academic view, which sees the working class not as active agents in history but as a cultural concept. Instead of being recognised as subjects shaping history, they are depicted as objects of representation. Their struggles, hopes, and contradictions are often aestheticised rather than genuinely comprehended.

Kempf’s ambivalence toward the working class reflects a class position rather than a personal trait. It represents a social stratum that is materially near the working class but ideologically disconnected from it. This group perceives the potential for working-class unity but struggles to see it as a feasible political reality.

Ambivalence as Ideological Containment

Ambivalence in contemporary American poetry serves a conservative role. It stops poets from making conclusions that could threaten the current social system. Instead, it turns political issues into artistic expressions. This way, poets can recognise social contradictions without the need to clarify or resolve them.

In this context, ambivalence benefits the ruling class by maintaining the intelligentsia’s ideological confusion, hindering their ability to develop a clear critique of capitalism. It also conceals the revolutionary legacy of the Civil War with layers of cultural complexity. Additionally, it obstructs the working class from seeing itself as part of history.

The Confederate Question — Aestheticising Reaction in an Age of Resurgent Authoritarianism

The most politically sensitive part of ‘What Though the Field Be Lost’ is Kempf’s handling of Confederate memory. This section highlights the ideological limits of his uncertain approach and clearly shows the gap between historical materialism and today’s liberal cultural perspectives. The Civil War is more than just another historical event; it is the pivotal moment in shaping the modern American state. Addressing its reactionary aspect — the slaveholders’ rebellion — with an aesthetic hesitation is not a neutral artistic decision. It represents a political statement, whether intentionally or not.

The Confederate Monument as an Aesthetic Object

Kempf’s mention of the “splendour” of a Confederate monument is more than a minor detail. It encapsulates the book’s overall ideological framework. The monument is presented not simply as an emblem of a reactionary social order but as an aesthetic reflection, a remnant of a tragic history whose significance is complex, layered, and open to various interpretations.

This is exactly the core issue. The Confederate cause was clear-cut. It was neither tragic nor merely a cultural expression of regional identity. Instead, it was the organised political and military defence of a slaveholding oligarchy whose economic interests were inherently opposed to modern societal progress. Approaching its symbols with ambiguity masks the class nature of the conflict and blurs the distinction between revolution and counter-revolution.

The beautification of reactionary ideas is always risky politically, especially now when authoritarianism is resurging worldwide. The ruling class, facing worsening social issues, often resorts to distorting history, restoring reactionary symbols, and promoting nationalist myths. In this environment, the poet’s role isn’t to make ambiguity look beautiful but to make the historical significance of the past clear.

The Liberal-Academic Reframing of the Civil War

Kempf’s approach to Confederate memory exemplifies a wider trend within the liberal academic sphere: the transformation of the Civil War from a conflict of revolutionary class struggle into a cultural narrative centred on identity, memory, and regional pride. This reframing serves a particular ideological purpose. It enables the ruling elite to diminish the revolutionary roots of the Civil War by separating it from its material, economic foundations. When the Civil War is viewed as a clash of identities, all identities — including reactionary ones — are given some degree of legitimacy. 

The rebellion of slaveholders is seen as a “perspective,” a “narrative,” or a “memory.” Confederate monuments then become sites of cultural significance rather than symbols of a social order rooted in human slavery. This perspective is not about historical accuracy but about ideological control.

The Class Content of the Confederate Cause

From a Marxist viewpoint, the Confederacy was the most reactionary social class in U.S. history. The slaveholding elite aimed not to defend a “way of life” but to uphold a property system that forcibly repressed millions. Their defeat was a vital step in the development of modern American capitalism and the expansion of democratic rights. Romanticising Confederate symbols conceals the revolutionary importance of the Civil War, portraying reactionary elements as mere cultural symbols rather than organised resistance by a ruling class resisting progress.

Ambivalence as a Form of Historical Neutralisation

Kempf’s mixed feelings about Confederate memory are not a flaw but a core aspect of his approach. This ambivalence enables him to view reactionary symbols as aesthetic objects rather than as displays of class dominance. As a result, the Confederate monument becomes a space for reflection instead of a symbol of the violent social system it signifies.

This is not harmless. In a time when authoritarianism is resurging—reactionary forces openly use Confederate imagery, the ruling class revives symbols of past oppression, and historical falsehoods serve political control—the aesthetic presentation of reaction unintentionally aids in confusing the public’s understanding of ideology. The poet who treats the Confederate monument with ambivalence is not impartial; instead, he contributes to a larger cultural trend that normalises, sanitises, and erases the historical significance of reaction.

The Importance of Clear Historical Perspective

Understanding the Civil War requires focusing on its social forces rather than viewing it solely as a conflict of cultural identities. The Confederate cause was mainly reactionary, as shown by its symbols and monuments. Ignoring this viewpoint obscures the class dynamics involved and hinders the working class from truly grasping its history. Kempf’s poetry, while insightful and skillfully written, ultimately misses this point. It mirrors the ideological stalemate of a social class that predicts major events but fails to understand the underlying historical forces.

Kempf’s Interview — Latent Class Insight and the Limits of Liberal Consciousness

Kempf’s interview with the WSWS is the most insightful document on What Though the Field Be Lost, revealing the gap between the poet’s latent political awareness and the ideological limits that influence his artistic approach. In the interview, Kempf offers insights that nearly align with a Marxist critique of modern American society. However, these insights are largely missing from the poetry itself. Thus, the interview acts as a kind of critical commentary on the book — showcasing what the poet understands but avoids expressing. ^[1]

The Poet Speaks More Clearly Than the Poems

Kempf acknowledges the social themes in his work, highlighting realities his poems only hint at. He points out that graduate students, whom he describes as experiencing “precarious labour,” share similar class interests with “Trump voters” in the rural Midwest. This is a notable admission because it contradicts the widespread belief that these groups are culturally incompatible. Instead, it reveals that beneath political differences lies a shared material condition: exploitation by capital.

This point is fundamental and underpins any serious socialist analysis of modern America. However, in the poetry, this understanding is only implicit, expressed through contrasts and echoes instead of a clear perspective. The poems acknowledge the cultural divide but fail to reveal the underlying class unity. The interview shows that Kempf is aware of this unity—it just can’t see it as a political force.

The Poet’s Critique of Corporate Identity Politics

Kempf’s observation that “virtually every corporation has much to gain from promoting narrow, sectarian strife” stands out even more. This insight surpasses the rest of the book in political depth, framing identity politics not as an accidental cultural trend but as a deliberate instrument of class control — a way for the ruling class to divide the working class and hinder its awareness of shared interests.

This analysis is exactly what the WSWS presents, an insight that poetry, despite its intelligence, never fully captures. Kempf’s acknowledgement of the corporate roots of identity politics indicates he could offer a more radical critique than his poetry reveals. However, he remains bound by the liberal-academic environment, which emphasises identity as the main lens for social analysis. This creates a clear disconnect: the poet’s political insight surpasses the ideological boundaries of his artistic approach.

The Liberal Fetish of “Ambivalence” as a Barrier to Clarity

Kempf justifies his poetic ambivalence as an intentional artistic choice. He believes that poetry doesn’t instruct directly but instead uses juxtaposition to provoke thought about parallels, incongruities, or echoes across history. This perspective is common among contemporary American writers, reflecting a generation of poets who are wary of clarity, tend to steer clear of political commitments, and regard ambiguity as a sign of artistic refinement.

However, this defence fails on closer examination. Ambivalence is not a way to uncover truth; it serves to avoid it. It allows the poet to recognise social contradictions without analysing them, thereby turning political issues into aesthetic concerns. Essentially, it acts as a form of ideological containment— preventing the poet’s insights from becoming threatening.

Kempf’s interview shows he can be clear. He understands modern American class dynamics and the influence of corporations in fostering division. He also recognises the potential for unity among workers. However, his poetic style, rooted in liberal ambivalence, stops him from stating these insights plainly.

The Unspoken Tension: A Poet on the Threshold of Marxism

The interview reveals a tension permeating the entire project: Kempf is on the verge of adopting a Marxist perspective on American history, but is still unable to do so fully. He recognises the Civil War’s revolutionary significance and identifies class struggles in modern society. Although instinctively aware, he also recognises that identity-politics categories do not sufficiently explain the current crisis.

However, he stays confined to the ideological frameworks of the liberal-academic environment. He is unable to see the working class as an active force in history. He cannot envision the potential for revolutionary change. Additionally, he struggles to move beyond the aestheticisation of ambivalence.

The result is a poetry that is historically curious but politically paralysed — a poetry that gestures toward revolution but retreats into ambiguity.

The Task of Criticism

Marxist criticism aims to contextualise Kempf’s work within the broader crisis of American intellectual life rather than criticise him for failing to produce socialist poetry. His ambivalence is understood as a social issue, indicative of the paralysis of petty-bourgeois intelligentsia who sense major events approaching but lack the theoretical and political tools to understand them.

The interview points in a different direction—one based on class analysis, historical understanding, and recognition of the working class as the key force in modern society. However, this alternative approach is not yet reflected in his poetry.

The article discusses how Kempf struggles to link the Civil War’s legacy to today’s issues. The unresolved tension in “What Though the Field Be Lost” only becomes evident when connected to the current American capitalism crisis. For Kempf, the Civil War is not just history but a key perspective on America’s ongoing divisions. Yet pressing modern problems like the decline of democratic institutions, rising inequality, and the resurgence of authoritarianism demand a clearer historical understanding—something Kempf’s uncertain approach does not entirely provide.

The Civil War as a Mirror of the Present

The Civil War marked the final time in American history when revolutionary methods resolved the contradictions within the social order. It was a conflict centred not on cultural identity but on the future of the social system itself. The abolition of slavery was a crucial prerequisite for the rise of modern American capitalism. As Marx described, it was a “bourgeois revolution” led by the most progressive elements of the ruling class and backed by the widespread mobilisation of both the working class and the enslaved people.

Today, the United States faces a new yet equally significant crisis. The contradictions of capitalism—such as globalised production, financialisation, extreme inequality, and political decline—have escalated to the point where traditional governance structures can no longer contain them. In response, the ruling class employs authoritarian tactics, engages in historical distortion, and fosters racial and gender divisions. Meanwhile, the working class, though fragmented and confused, remains objectively the sole force capable of addressing the crisis.

At such a moment, the Civil War acts as a mirror, reflecting the revolutionary potential of the working class, emphasising the need to challenge reactionary forces, and showing that deep social conflicts cannot be resolved through cultural negotiation. Kempf perceives this clearly. His poems echo the past within the present, capturing the “presentness of the past” and the strange persistence of Civil War memory in modern American life. However, he cannot explicitly express this link, as doing so would mean abandoning the ideological frameworks of identity and ambivalence that underpin his work.

The Liberal-Academic Horizon as a Barrier to Historical Understanding. Kempf’s poetry is limited not by aesthetics but by ideology. He views the Civil War mainly through familiar liberal categories like race, region, identity, and memory. These are not impartial; they serve as ideological tools the ruling class uses to interpret social conflict in cultural terms, concealing its economic roots. To truly see the Civil War as a class struggle, one must recognise the class nature of the current crisis. This involves understanding that the working class, rather than cultural identity groups, is the key force today and abandoning the dominant ideological frameworks in academia in favour of a historical materialist approach.

Kempf is unable to make this leap because it would directly conflict with the institutions shaping his worldview. The liberal-academic environment treats identity as the primary analytical category and regards class as either secondary or suspect. It promotes ambivalence and mistrusts clarity, encouraging the aestheticisation of contradiction while discouraging political engagement. Kempf’s poetry embodies these restrictions: it is historically intriguing but politically reserved. It hints at class struggle but focuses on cultural aspects, sensing the Civil War’s revolutionary potential yet failing to express it.

The Revolutionary Legacy of the Civil War and the Fear of Its Implications

Viewing the Civil War as a revolutionary event means acknowledging the potential for revolution today. This hidden fear underscores Kempf’s analysis. The Civil War was not merely a tragic conflict of identities but a violent break that dismantled the old social order and established a new one. During this period, the working class and the oppressed significantly influenced the course of history.

Recognising this suggests that the current crisis might demand a significant rupture. It acknowledges that the contradictions within modern capitalism cannot be resolved through cultural debates or aesthetic indifference. Instead, it emphasises that the working class, rather than the liberal intelligentsia, drives historical change. Kempf’s poetry hints at this possibility but never fully confronts it. The Civil War is depicted as a haunting memory or a symbolic landscape — never as a framework for understanding today. While the poems sense the arrival of major events, they remain immobile in the presence of these events.

Conclusion — Toward a Marxist Aesthetics of the American Past

The contradictions at the heart of What Though the Field Be Lost are not merely the contradictions of a single poet. They are the contradictions of an entire social layer — the American petty-bourgeois intelligentsia — confronting a historical moment that exceeds its ideological capacities. Kempf’s work is therefore valuable not only for what it says, but for what it cannot say; not only for its insights, but for its silences; not only for its historical curiosity, but for the ideological limits that shape it.

Kempf’s collection title, taken from Milton — “What though the field be lost?” — reveals more than the poet might expect. The field is not truly lost. The revolutionary legacy of American history endures. The working class continues to be the key driver of historical change. The contradictions within modern capitalism highlight the need for revolutionary transformation.

What is required is clarity — the clarity that ambivalence cannot provide, the clarity that historical materialism demands, the clarity that the present crisis makes unavoidable.

Kempf’s poetry, for all its limitations, is a symptom of a society on the brink of transformation. It registers the tremors beneath the surface. It senses the approach of great events. It reveals, in its very hesitations, the ideological crisis of a social layer confronted with the return of history. The task now is to move beyond ambivalence — to grasp the field not as lost, but as the terrain upon which the future will be fought.

 Notes

What Though the Field Be Lost: Poet Christopher Kempf’s historical view of contemporary America-Erik Schreiber-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/29/kemp-j29.html

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[1] An interview with poet Christopher Kempf, author of What Though the Field Be Lost-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/18/kemp-a18.html

Introduction: Liberal Mythmaking in an Age of Crisis

Heather Cox Richardson’s How the South Won the Civil War (2020) isn’t traditional history but a political commentary disguised as history. Its aim isn’t to clarify the past but to defend the legitimacy of American liberalism during a crisis. The main idea—that the slaveholding South’s “ideology” spread westward and culminated in Donald Trump—serves as a moral story for a confused middle class, reassuring them that the Democratic Party still protects “democracy.”

Richardson’s narrative is a “concentrated expression of the political and historiographical dead end of American liberalism.”¹ This narrative depicts a world where ideas are detached from material realities, class conflict vanishes, and the Democratic Party takes centre stage in American history. However, this is not genuine history; it is a form of ideological self-comfort.

The Civil War as a Bourgeois Revolution

The American Civil War stands as the most significant revolutionary event in U.S. history. Contrary to liberal historiography’s portrayal as a moral struggle between “democracy” and “oligarchy” or a tragic clash of opposing American ideals, it was fundamentally a bourgeois revolution. This upheaval was fueled by the deep-seated contradiction between the South’s slave-based plantation economy and the North’s fast-growing industrial capitalism.

The abolition of slavery was essential to the full development of American capitalism. The Union’s victory dismantled the political influence of the enslaved person owning class, seized control of the plantation aristocracy, and freed four million enslaved individuals. This marked the Second American Revolution, finishing what the first had started: establishing a unified national market and removing pre-capitalist barriers to bourgeois progress. However, like all bourgeois revolutions, it contained inherent contradictions that the bourgeoisie itself could not resolve.

Reconstruction: The High Point of the Democratic Revolution

Reconstruction stood as the most radical democratic effort in American history. During a short-lived phase, Radical Republicans, freedmen, and impoverished Southern whites united to reshape the South around universal male suffrage, public education, civil rights, and the political advancement of formerly enslaved people.

This moment marked the peak of the Second American Revolution’s democratic potential. There was a brief window for a complete transformation of Southern society, including the redistribution of land and the establishment of a biracial democracy focused on labour interests. However, this opportunity was never realised, as the bourgeoisie backed away from the consequences of their own revolution.

The Bourgeoisie Feared the Working Class More Than the Planter Class

Once slavery was abolished and the national market secured, Northern capital no longer needed the freedmen as political allies. What it feared was the emergence of a politically conscious, unified working class—Black and white—whose demands would extend beyond democratic rights to social and economic equality.

The bourgeoisie recognised that the democratic mobilisation unleashed in the South could merge with the rising labour movement in the North. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 confirmed these fears. Faced with the prospect of a broader class challenge, the bourgeoisie chose to abandon Reconstruction and reconcile with the Southern elite.

The Agrarian Question Was Never Resolved

Reconstruction failed to initiate the agrarian revolution that could have dismantled the economic dominance of former slaveholders. Without redistributing land, political rights remained fragile, leaving freedmen economically reliant on their former masters. This shortcoming was deliberate; the bourgeoisie could not endorse challenging property structures that sustained the reactionary class’s power.

The Democratic Revolution Threatened to Become a Social Revolution

Trotsky’s concept of permanent revolution explains why Reconstruction failed. The bourgeoisie initiates the democratic revolution but cannot finish it because doing so would endanger capitalist property by mobilising the masses. Only the working class has the capacity to complete the revolution. In the 1860s and 1870s, in America, the working class was not ready to take on this role due to a lack of organisation, political independence, and class awareness. Consequently, the revolution remained incomplete.

IV. The Counterrevolution of 1877 and the Consolidation of Jim Crow

The end of Reconstruction was not due to “Northern fatigue,” “racism,” or Southern ideology’s persistence. Instead, it was a counterrevolution led by the bourgeoisie to maintain capitalist dominance.

The Compromise of 1877, which ended federal military presence in the South, coincided with the violent suppression of the Great Railroad Strike. These events were interconnected, representing different aspects of the same class struggle. The bourgeoisie suppressed both the democratic hopes of freedmen and the rising militancy of industrial workers. Consequently, this led to the establishment of the Jim Crow system: Black voter disenfranchisement, the restoration of planter dominance, racial terror, and a strict racial caste hierarchy. This outcome was not a Southern “victory” but a betrayal of the democratic revolution by the Northern bourgeoisie.

The Legacy of the Second American Revolution

The abolition of slavery was irrevocable, but Reconstruction’s failure left the democratic revolution unfinished. Its repercussions influenced American society for over a century: the working class remained racially divided, the South turned into a centre of reactionary politics, and the ideal of multiracial democracy was postponed. Additionally, the capitalist state solidified racial hierarchy as a means of class dominance. The unresolved issues from Reconstruction resurfaced throughout American history—from the Populist movement to the CIO, the civil rights era, and ongoing challenges to American democracy.

The Book’s Foundational Falsehood: The South Did Not Win the Civil War

Richardson’s title serves as a provocation, yet it is historically inaccurate. The South did not achieve victory in the Civil War—neither militarily, politically, nor socially. The slave system was dismantled; the planter aristocracy was broken; and four million enslaved individuals were freed. As the document highlights, these represent “world-historic achievements of the Second American Revolution.”²

Richardson’s trick is to reinterpret “winning” as the subsequent betrayal of Reconstruction. However, this was not a victory for Confederate “ideology.” Instead, it was a shift in class alliances within the Northern bourgeoisie, which, after fulfilling its goals of unifying the nation and dismantling the slave power, chose to forsake the freedmen. It then reconciled with former enslavers to secure capitalist stability in the South.

This was not a triumph of ideas but a victory of property relations. The bourgeoisie pulled back from the revolutionary consequences of Radical Reconstruction because it endangered private property rights and empowered the rising labour movement.³Richardson’s ideological framing—“democracy vs oligarchy”—is a liberal mystification that dissolves the material foundations of the conflict into a moral drama.

 Ideology Without Class: The Liberal Flight from Materialism

Richardson’s story centres on a long-standing conflict between “democracy” and “oligarchy,” but these terms are not purely historical categories; rather, they serve as moral labels. This framing obscures the reality that the Civil War was fundamentally a conflict between two economic systems: chattel slavery, based on plantation agriculture, and free labour, driven by industrial capitalism.

The critique rightly observes that Richardson “substitutes a clash of ideas for a struggle between classes.”⁴ This exemplifies contemporary liberal historiography, which struggles to recognise the importance of class without compromising its political core. By equating the planter class with the modern Republican right as manifestations of a single “ideology,” Richardson neglects the significant changes in American capitalism over the past 150 years. Her approach shifts from detailed analysis to a moral narrative.

The Erasure of the Working Class

Perhaps the most critical flaw in Richardson’s book is its almost complete neglect of the working class. The significant labour struggles of the late 19th century—the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the Haymarket Riot, the Homestead Strike, and the Pullman Strike—are either overlooked or treated merely as background. Richardson suggests that ‘History is made by elites,’ with the working class only depicted as a passive object of elite kindness or manipulation. This isn’t an accidental omission but a reflection of a class stance: the petty-bourgeois liberal intelligentsia cannot see the working class as an independent historical actor. Its political viewpoint is confined to swinging between “good” and “bad” elites.

The New Deal, in Richardson’s account, becomes a triumph of enlightened leadership rather than a ruling‑class concession extracted under the pressure of mass strikes and the growing influence of socialist ideas.⁶ This is liberal mythology, not history.

The Democratic Party as the Hero of History

Richardson’s narrative clearly aims to reframe the Democratic Party as the enduring protector of democracy. Achieving this requires ignoring a substantial amount of history. Historically, the Democratic Party was associated with slavery, Jim Crow laws, internment of Japanese Americans, initiating the Cold War, and escalating the Vietnam War. Its so-called “progressive” reforms were actually concessions gained through mass activism, which were then reversed once the pressure diminished.⁷

Yet Richardson groups Lincoln, FDR, LBJ, and contemporary Democrats together as part of a single “democratic tradition.” This is more about political branding than analysis. As the critique points out, this framing “serves a clear political purpose: to channel opposition to Trump and the right into support for the Democratic Party.”⁸

Trump as Symptom, Not Confederate Resurrection

Richardson sees Trump as the reincarnation of the Confederate oligarchy, but this oversimplifies the American crisis. Trump isn’t a modern Jefferson Davis; he’s the result of decades of deindustrialisation, loss of stable jobs, working-class hardship, endless imperialist conflicts, and political disintegration. As noted, “Trump is not Jefferson Davis reborn. He is a product of decades of capitalist decay.”⁹ By personalising and moralising Trumpism, Richardson obscures the structural crisis of American capitalism and the bankruptcy of both major parties.

Conclusion: Liberalism’s Desperate Search for a Usable Past

How the South Won the Civil War is more of a political narrative than a serious historical work. It aims to reassure liberal readers that history supports their views, portrays the Democratic Party as the guardian of “democracy,” and considers Trumpism an anomaly rather than a sign of systemic failure. As the critique notes, the book’s popularity reflects the political deadlock of that social class, which desperately seeks a past that can justify remaining loyal to a party aligned with Wall Street and warfare.”¹⁰

Historical materialism points in the opposite direction: toward the necessity of the working class taking power in its own name.

Footnotes

1. “The book’s thesis can be critically assessed… concentrated expression of the political and historiographical dead end of American liberalism.”
2. “These were world‑historic achievements of the Second American Revolution.”
3. “The failure of Reconstruction was the failure of the bourgeoisie to carry through the democratic revolution to its conclusion…”
4. “Richardson’s framework… substitutes a clash of ideas for a struggle between classes.”
5. “In Richardson’s narrative, history is made by elites.”
6. “When the New Deal arrives, it is presented as a victory of enlightened leadership…”
7. “Its ‘progressive’ reforms have always been concessions wrung from it by mass struggle from below…”
8. “Richardson’s framing serves a clear political purpose: to channel opposition to Trump… into support for the Democratic Party.”
9. “Trump is not Jefferson Davis reborn. He is a product of decades of capitalist decay.”
10. “The book’s popularity… is a measure of the political impasse of that social layer…”

The publication of John Morrill’s new edition of The Letters, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell has been greeted with a remarkable unanimity of praise from the historical profession. Such consensus is itself a political fact. As the uploaded document insists, this edition “deserves to be examined not merely as an editorial achievement but in terms of its political and historiographical implications,” and the “universal acclaim from the historical profession should itself be interrogated.”¹ The task of Marxist historiography is not to echo academic fashion but to expose the class forces that shape it. Morrill’s edition is not a neutral scholarly improvement upon Thomas Carlyle’s 1845 text; it is an intervention in a decades‑long ideological struggle over the meaning of the English Revolution.

Carlyle’s Edition and the Revolutionary Tradition

Thomas Carlyle’s 1845 edition of Cromwell’s writings was a landmark in nineteenth‑century historiography. Despite his limitations—his “great man” theory and his later reactionary turn—Carlyle possessed the intellectual courage to recognise Cromwell as a revolutionary figure. Marx praised Carlyle for having “taken the literary field against the bourgeoisie at a time when its views, tastes and ideas held the whole of official English literature totally in thrall,” citing “his apology for Cromwell” as one of his most significant interventions.²

Carlyle understood, however imperfectly, that the English Civil War was not a constitutional misunderstanding but, in the words of the uploaded document, “a world-historical convulsion in which a class seized power through the execution of a king.”³ This insight—partial, distorted, but nonetheless real—explains why Marx and Engels valued Carlyle’s work. They recognised in the English Revolution the first great bourgeois revolution, the event that cleared the ground for capitalist development and inaugurated the modern epoch.

Carlyle’s edition was flawed, as the document acknowledges: “his transcriptions were not always reliable, his selection was idiosyncratic, his commentary was infused with his own increasingly authoritarian worldview.”⁴ But these were the flaws of a bourgeois radical struggling to articulate the class dynamics of a revolution whose full meaning only Marxism could later reveal.

The Rise of Revisionism and Morrill’s Role

John Morrill is not a neutral editor. He is a leading figure of the revisionist school that has dominated English Civil War historiography since the 1970s. This tendency—associated with Conrad Russell and others—denies that the 1640s constituted a bourgeois revolution. It rejects the notion of a rising bourgeoisie, dismisses the class character of the conflict, and reinterprets the revolution as a contingent political or religious crisis.

The revisionists insist that “there was no bourgeois revolution because there was no rising bourgeoisie and that people from all social classes can be found on either side of the struggle.”⁵ Even Cromwell, they argue, was not a revolutionary but “a representative of the declining gentry.”⁶

This is the intellectual framework within which Morrill has worked for decades. His edition is therefore, as the document states, “not a politically innocent replacement of a ‘flawed’ Victorian text with a ‘scientific’ modern one. It is an intervention in a long-running class struggle within historiography.”⁷

What Revisionism Seeks to Erase

The revisionist school does not correct Carlyle’s limitations from a more advanced standpoint. It retreats from them. It denies that the English Revolution was a revolution at all.

Against this retreat, Christopher Hill’s Marxist historiography stands as a towering achievement. Hill demonstrated in God’s Englishman that Cromwell was a revolutionary leader of the bourgeoisie: a man who purged Parliament until it reflected the needs of his class, built the New Model Army as an instrument of revolutionary power, and suppressed the Levellers when they threatened to push the revolution beyond the limits of capitalist development. Hill’s position was that Cromwell “must be understood as a revolutionary leader of the bourgeoisie… who suppressed the Levellers when the plebeian elements threatened to push the revolution beyond the limits required for capitalist society.”⁸

Hill’s work followed Trotsky’s analysis in Where Is Britain Going?, which identified two revolutionary traditions in British history—Cromwell and Chartism—both of which were systematically denied by the Whig myth of gradualism. Revisionism, for all its claims to sophistication, represents a return to this Whig outlook: the comforting fiction that Britain has been uniquely blessed with peaceful, incremental change. As the document notes, Simon Schama proudly declares himself “a born-again Whig.”⁹

The Political Meaning of Today’s Acclaim

The universal praise for Morrill’s edition is not a matter of scholarly merit alone. It reflects the political trajectory of the bourgeoisie itself. The class that once celebrated Cromwell as its revolutionary ancestor now finds that ancestry embarrassing. Having long since abandoned all progressive historical tasks, the bourgeoisie prefers to pretend that revolution never happened.

The bourgeoisie now insists that “the execution of Charles I was a regrettable incident, that the Levellers were irrelevant extremists, and that the whole unpleasant episode could have been avoided if only people had been more reasonable.”¹⁰This ideological sanitisation is not accidental. It serves contemporary political needs. A ruling class that fears revolution must deny that revolutions have ever been necessary, progressive, or successful.

Hence, the “unanimity of the acclaim” for Morrill’s edition. It “conforms to what the contemporary historical profession wants to believe about the seventeenth century and about revolution in general.”¹¹ A genuinely critical edition—one that illuminated rather than obscured the class forces at work—would not receive such praise.

The Working Class and the Revolutionary Heritage

The working class has every interest in understanding the English Revolution for what it was: the first in the series of bourgeois revolutions that created the conditions for modern capitalism and, in doing so, brought into being the proletariat itself.

The revolutionary traditions of the bourgeoisie—however historically limited—belong not to today’s anaemic liberalism but to the international working class. As the document concludes, these traditions “belong to the heritage of the international working class – not to the anaemic, phlegmatic liberalism that now disowns them.”¹²

To defend the revolutionary content of the English Civil War is therefore not an antiquarian exercise. It is part of the broader struggle to arm the working class with an understanding of the historical processes that shaped the modern world—and to expose the ideological falsifications through which the bourgeoisie seeks to obscure its own past and the revolutionary future that confronts it.

Notes

1.  “This is a significant publication… the universal acclaim from the historical profession should itself be interrogated.”
2. Ibid.: Marx praised Carlyle for “having taken the literary field against the bourgeoisie… citing specifically ‘his apology for Cromwell’.”
3. Ibid.: Carlyle recognised the Civil War as “a world-historical convulsion in which a class seized power through the execution of a king.”
4. Ibid.: “His transcriptions were not always reliable… his commentary was infused with his own increasingly authoritarian worldview.”
5. Ibid.: “There was no bourgeois revolution because there was no rising bourgeoisie…”
6. Ibid.: “Even Cromwell… can better be understood as a representative of the declining gentry.”
7. Ibid.: Morrill’s edition “is an intervention in a long-running class struggle within historiography.”
8. Ibid.: Cromwell “must be understood as a revolutionary leader of the bourgeoisie… who suppressed the Levellers…”
9. Ibid.: “Simon Schama… happily declares himself ‘a born-again Whig.’”
10. Ibid.: The bourgeoisie now claims “the execution of Charles I was a regrettable incident…”
11. Ibid.: Morrill’s edition “conforms to what the contemporary historical profession wants to believe…”
12. Ibid.: “The revolutionary traditions of the bourgeoisie… belong to the heritage of the international working class.”

Robin Blackburn’s An Unfinished Revolution: Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln offers a significant addition to the study of Marx’s role in the American Civil War. It includes Marx’s journalism, his letters to Engels, and the International Workingmen’s Association’s messages to Lincoln. However, as the review suggests, Blackburn’s political and methodological approach—shaped by the decline of the academic left and its distancing from revolutionary Marxism—limits the interpretations. While the book sheds light on many aspects, it ultimately does not fully capture the revolutionary importance of the history it describes.

Blackburn’s observations are accurate. He rightly highlights that Marx’s engagement with the Civil War was core to his political work in the 1860s, not just a side interest. As the review states, Marx closely tracked military campaigns, contributed extensively to the New York Daily Tribune and the Vienna Presse, and coordinated widespread working-class resistance in Britain against Palmerston’s pro-Confederate interventionist policies.”¹ Blackburn also notes Marx’s respect for Lincoln as a bourgeois revolutionary who, faced with circumstances, went beyond his class boundaries. Marx’s 1865 tribute—cited in the assessment—praises Lincoln as “one of the rare men who succeed in becoming great, without ceasing to be good.”²—was not diplomatic rhetoric but a political judgment grounded in historical necessity.

Blackburn’s political framework is rooted in his longstanding connection to the New Left Review and its post-Trotskyist origins. The assessment places Blackburn within the tradition of the International Marxist Group and the reunified Fourth International, which split from the International Committee in 1963, leading to a trajectory of political abandonment. This milieu transitioned from Pabloite entryism into the Labour Party to Eurocommunism, support for national-liberation movements, and ultimately to academic postmodernism and identity politics prevalent in today’s pseudo-left. As noted, this development “is not a series of disconnected errors. It flows from the abandonment of the central Marxist principle: the political independence of the working class and the fight for world socialist revolution”.”³

This political lineage influences Blackburn’s view of the American Revolution as an unfinished process. Marx considered the Civil War a bourgeois-democratic revolution that dismantled the slaveholding elite. However, the emancipation of four million enslaved individuals highlighted social issues—land redistribution, political rights, education, and economic independence—that capitalism could not address. The failure of Reconstruction—marked by the withdrawal of federal troops and the reinstatement of white supremacist rule in the South—further exemplifies this ongoing incompleteness.”⁴—expressed the class limits of the bourgeoisie, not the failure of American democracy in the abstract. From this perspective, the unfinished tasks of the Civil War point not toward liberal reform but toward socialist revolution.

Blackburn, however, examines the issue from a left-liberal reformist perspective. The critique suggests that the New Left Review’s shifting politics—ranging from Keynesianism to left-nationalism and academic radicalism—fail to recognize the working class as a crucial revolutionary subject. Consequently, their idea of the “unfinished revolution” stays confined within bourgeois political boundaries. Here, the working class is seen merely as an object of analysis rather than as an active agent shaping history.

The methodological critique is equally decisive. Marx did not approach the Civil War as an intellectual curiosity but as a revolutionary strategist. His journalism was “a political act aimed at clarifying the stakes of the conflict for workers in Europe and America.”⁵ He aimed to analyze the class forces at play and the strategic consequences of their conflict. Blackburn’s research, however, views Marx’s involvement as a moment in intellectual history rather than a blueprint for revolutionary action. This difference in approach highlights the divide between Marxism as a revolutionary practice and the academic Marxism that now largely influences the post-Trotskyist left.

The assessment compares Blackburn’s method with the stance of the International Committee of the Fourth International regarding the 1619 Project. It characterizes the project as a defense of the revolutionary legacy of the Civil War, opposing a racialist misrepresentation. The argument suggests that the 1619 Project replaces “an immutable racial pathology”⁶ with the class dynamics of American history, thereby serving contemporary ruling‑class interests by dividing the working class. This example illustrates what it means to apply Marx’s method to contemporary political struggles: history is not merely to be interpreted but to be used as a guide to revolutionary practice.

The review concludes by asserting that the working class is the rightful successor to the democratic revolutions of 1776 and 1865. These victories—such as equality before the law, the abolition of slavery, and birthright citizenship—are currently under persistent threat from a capitalist oligarchy that is shifting towards authoritarianism. Defending these gains is inherently linked to the struggle for socialism. As David North writes, “The American working class will not arrive at the construction of independent organs of struggle and rule without studying the history of the country in which it lives.”⁷ The unfinished tasks of the Civil War, the assessment argues, cannot be resolved within the framework of the New Left Review or the academic left more broadly.

Blackburn’s book is useful but constrained. It retrieves key historical data but misses its revolutionary significance. A true Marxist approach to the Civil War should start not with academic analysis but with revolutionary planning. Only then can the concept of the “unfinished revolution” be fully understood and realized.

Footnotes

1. A Marxist Assessment of Robin Blackburn’s An Unfinished Revolution, 1. (“Marx followed the military campaigns in detail, wrote extensively… organised mass working-class opposition…”)
2. Ibid., 2. (“one of the rare men who succeed in becoming great, without ceasing to be good”)
3. Ibid., 3. (“is not a series of disconnected errors… abandonment of the central Marxist principle…”)
4. Ibid., 4. (“the withdrawal of federal troops, the restoration of white supremacist rule in the South”)
5. Ibid., 5. (“a political act aimed at clarifying the stakes of the conflict for workers…”)
6. Ibid., 6. (“an immutable racial pathology”)
7. Ibid., 7. (“The American working class will not arrive at the construction of independent organs of struggle…”)

The political turmoil in the British Labour Party has once again prompted a wave of commentary from the pseudo-left intelligentsia. Tariq Ali’s recent article “Tweedledee” is particularly revealing; despite its superficial correctness, it ultimately exposes the exhaustion of the Pabloite tradition he has represented for over fifty years. Ali’s article lists accurate observations that ultimately lead nowhere, serving as a display of radical awareness designed to stop the working class from reaching revolutionary insights.[1]

Ali’s critique of Starmer and Burnham is accurate but ultimately ineffective. He is “factually correct on many points,” such as Starmer’s targeting of the left, his backing of austerity and the Gaza conflict, and Burnham’s clear stance on welfare reductions and increased militarism. Ali even admits that Labour’s drop to 18 per cent reflects a broader collapse of social democracy across the continent, driven by “total capitulation to the markets and US policies.” These are significant acknowledgements.

However, these are the admissions of a man who has spent years recording failures without ever helping to create a revolutionary alternative. Ali’s is “the truth of the salon radical,” someone who watches history from a distance and then congratulates himself for seeing the blood on the floor.

A Political Life in Permanent Retreat

Tariq Ali’s political journey does not trace the path of a revolutionary who has strayed or a Marxist corrupted by age. Instead, it reflects a man who remained within the petty-bourgeois radical environment that influenced him, with his career marked by adapting to the forces he once opposed. His recent article, “Tweedledee,” is not an anomaly but a reflection of a lifetime spent avoiding the core issue of modern politics: the need to develop a revolutionary leadership within the working class.

Ali’s political biography recounts a series of retreats, often cloaked in rhetorical flourish and geopolitical analysis. His life has been shaped by Pabloism, the ideology that fragmented the Fourth International into the “broad left,” subordinated Marxism to Stalinism and bourgeois nationalism, and shifted focus from revolutionary strategy to impressionistic commentary on global affairs.

The Early Years: Radicalism Without Strategy

Ali’s early prominence in the late 1960s—through his involvement with the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, media presence, and ties to the International Marxist Group—has been mythologised as proof of revolutionary dedication. However, it actually reflected the political stance of a generation of radicalised students who, while genuinely opposed to imperialism, still maintained a fundamentally petty-bourgeois class perspective.

The IMG, representing the British section of the Pabloite “Fourth International,” already believed that external forces would inevitably pressure Stalinist, social-democratic, and nationalist bureaucracies to adopt revolutionary roles. Ali fully supported this view, which provided a convenient excuse for avoiding the difficult and unglamorous work of building a Marxist party within the working class. According to David Walsh, Ali “passed through the International Marxist Group… as a careerist passes through a fashionable phase,” and his greed and self-interest “developed early on, and just grew.”

The 1970s–80s: From Revolutionary Pretensions to Open Adaptation

The dissolution of the IMG into the Labour Party in 1981 was not a betrayal of its principles but their natural evolution. Pabloism consistently opposed the working class’s struggle for political independence. Ali’s active involvement in this process demonstrated his shift from a radical outsider to a left-wing figure within the Labour structure.

During this time, Ali’s political writing increasingly focused on geopolitical issues. His books on the Soviet Union, the Middle East, and world politics consistently failed to mention the working class as an active force in history. Instead, he highlighted “progressive” bourgeois figures, nationalist leaders, and dissident bureaucrats as the main agents of change.

His 1988 tribute to Boris Yeltsin’s “political courage” stands out as a particularly grotesque example. It is not surprising that Ali could praise the man responsible for dismantling the USSR, looting its social resources, and causing hardship for millions. This attitude epitomises Pabloite politics: the idea that history is shaped by enlightened elites rather than the working class.

The 1990s–2000s: The Global Commentator and the Lesser Evilist

By the 1990s, Ali had established himself as a prominent figure in the global commentariat. He was no longer seen as a revolutionary but rather as a left-leaning analyst providing insights on world events for the liberal intellectuals. During this period, his political responses show a growing alignment with bourgeois politics.

His advisory role with Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party—widely viewed as highly corrupt and reactionary in South Asia—was part of his consistent alignment with “progressive” elites and not a mistake. His 2004 endorsement of John Kerry, motivated by the belief that “a defeat for a warmonger government would be seen as a step forward,” exemplifies decades of justifying lesser-evil tactics. This approach characterises his political strategy: a series of capitulations to bourgeois politics disguised as sophisticated radicalism.

The New Left Review and the Cultivation of Cynicism

Ali’s extensive connection with the New Left Review has played a key role in shaping his political development. The NLR, acting as the intellectual hub for the Pabloite thinkers, has influenced Ali’s outlook, combining literary depth, geopolitical insights, and a cultivated sense of pessimism.

Ali’s writing embodies the NLR’s typical outlook—cynicism masked as realism. His “Tweedledee” article showcases this, offering a confident shrug at Labourism’s crisis. It presents accurate observations but shows no revolutionary intent; it’s “the knowing shrug of the NLR intellectual who has seen it all and believes nothing can be changed.”

This cynicism is not harmless. It functions as a political brake, ensuring that the working class remains trapped within the framework of bourgeois politics. 

The Present: A Spent Force in a New Crisis

The current British political crisis—marked by Starmer’s downfall, Burnham’s rise, and the collapse of social democracy—has revealed the failure of the pseudo-left. Ali’s reply has been to vaguely reference the Greens and the remnants of Corbynism without critically assessing their true influence.

He cannot face the reality that the Greens “actively supplied their voters to Burnham” or that Corbynism “exists in name only” following its systematic demobilisation by Corbyn himself. Recognising this would mean admitting that the pseudo-left has significantly hindered the rise of a revolutionary alternative. Ali is unable to reach revolutionary conclusions because he has spent his entire political career avoiding such insights.

Tariq Ali as a Political Type

Tariq Ali embodies a political archetype: a Pabloite intellectual who favours commentary over strategy, cynicism over Marxism, and adaptation over fight. His political journey—from an IMG radical to NLR leader, from a Yeltsin supporter to a Corbyn sympathiser—reflects a tradition that has repeatedly betrayed the working class. The pseudo-left is not an ally for revolution but an obstacle. Ali’s career exemplifies this pattern.

The Pabloite Method: Cynicism as a Worldview

Ali’s political ineffectiveness is rooted in his methodological approach rather than personal failings. It stems from the Pabloite tradition he came from and remains connected to through the New Left Review, which he recommends at the end of his article. Pabloism has shifted away from the Marxist view of the working class as the revolutionary agent. Instead, it favours geopolitical speculation, petty-bourgeois radicalism, and a cultivated cynicism that dismisses revolutionary strategy as naive.

Pabloism replaces class analysis with geopolitical commentary, replaces revolutionary strategy with world-weary cynicism, and favours literary sophistication over the diligent work of building a party. Ali’s label, “Tweedledee,” is more than just a dismissive joke; it symbolises the attitude of an NLR intellectual who believes they have seen everything and that nothing can change. It suggests that all parties are identical, outcomes are fixed, and resistance is pointless. This attitude is not Marxism but resignation disguised as insight.

Ali admits that the Corbyn supporters “disgraced themselves by rejoining the Parliamentary Labour Party,” but he still sees them as the foundation for creating something new. This isn’t analysis; it’s avoidance. Asking why Corbynism didn’t succeed means confronting the influence of the trade-union bureaucracy, the Labour left, and the pseudo-left intellectuals—including Ali himself—that prevented an independent working-class movement from forming. And that’s a question Ali cannot pose, because he has no answer.

The Real Question: What Is to Be Done?

Labour’s crisis isn’t about personalities or shifting policies. It reveals a fundamental truth: Labour, as the WSWS states, is “a political tool of the corporate and financial elite—body and soul.” Burnham isn’t just a lesser evil; he’s a candidate representing continuity who will deepen the attack on workers. The Corbyn supporters and the trade-union leadership have been key in silencing opposition and maintaining Labour’s authority.

The pseudo-left—spanning from the New Left Review and the Greens to the Corbynite faction—acts not as a genuine alternative but as an obstacle. Its purpose is to articulate the crisis within bourgeois politics in increasingly elaborate terms, all the while preventing the working class from reaching revolutionary conclusions. The working class doesn’t require more superficial commentary like Tweedledum-and-Tweedledee; it needs its own political party.

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[1] Tweedledee Tariq Ali 19 June 2026-newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/tweedledee

Robin Blackburn’s The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights was seen in academia as the final part of a significant trilogy on New World slavery, with an impressive empirical scope. However, Marxism’s role is not to praise scholarship for its own sake but to examine the political and theoretical assumptions behind historical narratives. In this aspect, Blackburn’s work does not embody a Marxist synthesis; instead, it reveals the gradual decline of the New Left Review environment and its shift away from revolutionary politics towards the more comfortable, conformist corridors of liberal academia.¹

The tragedy is not Blackburn’s lack of knowledge but his absence of a revolutionary perspective. Without this standpoint, the history of slavery and emancipation—arguably one of the most pivotal moments in the global capitalist development—fails to be fully understood in its world-historical context.

The New Left Review and Robin Blackburn: A Political Intellectual Symbiosis

Blackburn’s political development is closely linked to the growth of the New Left Review. Over the years, the NLR has claimed to represent “Western Marxism.” Yet, it has consistently dismissed key Marxist principles: the revolutionary importance of the working class, the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, and Trotskyism’s internationalist agenda.²

Since Perry Anderson’s early involvement with Maoism and Tariq Ali’s support for Castroism and other nationalist regimes, the NLR has been a center for various pseudo-radical movements, but it has notably excluded the essential: the autonomous political action of the working class against capitalism.

Blackburn’s commitments—like his support for the Cuban Revolution, his sympathy for “third world” nationalism, and his connections to reformist and Stalinist movements—are fundamental rather than incidental, shaping how The American Crucible is understood at every level. The book’s political stance aligns with the academic left: it uses radical language, maintains a liberal content, and generally downplays the revolutionary potential of historical materialism.

The connection between Robin Blackburn and the New Left Review is more than just biographical or institutional; it is structural. Blackburn is not a rare exception within the NLR; he embodies its core ideals. His work encapsulates the political development, theoretical evasions, and class stance of the NLR over sixty years.

To grasp Blackburn’s view on slavery and emancipation, it’s essential to recognize the NLR’s political agenda—a project that has continually favored academic radicalism over revolutionary Marxism and eclectic theory over a strategic focus on the international working class. The NLR’s fundamental contradiction is its Marxism without revolution.

From its beginning, the NLR positioned itself as the successor to a defeated and discredited left — including the Stalinist CPs, the Labour left, and the collapsing post-war consensus. However, instead of reviving revolutionary Marxism, it developed a hybrid approach: Marxist in language, anti-Trotskyist politically, nationalist in sympathies, academic in style, and pessimistic about the working class. This was the NLR’s original sin — attempting to analyse capitalism without seeking to overthrow it, critiquing the system without forming a movement to dismantle it. Blackburn entered this environment not as a dissident but as a loyal architect. With an erudite, cosmopolitan, and empirically strong intellectual persona — qualities highly valued by the NLR — his work’s political content nonetheless reveals the limitations of that milieu.

A hostility to the revolutionary proletariat

The NLR’s suspicion of the working class is not occasional but fundamental. From Anderson’s initial structuralist approaches to Nairn’s nationalist theories, the journal persistently dismisses the Marxist idea of the proletariat as the agent of history. Blackburn reflects this stance by concluding history prior to the rise of the working class. There is a notable fascination with nationalist and Stalinist regimes.

The NLR’s fascination with Cuba, Vietnam, Algeria, and other “Third World” nationalist projects influenced Blackburn’s own political views. He tends to see emancipation more as a national-moral saga than as a class revolution, aligning with liberal human-rights discourse—a form of academic radicalism. By the 1980s, the NLR had become a hub for world-systems theory, post-Althusserian structuralism, and post-colonial critique, all of which replaced class struggle with abstract theory. Blackburn’s focus on “human rights” as a key concept reflects this ideological shift.

The NLR’s Ideological Drift and Its Impact on Blackburn

The NLR’s development can be outlined in three stages, each aligning with Blackburn’s intellectual growth: first, Western Marxism (1960s–70s), which focuses on philosophy and culture rather than revolutionary class struggle, reflecting Blackburn’s early work on slavery that is rich in theory but limited in political strategy.

Second, Academic Leftism (1980s–90s), where the journal becomes a centre for academic radicalism increasingly disconnected from the working class, paralleling Blackburn’s emphasis on structural analysis over class agency. Third, Liberal Human-Rights Marxism (2000s–present), with the NLR adopting NGO perspectives, global civil society, and the moral framework of human rights. “The American Crucible” epitomizes this stage, recounting emancipation through the lens of liberal ideology.

Why Blackburn Cannot Produce a Marxist History of Emancipation

Blackburn’s work reflects a lack of political perspective rather than intellectual deficiency. Since he shares the NLR’s core beliefs, he cannot anchor emancipation in the fundamental conflict between free and enslaved labor, see the enslaved as revolutionary agents, view the Civil War as a bourgeois-democratic revolution, or understand the rise of the modern working class from slavery’s abolition, nor recognize the Civil War’s role in the global evolution of capitalism. Instead, he replaces these with human rights instead of class struggle, moral progress instead of revolutionary breakages, national histories instead of internationalist analysis, and academic neutrality instead of political engagement. This is not coincidental but logically follows from the NLR’s gradual departure from Marxism and the Political Meaning of the Blackburn–NLR Synthesis.

The Blackburn–NLR nexus illustrates a wider trend: the post-1960s left evolving into a professional-managerial class embedded in universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions. This group criticizes capitalism but does not oppose it fundamentally, praises resistance without mobilizing it, and references Marxism while dismissing its revolutionary aspects. Blackburn’s trilogy on slavery exemplifies this political and intellectual formation.

The Fetish of “Human Rights”: Liberal Ideology in Radical Dress

Blackburn’s explicit use of “human rights” as the main framework to interpret the end of slavery clearly reflects this retreat. The subtitle—Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights—is intentionally chosen, indicating a theoretical surrender rather than neutrality.

The language of human rights is not a universal liberation doctrine. Instead, it serves as the legal ideology of the bourgeois system. As Marx showed in On the Jewish Question, the Rights of Man primarily protect the rights of the individual property owner, emphasizing the egoistic rights of a person separated from others and the community.”³ To elevate this ideology to the status of historical motor is to invert the real relationship between class struggle and its ideological forms.

Blackburn’s framework conceals a crucial truth: the abolition of slavery was not merely driven by humanitarian ideals. Instead, it resulted from a fierce conflict between opposing social systems—free labor and slave labor—that could no longer coexist. The enslaved people, through widespread resistance and the general strike from 1861 to 65, compelled this issue to the forefront of history.⁴ The capitalist North, compelled by military necessity and class interest, destroyed a rival ruling class based on slave property. This was not a moral awakening. It was a revolution.

The Civil War: A Revolution Without a Revolutionary Analysis

Blackburn recognizes the revolutionary nature of the Civil War, but his approach diminishes its class significance. His perspective aligns with the “New Historians of Capitalism,’ emphasizing the economic integration of the North and South and minimizing their fundamental social conflicts.

This is a profound distortion. The Civil War was not a fratricidal misunderstanding among capitalists. It was, in William Seward’s famous phrase, an “irrepressible conflict.”⁵ As Marx wrote in Capital, “the veiled slavery of the wage workers in Europe needed, for its pedestal, slavery pure and simple in the new world.”⁶ The destruction of that pedestal was a world‑historical act that reshaped the global trajectory of capitalism.

Blackburn’s failure to emphasize the fundamental clash between free and enslaved labor causes him to overlook the revolutionary role of the enslaved and the importance of the Union victory. The Civil War was the most significant social revolution of the 1800s. Considering it merely as part of the development of “human rights” diminishes its true significance.

The Vanishing Working Class: A Political Omission with Theoretical Consequences

The key omission in Blackburn’s narrative is the working class itself. His account concludes with emancipation and Reconstruction, yet the end of slavery marked only the start of a new phase. From the wreckage of the slave system and the growth of industrial capitalism arose the modern American working class—comprising both Black and white individuals, native-born and immigrant.

The great strike waves of the 1870s, the rise of industrial unionism, the formation of the CIO in the 1930s—these were not peripheral developments. They were the dialectical resolution of the contradictions unleashed by the destruction of the slave power.⁷ The working class, not the discourse of human rights, is the engine of historical progress.

Blackburn’s framework has no place for this. And this omission is not accidental. It reflects the NLR’s longstanding hostility to the revolutionary role of the proletariat. A history of slavery that cannot account for the emergence of the working class is not a Marxist history. It is a liberal history with radical footnotes.

 What a Marxist Analysis Requires

A genuinely Marxist account of slavery and emancipation must begin from the following premises: Slavery was integral to the rise of capitalism, not a pre‑capitalist residue. The enslaved were central agents of their own liberation, not passive recipients of humanitarian benevolence. The Civil War was a social revolution, rooted in the clash between incompatible labour systems. The destruction of slavery set the stage for the emergence of the modern working class. Human rights discourse is an ideological form, not the motor of historical change. The international working class is the decisive revolutionary force. These principles are absent from Blackburn’s work because they are absent from the political tradition to which he belongs.

Conclusion: The Necessity of Revolutionary Marxism

The American Crucible is a thorough scholarly work, but it doesn’t present a Marxist analysis. Instead, it shows the tiredness of the New Left Review tradition, which has replaced revolutionary politics with academic radicalism and shifted from human-rights liberalism to class struggle. Marxism’s role isn’t to dress up liberal ideas with history, but to expose the class forces shaping history and equip the working class with the awareness needed for liberation. To do this, one should look not to Blackburn, but to Marx and Engels, to Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction, to classical Marxist historiography, and especially to the ongoing tradition of the Fourth International.¹⁰.

FOOTNOTES

1. Robin Blackburn, The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights (London: Verso, 2011).
2. Perry Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism (London: Verso, 1976).
3. Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in Early Writings, trans. Rodney Livingstone (London: Penguin, 1992), 234.
4. W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880 (New York: Free Press, 1998), esp. ch. 4, “The General Strike.”
5. William H. Seward, “The Irrepressible Conflict,” speech delivered October 25, 1858.
6. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1976), 925.
7. Philip S. Foner, History of the Labour Movement in the United States, vol. 1 (New York: International Publishers, 1947).
8. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944).
9. Leon Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution (New York: Pathfinder, 1969).
10. David North, The Civil War in the United States and the Birth of the American Working Class (Oak Park: Mehring Books, 2016).

Pip: If you have ever wanted someone to untangle the historiographical knot tying slavery to capitalism — and then explain why the knot was tied wrong in the first place — freerein61 has a piece for you.

Mara: This episode follows that argument through the debate over modes of production, the American Civil War, and what it all means for how the left thinks about race and class today. Let's start with the core historical question — slavery, capitalism, and whether they belong in the same analytical box.

Slavery, Capitalism, and the Problem of Historical Categories

Pip: The question at the center of this piece is deceptively simple: was slavery a form of capitalism, or was it something structurally distinct? The answer, it turns out, has real consequences for how we understand the Civil War and racial oppression today.

Mara: The post opens by situating David McNally's book against the New Historians of Capitalism and the 1619 Project, both of which argue that American capitalism is deeply linked to racial slavery. The piece credits McNally with more precision than either — but still finds him guilty of the same core error. The charge is laid out plainly: his framework involves "collapsing slavery and capitalism into a single system."

Pip: And the stakes of that collapse are not abstract. If the two systems are the same thing, the Civil War stops making sense — there is no fundamental conflict to explain, just an internal dispute within one system.

Mara: The Marxist framework the post defends rests on distinguishing modes of production by their social relations. In slavery, the producer is property; labour-power itself is not a commodity. Marx put it directly in Capital: "the labourer himself is sold as a commodity," whereas in capitalism "the worker sells his labour-power." Those are different structures, not variations on one.

Pip: The post uses a sharp analogy to drive this home: Manchester manufacturers buying cotton from slave plantations does not make those plantations capitalist, any more than medieval merchants buying wool from feudal estates turned those estates capitalist. Exchange relations and relations of production are not the same thing.

Mara: Marx and Engels applied exactly this distinction in real time. Writing for Die Presse in 1861, Marx described the South as embodying "a specific mode of production based on slavery," and Engels called the planter class a "quasi-feudal aristocracy" with interests fundamentally opposed to the northern bourgeoisie. Their Civil War writings — over fifty articles and letters — treated the conflict as a revolutionary clash between two different social systems, not a family quarrel within one.

Pip: The political implication the post draws is pointed: if slavery is framed as capitalism, then racial oppression looks like a permanent feature of American life rather than a historically specific form of domination rooted in particular social relations — a framing that, the post argues, quietly aligns with identitarian politics rather than class analysis.

Mara: The conclusion holds McNally's book in genuine respect for its empirical depth and its engagement with Marx on primitive accumulation, while insisting that serious Marxist historiography requires keeping these categories clean. Blurring them, however well-intentioned, obscures both the revolutionary significance of emancipation and the mechanisms of oppression that followed.

Pip: Which is to say: precision in historical categories is not pedantry — it is the difference between a framework that can explain the world and one that cannot.

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Mara: The thread running through all of this is that how we categorize the past shapes what we think is possible in the present.

Pip: Right — get the categories wrong and the Civil War becomes inexplicable, and the left loses its analytical footing. That tension between historical clarity and political urgency seems like exactly the kind of thing worth returning to next time.

Abstract

This article critically examines David McNally’s Slavery and Capitalism: A New Marxist History (2020) within the broader discussion of slavery’s connection to capitalism. While McNally seeks to distinguish his view from the “New Historians of Capitalism” (NHC) and the racialist elements of the 1619 Project, his approach ultimately exhibits a common flaw: merging slavery and capitalism into a single, unified system.¹Building on classical Marxist theory, especially the concept of modes of production, this article argues that McNally’s framework conceals the fundamental differences between enslaved people and capitalist relations and fails to fully account for the origins or revolutionary importance of the American Civil War. It concludes by emphasising the importance of preserving clear analytical categories in Marxist historiography.

Introduction

The connection between slavery and capitalism has become a hotly debated topic in recent history. The emergence of the NHC in the 2010s, along with the 2019 launch of the New York Times’ 1619 Project, triggered a surge of research claiming that American capitalism is deeply linked to racial slavery.² Historians of the Civil War era have criticised these works, asserting that merging slavery and capitalism blurs the fundamental differences between them and makes the Civil War harder to understand historically.³

David McNally’s ‘Slavery and Capitalism’ positions itself as a deliberate Marxist critique. He aims to address what he perceives as the shortcomings of both the NHC and specific Marxist interpretations, which, according to him, draw an overly strict line between slavery and capitalism. His main argument is that slavery was not separate from capitalism but a fundamental part of its rise as a global system, especially in the context of cotton production for British industrial growth.⁴

This article contends that, although McNally’s empirical input is valuable, his analysis ultimately replicates the conceptual collapse typical of the NHC. By focusing on how slave-produced commodities are integrated into global markets, McNally conflates slavery as a mode of production with capitalism as a separate social system.⁵ This blurring carries important historiographical and political implications, especially for grasping the essence of the American Civil War and the mechanisms of racial oppression in the contemporary United States.

The Historiographical Context: The NHC and the 1619 Project

The NHC, including experts like Sven Beckert, Edward Baptist, Walter Johnson, and Matthew Desmond, contends that slavery was not just a leftover from pre-capitalist times but actually played a key role in driving the growth of American capitalism.⁶ Their work highlights the managerial strategies, productivity measures, and global commodity networks that connected the plantation South with the industrialising North and British textile manufacturing.

Critics observe that this method depends more on analogy than detailed analysis. James Oakes contends that the NHC “effectively erase the fundamental differences between the two systems” by emphasising only superficial similarities in commercial practices.⁷ The outcome is a historical account where the Civil War appears inexplicable. If slavery and capitalism are fundamentally the same system, then the underlying reason for the North-South conflict disappears.

The 1619 Project popularised this framework, arguing that racial slavery is intrinsic to American capitalism and that the country’s founding principles are based on racial dominance.⁸ Although McNally does not support the racial essentialism promoted by the 1619 Project, his work is influenced by the historiographical landscape it has helped shape.

McNally’s Intervention: A “New Marxist History”

McNally’s book seeks to reshape the understanding of the link between slavery and capitalism through a Marxist lens. He cites Marx’s concept of primitive accumulation, emphasising that colonial slavery and the transatlantic slave trade were pivotal episodes in the violent sequence of events that set the stage for capitalism’s development.⁹ McNally argues that cotton produced by enslaved people was crucial to the rise of British industrial capitalism, framing slavery as a pivotal part of the development of the global capitalist system.

This argument provides valuable insights. Marx indeed recognised the importance of colonial plunder, such as slavery, in the development of capitalism.¹⁰ McNally correctly highlights that capitalism’s roots are intertwined with centuries of global violence, dispossession, and forced labour, rather than arising in isolation. However, the central question remains whether slavery should be considered a form of capitalist production, not merely whether it contributed to capitalism’s development. This is where McNally’s argument becomes weaker.

Modes of Production and the Problem of Conceptual Precision

Classical Marxism differentiates modes of production based on their core social relations. In slavery, the direct producer is treated as property; labour-power itself is not a commodity. In capitalism, the worker is legally free and sells their labour-power on the market.¹¹ These differences create distinct economic laws of movement, class organisations, and political behaviours. The enslaved individual in the South existed within a slave society. Wealth was rooted in human property, the economy was relatively conservative technologically, and a planter aristocracy dominated the class structure, with interests opposed to those of the northern bourgeoisie.¹² The capitalist North, by contrast, developed based on free labour, industrialisation, and the expansion of an internal market.

McNally’s focus on incorporating slave-produced cotton into global markets causes him to blend these distinctions. However, being part of a world market does not define how the cotton is produced. Merchant capital has historically shown no concern for the social systems involved in trade.¹³ Manchester manufacturers buying cotton from slave plantations does not make the plantations capitalist, just as medieval merchants purchasing wool from feudal estates does not turn those estates capitalist. By confusing exchange relations with relations of production, McNally undermines the analytical framework necessary for Marxist historical analysis.

The Civil War and the Consequences of Conceptual Collapse

The merging of slavery and capitalism profoundly impacts how we interpret the American Civil War. If slavery is viewed as a form of capitalism, then the North-South conflict appears as an internal struggle within the same system, rather than a revolutionary clash between fundamentally different modes of production.¹⁴

This interpretation cannot explain the secession of the slave states, the political economy of the planter class, the industrial and demographic bases of Union victory, or the revolutionary nature of emancipation. Marx himself acknowledged the Civil War as a revolutionary conflict between free and enslaved labour.¹⁵ To collapse the two systems into one is to obscure the historical significance of the war and to undermine the Marxist understanding of its causes and consequences.

Marx, Engels, and the American Civil War: Capital, Free Labour, and the Revolutionary Destruction of Slavery

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels closely examined the American Civil War, creating over fifty articles and letters from 1861 to 1865 that analysed the conflict, its class struggles, and its international implications.¹⁶ Their writings represent the most comprehensive engagement by nineteenth-century socialist thinkers with the issue of slavery and its link to capitalism. Unlike modern views that see slavery as a form of capitalism, Marx and Engels emphasised the fundamental differences between the two systems. They viewed the Civil War not as an internal conflict within capitalism but as a revolutionary clash between two different modes of production: slave labour and free wage labour.¹⁷

Marx and Engels on Slavery as a Distinct Mode of Production

Marx’s analysis of slavery is based on his overall theory of modes of production. In Capital, he differentiates slave labour from capitalist wage labour through the nature of property relations. In slavery, “the labourer himself is sold as a commodity,” while in capitalism, “the worker sells his labour-power.”¹⁸

This distinction was not just legal but structural, influencing how accumulation, production, class relations, and political structures developed. Marx and Engels often pointed out that enslaved individuals in the South were not capitalists. In a 1861 article for Die Presse, Marx described the South as embodying “a specific mode of production based on slavery,” with its expansion driven by the limitations inherent in slave labour.¹⁹ Engels, writing to Marx in 1862, described the planters as “a quasi‑feudal aristocracy” whose economic interests were fundamentally opposed to those of the northern bourgeoisie.²⁰ This analytical distinction is central to their interpretation of the Civil War.

Free Labour and the Dynamics of Capitalist Development

In the mid-1800s, Marx and Engels regarded the North as the most advanced example of capitalism. Its industrial expansion, expanding domestic market, and reliance on free wage labour demonstrated its clear alignment with the process of capitalist accumulation.²¹

Marx argued that free labour was the necessary foundation of capitalist development because it created a mobile, commodified labour‑power and compelled constant technological innovation. Slave labour, by contrast, was economically stagnant, technologically conservative, and dependent on territorial expansion to maintain profitability.²² This divergence produced a structural antagonism between North and South.

The Civil War as a Revolutionary Conflict Between Modes of Production

Marx and Engels viewed the Civil War as a revolutionary conflict between opposing social systems. In an 1861 article, Marx described the conflict as “a war of two social systems,” emphasising it was more than just a political disagreement.²³ The South aimed to maintain a slave-based economy, while the North, despite initial doubts, was driven by the conflict’s logic to abolish slavery. Engels was clearer, stating in an 1863 letter that the war would “necessarily lead to the abolition of slavery,” as the Union couldn’t defeat the Confederacy without disrupting its economic basis.²⁴ This interpretation stands in stark contrast to contemporary frameworks that treat the Civil War as a conflict internal to capitalism.

Emancipation and the Transformation of the War

Marx praised the Emancipation Proclamation as a pivotal step in the revolution. In his 1863 speech for the International Working Men’s Association, he stated that Abraham Lincoln had “inaugurated a new era of the ascendant working class. .²⁵ Emancipation changed the war from merely defending the Union into a revolutionary attack on slavery. Marx and Engels highlighted the active role of enslaved people, pointing out that widespread self-emancipation—such as fleeing to Union forces, stopping work, and fighting—was crucial in weakening the Confederacy.²⁶.

VI. The Global Significance of the Civil War

Marx and Engels regarded the Civil War as a significant moment in world history. They believed that abolishing slavery in the United States would eliminate a major barrier to the growth of the global labour movement.²⁷ Engels noted that the British working class overwhelmingly supported the Union despite the cotton famine, demonstrating the international solidarity of labour against slavery. This solidarity was, for Marx and Engels, evidence that the struggle against slavery was inseparable from the struggle for socialism.²⁸

Marx and Engels Against the Collapse of Historical Categories

Marx and Engels’ analysis sharply differs from modern interpretations that conflate slavery and capitalism into one system. Their works emphasise the structural differences between enslaved people and the capitalist modes of production, highlight the revolutionary significance of the Civil War, and underline the importance of free labour in the development of capitalism.²⁹ To treat slavery as capitalism is to negate the theoretical foundations of their analysis and to render the Civil War historically unintelligible.

Marx and Engels’ writings on the American Civil War represent a highly detailed analysis of slavery, capitalism, and revolutionary change in nineteenth-century political thought. Their focus on the fundamental conflict between enslaved people and capitalist modes of production provides clarity that remains vital in modern historiography. At a time when the line between slavery and capitalism is becoming increasingly unclear, their analysis offers a solid alternative based on historical materialism. It emphasises the revolutionary importance of the Civil War and reaffirms the essential role of free labour in the development of capitalism.

Political Implications: Race, Class, and the Contemporary Left

The breakdown of the connection between slavery and capitalism in historiography has political implications. If slavery is seen as a form of capitalism, then racial oppression appears as a permanent aspect of American society, rather than a historically specific form of domination rooted in particular social relationships.³⁰ This framework aligns, however unintentionally, with the racialist politics that have gained prominence in contemporary liberal and pseudo‑left circles.

McNally’s political background within the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) is significant here. The ISO’s politics were influenced by the interests of the professional-managerial class, frequently substituting racial categories for class analysis. Although McNally’s scholarship is more precise than the ISO’s public messaging, his analytical approach still tends to blur class boundaries and align with dominant ideological trends.³¹

Conclusion

David McNally’s Slavery and Capitalism is a serious and ambitious contribution to a contentious field. Its empirical material is valuable, and its engagement with Marx’s analysis of primitive accumulation is welcome. However, its conceptual framework ultimately reproduces the NHC’s central weakness: collapsing slavery and capitalism into a single system.

A Marxist historiography must maintain clear analytical distinctions between modes of production. Only by doing so can it adequately explain the origins and dynamics of the American Civil War and provide a coherent framework for understanding the persistence of racial oppression in the modern United States. McNally’s “New Marxist History,” despite its intentions, represents a retreat from this clarity.

ENDNOTES

1. David McNally, Slavery and Capitalism: A New Marxist History (London: Verso, 2020), 3–5.
2. For an overview of the NHC, see Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (New York: Knopf, 2014); Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014); Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).
3. James Oakes, The Scorpion’s Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War (New York: Norton, 2014), 12–15.
4. McNally, Slavery and Capitalism, 27–30.
5. Ibid., 41–45.
6. Beckert, Empire of Cotton; Baptist, Half Has Never Been Told; Johnson, River of Dark Dreams; Matthew Desmond, “To Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism, You Have to Start on the Plantation,” New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2019.
7. Oakes, Scorpion’s Sting, 14.
8. Nikole Hannah‑Jones, “Our Democracy’s Founding Ideals Were False When They Were Written,” New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2019.
9. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1976), 915–926.
10. Ibid., 915.
11. Marx, Capital, 270–72.
12. Eugene D. Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery (New York: Pantheon, 1965), 7–12.
13. Robert Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre‑Industrial Europe,” Past & Present 70 (1976): 30–75.
14. For a critique of this collapse, see Charles Post, The American Road to Capitalism (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 45–52.
15. Karl Marx, “The North American Civil War,” Die Presse, October 20, 1861.
16. See the collection in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Civil War in the United States (New York: International Publishers, 1937).
17. Marx, “The North American Civil War.”
18. Marx, Capital, 271.
19. Marx, “The North American Civil War.”
20. Friedrich Engels to Karl Marx, June 1862, in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 41 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1986), 389.
21. Marx, Capital, 713–15.
22. Ibid., 716–20.
23. Marx, “The North American Civil War.”
24. Engels to Marx, January 1863, in MECW, vol. 41, 453.
25. Karl Marx, “Address of the International Working Men’s Association to Abraham Lincoln,” January 1863.
26. W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935), 67–108.
27. Marx, “Address to Lincoln.”
28. Engels to Marx, February 1863, in MECW, vol. 41, 470.
29. Marx, Capital, 270–72; Engels to Marx, June 1862.
30. Adolph Reed Jr., “The Limits of Anti‑Racism,” Left Business Observer 121 (2009).
31. For a critical history of the ISO’s political evolution, see Paul D’Amato, The Meaning of Marxism (Chicago: Haymarket, 2006), though the ISO’s later racial‑political turn is better analysed in Reed, “Limits of Anti‑Racism.”