Lincoln was an avid reader of the New York Tribune, and as a result was reading Marx.
“Labor is prior to and independent of capital. […] Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
Marx wrote him a letter after he won his second term.
“Sir,
We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery. […]”
Lincoln was such a enemy to capital interests at the time that they had him assassinated.
If you were to invoke any US president along side communism it would be Lincoln. Was he a socialist? No, he still believed in the wage labor system even as he made attempts to reform it, but there is a reason his face was used in the 1938 photo I posted. It was because he courted socialist and engaged in class struggle in the form of the antislavery movement.
Who can say what his aditudes would have been if he wasn’t assassinated.
Edit: As an aside, found this gem on the reddit post attached to the image.
Their profile is full of comments about white genocide.
One of the main characteristics of patriotic socialism in settler colonies is being against decolonization. Lincoln was almost certainly not pro-decolonization; as a result, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a US communist party to glorify him, regardless of his thoughts on Marx’s work
I wonder what CPUSA’s policies and statements/principles were back then, and whether they then held to the ‘internal colony’ line. I don’t know the history well enough to place that, but maybe another comrade browsing does.
I’ve never liked the gears for some reason. I liked when Lincoln’s profile was part of the iconography.
It could just use some Americana in it, whatever that might be.
a “communist” party that includes a depiction of any USian president in their logo is almost certainly PatSoc
Lincoln was an avid reader of the New York Tribune, and as a result was reading Marx.
“Labor is prior to and independent of capital. […] Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
Marx wrote him a letter after he won his second term.
“Sir, We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery. […]”
Lincoln was such a enemy to capital interests at the time that they had him assassinated.
If you were to invoke any US president along side communism it would be Lincoln. Was he a socialist? No, he still believed in the wage labor system even as he made attempts to reform it, but there is a reason his face was used in the 1938 photo I posted. It was because he courted socialist and engaged in class struggle in the form of the antislavery movement.
Who can say what his aditudes would have been if he wasn’t assassinated.
Edit: As an aside, found this gem on the reddit post attached to the image.
Their profile is full of comments about white genocide.
One of the main characteristics of patriotic socialism in settler colonies is being against decolonization. Lincoln was almost certainly not pro-decolonization; as a result, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a US communist party to glorify him, regardless of his thoughts on Marx’s work
That’s a very fair point. He was in fact pro-colonization. Along side his writting of the emancipation proclamation he penned a measure that would see some 5000 black slaves sent to an island near Haiti.
A fact I was not aware of until this conversation.
Unfortunately that is the case now, but when the original pic in the above post was taken the party was still in its original, USSR-aligned form.
being pro-USSR unfortunately didn’t (and still doesn’t) preclude being anti-decolonization in the US
What year is that image from?
My understanding its from 1938.
I wonder what CPUSA’s policies and statements/principles were back then, and whether they then held to the ‘internal colony’ line. I don’t know the history well enough to place that, but maybe another comrade browsing does.