LONDON 219tremendous development of productive forces there would soon outstrip
even the markets of the Americas and Australia: a panic would ensue 'at
the latest in July or August' bringing with it a crisis which, 'because it
must coincide with great clashes on the Continent, will produce results
quite different from all previous ones'.^40 Marx was insistent, now as later,
that the industrial crisis would bring revolution, not the other way round.
He wrote to Weydemeyer in December 1849 that the outbreak of a
revolution before the next crisis 'would in my opinion be a misfortune
because just now, when business is still expanding, the working masses in
France, Germany, etc., are perhaps revolutionary in word but certainly
not in reality'.^41
There followed far-sighted comment on the industrial potential of the
United States inspired by an event 'more important than the February
revolution' - the discovery of gold in California.^42 The flow of population
westwards and the incredible growth of the railway system showed that
New York and San Francisco were usurping the place in world trade
hitherto held by London and Liverpool. Marx continued:
The fulcrum of world commerce, in the Middle Ages Italy, more
recently England, is now the Southern half of the North American
continent. ... Thanks to the gold of California and to the tireless
energy of the Yankees both coasts of the Pacific will soon be as thickly
populated, as industrialized and as open to trade as the coast from
Boston to New Orleans is now. The Pacific Ocean will then play the
same role the Atlantic Ocean is playing now and the role that
the Mediterranean played in the days of classical antiquity and in the
Middle Ages - the role of the great water highway of world commerce- and the Atlantic Ocean will sink to the level of a great lake such as
the Mediterranean is today.^43
The only hope for Europe of avoiding industrial, commercial and political
dependence on the United States was 'a revolution which would transform
the mode of production and intercourse in accordance with the needs of
production arising from the nature of modern productive forces, thus
making possible the development of new forces of production which
would maintain the superiority of European industry and counteract the
disadvantages of geographical situation.'^44 Marx finished the article with
a remark on the recent beginning of Chinese socialism and the social
upheaval brought about by contact with the West, an upheaval that 'must
have the most important results for civilization'.^45
The second article on current affairs comment, written in April, dealt
more specifically with the possibilities of revolution in Europe. Marx
thought he saw an approaching crisis in Britain due to over-investment,
particularly in the key wool industry. The interaction of this crisis with the