[Marxism] Joseph Weydemeyer and the Roswell Crash

[Lüko Willms]

On Mon, 6 Mar 2006 14:46:38 -0500 (GMT-05:00), rrubinelli wrote:

> was because.... was because secret documents will show, if ever
> found, that Marx and Engels were actually on their way to Cuba 
> to train Antonio Maceo in the tactics necessary for the 
> upcoming great struggle.

  Actually Georg Weerth, one of the editors of the "Neue Rheinische 
Zeitung" (New Rhenanian Gazette) was on his way to Cuba, where he wanted 
to settle down and open a business. Unfortunately he died of yellow 
feaver. That is probably why the Fidelistas did not have the full and 
correct Marxist line to begin with... 

  As to Charles Brown and his belief that Engels' military writings have 
had a decisive influence (or any influence at all) on the course of the 
US Civil War -- well, when one knows just his writings, and sees one of 
his ideas like a "this is the way they should advance" to be realized by 
the actual military leaders, then it is dear to the heart to believe 
that those really did take the idea from Engels. 

   But I don't think that this was the case. Military strategy and 
tactics is dictated by the actual material conditions on the ground, not 
by philosophical ideas and geniusses. And when the material conditions 
are as they are, and there is a necessity and a possibility to find the 
best solution to the challenge, then the right solution will come up for 
more then one person. 

   Like the telephone which was invented in at least four countries and 
by as many people: Graham Bell in the USA, Philip Reis in Germany, some 
Italien (whose name I have forgotten), and it is claimed that even in 
Cuba a medical doctor invented the telephone (without making a business 
of it). The time was ripe for it. 

   Engels did write a lot about military matters -- he earned the 
nickname "General" for that among his friends -- but he was not 
recognized internationally in military circles as being a competent 
specialist to listen to. He wrote journalistic articles, and articles 
for a commercial undertaking, this encyclopedia started by the editor of 
the New York Tribune. But would anybody consult the British Encyclopedia 
as a military handbook? The closest was his pamphlet "Po and Rhine" 
published anonymously in 1859, which some readers believed to be 
authored by a Prussian general. 
 
   Charles Brown's obsession with Engels military expertise as a central 
source of military prowess of the Civil War generals reminds me somewhat 
of one trait of the US SWP's sectarianism with their translation of the 
Christian claim of Jesus saying "you can't come to god but thru me" into 
the political as "you can't become a proletarian revolutionary but thru 
us, since we are the revolutionary continuity", and nobody else will 
ever achieve to master Marxism except by learing it from us. At the 
beginning some sort of creation must have taken place... 

Yours, 
Lüko Willms
Frankfurt, Germany
--------------------------------
visit http://www.mlwerke.de Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotzki in German