Marx and the Politics of Emancipation

In the first part of the 1860s, Karl Marx’s journalistic and scholarly interest in diplomacy and international politics drove him to focus his attention towards two prominent historical events. The first was the outbreak of the American Civil War, when seven slaveholding states declared their secession from the United States. The second was the uprising of the ­Polish people against Russian occupation. Marx’s analysis of these historic episodes also influenced his political efforts through the International Working Men’s Association. How Marx’s studies of both these events were relevant for his theoretical development and his political engagement is examined.