In 2019, the Washington Post published an article titled, “In America, talk turns to something not spoken of for 150 years: Civil War.” Earlier this year, the New York Times published an opinion piece under the headline: “The Real Path to an American Civil War.” After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, many capitalist papers quoted Arie Perliger, a professor who specializes in terrorism and assassinations, who said the US was “one inch away from a potential civil war.” According to a recent poll, 42% of Americans think a civil war is likely within the next ten years.

There are clear parallels between our time and the period leading up to the American Civil War. But does this mean we’re heading for another all-out civil war such as we saw in the 1860s—this time perhaps, pitting “red” states versus “blue” ones?

Revolutionary struggle

The American Civil War was a revolutionary struggle that ended slavery. The Northern and Southern economies had developed based on different forms of exploitation: wage labor in the North and chattel slavery in the South. Leading up to the outbreak of hostilities, there were deep divisions among the ruling class over slavery. Old parties like the Whigs splintered, and new parties emerged, including the short-lived nativist Know-Nothings and the Republican Party which opposed expanding slavery into the Western territories.

Fighting broke out in Kansas from 1854–59 between supporters and opponents of slavery. Violence even erupted in Congress. After Republican Charles Sumner gave a fiery abolitionist speech in 1856, he was beaten nearly to death in the Senate chamber by pro-slavery Democrat Preston Brooks. Two years later, thirty congressmen came to fisticuffs in a brawl on the House floor. Eventually, Southern seats emptied when eleven slave states seceded, signaling the imminence of military confrontation.

In the 1850s and ‘60s, slavery was the intractable issue. / Image: Boston Public Library, Flickr

Abolitionist groups swelled during the conflagration. An 1862 New York Times article stated: “In years heretofore a great deal has been said and much fun has been made . . . of these gatherings . . . peculiar circumstances have given to [abolitionist meetings] an importance that hitherto has not been theirs.” What were these “peculiar circumstances”? The cauldron of war forged millions of new activists intent on destroying slavery.

Ominous parallels

In America today, the capitalists are united in pushing austerity, rolling back hard-won concessions, and attacking basic democratic rights. But different sections of the ruling class disagree about how best to go about it. Some favor overt attacks on workers, while others prefer a subtler approach.

In the 1850s and ‘60s, slavery was the intractable issue. The fundamental question of our time is the class question. The capitalists can no longer meaningfully develop the means of production, and their system is in crisis. With another economic downturn on the horizon, rising inflation and unpayable debts have already provoked uprisings in Africa and Asia. American imperialism is in relative decline—challenged on the world stage by China, Russia, and others—but it will go down kicking and screaming. Infighting among the ruling class will increase because there is no way out for them.

In order to free the productive forces from their capitalist chains, the working class must take power and transform society on a socialist basis. But there is no mass party expressing the interests of the American working class . . . yet. As in the leadup to the Civil War, traditional parties will be torn apart and new political formations will emerge, eventually crystallizing along class lines. When we compare our own period to the runup to the Civil War, this is what we should prepare for.

The Civil War was the second American Revolution. It swept away chattel slavery, so industrial capitalism could continue its ascent. / Image: The New York Public Library

The third American Revolution

Lenin described the characteristics of a revolutionary situation in “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder: “It is only when the ‘lower classes’ do not want to live in the old way and the ‘upper classes’ cannot carry on in the old way that the revolution can triumph.” It is not enough for workers to want change. The class enemy must also be in crisis.

Divisions in the ruling class are not yet as acute as they were before the Civil War, but the world crisis of capitalism will draw more and more workers into the class struggle. The capitalists will be unable to rule as they once did, causing deep governmental crises. Through the cracks that form, the American working class will burst onto the stage of history.

The Civil War was a clash between different modes of exploitation that could no longer coexist within the same political framework. The ruling class attempted countless compromises on the question of slavery, but in the end, it could only be settled by war and revolution.

The Civil War was the second American Revolution. It swept away chattel slavery, so industrial capitalism could continue its ascent. Today, the stage is set for a third American Revolution, and a new generation of communists has emerged to resolve the intractable question of our time: the exploitation of wage labor by capital, which can only be ended through the revolutionary expropriation of the capitalist class and the establishment of a workers’ government.