#workingmen

[argyrocratie]

Summary of the discutions on the theme of "political action" at the seventh general congress of the International, in Brussels (1874):

"Frohme and Faust develop the point of view of the German socialists on the political question:

To combat the German State, strongly centralized, an organization equally centralized is necessary. To allow the bourgeoisie to dominate the state completely would be the suicide of the socialist workers' party; the latter must dispute political power with the bourgeoisie, and, when it has conquered it, transform the bourgeois state into a socialist state. The German socialists do not delude themselves that they will achieve this goal peacefully: they know perfectly well that it is only by violence that they will attain this goal, and moreover the government itself sets an example of acts of violence by persecuting the socialist party. But legal and parliamentary political action serves them as a means of agitation and as a guarantee of security. If, when, before the courts, their writings and words demanding collective property are incriminated, they were to say clearly that it is by violence that they want to achieve it, they would fall under the penal code; but, by saying that it is by legal means, they can continue to act and to propagate their principles. As for the value of this means of action from the point of view of propaganda, one has only to judge it by seeing the results obtained. The German workers will not be diverted from political action, any attempt to do so would be childish.

Bastin and Verrycken give an account of Belgian ideas on the political question:

For Belgian workers there can be no question of political action, since they do not possess universal suffrage. They will do nothing to obtain universal suffrage, because they know that it would be of no use to them; they expect nothing from parliaments, and they want to continue to devote all their activity to the organization of workers by trades and federations; the working class will be able, when this organization is more generalized, to make the Social Revolution successfully.

Schwitzguébel:

It was experience that pushed the Jura socialists, although they had universal suffrage, to become abstentionists. At the birth of the international sections, they generally supported the political parties. The question of workers’ candidacies was raised; the bourgeois parties promised concessions, but deceived the overconfident socialist workers. The lesson has been learned; and, since then, the studies on political matters that have been made in the International, have increasingly convinced the Jura internationalists that by leaving the bourgeois parties to their political tinkering, and by organizing themselves outside of them and against them, the workers would certainly prepare a much more revolutionary situation than by negotiating with the bourgeois in the legislative assemblies.

Gomez:

The situation has become so revolutionary in Spain that the expression “political action” is no longer even possible there. In France, in Italy, the situation is becoming like this too. In Germany, government persecutions will end up creating a similar situation. When the big states are in such a situation, the workers no longer have to concern themselves with political action, but with revolutionary action.

The Geneva Propaganda Section had sent its opinion on political action:

A minority wants absolute abstention; the majority wants abstention from state politics, but advocates workers' candidacies in the local elections.

Van Wedemer of the Parisian section had given in these terms, at the private session of Wednesday, the opinion of his constituents on the question:

All those who work must unite, not to conquer any power, but to obtain the negation of all political government, which for us does not only mean oppression, but trickery and lies; our duty is to join forces to create an insurmountable dam to the shameless demands of capital, and we can only achieve this through incessant propaganda among the workers, who must organize themselves for the true social Revolution.

In the private session on Thursday afternoon, a commission had been appointed to draw up a statement summarizing the opinion of the Congress on the question of political action. This commission, composed of Gomez, Cœnen, Frohme and Verrycken, presented, on Wednesday evening, the following draft:

On the question of knowing to what extent the political action of the working classes can be necessary or useful to the advent of the social revolution, the Congress declares that it is for each federation and for the democratic socialist party of each country to determine the line of political conduct which they think they should follow.

This statement was adopted unanimously."

-from James Guillaume's "L’Internationale, documents et souvenirs (Tome III,Cinquième partie)"

[ptrcbtnm]

(Bakunin was anti Semitic)

[shenefelts]

A Letter To American Workingmen by Vladimir Lenin But BO6; Never Heard Of Her (The Scary Papers) Page Preview

Black Ops 6 can’t be bad, it doesn’t exist.

This is that kind of propaganda that grandpa was caught with in wartime and thrown into the slammer.

The kind of propaganda that grandma was caught with in peacetime and thrown into the loony bin.

It’s like listening to a solo John Lennon song.

Yeah it may or may not sound good (How would I know? I haven’t listened) but it just ain’t right.

[rotenotes]

Το Καταστατικό της Α΄ Διεθνούς (Καρλ Μαρξ)

Το Καταστατικό της Α΄ Διεθνούς Γράφει: Καρλ Μαρξ Η Διεθνής Ένωσης των Εργατών 1871Γενικοί Κανόνες, Οκτώβριος 1871 Γράφτηκε: Οκτώβριος, 1871 Δημοσιεύτηκε πρώτη φορά: 24 Οκτωβρίου, 1871Πηγή: Πρωτότυπο φυλλάδιοΜεταγραφή/Markup: Zodiac/Brian BagginsΔιαδικτυακή έκδοση: Marx & Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000Μετάφραση στα ελληνικά (για τη «Μαρξιστική Φωνή»): Άγγελος Ηρακλείδης Έχοντας…

[opstandelse]

Το Καταστατικό της Α΄ Διεθνούς (Καρλ Μαρξ)

Το Καταστατικό της Α΄ Διεθνούς Γράφει: Καρλ Μαρξ Η Διεθνής Ένωσης των Εργατών 1871Γενικοί Κανόνες, Οκτώβριος 1871 Γράφτηκε: Οκτώβριος, 1871 Δημοσιεύτηκε πρώτη φορά: 24 Οκτωβρίου, 1871Πηγή: Πρωτότυπο φυλλάδιοΜεταγραφή/Markup: Zodiac/Brian BagginsΔιαδικτυακή έκδοση: Marx & Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000Μετάφραση στα ελληνικά (για τη «Μαρξιστική Φωνή»): Άγγελος Ηρακλείδης Έχοντας…

[hdslibrary]

Discovered in the Stacks: Abolitionist Serial

Even after inventories and barcoding projects, we still discover materials that have eluded cataloging. This short run (possibly unrecorded until now!) was found with a call number label, but without any record in the online catalog.

The Christian Reformer (renamed The Christian Reformer and Workingmen's Advocate early in the run) was an abolitionist and labor reform serial published at least in 1849-1850. The publisher, editor, and primary author is a Boston area abolitionist named Charles Stearns. Slavery is the prominent topic, and the journal provides accounts of meetings around the region to discuss the cause. The periodical also advocates for improved conditions for the working class (an “extra” insert calls for support of a Boston strike), and also insists on the need for reform of organized Christian religion. On the last point, the author seems particularly bothered by the profession of ministry, where people are paid to preach.

We invite scholars and interested researchers to visit and investigate this long-hidden resource!

The Christian reformer. Boston : [Charles Stearns], -[1849]

The Christian reformer and workingmen's advocate. Boston : [Charles Stearns], [1849]- 

[dailyanarchistposts]

Is it to be another slaughter of innocent working men like the one which took place in Chicago twenty years ago, at the behest of the capitalistic class, who wished to put men out of the way whom they regarded as dangerous to their reign of robbery?

The conspiracy entered into by the Mine Owners’ Association of the states of Colorado and Idaho, acting through their tools—the governors of the above-named states—in kidnaping Charles H. Moyer, William D. Haywood and George Pettibone, and spiriting them out of the state of Colorado when the shadows of night had fallen, when no one might witness the conspiracy save the armed conspirators, savors so much of deeds of “dark ages”, long, long gone by, that one in reading it in this twentieth century is forced to tap one’s self on the forehead and shake one’s self, so to speak, to make sure that they are not dreaming!

What, pray, in the face of such an infamy, becomes of the boasted rights of American citizens under its constitution?

If such an outrage had been perpetrated in a foreign country, the American Navy would have been set in motion, and diplomatic relations would have been “strained”; “Teddy” would be talking loudly about the “rights” of American citizens. But how different all this is when the rights of the American citizen is ruthlessly set aside by the czars of his own country, if he happens to belong to the working class!

There is such a similarity between the present “great dynamite conspiracy” now being staged for action in Idaho, and that conducted by the capitalistic class in the “Anarchists’ Trial” in Chicago nearly twenty years ago, that a brief recapitulation is not out of place.

In the present case, as in the former, the Pinkerton lying thug bobs up with his “evidence.” Then there are other detectives of less luminous degrees, to be used as supernumeraries in filling out the less important parts of the tragedy. In the present, as in the former case, dynamite bombs have been planted by the “conspirators” and conveniently found by the detectives, and too, like the former case, the “conspiracy” is to date back a few years. This is done to keep the public in breathless expectancy, like the clown in the circus who announces in clarion tones the wonders soon to be brought forth! The governor of Idaho, chief clown just now, begins to talk loudly about “a conspiracy that is going to shock civilization.”

This is decidedly à la mode Bonfield, Schaack, Grinell, etc. People of America—citizens, brothers and sisters, lovers of liberty and justice—are you going to stand idly by and see these men murdered by the Mine Owners’ Association of the states of Idaho and Colorado because they want them out of the way—because they are “troublesome characters”?

If you do not wish to see American soil again stained with the blood of innocent workingmen; if you do not wish to again hear the sound of the accursed gallows as it strangles their voices and forever silences them, then waste not an hour, bestir yourselves! Act now!

Let your voices be heard in protest from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Maine to Mexico. Serve notice upon the murderous capitalistic class that you will not again stand idly by and see your brothers made victims because they so will it, and they will dare not do it!

Show by your action, your strength and your determination that the people are more powerful than a few rich conspirators.

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

In an age that witnessed considerable support for social improvement, public schools often took center stage. By the 1830s, a chorus of reform-minded people began to sing the praises of free, tax-supported schools: Thaddeus Stevens, later a prominent Republican activist in Pennsylvania; Catharine Beecher, advocate of more educational opportunities for women; Caleb Mills, an evangelical minister who later became Indiana's leading common school advocate; and even notable Southerners, who faced the greatest opposition and whose efforts bore the least fruit. Enthusiasm for social improvement through education flourished. Since the turn of the century, countless pamphlets, speeches, reports, petitions, testimonials, newspaper editorials, books, and articles had promoted the importance of education in a republic. A few dozen educational periodicals also popularized the cause of learning by promoting a class-inclusive school system, especially for white children.

In Philadelphia, New York, and other cities, the editors of workingmen's newspaper - the voice of the skilled artisan minority - despaired over the fate of youth as apprenticeships declined and unskilled factory labor increased; they endorsed instituting a common system and eliminating the stigma attached to free schools. "I think that no such thing as charities should be instituted for the instruction of youth," wrote one articulate worker in the Mechanics' Free Press in Philadelphia in 1828. He favored free schools dependent not on "private charities" but "founded and supported by the government itself." One Ohioan added, "Unless the Common Schools can be made to educate the whole people, the poor as well as the rich, they are not worthy of the support of the patriot or the philanthropist." "Give to education... a clear field and fair play," said a recent immigrant in A Treatise on American Popular Education in 1839, "and your poor houses, lazarettos, and hospitals will stand empty, your prisons and penitentiaries will lack inmates, and the whole country will be filled with wise, industrious, and happy inhabitants. Immorality, vice and crime, disease, misery and poverty, will vanish from our regions, and morality, virtue and fidelity, with health, prosperity, and abundance, will make their permanent home among us.”

Born in an age when millennial ideals, such as universal peace and prosperity following Christ's imminent return to earth, influenced wide sectors of the population, the common schools became a useful barometer of the extensive social changes that transformed the nation before the Civil War. Cities, factories, and foreign immigration generated moral panic and social fears among many northern reformers, whose search for solutions to public ills centered on a more expansive public school system. Reflecting the contradictory passions of the reformers, schools not only favored greater access to literacy and academic study but simultaneously downplayed intellectual achievement by elevating the moral aims of instruction. America's ambivalent attitude toward the life of the mind and scholarship thus found expression in the nation's emerging school system, where character development and moral uplift took precedence even as lifeless instruction in academic subjects predominated. Setting a pattern that long endured, reform-minded citizens increasingly assumed that individual welfare and social progress depended on an extensive network of public schools.

william j. reese, america's public schools from the common school to "no child left behind"

[argyrocratie]

-Adhemar Schwitzguebel, “The Question of Public Services Before the International" (1875):

"To rationally resolve the problem of social reorganization, it was not necessary to ask "by who and how public services will be provided in the new social organization", but ask what would be the bases of the new society.

Once the question was thus posed, we only had to open the history of the International Workingmen's Association, and here we found our answers.

Indeed, two principles, of immense historical consequence, emerged from the debates and internal struggles which agitated our Association: the principle of collective property, as an economic basis of the new social organization, and the principle of autonomy and federation, as the grouping basis of individuals and human communities.

(...)

Reasoning rationally, we should have said to ourselves: We find ourself in the presence of the need to transform individual property into collective property: What is the most practical way to accomplish this transformation? - It’s for the workers to seize directly the instruments of work, which they have operate for the benefit of the bourgeois and which they must now operate for their own benefit.

This revolutionary measure is superior in practice to all the decrees of the dictatorial assemblies which would believe themselves authorized to direct the Revolution or the full emancipation of the working classes; and the spontaneous action of the popular masses, from where it can only come out, is, from the first acts of the Revolution, the practical affirmation of the principle of autonomy and federation, which becomes the basis of any social grouping. With the economic privileges of the bourgeoisie, sank, in this revolutionary storm, all the institutions of the State by means of which the bourgeoisie maintains its privileges.

Let us now study the consequences, from the point of view of social reorganization, of such a revolution. In any locality, the different trades are masters of the situation: in such industry, the tools used are of minimal value; in another it is of considerable value and of more general utility; whether the group of producers employed in this industry must own the tools used, this property can create a monopoly for a group of workers, to the detriment of other groups. The revolutionary necessities, which pushed the working groups to identical action, also dictate to them federation pacts, by means of which they mutually ensure the conquests of the Revolution; these pacts, necessarily, will be communal, regional, international, and will contain sufficient guarantees so that no group can monopolize the benefits of the revolution. This is how collective property seems to us to have to be first of all communal, then regional and even international, depending on the development and more or less general importance of such branch of human activity, such natural wealth, such instruments of work accumulated by a previous labour.

(...)

Let us clearly note the essential difference between the Workers' State and the Federation of Communes. The State determines what is a public service and the organization of this public service: there you have human activity regulated. In the Federation of Communes, today the shoemaker works at home in his room; tomorrow, by the application of some discovery, the production of shoes can be increased a hundredfold and simplified at the same time: the shoemakers then unite, federate, establish their workshops, and thus enter into the general activity. It is the same for all branches of human activity: what is restricted is organized in a restricted way, what is general, in a general way, both in groups and in Communes and Federations. It is the experience, the development of every day life, put at the service of human freedom and activity."

[communist-manifesto-daily]

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - Part 11

[ First | Prev | Table of Contents | Next ]

Then came the Continental revolutions of February and March 1848, in which the working people played such a prominent part, and, at least in Paris, put forward demands which were certainly inadmissible from the point of view of capitalist society. And then came the general reaction. First, the defeat of the Chartists on April 10, 1848; then the crushing of the Paris workingmen's insurrection in June of the same year; then the disasters of 1849 in Italy, Hungary, South Germany, and at last the victory of Louis Bonaparte over Paris, December 2, 1851. For a time, at least, the bugbear of working-class pretensions was put down, but at what cost! If the British bourgeois had been convinced before of the necessity of maintaining the common people in a religious mood, how much more must he feel that necessity after all these experiences? Regardless of the sneers of his Continental compeers, he continued to spend thousands and tens of thousands, year after year, upon the evangelization of the lower orders; not content with his own native religious machinery, he appealed to Brother Jonathan [1], the greatest organizer in existence of religion as a trade, and imported from America revivalism, Moody and Sankey, and the like; and, finally, he accepted the dangerous aid of the Salvation Army, which revives the propaganda of early Christianity, appeals to the poor as the elect, fights capitalism in a religious way, and thus fosters an element of early Christian class antagonism, which one day may become troublesome to the well-to-do people who now find the ready money for it.

It seems a law of historical development that the bourgeoisie can in no European country get hold of political power – at least for any length of time – in the same exclusive way in which the feudal aristocracy kept hold of it during the Middle Ages. Even in France, where feudalism was completely extinguished, the bourgeoisie as a whole has held full possession of the Government for very short periods only. During Louis Philippe's reign, 1830-48, a very small portion of the bourgeoisie ruled the kingdom; by far the larger part were excluded from the suffrage by the high qualification. Under the Second Republic, 1848-51, the whole bourgeoisie ruled but for three years only; their incapacity brought on the Second Empire. It is only now, in the Third Republic, that the bourgeoisie as a whole have kept possession of the helm for more than 20 years; and they are already showing lively signs of decadence. A durable reign of the bourgeoisie has been possible only in countries like America, where feudalism was unknown, and society at the very beginning started from a bourgeois basis. And even in France and America, the successors of the bourgeoisie, the working people, are already knocking at the door.

[1] "Brother Jonathan" – A sort of Anglo-Christian "Uncle Sam".

[ First | Prev | Table of Contents | Next ]

[crawler-001]

You have found and entered the main room of a hidden guild, to which you are a member. Buckle yourself in buddy boy, this is gonna be a long one.

There are several types of secret societies out there.

There's the ivy-league college kind where its a bunch of rich idiots who rent out a place, plaster a few pagan symbols on the wall, and then they wear masks with horns and leaves and shit on them and pretend they are in some Stanley Kubrick fever dream just so they can forget they're destined to live out lives filled with salmon colored shorts and IZOD shirts and mind-numbing meetings with financial advisors. There's orgy themed secret societies, speaking of Stanley Kubrick, those are usually uhh...visually unpleasant people with unsatisfactory sex lives who get together every other month at some house in the middle of nowhere and get drunk and have lots of unsatisfactory sex with other people and pretend like they are having a great time. There are altruistic ones! People who want to save the world by doing good deeds. That's the most boring kind, so we're not talking about them. There's the evil kind too! Usually power and profit motivated. The ones where the ultra-elite get together on an island and eat panda bears and discuss how to price-fix world or galactic markets. Yes, those groups really exist. More on these guys in a second.

But first, lets talk about another type of secret organization. One that tries to make a difference. Often times outside the confines of the law.

Story time.

In September of 1869, there was a terrible fire at the Avondale Coal Mine near Plymouth, Pennsylvania. Over 100 coal miners lost their lives. Horrific conditions and safety standards were blamed for the disaster. It wasn't the first accident. Hundreds of miners died in these mines every year and those that didn't lived in squalor. Children as young as 8 worked day in and out; they broke their bodies and gave their lives for nothing but scraps. That day of the fire, as thousands of workers and family members gathered outside the mine to watch the bodies of their friends and loved ones brought to the surface, a man named John Siney stood atop one of the carts and shouted to the crowd: "Men! If you must die with your boots on, die for your families, your homes, your country! But do not longer consent to die like rats in a trap for those who have no more interest in you than in the pick you dig with!"

That day, thousands of coal miners came together to unionize. That organization, The Workingmen's Benevolent Association managed to fight for a few years at least, to raise safety standards for the mines by calling strikes and attempting to force safety legislation. ...until 1875, when the union was obliterated by the mine owners.

Why was the union broken so easily? Because they were out in the open. They were playing by the rules. How can you win a deliberately unfair game when the rules are written by your opponent? The answer is "You can't!" You will never win. Not as long as you follow their arbitrary guidelines.

This is a new lesson to me. She's been teaching me so many things about who I am, about what I am, what I REALLY am, about what must be done!

Anyway, during this same time, it is alleged a separate, more militant group of individuals had formed in secret, the Molly Maguires. Named after a widow in Ireland who fought against predatory landlords, the coal workers of Pennsylvania became something a little more proactive, supposedly assassinating over two dozen coal mine supervisors and managers. ...until Pinkerton agents, hired by the same mine owners, infiltrated the group and discovered their identities. Several of the alleged Mollys ended up publicly hanged. Others disappeared. You get the picture.

So, that's another type of secret society. The "yeah-we're-terrorists-but-we-strongly-feel-we're-justified-and-fuck-you-if-you-don't-agree" society.

So, whats the moral of this little history lesson? This sort of thing happens all day, every day across the universe. It happens in big ways and it happens in little ways too. The strong stomp on the weak. The weak fight back, usually within the boundaries of the rat trap they find themselves confined in. They almost always remain firmly stomped. But sometimes, the weak gather in secret, they make plans, they work outside the system to effect change. Like the Mollys, they usually end up just as stomped as everyone else. But thats just life, at least they fucking tried. They died with their boots on. As much as I hate that expression, they died with their boots on for THEIR people, THEIR family, not for some rich nameless organization that gives no shits whether they live or die. Or go extinct. Or are trapped for a millennia after they are done being used.

In my opinion, that's the only type of society that's worth joining, worth fighting for. Sure, you're probably gonna die, but if you find yourself in such a position where such an organization is necessary, what do you have to lose? How can you look at yourself if you don't do everything you can? And that brings us to the door your standing in front of right now. What does all this have to do with what you're going to find on the other side? Nothing! Ignore everything I just said. This is just some some demi-god trying to scrabble his way to the top, that's yet another type of society, a religion themed one, and it has nothing to do with what I just said. Just do what he says and you'll probably be fine. Actually, that's terrible advice, just do you!

Any way...

Reward: You've received the gift of enlightenment. You're welcome.

-The System AI "Dungeon Crawler Carl" by Matt Dinniman

[thelittleslowmoon]

“The matrons on their porches, with their aprons, pin-curlers in hair; the old ladies of Indiana, with their white pinafores over blue dresses, teeter-tottering in tennis shoes to catch a glimpse of him and mothering him from afar. (‘He looks so tired, the poor boy, why do they make him work so hard?’),” wrote veteran campaign chronicler Teddy White. “Blue-collar workingmen thickened the crowds, a rare sight in daytime political campaigning, and one saw them shyly wipe their hands on overalls or shirts before offering hands to the candidate to shake. One grasped for analogy: “Along the highway, as the car swept along, he was, obviously, The Kennedy, of the Family and Blood Royal, the Prince Coming to Town. In a working-class district he was Robin Hood. At night, in such places as Gary and South Bend on the final weekend, he was the Prince, Robin Hood, and the Pied Piper all combined.”

[thoughtportal]

A Letter to American Workingmen, from the Socialist Soviet Republic of Russia - V. I. Lenin

[thecatholicbozo]

"In any case we clearly see, and on this there is general agreement, that some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class: for the ancient workingmen's guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organization took their place. Public institutions and the laws set aside the ancient religion.

Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men.

To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself."

-Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, Paragraph 4, 1891

[dailyanarchistposts]

This past International Workers Day, otherwise known as May Day, I attended my local rally. The same old May Day groups were in attendance, Party for Socialist Liberation (PSL), Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and a couple other single issue labor groups. The endless tedium of speeches aside, something strange stood out to me. Every group called for left unity in some way or another. “Unite as workers to crush capitalism,” was the exact quote from the young man in running shoes, jeans, and a bright red PSL shirt. I could have spoken up and made a scene, again, but I feel it is more effective to broadly address why this call for left unity is absurd especially considering the Marxist historical revisionism surrounding May Day. The success of May Day was directly because of the anarchist Haymarket Martyrs and the Marxist attempt to ignore this fact is one of the many reasons why left unity is never in the best interest of anarchists.

Before we begin, it is important to go over the events of the Haymarket uprising on May 4th, 1886. The first May Day was called for by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU) as the official first day the eight-hour workday in 1886. On May 1st 1886, between 30,000 and 80,000 laborers in Chicago refused to work in support of the eight hour day, which shut down the industrial zones. August Spies, a German-born anarchist and leading contributor to the newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung, was enthused by the unity and relative success of the eight-hour fight.[1] The McCormick Reaper Works’ solution, instead of meeting the demands of the workers, was to hire scabs. On May 3rd, 1886, striking workers from the McCormick Plant asked Spies to come down to the Southwest side of Chicago and give a speech to bolster morale. Minutes into Spies speech, the scabs began filing out of the plant and the McCormick strikers rushed to the gates of the factory. To protect the business and scabs, 200 police officers rushed in and beat the strikers with clubs and shot them with pistols. According to Spies, 6 strikers were killed including those that were shot in the back as they fled. Spies knew that the battle had been lost and returned to his newspaper office with the sound of screams and pistol fire still ringing in his ear.

That night, August Spies rushed into print several thousand leaflets urging workingmen to come to a meeting the next day, May 4th, at Haymarket Square.[2] The next day, the anarchists August Spies, Albert Parsons, and the Rev. Samuel Fielden spoke to a crowd estimated variously between 600 and 3,000. At around 10:30 PM as Fielden spoke, the police showed up despite the peaceful nature of the crowd. As they ordered the crowd to disperse, a bomb was thrown into the advancing officers, killing 6. The Police then opened fire on the anarchists killing 4 and some of the anarchists returned fire killing another police officer. The Police argued it was a conspiracy and eight influential anarchists were arrested, including Spies and Parsons, who were not present but had significant influence in the community. On November 11th 1887, 4 convicted anarchists including Spices, Parsons, Adolph Fischer, and George Engle were hanged. The state executions further enraged the broader community and would be the catalyst for the International Workers Day.

The Haymarket Uprising was internationally significant. During the funeral procession for the anarchists in Chicago, the historian Philip Foner estimates, between 150,000 and 500,000 people lined the streets in support. Both the American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor, although initially reluctant, supported the slain anarchists as heroes of labor. The Knights of Labor even published the autobiographies of Parsons, Spies, Fischer, Engle, and the anarchist who killed himself in prison, Oscar Neebe.[3] The London Freedom group argued “No event in the worldwide evolution of the struggle between socialism and the existing order of society has been so important, so significant, as the tragedy of Chicago.”[4] According to the historian Paul Avrich, pamphlets and articles about the case and autobiographies of the martyrs appeared in every language across the world. In Europe, over twenty-four cities boasted sizeable protests in support of the Haymarket Martyrs.[5] Famous anarchists like Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Ricardo Flores Magón all attribute the Haymarket uprising to their radicalization. Moreover, it was not only Europe that celebrated the Haymarket Martyrs. The Times of London reported protests in Cuba, Peru, and Chile.[6] Mary Harris “Mother” Jones was in Mexico on May Day, 1921, and wrote that their May Day was expressly in honor of “the killing of the workers in Chicago for demanding the eight-hour day.”[7] More to this point, during a trip to Mexico in 1939, Oscar Neebe’s grandson was shown a mural by Diego Rivera in the Palace of Justice depicting the Haymarket Martyrs.[8] The international significance of the Haymarket Martyrs was undeniable in the hearts and imagination of all of the Left and is a significant element in the success of May Day.

The success of May Day internationally is thanks to the slain anarchists yet Marxist leadership intentionally omitted the significance of the Haymarket Martyrs to further purge anarchism from the historical record. In 1889, just a few years after the execution, the Marxist International Socialist Congress, who would later form the “Second International,” chose May 1st to celebrate international workers. However, nowhere in the Second International’s proclamation was the slightest mention of anarchism or the Haymarket Martyrs’ sacrifice for the eight-hour workday. The historian Philip Foner in 1969 therefore needed to write an entire book to remind the reader that other than pushing for the eight-hour workday, the secondary purpose of the establishment of International Workers Day on May 1st was to honor the Haymarket Martyrs. He argues “there is little doubt that everyone associated with the resolution passed by the Paris Congress knew of the May 1st demonstrations and strikes for the eight-hour day in 1886 in the United States … and the events associated with the Haymarket tragedy.” [9]

This slight against anarchists should come as no surprise considering the Second International broke with the First International Workingmen’s Association to exclude anarchists. The few anarchist members that refused to leave the Second International were barred from contributing. Member William Morris reveals, “expressions of anarchist ideas were often shouted down, and in one incident Francesco Saverio Merlino faced violence from the other delegates.”[10] The later Soviets were no stranger to historical revisionism either. Whether it is Stalin painting himself into pictures alongside Lenin or more typically painting out figures, like Trotsky, from the historical narrative. Famous member of the Communist Party USA’s central committee and founder of International Publishing, Alexander Trachtenberg, published the definitive “History of May Day” in 1932 and did not mention the word anarchism once.[11] Therefore, the Marxists of the Second international developed the May Day holiday to appropriate the international success of the anarchist Haymarket martyrs, while actively excluding anarchist thought from their sphere of influence.

Rosa Luxemburg also actively excluded mentioning the Haymarket Martyrs, which prominent Social Democrat publications like Jacobin choose to publish to further marginalize anarchist ideas. In 2016, Jacobin magazine published Luxemburg’s “What are the Origins of May Day.” In this article, Luxemburg argued that in 1856, the Australian workers call for complete work stoppages in support for the 8-hour workday influenced the American and then International development of May Day.[12] She claims that the Australians call to action was the primary source of inspiration for The International Workers Congress in 1890. While this is most likely true, she does not mention anarchists at all in her story. Not only did Luxemburg choose to ignore the impact of the Haymarket anarchists, but Jacobin’s intentional publication of her work in 2016 illustrated this same interest in erasure. Therefore, it becomes clear that both the Communists and the contemporary Social Democrats reinterpret history in order to ignore the global impact of anarchism on the working-class.

This active historical revisionism from popular Marxists is what makes May Day speeches calling for “left unity” ridiculous. Let us, for a moment, ignore the legacy of anarchist oppression from the Soviet Union to Cuba. The fact that both the Second International to contemporary Marxists willfully ignore the centrality of anarchism to organized labor and the establishment of the eight-hour workday is ahistorical. The fact that they suppress anarchist history and call for unity on the day that anarchist ancestors gave their lives for labor’s cause is bullshit. The eight-hour work day was a compromise for the abolition of waged labor. Let us not compromise our principles again by unifying with Marxists that work to undermine us at every opportunity.

[1] August Spies, “The Dies are Cast!”Arbeiter-Zeitung (May 1, 1886)

[2] August Spies, “Revenge,” Arbeiter-Zeitung (May 3, 1886)

[3] Philip Foner, “Editor’s Intro” in The Haymarket Autobiographies ed. Philip Foner (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1969), 12.

[4] Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 436.

[5] Philip Foner, May Day (New York, NY: International Publishers, 1986), 45-46.

[6] Foner, May Day, 45-46.

[7] Dave Roediger, “Mother Jones & Haymarket”, in Haymarket Scrapbook ed. Franklin Rosemont, David Roediger (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2011), 213.

[8] Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 436.

[9] Phillip Foner, May Day, 42.

[10] William Morris, “Impressions of the Paris Congress: II,” Marxists.org (Retrieved May 4, 2022) https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1889/commonweal/08-paris-congress.html

[11] Alexander Thrachtenberg, “The History of May Day” Marxist.org (accessed May 5, 2022) https://www.marxists.org/subject/mayday/articles/tracht.html

[12] Rosa Luxemburg, “What are the Origins of May Day?” Jacobin, May 1, 2016 (Accessed May 2, 2022) https://jacobinmag.com/2016/05/may-day-rosa-luxemburg-haymarket

[stillnaomi]

Interviewer: What has socialism done so far?

Marx: Two things. Socialists have shown the general universal struggle between capital and labor — the cosmopolitan chapter, in one word — and consequently tried to bring about an understanding between the workmen in the different countries, which became more necessary as the capitalists became more cosmopolitan in hiring labor, pitting foreign against native labor not only in America, but in England, France, and Germany. International relations sprang up at once between workingmen in the three different countries, showing that socialism was not merely a local, but an international problem, to be solved by the international action of workmen. The working classes move spontaneously, without knowing what the ends of the movement will be. The socialists invent no movement, but merely tell the workmen what its character and its ends will be.

Interviewer: Which means the overthrowing of the present social system.

Marx: This system of land and capital in the hands of employers, on the one hand, and the mere working power in the hands of the laborers to sell a commodity, we claim is merely a historical phase, which will pass away and give place to a higher social condition.

We see everywhere a division of society. The antagonism of the two classes goes hand in hand with the development of the industrial resources of modern countries. From a socialistic standpoint the means already exist to revolutionize the present historical phase. Upon trade unions, in many countries, have been built political organizations. In America the need of an independent workingmen’s party has been made manifest. They can no longer trust politicians. Rings and cliques have seized upon the legislatures, and politics has been made a trade. But America is not alone in this, only its people are more decisive than Europeans. Things come to the surface quicker. There is less cant and hypocrisy than there is on this side of the ocean.

Karl Marx interviewed by the Chicago Tribune (1879)