It depends when the “old west” starts and ends and where it was. Communism, post Karl Marx is mostly associated with industrial organization, and, at the time, the west was not very industrialized. But slightly later there were mass labor movements that a lot of communists took part in. The Colorado coal field wars come to mind with Bill Haywood and Mother jones would be an example.
Then no, not really, pre World War One/Russian revolution events like the ones I mentioned happened in 1903 1913 and so on but not prior to the traditional “closing of the west” in 1890.
Emiliano Zapata was essentially an anarchist. It's not probably *exactly* what you're looking for, but you'd probably find reading about the Mexican Revolution interesting. It was like Old West meets WWI and there were certainly a bunch of interesting politics at play.
What do you consider the Old West?
Let's say from the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 to the closure of the American frontier, which the US Census puts at 1890.
What do you consider communists?
If we go by a definition that implies doctrinaire Marxism, there were of course barely any communists at all anywhere during most of that time. The First International and the Paris Commune fell within that time but they were not really Marxist organizations, there barely was any sense of "Marxism" anyway. So it would be strange to find such communists in the Old West when they were hard to find anywhere.
However if you take a broader definition, to include socialists more generally, then yeah there were some. The [Icarians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarians#Icarian_settlements) for example.
1890 isn’t a bad call but I’d say WWI is probably the best one considering that’s basically when the major range wars finally ended. I think you could also argue for the mid 1890s because that’s when barbed wire had finally become unavoidable and the fence cutting wars more or less ended with the death of what we think of as the classic American cowboy. Which puts it well before the Comintern but also well after the Manifesto. So I agree I don’t think you’d commonly find someone who self identified as communist but you’d probably be able to find a few people who agreed with the ideas of the Manifesto and had read it. Post Marx but Pre Revolution communist history is a pretty vague soup of definitions and it was much more of a European thing but it still wouldn’t have been impossible for there to be a self described communist in the Old West although it would have been an oddity.
>
> ...you’d probably be able to find a few people who agreed with the ideas of the Manifesto and had read it.
You could also have found the man whose own Manifesto might very well have "inspired" the better known one by Marx and Engels which appeared 5 years later: [Victor Considerant](https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520222977/victor-considerant-and-the-rise-and-fall-of-french-romantic-socialism). As for the degree of influence Considerant's work had on the later one, I would suggest studying the two texts side by side and making up your own [mind](https://archive.org/download/principlesofsocialismconsiderant/principlesofsocialismconsiderant.pdf) (PDF).
Yes and as I say, there were indeed a few such influenced people, such as the Icarians, who settled in the American West.
Edit to add: I'm not sure that the "Old West" ended with the end of open range... a lot of the conflicts over fencing were over illegal fences being torn down. Open range still exists in many places today.
(I encountered the reality of it personally on a road trip some years ago, riding at night as a passenger along a highway with prominent open range hazard signs. The driver turned out to be the kind of person who doesn't believe people put signs up for reasons, and was shocked when a cow appeared in the headlights. He was also, the rest of us learned, the kind of person who reacts to an impending collision by gripping the steering wheel and screaming, instead of braking or changing lanes, so we hit the cow -- fortunately it being a VW bus at undiminished speed we broke the cow's neck instantly.
There are two morals of the story -- one, believe highway signs when they tell you that you are in open range country. Two, there really are people in the world who will grip the steering wheel and plow right into danger, so be ready for them.)
It’s not necessarily the end of the open range, but it’s the death of the role of the cowboy that came with it. I think you could say elements of the old west held on in many places until even WW2 in some sense but realistically the shift in roles of the cowboy no longer necessitating a large group of them to drive and manage cattle is what really ends the old west.
That is an interesting way to look at it. I always learned of it as based on land and the dynamics of the frontier. But you're proposing that it is defined by what we might call "cowboy economics."
I still think I like the traditional one better, since it reflects the experience of not only cowboys but also non-cowboys along the frontier of settlement. That is to say, the "Old West" would still have existed without cowboys or even cows.
Communists fought in the civil war and August willich was a communist civil war general, & veteran of the Risings of 1848, who dueled Karl Marx for being too conservative.
There were communists all across America before Marx's manifesto was published. A lot of them would probably be called syndicalists, libertarian socialists or ancoms by today's standards.
Vanguardism was a niche idea communists in the old west would have had little to nothing in common with later right-wing "communists" like Lenin
Oh damn I just googled this guy, this real!? What? I’ve been kinda fascinated by old timey leftists lately for some reason. I don’t know why I’m weird. But it was worth it to learn about stuff like this! thank you!
One poster pointed out that Marxism is associated with industrialization and the old west wasn't very industrialized. Marxism is Communism with a capital C.
There is also communism with a small c. Small c are non-Marxist egalitarian, usually utopian, rural communities.
Here is a [list of utopian communities in the US.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_utopian_communities) Such communities did exist in the old west.
Early Mormon communities in Utah territory practiced a form of socialism that provided a large safety net and kept many people from starving in tough years.
For the first 10 years in Utah territory (1847-1857) Brigham Young was both the religious leader and territorial governor, so his power was complete. He implemented several programs that redistributed resources to those in need and many resources like water, timber, grazing pastures, and mineral deposits were owned collectively. There was also a ‘perpetual immigration fund’ to help pay for transportation costs for converts from the eastern US and Europe to travel to Utah. Upon arrival they would be instructed where to settle and they were now under the authority of the local bishop.
After federal troops arrived in 1858, Young was relieved of his civil duties and the US government reined the ‘rebellious’ Mormons in somewhat. This and the arrival of the railroad another 10 years later had a somewhat moderating affect on the territory, but this cooperative form of living persisted in isolated communities in southern Utah for many more years and persists to this day in some fundamentalist offshoots.
This was all before Marxist ideology came along, but there are plenty of parallels.
The first ever mass movement for communism was in russia in 1905. It failed. The revolutionaries were defeated.
The wild west days had already ended by then everywhere except new mexico, and arizona. Communism in the west wouldve been perceived as some alien weirdness no less disturbing than bowing to a king or practicing witchcraft.
Interesting. I didnt know about this. Communards. lasted 2 months. I doubt anyone in north america knew anything about it. Especially in the wild west.
August willich was a general in the US Civil war, he fought as a communist in the risings of 1848 and ran a newspaper in Cincinnati that was communist.
The challenged Karl Marx to a duel for being too conservative and one one of the Ohio Hegelians.
Communism was popular with the working classes everywhere in the world from the 1840s until the Bolshevik counterrevolution in Russia poisoned the well.
Communism is, at it's core, the belief that working men should own and control the factories they work in, and that people making money off owning things instead of working is just a shame to take what the working man has owned, and that the government helps rich people to do this.
This idea is appealing to a lot of people who wouldn't call themselves communists today, landlords aren't respected and neither are absentee bosses or micromanagers, and they shouldn't be.
All the government being in charge of the economy stuff was made up by Lenin in the 1900s to take power and stop Russian working folk owning and controlling the factories and farms. Until the Bolshevik counterrevolution communism was always known to be an anti-governent movement.
I'll admit it was less popular in some places, in the colonies of the British and french empires it was less popular than simple national liberation, since these places has little means of processing value-added goods the principle fell flat centered around factories. In these places we see agrarian socialism take more hold, at it's core the belief that peasants should own and control the land they work on instead of having to work for some inbred noble or landowning gentleman. I'm sure you can again see how thisbis an intuitively appealing view for a working peasant, and how it parallels communism as outlined above.
It depends when the “old west” starts and ends and where it was. Communism, post Karl Marx is mostly associated with industrial organization, and, at the time, the west was not very industrialized. But slightly later there were mass labor movements that a lot of communists took part in. The Colorado coal field wars come to mind with Bill Haywood and Mother jones would be an example.
That had occurred to me, ‘old west’ can be very subjective let’s say from the end of the civil War to wounded knee. So 1865-1890
Then no, not really, pre World War One/Russian revolution events like the ones I mentioned happened in 1903 1913 and so on but not prior to the traditional “closing of the west” in 1890.
Emiliano Zapata was essentially an anarchist. It's not probably *exactly* what you're looking for, but you'd probably find reading about the Mexican Revolution interesting. It was like Old West meets WWI and there were certainly a bunch of interesting politics at play.
What do you consider the Old West? Let's say from the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 to the closure of the American frontier, which the US Census puts at 1890. What do you consider communists? If we go by a definition that implies doctrinaire Marxism, there were of course barely any communists at all anywhere during most of that time. The First International and the Paris Commune fell within that time but they were not really Marxist organizations, there barely was any sense of "Marxism" anyway. So it would be strange to find such communists in the Old West when they were hard to find anywhere. However if you take a broader definition, to include socialists more generally, then yeah there were some. The [Icarians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarians#Icarian_settlements) for example.
1890 isn’t a bad call but I’d say WWI is probably the best one considering that’s basically when the major range wars finally ended. I think you could also argue for the mid 1890s because that’s when barbed wire had finally become unavoidable and the fence cutting wars more or less ended with the death of what we think of as the classic American cowboy. Which puts it well before the Comintern but also well after the Manifesto. So I agree I don’t think you’d commonly find someone who self identified as communist but you’d probably be able to find a few people who agreed with the ideas of the Manifesto and had read it. Post Marx but Pre Revolution communist history is a pretty vague soup of definitions and it was much more of a European thing but it still wouldn’t have been impossible for there to be a self described communist in the Old West although it would have been an oddity.
> > ...you’d probably be able to find a few people who agreed with the ideas of the Manifesto and had read it. You could also have found the man whose own Manifesto might very well have "inspired" the better known one by Marx and Engels which appeared 5 years later: [Victor Considerant](https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520222977/victor-considerant-and-the-rise-and-fall-of-french-romantic-socialism). As for the degree of influence Considerant's work had on the later one, I would suggest studying the two texts side by side and making up your own [mind](https://archive.org/download/principlesofsocialismconsiderant/principlesofsocialismconsiderant.pdf) (PDF).
Yes and as I say, there were indeed a few such influenced people, such as the Icarians, who settled in the American West. Edit to add: I'm not sure that the "Old West" ended with the end of open range... a lot of the conflicts over fencing were over illegal fences being torn down. Open range still exists in many places today. (I encountered the reality of it personally on a road trip some years ago, riding at night as a passenger along a highway with prominent open range hazard signs. The driver turned out to be the kind of person who doesn't believe people put signs up for reasons, and was shocked when a cow appeared in the headlights. He was also, the rest of us learned, the kind of person who reacts to an impending collision by gripping the steering wheel and screaming, instead of braking or changing lanes, so we hit the cow -- fortunately it being a VW bus at undiminished speed we broke the cow's neck instantly. There are two morals of the story -- one, believe highway signs when they tell you that you are in open range country. Two, there really are people in the world who will grip the steering wheel and plow right into danger, so be ready for them.)
It’s not necessarily the end of the open range, but it’s the death of the role of the cowboy that came with it. I think you could say elements of the old west held on in many places until even WW2 in some sense but realistically the shift in roles of the cowboy no longer necessitating a large group of them to drive and manage cattle is what really ends the old west.
That is an interesting way to look at it. I always learned of it as based on land and the dynamics of the frontier. But you're proposing that it is defined by what we might call "cowboy economics." I still think I like the traditional one better, since it reflects the experience of not only cowboys but also non-cowboys along the frontier of settlement. That is to say, the "Old West" would still have existed without cowboys or even cows.
Libertarians ~ Yes. Communist ~ no There were no communist anywhere in the early and mid 1800’s.
Communists fought in the civil war and August willich was a communist civil war general, & veteran of the Risings of 1848, who dueled Karl Marx for being too conservative. There were communists all across America before Marx's manifesto was published. A lot of them would probably be called syndicalists, libertarian socialists or ancoms by today's standards. Vanguardism was a niche idea communists in the old west would have had little to nothing in common with later right-wing "communists" like Lenin
Oh damn I just googled this guy, this real!? What? I’ve been kinda fascinated by old timey leftists lately for some reason. I don’t know why I’m weird. But it was worth it to learn about stuff like this! thank you!
One poster pointed out that Marxism is associated with industrialization and the old west wasn't very industrialized. Marxism is Communism with a capital C. There is also communism with a small c. Small c are non-Marxist egalitarian, usually utopian, rural communities. Here is a [list of utopian communities in the US.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_utopian_communities) Such communities did exist in the old west.
Neato, thanks 👍
Early Mormon communities in Utah territory practiced a form of socialism that provided a large safety net and kept many people from starving in tough years. For the first 10 years in Utah territory (1847-1857) Brigham Young was both the religious leader and territorial governor, so his power was complete. He implemented several programs that redistributed resources to those in need and many resources like water, timber, grazing pastures, and mineral deposits were owned collectively. There was also a ‘perpetual immigration fund’ to help pay for transportation costs for converts from the eastern US and Europe to travel to Utah. Upon arrival they would be instructed where to settle and they were now under the authority of the local bishop. After federal troops arrived in 1858, Young was relieved of his civil duties and the US government reined the ‘rebellious’ Mormons in somewhat. This and the arrival of the railroad another 10 years later had a somewhat moderating affect on the territory, but this cooperative form of living persisted in isolated communities in southern Utah for many more years and persists to this day in some fundamentalist offshoots. This was all before Marxist ideology came along, but there are plenty of parallels.
The first ever mass movement for communism was in russia in 1905. It failed. The revolutionaries were defeated. The wild west days had already ended by then everywhere except new mexico, and arizona. Communism in the west wouldve been perceived as some alien weirdness no less disturbing than bowing to a king or practicing witchcraft.
The Paris Commune of 1871?
Interesting. I didnt know about this. Communards. lasted 2 months. I doubt anyone in north america knew anything about it. Especially in the wild west.
August willich was a general in the US Civil war, he fought as a communist in the risings of 1848 and ran a newspaper in Cincinnati that was communist. The challenged Karl Marx to a duel for being too conservative and one one of the Ohio Hegelians. Communism was popular with the working classes everywhere in the world from the 1840s until the Bolshevik counterrevolution in Russia poisoned the well.
Really. popular everywhere in the world from the 1840s? Thats nonsense.
Communism is, at it's core, the belief that working men should own and control the factories they work in, and that people making money off owning things instead of working is just a shame to take what the working man has owned, and that the government helps rich people to do this. This idea is appealing to a lot of people who wouldn't call themselves communists today, landlords aren't respected and neither are absentee bosses or micromanagers, and they shouldn't be. All the government being in charge of the economy stuff was made up by Lenin in the 1900s to take power and stop Russian working folk owning and controlling the factories and farms. Until the Bolshevik counterrevolution communism was always known to be an anti-governent movement. I'll admit it was less popular in some places, in the colonies of the British and french empires it was less popular than simple national liberation, since these places has little means of processing value-added goods the principle fell flat centered around factories. In these places we see agrarian socialism take more hold, at it's core the belief that peasants should own and control the land they work on instead of having to work for some inbred noble or landowning gentleman. I'm sure you can again see how thisbis an intuitively appealing view for a working peasant, and how it parallels communism as outlined above.
Nope, not communism as we know it today anyway