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[angus]

...the bourgeois revolution of 1861–77 consisted of two stages: the Civil War (1861–65), during which slavery was abolished and a military defeat was inflicted on the counterrevolutionaries, and Reconstruction (1865–77), during which the struggle to complete the bourgeois-democratic changes in the South continued.

 Throughout most of the USA a final victory had been gained in the farmers’ path of capitalist development in agriculture. All power passed into the hands of the bourgeoisie. In the struggle against the planters, the leading role belonged to those among the bourgeoisie who recognized the necessity of abolishing slavery and, after prolonged hesitation, embarked upon the path of revolutionary action. However, the decisive contribution to the defeat of the rebels was made by the popular masses: it was their lengthy and insurmountable pressure that made the transition to revolutionary war inevitable.

During Reconstruction the revolution proceeded with less intensity and a narrowed base, localized mainly in the South. The former slaves, who had struggled for their social and political rights, became the most revolutionary force. The democratic resolution of the agrarian question in the South was one of the principal tasks of the revolution. The bourgeoisie, however, having used the struggle of the Negroes in order to strengthen its own political power, refused to resolve the agrarian question, proceeded to work out an accommodation with the planters, and subsequently attempted to “restore everything possible, and do everything possible and impossible for the most shameless and despicable oppression of the Negroes” (V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 27, p. 142).

...the undermining of the power of the southern planters opened the way for rapid capitalist development as early as the first decade after the war. It was during this period that the industrial revolution in the USA was completed. Intensive railroad construction made possible the establishment of permanent economic ties throughout the country and the expansion of the domestic market. Between 1867 and 1873 about 54,000 km of railroads were built.

The socioeconomic development of the USA, accompanied by an intensified exploitation of the toiling masses, caused a sharpening of the contradictions between labor and capital. In 1866, W. Sylvis organized the National Labor Union, which was active until the early 1870’s. The first national trade labor union in American history, the National Labor Union, supported ties with the First International. After the Civil War the influence of the socialists increased. In 1867 sections of the First International were organized, and in 1872 the General Council of the First International moved its headquarters to the USA.

US foreign policy during Reconstruction was characterized primarily by an effort to strengthen US influence on the American continent and to weaken the influence of Great Britain and the other European powers. In 1867 tsarist Russia, burdened by the vestiges of serfdom and incapable of defending remote Russian settlements, sold Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to the USA...