Karl Marx was a Racist
Marx and Engels’s theory of history: making sense of the race factor
This article explores the racist components in the thought of Karl Marx and of Friedrich Engels. Their numerous horrendous comments on Slavs, ‘Negroes’, Bedouins, Jews, Chinese and many others are well known, but the logic behind these comments has not been sufficiently examined.
Marx and Engels applied the term
Rasse, or the English
race, to a wide variety of human collectives – from skin-colour groups to ethnicities, nations and even to social classes. It is tempting to assume that they were applying the term loosely and that they were only unthinkingly repeating the stereotypes and prejudices of the day. On the contrary, I will argue that this common interpretation means to miss the serious points they were making. Whereas formal definitions and theories of race indeed cannot be found in their writings, their scattered comments add up to quite a coherent position on the question.
Let me state at the outset that I will not take a position in the old debate about the degree of identity of views between Marx and Engels; this article is not intended as a contribution to that debate. My conclusion on the issue at hand will be that both men were racializing human collectives but that they did not see completely eye to eye on the question of the emergence of race.
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