>>2858616People aren't hostile to an American revolution because they think it would be bad. They are hostile because they do not regard the American populace as having sufficient revolutionary potential, which is only supported by our supposed communists citing Engels to explain why people should run for office as Democrats, even though that party is completely different to what Engels was talking about here
>>2858559 - not even a US party but a German one (which is clear if you just read that quoataion):
>When we returned to Germany, in spring 1848, we joined the Democratic PartyThe people quote mining Engels like this are ignoring the actual political landscapes of the US and Germany at the time, as well as the fact that he's clearly talking about German politics. "Democratic Party" does not refer to one trans-historical ideology or organization. Engels is talking about joining the democratic movement in Germany of 1848.
Here is an article from the NRZ Marx and Engels wrote about the (German) Democratic Party:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/06/02.htmHere's an overview of the historical context summing it up:
https://sites.ohio.edu/chastain/dh/gerdem.htmIt was a relatively brief period which is why it's often missed, but this is also the context in which Neue Rheinische Zeitung was founded and the Communist Manifesto were written, so it is actually kind of relevant to know about.
In a nutshell the logic of Engels here is that there was already a bourgeois-democratic revolution brewing in Germany, and it should be the role of communists to push that forward since it would advance the development of historical materialism. Their long term plan was to carry the momentum forward into a later socialist revolution. The key difference here is that this was a time where there was
already a revolutionary movement brewing, and that the party in question was not a ruling establishment party but more of a fringe movement, comparable to any of the socialist parties in the USA today. Germany at the time was a confederation of 39 sovereign states replacing the Holy Roman Empire after the Napoleonic Wars. The United States would maybe be comparable to that era of Germany if it balkanized. Regardess, our closest contemporary equivalent to the (German!) Democratic Party of this time would be some party pushing for revolution, not entryism into establishment politics.
The US democratic party at the time wasn't even a "left" party of the US (the other major one was the Whigs lol) and in 1848 they were being undermined by the Free Soil Party for supporting the expansion of slavery into the territories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Democratic_Party_(United_States)#Free_Soil_split<In 1848 a major innovation was the creation of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to coordinate state activities in the presidential contest. Senator Lewis Cass, who held many offices over the years, lost to General Zachary Taylor of the Whigs. A major cause of the defeat was that the new Free Soil Party, which opposed slavery expansion, split the Democratic vote.[27] The Free Soil Party attracted Democrats and some Whigs and had considerable support in the Northeast. Former Democratic President Van Buren ran as the Free Soil nominee in 1848 and finished second ahead of Cass in the anti-slavery states of Vermont and Massachusetts and in his home state of New York. Had Cass won New York as Polk had 4 years prior, he would have won the election. Free Soils warned that rich slave owners would move into new territories such as Nebraska and buy up the best lands and work them with slaves. To protect the white farmer it was essential therefore to keep the soil "free"โthat is without slavery. In 1852, with a less well known nominee than Van Buren, the free soil movement was much smaller, consisting primarily of former members of the Liberty Party and some abolitionists. It hedged on the question of full equality, as the majority wanted some form of racial separation to allow space for black activism without alienating the overwhelming northern opposition to equal rights for black men.Around the time of the US Civil war, a lot of communists moved to the US to fight (like August Willich, mentioned here
>>2858573 and here
>>2858583 along with a lot of other Prussians). They were also pursuing a strategy of supporting a bourgeois-democratic revolution against an archaic mode of production and social formation (plantation slavery of the US south), but this war was actually won. Unfortunately much of the radical and communist influences on the Union side of the war ultimately fizzled out and have become largely forgotten, not really making much advancement even on the more modest goals of securing civil rights.
These communists immigrants aligned with the anti-slavery Republican party which was new at the time (founded 1954), after the Whigs collapsed under the contradictions between its coalition (including capitalists vs abolitionists). Republicans were also the home of the "far left" (DSA equivalent) faction of the era, the Radical Republicans. The US democratic party took about a century to become the "left wing" party after the civil war, fully becoming codified with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Even so, it is and has been a thoroughly bourgeois party, and quoting Engels about a different party in a different country in a different era has nothing to do with running in this party. Both mainstream parties in the US have only moved to the right in recent decades, and both are in a major state of decline.
The discussion of the US parties in 1848 is relevant here in a different way, to point out that whatever two parties are currently dominant are not necessarily permanent. The period between 1848 and the US civil war saw both the undermining of the Democrats by the Free Soil party and the collapse of the Whig party, to be replaced by the abolitionist Republicans. If we are to take historical lessons from the period it should be that it is indeed possible in this electoral system to humble or collapse the parties and usurp their power. There has been little success infiltrating and co-opting major parties (the trend is to yourself become corrupted in order to play ball with their intra-party politics). Meanwhile there are historical examples of major shifts if the parties over the centuries, reshuffling the factions and power into a new political landscape. Both of our parties are extremely weak in historical terms, and most Americans actively hate the politicians they are forced to choose from.
It would be much more useful to build a separate party that can overcome the two party system. And that's only looking an electoral focus, putting aside the need for labor militancy and other forms of praxis which neither major party would ever collaborate with, but a labor party or socialist party would. The DSA and other organized socialists are meaningfully in a position to threaten the hegemony of these two parties, which is not even as radical as what Engels was talking about in the quoted passage about joining the (German!) Democratic Party of 1848 which was pushing for a bourgeois-democratic revolution. The potential of this situation is hobbled by the commitment to working within the (US) Democratic Party, which is an issue that is going to force itself sooner or later. At the very least, the DSA and various socialist parties should be preparing to overtake the GOP and Democrats and, failing that, wage a power struggle outside of elections and the current government.
That is much closer to what Engels was talking about.