Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T00:29:21.770Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

DU BOIS AND MARX, DU BOIS AND MARXISM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2020

Michael J. Saman
Michael J. Saman*
Affiliation:
Department of German, New York University
*
Corresponding author: Michael J. Saman, Department of German, New York University, 19 University Place, 3rd floor, New York, NY10003. E-mail: michaeljsaman@gmail.com.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

W. E. B. Du Bois’s engagement with the thought of Karl Marx forms an important aspect of his intellectual biography, yet its contours crystallize explicitly only late in his written work, and its development prior to the 1930s remains insufficiently understood. In order to bring to light the mix of criticisms, reservations, ideals, and inspirations that shape this reception, this article explores its trajectory as exhaustively as the available documentation permits, beginning from Du Bois’s early training in economics as a university student, continuing through his increasing attention to socialism in the early 1900s and his embrace of Soviet communism in the 1920s, and culminating in the 1930s in his teaching of Marx at Atlanta University and the overtly Marxian positions he adopts in Black Reconstruction (1935).

Keywords

W. E. B. Du BoisKarl MarxMarxismSocialismCommunismPolitical TheoryRace
Type
State of the Discipline
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , Spring 2020 , pp. 33 - 54
Copyright
© 2020 Hutchins Center for African and African American Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allen, James S. (1937). Reconstruction: The Battle for Democracy, 1865–1876. New York: International Publishers.Google Scholar
Anderson, Patrick (2017). Pan-Africanism and Economic Nationalism: W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction and the Failings of the ‘Black Marxism’ Thesis. Journal of Black Studies, (48) 8: 732–757.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barkin, Kenneth (2006). Introduction: Germany on His Mind—‘Das neue Vaterland.’ Journal of African American History, (91) 4 (Autumn): 444–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bogues, Anthony (2003). Black Heretics, Black Prophets: Radical Political Intellectuals. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bornstein, George (2006). W. E. B. Du Bois and the Jews: Ethics, Editing, and The Souls of Black Folk. Textual Cultures, (1) 1 (spring 2006): 64–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunche, Ralph J. (1935). Reconstruction Reinterpreted. The Journal of Negro Education, (4) 4 (October): 568–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burden-Stelly, Charisse (2018). W. E. B. Du Bois in the Tradition of Radical Blackness: Radicalism, Repression, and Mutual Comradeship, 1930–1960. Socialism and Democracy, (32) 3: 181–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (undated a). Lecture Notebook. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (undated b). The Present Condition of German Politics. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1888). Bismarck. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1893). A Constructive Critique of Wage Theory: An Essay on the Present State of Economic Theory in Regards to Wages, by X Y L. Collections of the Harvard University Archives.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1926). Germany, 1894–1926. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1931). Letter to Rachel Davis Du Bois, May 13. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1933a). Courses in Atlanta University, Second Semester, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1933b). Letter to Abram L. Harris, January 6. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1933c). Letter to Joel Spingarn, February 22. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1933d). Letter to Will Herberg, March 9. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1934). Letter to Benjamin Stolberg, October 1. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1938a). Letter to John Hope, Jr., January 8. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries,Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1938b). Letter to Rayford W. Logan, January 8. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1954). The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870. New York: Social Science Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1960). The Reminiscences of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois: Oral History, 1960. Transcript 191 leaves. Columbia University Oral History Collection (Part One). Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1961). Letter to Gus Hall, October 1. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1976a). Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880. Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1976b). The Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois, vol. 2: Selections, 1934–1944. Aptheker, Herbert (Ed.). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1982). Writings by W. E. B. Du Bois in Non-Periodical Literature Edited by Others. Aptheker, Herbert (Ed.). Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1983). Writings in Periodicals Edited by W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections from The Crisis, vol. 2: 1926–1934. Aptheker, Herbert (Ed.). Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1987). Against Racism: Unpublished Essays, Papers, Addresses, 1887–1961. Aptheker, Herbert (Ed.). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1992). The World of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Quotation Sourcebook. Weinberg, Meyer (Ed.). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (2007a). The Autobiography of W. E. B . Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (2007b). Darkwater: Voices From Within the Veil. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (2007c). Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (2007d). The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (2014). The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (2015). The Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: The Essential Early Essays. Chandler, Nahum Dimitri (Ed.). New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Foner, Eric (2013). Black Reconstruction: An Introduction. South Atlantic Quarterly, (112) 3 (Summer): 409–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin, John Hope (1948). Whither Reconstruction Historiography? Journal of Negro Education, (17) 4 (Fall): 446–461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Abram L. (1933). Letter to W. E. B. Du Bois, January 7. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Harris, Abram L. (1935). Reconstruction and the Negro. August 7. New Republic, pp. 367–368.Google Scholar
Herberg, Will (1931). Letter to W. E. B. Du Bois, March 13. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Herberg, Will (1933a). Letter to W. E. B. Du Bois, March 3. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Herberg, Will (1933b). Letter to W. E. B. Du Bois, March 20. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Herbst, Jurgen (1965). The German Historical School in American Scholarship: A Study in the Transfer of Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Holloway, Jonathan Scott (2003). Confronting the Veil: Abram Harris Jr., E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche, 1919–1941. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Holt, Thomas (2013). ‘A Story of Ordinary Human Beings’: The Sources of Du Bois’s Historical Imagination in Black Reconstruction. South Atlantic Quarterly, (112) 3 (Summer): 419–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horne, Gerald (1986). Black and Red: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944–1963. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, James E. (1970). Tribute. Black Titan: W. E. B. Du Bois. Clarke, John Hendrik, Jackson, Esther, Kaiser, Ernest, and O’Dell, J. H. (Eds.), Boston, MA: Beacon Press, pp. 18–21.Google Scholar
Lewis, David Levering (1993). W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race: 1868–1919. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Lewis, David Levering (2000). W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century: 1919–1963, New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Marable, Manning (1986), W. E. B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich (1887). Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. Translated by Moore, Samuel and Aveling, Edward Bibbins. London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl (2000a). The Communist Manifesto. Selected Writings. McLellan, David (Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 245–272.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl (2000b). On the Jewish Question. Selected Writings. McLellan, David (Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 46–70.Google Scholar
Porter, Eric (2010). The Problem of the Future World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Race Concept at Midcentury. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pribram, Karl (1983). A History of Economic Reasoning. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Rabaka, Reiland (2008). Du Bois’s Dialectics: Black Radical Politics and the Reconstruction of Critical Social Theory. New York: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Reed, Adolph Jr. (1997). W. E. B. Du Bois and American Political Thought: Fabianism and the Color Line. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Repp, Kevin (2000). Reformers, Critics, and the Paths of German Modernity: Anti-Politics and the Search for Alternatives, 1890–1914. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ringer, Fritz K. (1969). The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community, 1890–1933. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, Cedric J. (2000). Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Schefold, Bertram (2017). Great Economic Thinkers from the Classicals to the Moderns. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schmoller, Gustav von (1949). Die Volkswirtschaft, die Volkswirtschaftslehre und ihre Methode, 1893. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.Google Scholar
Spero, Sterling (1935). The Negro’s Role. July 24. The Nation, pp. 108–109.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (2014). General Strike. Rethinking Marxism, (26) 1: 9–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stolberg, Benjamin (1934). Letter to W. E. B. Du Bois, October 3. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.Google Scholar
Weisberger, Bernhard (1959). The Dark and Bloody Ground of Reconstruction Historiography. Journal of Southern History, (25) 4 (November): 427–447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar