WI: Karl Marx in the United States south

All, just an idea I've been batting around.

Karl Marx was largely run out of Germany and then settled in London in 1849 with a large number of Germancommunists. I believe they were watched by the British as well due to supporting revolutionary movements. What if Britain kicked them out and Marx moved to the American south (maybe New Orleans or Texas as that state had a large amount of Germans)?

He was an ardent opponent of slavery. Could he turn into a western John Brown? A leader in "Bleeding Kansas"?

I would think his overall Communist theories would become secondary in the fight against slavery in the United States.

By all means, give me some ideas and feedback.
 
In response to the Civil War, Marx and Engels wrote quite a bit on the US South and Confederacy. He'd find Appalachia to be interesting. Quote Marx, "forms the real center of resistance to the slaveholders’ party".

This link has a decent amount of the articles:
http://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/cw/volume19/index.htm - Marx & Engels Collected Works: Volume 19 has the bulk of what he wrote on the place, for those looking for insight as to what Marx might think about the place and situation if he lived there.
 
Karl Marx would never turn into another John Brown. He liked to theorize, write, and perhaps occasionally give money to other people who would do things. I don't think he ever took a real role in leading or organizing a political group (outside of the kind of ineffectual debating society circles where people would argue with each other on arcane issues, not a real political group capable of organization and action).

Marx wouldn't move to the American south. If he moved anywhere in the USA, it would be to New York or Chicago (or a much lesser chance of some other major American city in the Northeast). He would have to find someone to pay him money because he couldn't earn anything substantial on his won. Engels paid for most of Marx's income as charity out of his own family business. He'd need to find some other sugar daddy. Then he'd either start his own newspaper, or find some other radical newspaper to publish his writings in. In the 1850s and 1860s, he actually wrote for the New York Tribune, so that is one option (and why New York would be the most likely home to Marx). However, if he actually lived in the US, I think his writing would increase in order to build a real Marxist party in the US by some kind of radical journal.

I feel Marx would not emphasize anti-slavery over class struggle. He saw slavery as a vestige of previous economic orders. While being against slavery, I think he would see it as just one part of the greater worker's struggle.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I knew about his work for the Tribune. Maybe he could wander about the south writing stories. Maybe another Harriet Beecher Stowe?
 
Thanks for the feedback. I knew about his work for the Tribune. Maybe he could wander about the south writing stories. Maybe another Harriet Beecher Stowe?

Doubt it, unless he found fiction was the best way to express himself in the South (and we all know Uncle Tom's Cabin found plenty of hatred in the South). I think he'd just focus himself on analysing the conditions of the US South in non-fiction pamphlets and building a movement to correct them. Even amongst only whites, it isn't like he could never find an audience. OTL Marx found plenty in the US South worthy of criticism, so if he were actually based in the South, he'd be able to find even more and direct his energies toward fighting that. He'd end up a major influence on American socialism, and any American socialist group will owe far more to TTL's Marx than the OTL Socialist Party did. But TTL's Marx might be slightly different, and his influence different as well.
 
Marx wouldn't move to the American south. If he moved anywhere in the USA, it would be to New York or Chicago (or a much lesser chance of some other major American city in the Northeast). He would have to find someone to pay him money because he couldn't earn anything substantial on his won. Engels paid for most of Marx's income as charity out of his own family business. He'd need to find some other sugar daddy. Then he'd either start his own newspaper, or find some other radical newspaper to publish his writings in. In the 1850s and 1860s, he actually wrote for the New York Tribune, so that is one option (and why New York would be the most likely home to Marx). However, if he actually lived in the US, I think his writing would increase in order to build a real Marxist party in the US by some kind of radical journal.

Actually, I could see him moving to Milwaukee. Wisconsin was already home to a vibrant German community and was a prime destination for many 48ers and other German liberals. It would be interesting to see how experiences in this region might influence Marxism.
 
Actually, I could see him moving to Milwaukee. Wisconsin was already home to a vibrant German community and was a prime destination for many 48ers and other German liberals. It would be interesting to see how experiences in this region might influence Marxism.

Milwaukee would be an interesting location.

The US at this time was vastly different from Europe. Most people whom wanted land could get it fairly easily, as opposed to Europe, where the aristocracy and large landowners dominated. I wonder how he would see Milwaukee where a vastly higher percentage of the farmers own their own land and there was no "oppressed" working class.

His experiences in Milwaukee would differ vastly than if he set up in, say, New York where the Irish were concentrating by the hundreds of thousands in squalor.
 
Actually, I could see him moving to Milwaukee. Wisconsin was already home to a vibrant German community and was a prime destination for many 48ers and other German liberals. It would be interesting to see how experiences in this region might influence Marxism.
This is an interesting idea too given that Wisconsin has a rich progressive legacy and Milwaukee has had a Socialist mayor.
 
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