Análisis de la Guerra Civil Norteamericana desde la crítica de Marx y Engels y la teoría militar de Clausewitz

Revolutions are certainly midwives of societies with their respective structures and superstructures. The Civil War in the United States was both a bourgeois democratic revolution and a revolutionary war. The underlying reason for separation or secession of the southern states of the Union was the insurmountable conflict between two incompatible modes of production. As the war is the continuation of politics by other means, it is inseparable from the political regime that engenders it. Karl Marx with an exceptional sharpness deeply analyzed the political objectives of the American Civil War, and among other things, the political contradictions that suffered the Northern side. Marx sentenced that the North would prevail in the end, with Lincoln at the head or with Lincoln’s head. Their analysis was not limited to the military aspect of the conflict but also included the economical, political, geographical and international one. In this paper I will discuss the battles of Gettysburg, Ball Run, Anthietam, among others, not from a purely military but also a social and political perspective. It is important to understand the strategies of both sides according to their political ends. These goals were mutable and dynamic due to the enormous complexity of this war that lasted more than four years, leaving a balance of 150 major battles and more than half a million casualties.Las revoluciones son sin duda las parteras de las sociedades con sus respectivas estructuras y superestructuras. La Guerra Civil en Estados Unidos fue al mismo tiempo una revolución democrático burguesa y una guerra revolucionaria. El motivo que subyacía a la separación o secesión de los estados sureños de la Unión era el conflicto insalvable entre dos modos de producción incompatibles. Al ser la guerra la continuación de la política por otros medios, la misma es inseparable del régimen político que las engendra. Karl Marx -con una agudeza excepcional- analizó profundamen- te los objetivos políticos de la Guerra Civil Norteamericana, entre otras cosas, las contradicciones políticas que padecía el bando del Norte. Marx sentenciaba que el Norte prevalecería al final de cuentas, con Lincoln a la cabeza o con la cabeza de Lincoln. Su análisis no se limitó al aspecto militar del conflicto sino que incluyó al económico, político, geográfico e internacional