by
Al Benson Jr.
For
at least a decade I have been writing and talking about socialist and Communist
support for Lincoln, the Union, and the radical "reconstruction"
revolution after the War of Northern Aggression had ceased.
This
is something the "historians" or should we label them "hysterians"
Have
only dared allude to in passing, except for the socialist historian James
McPherson, who openly admits that Lincoln had the support of Marx and those of
his ilk. Yet the Communists themselves have, for years, admitted their support
for the Union. In a book published by a Communist publishing house,
Reconstruction The Battle for Democracy, written by a James Allen and published
way back
in
1937, Communist support for the Union side in the war is clearly mentioned.
Allen
has written of "German workers' groups" that aided in the
Abolitionist
Movement. He has said: "Many of their members enlisted in the Northern army
and a number and a number led regiments which they themselves recruited. The
Communist Club especially was active the the Abolition movement, some of its
members even joining the Radical wing of the Republican Party." Several
years back, Communist theoritician Herbert Apthecker wrote a book called, if I
recall correctly, Abolitionism: A Revolutionary Movement. Mr. Apthecker had
glowing
praise
for the Abolitionist Movement and its goals. Now maybe you know why.
Allen
noted, on page 25 of his book "Many socialist leaders and German emigres of
the 1848 revolution, among them Joseph Weydemeyer, who was a close friend of
Karl Marx, served as officers in the Union army."
So
the Communists were involved with the Abolitionist Movement, they
supported
Lincoln and the Union cause, and they also supported the radical abolitionists
who, after the war was over, instituted the horrible and shameful
"reconstruction" program, which was aimed at humiliating and
prostrating the South completely. And "reconstruction was aimed at
destroying the theological base of the South as well as all the rest.
Allen
felt that most American historians really tarnished the good images of such
notables as Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner because they only deal with the
viteuperative hate these man harbored for the South. He felt that the historians
had "shamefully besmirched the heroic role of Stevens and his radical
associates." He observed: "One looks in vain to find in the writings
of most American historians a recognition of the revolutionary character of the
period following the Civil War." Sort of makes you wonder why, doesn't it?
As
much as I hate to agree with a Communist on anything, this guy had this aspect
of "reconstruction" accurately pegged. "Reconstruction" was
truly "another revolution" in the words of Bakunin, the Russian
anarchist. It changed America for the worst and we are, even in our day, reeling
from the problems it created, to the extent that we now live in what many
consider to be "post-America" in the sense that the original system
given to us by our founders no longer exists.
It has been replaced with a system that was, and is, truly revolutionary
in nature and intent. Allen has told us that Thaddeus Stevens and Charles
Sumner
were "leading representatives of the Parliamentary Left." Can't argue
with him there, either.
Claude
Bowers, writing in The Tragic Era back in 1929 had accurately noted that the
"reconstruction" years were "years of revolutionary
turmoil." He recognized that fact, but because he refused to come from
where the Communists were coming from, such well-known Communists as W. E. B.
DuBois and others sought to defame his book, and even to this day they continue
to rant about how horrible Bowers' book of “reconstruction" is. They
don't like Bowers because he dared to tell the truth about what happened to the
South during "reconstruction."
Bowers
wrote of the perpetrators of "reconstruction" that "The story of
This
revolution is one of desperate enterprises, by daring and unscrupulous men, some
of whom had genius of a high order. In these no American can take pride.
The evil they did lives after them. They changed the course of
history..."