For most people, the American Revolution means the Fourth of July, fireworks, and hot dogs. For others, it’s George Washington crossing the Delaware, the Gadsden flag, and the Minutemen. Pop culture and historians present a one-sided, caricatured version of this momentous event.

In Revolution and Counterrevolution in America—A Marxist Perspective, John Peterson, chief editor of The Communist, has crafted a much needed and comprehensive view of the forces and factors that combined to forge a distinctly American nation and mobilize the working masses in two inspiring revolutionary struggles.

An unapologetically Marxist analysis

From the first page of the introduction through the final page, the book marks itself off from the potted versions of US history that reduce these great events to the workings of a few famous personages:

We don’t cherry-pick facts, figures, and quotes to prove an a priori schema. Rather, we present those that best illustrate the conclusions drawn through a thorough analysis of … contradictory processes.

The richly varied indigenous societies that had to be destroyed for capitalism to flourish in North America are described in some detail, along with their far from passive resistance.

1619 saw the first slaves land in Virginia. Over the following 140-year span, half to two-thirds of European immigrants were indentured servants. Until 1775, convicts transported from England made up much of the new population. The slave economy was woven into the economy of all the colonies. 250 slave rebellions erupted between 1619 and 1860. Racism was invented here in the late 17th century in order to hold back those rebellions through the tactic of divide and rule.

Several waves of European immigration gave rise to varied settlement cultures, elements of which persist today in the form of regional political differences.

All of these factors are woven together in the first third of the book in explaining the development of powerful new social classes which converged to wage the world’s first successful anticolonial revolution.

The Sons of Liberty and the Committees of Correspondence united and coordinated the activities of patriots from Boston to Virginia and the South Carolina swamps. / Image: public domain

The role of the masses

The case is made that of all the leading characters in the first American revolution, it was not George Washington, but rather Samuel Adams who most deserves the title of founding father.

A relentless propagandist and organizer, Sam Adams put together the first revolutionary political parties in American history. The Sons of Liberty and the Committees of Correspondence united and coordinated the activities of patriots from Boston to Virginia and the South Carolina swamps.

Thomas Paine and other revolutionary propagandists played a key role in popularizing the ideas of the Enlightenment. This new worldview animated the convictions of the popular masses and backed up the right to revolution proclaimed in Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, whose 250th anniversary is being celebrated this year.

The Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution were cobbled together and voted into effect by just a handful of rich victors of the revolutionary war. But it was only through the agitation and uprising of the working population throughout the colonies that British rule could be overthrown.

The second American revolution

Freeing up American economic development from the distortions imposed by colonial rule accelerated the competition between the two main propertied classes in the newly independent US, only one of which could prevail. The conflict of interests between the backwards economy of the Southern planters, rooted in slave labor; and the need of the rising industrial capitalist class of the North for free labor in its mode of exploitation, led inevitably to the Civil War.

All the conflicts and main lines of economic and political development which produced this second American revolution are explored and documented in the second section of this book. How the industrial might and massive population advantages of the North were finally mobilized to defeat the more tactically skilled military officer corps of the South illustrates important historical laws: superior social forces should prevail; but the role of leadership is decisive.

Rounding out this book, the third and final section takes a detailed look at the rise and defeat of Radical Reconstruction. Its defeat, accomplished through the terrorization of the freed slaves into a new form of domination, brought into being elements of oppression that can only be finally dissolved through the coming Third American Revolution.

Why this book is important

The need to prepare today’s communists to carry out its task in leading that revolution is what makes this book timely and irreplaceable.

There is a thread that runs through the big events of the past 250 years, but the current rulers of the US can lay no claim to the heritage of our revolutionary forebears. Levels of hypocrisy and corruption unimagined by previous generations mark the decadence of the Epstein class.

Studying the real history of these revolutionary events—how and why masses of ordinary people became inspired into taking an active part in the historical process—is all part of educating the new generation to play its part in organizing the working class to oust the capitalists from power and begin the socialist transformation of society.