The Main Lessons of the American Revolution...

The Main Lessons of the American Revolution

0°) The United States is the product of two revolutions : that of Independence (1775-1783) and that of Secession (1861-1865) or anti-slavery and democratic revolution. On July 4, 1776, the delegates of the thirteen English colonies of North America proclaimed independence at the Congress of Philadelphia. They created an independent republic, after having seceded from England. Even if the proclamation of the rights of man and of the citizen corresponds to a great step forward in history - compared to the regime prior to the bourgeois revolution - it is not a definitive conquest, nor even a true liberation. This is seen from the simple fact that this proclamation allowed the slavery of a considerable fraction of the population to continue. There remains a third revolution to be carried out, that of the workers, the exploited, the oppressed, the victims of racism, women, young people, migrants, etc.

1) During the first revolution, that of Independence, the Americans, barely united for the first time, defeated the most powerful nation of the time, England, which had always dominated them as a colonial power, which possessed the most efficient military fleet in the world while North America had no army and no war fleet. No one could have assumed that the Americans would win.

2) The main reason for the American victory against England is the fact that they primarily relied on the revolutionary nature of their action, an anti-colonial revolution that was at the same time political, democratic, social, and even economic. The first American War of Independence was first and foremost a social revolution led by the "American Federates." It relied on the revolutionary energy of the American working people.

3) This means that all barriers of submission, obedience, humility, respect, fear, reverence, and bowing to authority, power, royalty, the possessing class, imperialism, the English parliament and royalty fall at once throughout American society, inexorably and like a tidal wave, all layers of society, all backgrounds, all communities, and all faiths.

4) This happened in the same way in all regions of North America, from north to south, however dissimilar they may be. And the basis of the unity of the federated states is in fact nothing more than this : common adherence to the revolution ! It simply says : we are free and we prefer to die than to become submissive and dependent again...

5) Revolution means that the lowest strata of society begin, all by themselves, to play a political and social role as great as the highest, without asking anyone’s permission, without needing the support of any authority of any kind. All the cards are reshuffled. This is true of the exploited, it is also true of women and blacks. Everyone speaks out. Everyone self-organizes. Everyone leads their own action. Everyone takes initiatives at the risk of their lives. Everyone gains confidence in their strength, their role, and their importance within the working people.

6) It was the exploitation, exactions, vexations, and increasingly unbearable contempt of imperialism, of the feudal aristocracy and the big bourgeoisie, of parliament and royalty, as well as of the Church of England, that drove this revolution, that forced the federates to unite to "live free or die." Colonialism literally threw the working people of America into revolution.

7°) Of course, the revolution that unites the people in the struggle does not erase the differences of class, race, between men and women, of skin color, of religion, of social and political thought, the divergences between economies and regions, etc. Other revolutions will follow for this purpose, and notably the "Civil War", that between the North and the South, between anti-slavery and pro-slavery, between capitalists and landowners, and these revolutions are still to be completed. The current propertied classes know this and are arming themselves precisely to face the revolution that they feel is coming...

8) The American Revolution followed the English Revolution and preceded the French Revolution. It is part of the international wave of bourgeois revolutions, even though in each of them, it was the working people who were the driving force of history.

9) The American Revolution offered capitalism its largest territory, a new, immense country, full of riches. This does not mean that the American federates wanted to launch a new capitalism, nor a new imperialism, nor a new financial aristocracy that would dominate the world, they who were fighting against the same oppressors of England. But one does not make a revolution according to what one wants, what one believes, but according to what is on the agenda of History, given the development of the world’s productive forces and its historical perspectives, namely the capacities of big capital to invest profitably. And it is only in our time that these have irremediably reached their limits, requiring a new revolution, whether in America or in the rest of the world. The United States, today the greatest country of the counter-revolution, is itself the country that promises to become an international center of the revolution !

Read more :

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9volution_am%C3%A9ricaine

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerre_d%27ind%C3%A9pendance_des_%C3%89tats-Unis#

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerre_de_C%C3%A9cession

https://www.wsws.org/fr/articles/2025/04/20/pers-a20.html

https://www.wsws.org/fr/articles/2020/07/06/pers-j06.html

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4345

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1742

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5063

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve1010

https://www.marxiste.qc.ca/article/la-lutte-des-classes-et-la-rvolution-amricaine

https://www.wsws.org/fr/articles/2021/06/22/pers-j22.html

https://www.marxists.org/francais/marx/works/00/gcus/gcus_pref.htm

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5949

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve1087