• Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Reminder that Marx and Lincoln corresponded via letters, and that Marx was impressed enough to call on European communists to volunteer with the US military to get good exercise in hunting down slaver scum for sport.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 months ago

      Reminder that Marx and Lincoln corresponded via letters

      Just the one - or two, if one prefers - I believe. Marx sent a letter on behalf of some socialist org he was a part of, and Lincoln returned a short, though positive, response. Lincoln was also a regular reader of a newspaper Marx regularly contributed to, so he was likely at least somewhat aware of who Marx was beforehand.

      It is very interesting, though - it shows how much of a ‘big tent’ antislavery party the Republican Party was at the time, and that it included ideologies that were not hostile to socialism, even as a high up as Lincoln.

      Lincoln never seriously contested the existence of capitalism, to my knowledge, but generally spoke with a very strong pro-labor and pro-collective action bend. One might think of him as a pre-welfare state socdem.