Editing Karl Marx (section)

=== International relations ===
[[File:Karl Marx memorial.jpg|thumb|[[Karl Marx Monument]] in [[Chemnitz]], known as ''Karl-Marx-Stadt'' from 1953 to 1990]]

Marx viewed [[Russian Empire|Russia]] as the main counter-revolutionary threat to European revolutions.{{sfn|Anderson|2016|pp=49–239}} During the [[Crimean War]], Marx backed the [[Ottoman Empire]] and its allies Britain and France against Russia.{{sfn|Anderson|2016|pp=49–239}} He was absolutely opposed to [[Pan-Slavism]], viewing it as an instrument of Russian foreign policy.{{sfn|Anderson|2016|pp=49–239}} Marx had considered the [[Slavs|Slavic]] nations except [[Polish people|Poles]] as 'counter-revolutionary'. Marx and Engels published in the ''[[Neue Rheinische Zeitung]]'' in February 1849:

{{blockquote|To the sentimental phrases about brotherhood which we are being offered here on behalf of the most counter-revolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of Russians was and still is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the [[Revolutions of 1848|revolution]] [of 1848] hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution. We know where the enemies of the revolution are concentrated, ''viz''. in Russia and the Slav regions of Austria, and no fine phrases, no allusions to an undefined democratic future for these countries can deter us from treating our enemies as enemies. Then there will be a struggle, an "inexorable life-and-death struggle", against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and ruthless terror&nbsp;– not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!"<ref>Cited in: B. Hepner, "Marx et la puissance russe," in: K. Marx, ''La Russie et l'Europe'', Paris, 1954, p. 20. Originally published in ''[[Neue Rheinische Zeitung]]'', no. 223, 16 February 1849.</ref>}}

Marx and Engels sympathised with the [[Narodniks|Narodnik]] revolutionaries of the 1860s and 1870s. When the [[Narodnaya Volya|Russian revolutionaries]] assassinated Tsar [[Alexander II of Russia]], Marx expressed the hope that the assassination foreshadowed 'the formation of a Russian commune'.<ref>Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to the Chairman of the Slavonic Meeting, 21 March 1881. Source: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ''Selected Correspondence'' (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975).</ref> Marx supported the [[Polish–Russian Wars|Polish uprisings]] against tsarist Russia.{{sfn|Anderson|2016|pp=49–239}} He said in a speech in London in 1867:

{{blockquote|In the first place the policy of Russia is changeless... Its methods, its tactics, its manoeuvres may change, but the polar star of its policy – world domination – is a fixed star. In our times only a civilised government ruling over barbarian masses can hatch out such a plan and execute it. ... There is but one alternative for Europe. Either Asiatic barbarism, under Muscovite direction, will burst around its head like an avalanche, or else it must re-establish Poland, thus putting twenty million heroes between itself and Asia and gaining a breathing spell for the accomplishment of its social regeneration.<ref>Speech delivered in London, probably to a meeting of the International's General Council and the Polish Workers Society on 22 January 1867, text published in ''Le Socialisme'', 15 March 1908; ''Odbudowa Polski'' (Warsaw, 1910), pp. 119–23; ''Mysl Socjalistyczna'', May 1908. From Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ''The Russian Menace to Europe'', edited by Paul Blackstock and Bert Hoselitz, and published by [[George Allen and Unwin]], London, 1953, pp. 104–08.</ref>}}


Marx supported the cause of [[Irish Home Rule movement|Irish independence]]<!--The quote shows he meant more than Home Rule. He also seemed to be confusing England and Great Britain.-->. In 1867, he wrote Engels: "I used to think the separation of Ireland from England impossible. I now think it inevitable. The English working class will never accomplish anything until it has got rid of Ireland. ... English reaction in England had its roots ... in the subjugation of Ireland."<ref>"[https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/01/archives/karl-marx-and-the-irish.html Karl Marx and the Irish] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180509153123/https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/01/archives/karl-marx-and-the-irish.html |date=9 May 2018 }}". ''[[The New York Times]]''. December 1971.</ref>

Marx spent some time in [[French Algeria]], which had been [[French conquest of Algeria|invaded]] and made a [[French colonial empire|French colony]] in 1830, and had the opportunity to observe life in colonial North Africa. He wrote about the colonial justice system, in which "a form of torture has been used (and this happens 'regularly') to extract confessions from the Arabs; naturally it is done (like the English in India) by the 'police'; the judge is supposed to know nothing at all about it."<ref name="alahram"/> Marx was surprised by the arrogance of many [[Pied-Noir|European settlers]] in Algiers and wrote in a letter: <blockquote>when a European colonist dwells among the 'lesser breeds,' either as a settler or even on business, he generally regards himself as even more inviolable than handsome William I [a Prussian king]. Still, when it comes to bare-faced arrogance and presumptuousness vis-à-vis the 'lesser breeds,' the British and Dutch outdo the French.<ref name="alahram"/></blockquote>

According to the ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'': <blockquote>Marx's analysis of colonialism as a progressive force bringing modernization to a backward feudal society sounds like a transparent rationalization for foreign domination. His account of British domination, however, reflects the same ambivalence that he shows towards capitalism in Europe. In both cases, Marx recognizes the immense suffering brought about during the transition from feudal to bourgeois society while insisting that the transition is both necessary and ultimately progressive. He argues that the penetration of foreign commerce will cause a social revolution in India.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Colonialism |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |year=2017 |access-date=10 August 2018 |archive-date=11 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180611042603/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/ |url-status=live }}</ref></blockquote>

Marx discussed British [[British Raj|colonial rule]] in [[Colonial India|India]] in the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'' in 1853:

{{blockquote|There cannot remain any doubt but that the misery inflicted by the British on Hindostan [India] is of an essentially different and infinitely more intensive kind than all Hindostan had to suffer before. England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing... [however], we must not forget that these idyllic village communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism, that they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition.<ref name="alahram">{{cite news |title=Marx in Algiers |url=http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/24784.aspx |work=Al-Ahram |access-date=10 August 2018 |archive-date=10 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180810144250/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/24784.aspx |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Marx on India under the British |url=https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-bookreview/marx-on-india-under-the-british/article3209143.ece |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=13 June 2006 |access-date=10 August 2018 |archive-date=30 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180630051005/https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-bookreview/marx-on-india-under-the-british/article3209143.ece |url-status=live}}</ref>}}