Question

How prominent were communists in the Union army during the American Civil War?

Answer 1

Communists were not in the American Civil War. I think you are getting confused with the Confederates. Communism didn't exactly exist during the Civil War. At that time it was being presented as Marxism, which wasn't exactly communism yet. When Vladimir
Lenin took hold of Marxism, he turned it into Marxism-Leninism, which is what we call today, communism. 1. Confederates did not like the Union army. 2. The Confederates had their own army and therefore they didn't exactly mingle together. I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Nope. I'm talking about Communists. Don't know what you mean by saying Marxism isn't Communism. August Willich is an example of a Communist who served in the Union army. I was wondering how many others there were.

Answer 3

Well, Marxism wasn't as brutal as it is today with Leninism-Marxism. And to that fact, there weren't many. When you say communist, it depends to which way you are implying it, are you talking about the horrible people like Stalin and Mao Zedong? August Willich was Marxist, which was a step towards communism.

Answer 4

I'm talking about people who advocate the proletarian overthrow of Capitalism which will lead to classlessness.

Answer 5

Okay, well there wasn't that many people in the Union army with that mindset. There were maybe at least 2 dozen that had those ideas. They really didn't share ideas with other men. So they weren't that prominent.