[lbo-talk] Marx and Engels on the lazy Mexicans, Slavs, Scots, Basques, Bretons, native Americans

[Charles Brown]

Fortunately, M and E had the ability to learn and develop their thinking throughout their adult lives, and by the time of Marx's ethnological notebooks and  _The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_, they had a better idea of the nature of "primitive" cultures.  Engels even added an ethnological footnote to the first sentence of _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_

Charles


>>> Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> 11/7/2008 3:33 PM >>>

I like this one ("counterrevolutionary peoples"!!!). I'm translating from a Russian translation of Engels, The Struggle in Hungary (or whatever it's called in English):

Of all the large and small peoples of Austria only three have been bearers of progress that truly influenced history and today retain the capability of life: Germans, Poles, and Malyars (sp?). It is for this reason that they are now revolutionary.

All the other large and small peoples and nations will soon perish in the revolutionary storm. It is for this reason that they are now counterrevolutionary.

--- On Fri, 11/7/08, James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:


> From: James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk>


> There is lots more of Marx and Engels contempt for primitive
> peoples. I think David Mitrany (British MI6) did a
> collection of Marx and Engels against the Peasant: A study
> in Social Dogmatism to show them up as no friends of the
> people. More recently N Davidson's Marx and Engels on
> the Scottish Highlands
> http://www.atypon-link.com/GPI/doi/abs/10.1521/siso.65.3.286.17770 
> expressed some disappointment at their disdain for the
> peasant life.
> 

      
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