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Rly shit takes from Engels here [Engels - The Magyar Struggle] Apparently there's worse yet to come in "Democratic Pan-Slavism"
Its also a total reversal from his position in septemberish 1848, when he was castigating germans for their chauvanism being the cause of slavs opposing revolution
This really reads like "genocide is going to happen, here is why that is actually good"
After reading Democratic Pan Slavism, i have to say that unfortunately Engels isnt "just" saying (horribly enough) that genocide is going to happen; he is actively encouraging people to commit "revolutionary" genocide. Literally the worst engels takea ive ever seen in my life.
That is rough and shocking.
[Engels - Democratic Pan Slavism] oh yeah this is even worse jfc engels
Its like every bad settler argument ive ever heard in one horrible article
Exterminate the reactionary races jfc Engels wtf are you doing
Every aspect of these two articles is absolutely horrible, but the most theoretically bankrupt part is how he writes off national oppression as "imaginary". Its especially bankrupt given that this is the same Engels who just last year (1848) wrote some wonderful (unironically!) articles about the material aspects of settler colonialist oppression in Poland, but now he's denying any oppression of non-Polish slavs. Incoherent articles.
[Engels - Jews and Southern Slavs]
Engels was extremely unhappy about the fact that the Slavs in Austrian Empire sided with reactionaries (because Hungarian revolutionaries wanted to do forced assimilation to ethnic minorities and open their lands to exploitation to Hungarian capital). The only Slavs Engels liked were Poles for being revolutionary. I guess it would be funny to see his take on the World Wars, when the roles were almost exactly reversed.
In general, I think it is much closer to "unlimited genocide on the first world" memes in spirit, than we like to admit.
Ik the context, but ty for explainining for anyone who doesnt know
In terms of his view on Slavs, i think he's wrongheaded here and was correct in his earlier articles when he blamed slavic support of counterrevolution on chauvanism of e.g. German revolutionaries. Imo the same analysis applies to the hungarian revolutionaries.
Wrt unlimited genocide on the first world, i disagree.
In the context of 1848, England is the closest thing to the first world, and engels makes constant apologies for their revolutionary spirit faltering. The other analogue to the first world is the Russians—in terms of military size rather than standards of living or economic power.
The smaller nations (slavic, celtic or basque) were oppressed by the Austro-Hungarians, Prussians, Ottomans and Russians. Calling for the extermination of them is more like calling for the extermination of the population of first world comprador states in the global south
My take is that these articles should be firmly in the "Engels has sent in a silly letter, we should neither print it nor reply to him" category. The real lesson from them is that butthurtposting without a real analysis is counterproductive.