Re: Denouncing traitors and Round Heads was Re.: On Loving Oliver was

[L.WILLMS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Luko Willms)]

     Am  24.09.00
schrieb  Gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky)
    auf  /ALIST/MARXMAIL
     in  00cba5459111890MAIL1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  ueber  Re: Denouncing traitors and Round Heads was Re.: On Loving Oliver was

NMG> Marx himself changed 180 degrees his views on Ireland.

   I rather say that they deepened their understanding of the Irish
question ('they' being Marx and Engels, as Engels was preparing to
write a book on the History of Ireland, which he unfortunately never
completed].


NMG>                                                       During the
NMG> 40s he believed that the Irish would be liberated by English
NMG> workers.

   Well, they praised Fergus O'Connor's call to the Irish to ally
themselves closely with the English Chartist movement as a necessary
strategy (see article by Friedrich Engels in 'Deutsch-Bruesseler
Zeitung' of January 9, 1848)


NMG>        At the end of his life he was convinced that while the
NMG> Irish did not set themselves free of the English yoke, the English
NMG> working class would not be free.

   He sees the subjugation of Ireland as the prime force to subjugate
the English working class.

   "[It is] the task of the 'International' to put the conflict
between England and Ireland into the foreground, to take openly the
Irish side everywhere. The special task of the Central Council in
London is to awaken the the consciousness in the English working
class, that the _national_ _emancipation_ _of_ _Ireland_ _is_ _for_
_them_ not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment,
but _the_ _first_ _condition_ _of_ _their_ _own_ _social_
_emancipation._" [mostly my translation from German, except the two
phrases in English in the original text].

   This wrote Marx in a letter to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt in New
York an April 9, 1870, explaining the reasoning of the Central
Council's letter to the Romand council of January 1870. ]The two texts
might be available online in English at www.marxists.org.]

  This does not say, that the English workers had to wait for the
Irish to free themselves, but that it was in the best interests of the
English workers themselves, to get rid of the oppression of Ireland.

  Marx and Engels already before the 1848 revolution had the same
stance towards the Polish nation, and the Italian (where a large part
of northen Italy was ruled by the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy).

NMG>
NMG> The problem is, social reformers and even revolutionaries in core
NMG> countries use to be murderous imperialists when abroad.  Examples
NMG> abound, and in the end all of this has to do with accumulation...

   ... and this all began in England. With Cromwell. And the English
labor leaders of the 1870ies being bought by the surplus from the
exploitation of Ireland.


Lueko Willms                                     http://www.mlwerke.de
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"Es sind nicht die Generaele und Koenige, die die Geschichte machen,
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