Thread by @VlStarodubtsev

1/ Today Karl Marx died. I'm the last person to idealize Marx, but I found more interesting to look at:

How did Marx treat Ukraine and Russia? What was his positions on peace negotiation and "compromises"?

And lets see, how different "Tankies" are from Marx

2/ In 1853 Russia started a war against the Ottomans Marx is angry on passivity of Western forces, and under such dissatisfaction writes about how "Western powers" "Answers to the acts of the [Russian] Autocrat are not cannons, but notes". The full quote is in the next tweet.

3/ "What are the Western powers about? They counsel, that is, compel, the Sultan to consider the war as peace. Their answers to the acts of the Autocrat are not cannons, but notes. The Emperor is assailed, not by the two fleets, but by no less than four projects of negotiation"

4/ "To the arrogance of the Autocrat they have replied with symptoms of cowardice. They have encouraged the very assumptions they have deprecated, just as poltroons always encourage bullies to be overbearing"

5/ Russia demanded a protectorate over "oppressed Christians" in the Ottoman Empire. To Which Marx jokingly replies: "Nicholas, more moderate, "only" demands the exclusive Protectorate of Turkey!"

6/ "Mankind will not forget that Russia was the "protector" of Poland, the "protector" of the Crimea, the "protector" of Courland, the "protector" of Georgia, Mingrelia, the Circassian and Caucasian tribes. And now Russia, the protector of Turkey!"

7/ "That in all essential points Russia has steadily, one after another, gained her ends, thanks to the ignorance, dullness and consequent inconsistency and cowardice of Western governments"(...)

8/ The Western powers, on the other hand, inconsistent, pusillanimous, suspecting each other, commence by encouraging the Sultan to resist the Tsar, from fear of the encroachments of Russia, (...) all they aim at is to maintain the status quo

9/ "The revolutionary party can only congratulate itself on this state of things. The humiliation of the reactionary Western governments, and their manifest impotency to guard the interests of European civilisation against Russian encroachment"

10/ Engels was writing at that time along the same lines: "One annexation leads to another, so there is no doubt that the conquest of Turkey by Russia would be only a prelude to the annexation of Hungary, Prussia, Galicia"

11/ "Not the harsh glory of the Norman era, but the bloody swamp of slavery was the cradle of Muscovy" - was writing Marx.

12/ "What extraordinary efforts Muscovy has made, just as modern RU, to destroy states with people's rule. Novgorod first. Its traditions, policies & aspirations were so opposite to RU's that RU could only survive on its ruins.

Then Cossack Republic (Ukraine), & finally Poland"

13/ Marx writes: "Each reign of counter-revolution in Europe is accompanied by Russia's success in the East"

14/ The strengthened positions of the Russians on the Vistula threaten Germany more than all the French fortresses put together, especially from the time when the national resistance of Poland ceases to exist"