{"id":73,"date":"2023-04-10T17:42:09","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T17:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/?post_type=chapter&p=73"},"modified":"2023-05-06T01:34:18","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T01:34:18","slug":"marxist-history-walker","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/chapter\/marxist-history-walker\/","title":{"rendered":"Marxist History and Robin D. G. Kelley by Rachel Walker"},"content":{"raw":"

Origins of Marxist History<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

In the late 18th\u00a0<\/sup>century, the scientific revolution challenged the dominion of religion within academia. Thus, the school of Empiricism ruled historical methodology. Empiricists utilized the scientific method to write history, they favored primary sources and objectivity over memoirs and bias. However, the social crisis happening in 1840's Europe, [footnote]Samuel, Raphael. \u201cBritish Marxist Historians 1880-1980 (Part I).\u201d New Left Review. New Left Review, April 1, 1980. https:\/\/newleftreview.org\/issues\/i120\/articles\/raphael-samuel-british-marxist-historians-1880-1980-part-i.[\/footnote]\u00a0 along with the 1848 publishing of The<\/em> Communist Manifesto<\/em>, brought along a new school of historical analysis, Marxism. The Marxist school of history takes a clear step away from the Empiricist style, as Marxism allows for analysis and opinion by the historian. To understand a Marxist perspective, one must first understand historical materialism. Historical materialism includes what humans will do to satisfy their most basic needs, Karl Marx described it as \"the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself.\" [footnote]Green, Anna, and Kathleen Troup. \u201cMarxist Historians.\u201d Essay. In The Houses of History a Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory, 34. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015.[\/footnote] Marxist history is about understanding who controls the resources, who is being denied the resources, and how conflict between these groups drive the development of history. [footnote]Sol\u00e1, Jos\u00e9 O. \u201cMarxism.\u201d Introduction to Historical Studies. Lecture, February 17, 2023.[\/footnote]<\/p>\r\nMarxist Methodology<\/strong>\r\n

The Marxist methodology has been described as \"broad syntheses of history, biography, intellectual history, and 'history from below'- studies of the common people.\" [footnote]Green, Anna, and Kathleen Troup. \u201cMarxist Historians.\u201d Essay. In The Houses of History a Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory, 33. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015.[\/footnote] Marxist history is the most influential school of analysis, it can be found throughout any history discussing revolution or a collective struggle. Marx's theory states that society cannot exist without an economic structure, and this structure is a four-step evolution into a socialist society. The first step being ancient society, then feudal society, capitalist society, and finally socialist society. For civilization to progress through these steps, there must be conflict between the ruling and working class. [footnote]Sol\u00e1, Jos\u00e9 O. \u201cMarxism.\u201d Introduction to Historical Studies. Lecture, February 17, 2023.[\/footnote]\u00a0 Despite the versatility of Marxist writing, the most influential theorists tend to only write Eurocentric histories. For instance, Christopher Hill and E. P. Thompson, famous Marxist historians, both made their name through their writings mostly about English and Russian revolutions. While the history of all people is important to document, there are groups whose histories have been neglected for far too long.<\/p>\r\nRobin D. G. Kelley<\/strong>\r\n

Robin D. G. Kelley is a Marxist historian currently teaching at UCLA. Kelley first found himself interested in history while in his undergrad at California State University-Long Beach, especially black history. Kelley had been a victim of a hate crime on two separate instances, once being attacked by a group of white boys causing Kelley to be hospitalized, the second being a few weeks later where police mistook Kelley for a criminal. Around this time Kelley was beginning to read revolutionary works from people like Frederick Douglass which ultimately influenced him to change his major to history and minor to black studies.[footnote]Kelley, Robin D. G., and Rund Abdelfatah. \u201cThere Are No Utopias.\u201d NPR. NPR, February 24, 2022. https:\/\/www.npr.org\/transcripts\/1082030426.[\/footnote] Later earning his M.A. in African History and his Ph.D. in American History, both at the University of California-Los Angeles. His most influential works include Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression<\/i> and Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class<\/i>. There are several events in Kelley\u2019s upbringing that perhaps shaped his mind into the distinguished Marxist historian he is today. Kelley grew up in Harlem, New York during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Being raised by a single, hippie mother caused Kelley to be exposed to the revolutionary ideas of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_124\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"150\"]\"\" Distinguished Marxist Historian: Robin D. G. Kelley.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[footnote]Robin D. G. Kelley: Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History. Robin D. G. Kelley. UCLA History , 2023. https:\/\/history.ucla.edu\/faculty\/robin-d-g-kelley.[\/footnote]\r\n

Kelley's book Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression<\/em>, highlights the effort of predominantly black communists to organize unions within their agricultural jobs. They used Marxist ideals and black culture to revolutionize. [footnote]Solomon, Mark. \u201cUntitled \u201dReview of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression, . JSTOR Volume 56, no. Number 2, (1992): 197\u2013200. https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/40404614?seq=4.[\/footnote] Secondly, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class\u00a0<\/i>by Kelley is similar to Hammer and Hoe\u00a0<\/em>as it focused on the organization and protest efforts of the black working class during World War I<\/span>I. Rather than agricultural workers, Kelley focused on black protest in public spaces and industrial workers alike. [footnote]Tolbert, Emory. \u201cReview: Slaves, Workers, and Race Rebels\u201dReview of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class, . JSTOR Volume 18, no. Number 1, (1998). https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/27502376?seq=1.[\/footnote] Kelley brings light to the struggle of the black working class population, who was previously overlooked in the community of Marxist historians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n ","rendered":"

Origins of Marxist History<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the late 18th\u00a0<\/sup>century, the scientific revolution challenged the dominion of religion within academia. Thus, the school of Empiricism ruled historical methodology. Empiricists utilized the scientific method to write history, they favored primary sources and objectivity over memoirs and bias. However, the social crisis happening in 1840’s Europe, [1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 along with the 1848 publishing of The<\/em> Communist Manifesto<\/em>, brought along a new school of historical analysis, Marxism. The Marxist school of history takes a clear step away from the Empiricist style, as Marxism allows for analysis and opinion by the historian. To understand a Marxist perspective, one must first understand historical materialism. Historical materialism includes what humans will do to satisfy their most basic needs, Karl Marx described it as “the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself.” [2]<\/sup><\/a> Marxist history is about understanding who controls the resources, who is being denied the resources, and how conflict between these groups drive the development of history. [3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Marxist Methodology<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Marxist methodology has been described as “broad syntheses of history, biography, intellectual history, and ‘history from below’- studies of the common people.” [4]<\/sup><\/a> Marxist history is the most influential school of analysis, it can be found throughout any history discussing revolution or a collective struggle. Marx’s theory states that society cannot exist without an economic structure, and this structure is a four-step evolution into a socialist society. The first step being ancient society, then feudal society, capitalist society, and finally socialist society. For civilization to progress through these steps, there must be conflict between the ruling and working class. [5]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Despite the versatility of Marxist writing, the most influential theorists tend to only write Eurocentric histories. For instance, Christopher Hill and E. P. Thompson, famous Marxist historians, both made their name through their writings mostly about English and Russian revolutions. While the history of all people is important to document, there are groups whose histories have been neglected for far too long.<\/p>\n

Robin D. G. Kelley<\/strong><\/p>\n

Robin D. G. Kelley is a Marxist historian currently teaching at UCLA. Kelley first found himself interested in history while in his undergrad at California State University-Long Beach, especially black history. Kelley had been a victim of a hate crime on two separate instances, once being attacked by a group of white boys causing Kelley to be hospitalized, the second being a few weeks later where police mistook Kelley for a criminal. Around this time Kelley was beginning to read revolutionary works from people like Frederick Douglass which ultimately influenced him to change his major to history and minor to black studies.[6]<\/sup><\/a> Later earning his M.A. in African History and his Ph.D. in American History, both at the University of California-Los Angeles. His most influential works include Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression<\/i> and Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class<\/i>. There are several events in Kelley\u2019s upbringing that perhaps shaped his mind into the distinguished Marxist historian he is today. Kelley grew up in Harlem, New York during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Being raised by a single, hippie mother caused Kelley to be exposed to the revolutionary ideas of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Distinguished Marxist Historian: Robin D. G. Kelley.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Kelley’s book Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression<\/em>, highlights the effort of predominantly black communists to organize unions within their agricultural jobs. They used Marxist ideals and black culture to revolutionize. [8]<\/sup><\/a> Secondly, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class\u00a0<\/i>by Kelley is similar to Hammer and Hoe\u00a0<\/em>as it focused on the organization and protest efforts of the black working class during World War II. Rather than agricultural workers, Kelley focused on black protest in public spaces and industrial workers alike. [9]<\/sup><\/a> Kelley brings light to the struggle of the black working class population, who was previously overlooked in the community of Marxist historians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

  1. Samuel, Raphael. \u201cBritish Marxist Historians 1880-1980 (Part I).\u201d New Left Review. New Left Review, April 1, 1980. https:\/\/newleftreview.org\/issues\/i120\/articles\/raphael-samuel-british-marxist-historians-1880-1980-part-i. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  2. Green, Anna, and Kathleen Troup. \u201cMarxist Historians.\u201d Essay. In The Houses of History a Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory, 34. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  3. Sol\u00e1, Jos\u00e9 O. \u201cMarxism.\u201d Introduction to Historical Studies. Lecture, February 17, 2023. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  4. Green, Anna, and Kathleen Troup. \u201cMarxist Historians.\u201d Essay. In The Houses of History a Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory, 33. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  5. Sol\u00e1, Jos\u00e9 O. \u201cMarxism.\u201d Introduction to Historical Studies. Lecture, February 17, 2023. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  6. Kelley, Robin D. G., and Rund Abdelfatah. \u201cThere Are No Utopias.\u201d NPR. NPR, February 24, 2022. https:\/\/www.npr.org\/transcripts\/1082030426. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  7. Robin D. G. Kelley: Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History. Robin D. G. Kelley. UCLA History , 2023. https:\/\/history.ucla.edu\/faculty\/robin-d-g-kelley. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  8. Solomon, Mark. \u201cUntitled \u201dReview of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression, . JSTOR Volume 56, no. Number 2, (1992): 197\u2013200. https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/40404614?seq=4. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  9. Tolbert, Emory. \u201cReview: Slaves, Workers, and Race Rebels\u201dReview of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class, . JSTOR Volume 18, no. Number 1, (1998). https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/27502376?seq=1. ↵<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":391,"menu_order":11,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-73","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":46,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/391"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/73\/revisions\/385"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/46"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/73\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/historicalstudiessp2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}