>TIL Marx played an important role in the Union winning the Civil War.
At least according to a Russian friend of mine, who has a Soviet book from 1976 (in Russian) on American history. According to the book Karl Marx led the workers of Lancashire and of Britain in general to reject Confederate imports, and the political activity of the British Marxists and allied radical groups successfully prevented Britain from intervening to crush the Union.
According to the Soviet book, this was tantamount to Karl Marx playing an indispensable role in the victory of the Union over the Confederacy. The book also quotes Lincoln praising the British workers led by Marx and of Marx writing a letter to Lincoln praising his re-election, which the book claims Marxists helped ensure.
Conclusion of the book on this subject: "It is not surprising, therefore, that the leader of the international communist and workers' movements should have exercised a world-historical influence in fields as deep as international diplomacy and military strategy. Indeed, Marx and Engels together predicted with brilliant accuracy the course of the Civil War and once more displayed their genius for historical methodology. Their radiant activities during this period showed once again their worldwide influence."
So far I'm trying to find proof of all this. This is what I've found:
Exhibit #1: A biography of one of the first American Marxists, a Colonel in the Union Army: https://archive.org/details/JosephWeydemeyerPioneerOfAmericanSocialism
Exhibit #2, 1952 History of the Communist Party USA, Chapter Three: http://williamzfoster.blogspot.com/2013/01/chapter-three-marxists-in-struggle.html
(quoting excerpts, whole chapter is interesting)
>Hence, from the very beginning, the Marxists raised the decisive slogPost too long. Click here to view the full text.