Page:Marx and Engels on Revolution in America - Heinz Neumann.djvu/14

 Marx and Engels clearly realized the future role of America in the class strugle of the proletariat. In his third preface to the "Communist Manifesto" in 1883, Engels stated: "The limited extent of the spread of the proletarian movement at the time the Manifesto was first published (January, 1848), is best demonstrated by the last chapter: 'The Attitude of the Communists of the Various Opposition Parties.' First of all, Russia and the United States are missing in this chapter…" Engels calls both countries "the great reserve of European reaction." He recalls the period "in which emigration to the United States absorbed the surplus of the European proletariat." The United States, like Russia, supplied "Europe with raw materials, and at the same time served as a market for the sale of the latter's industrial products." Engles then continues: "Both functioned thus, in one way or another, as pillars of the European social order.

"How all this has changed today! European emigration has rendered possible the colossal development of North American agriculture, Which, through its competition, is shaking the foundations of large as well as small land ownership in Europe. At the same time it enabled the United States to begin with the exploitation of its rich industrial resources with such energy and upon such a scale THAT WITHIN A SHORT PERIOD THE INDUSTRIAL MONOPOLY OF WESTERN EUROPE MUST BE BROKEN. (Emphasis here, as well as in all following quotations, mine—H. N.)