Today in Labor History June 27, 1869: Anarchist, feminist and labor activist Emma Goldman was born in Lithuania. She helped plot the assassination of steel magnate, Henry Clay Frick, with her lover and comrade Alexander Berkman. Frick was fiercely anti-union and hired hundreds of Pinkertons to suppress the Homestead steel strike in 1892. In a gun battle, the Pinkertons killed nine strikers. Seven Pinkertons died, as well. Later that year, Berkman carried out the assassination attempt, but failed, and spent many years in prison. It was supposed to be an attentat, or propaganda by the deed. Like many anarchists of that era, they believed that their violent action would inspire working people around the world to rise up against capitalism and its leaders, like Frick. After that, Goldman publicly spoke out against attentats, because they weren’t inspiring the masses into action, but they were increasing state repression against their movement.
The state did imprison Goldman numerous times for other offenses, like “inciting to riot,” war resistance, and illegally distributing information about birth control. They even arrested her in 1901, in connection with the assassination of President McKinley, though she had nothing to do with it. They eventually released her and executed a mentally ill, registered Republican named Leon Czolgosz for the crime. In December, 1919, they deported her and Berkman to Russia. She had initially been supportive of the Bolshevik revolution and was excited to be there to witness its fruits, but denounced them after the massacre of more than a thousand sailors during the Kronstadt rebellion in 1921. Soon after, she and Berkman left Russia, completely disillusioned. However, in Germany and England, leftists were offended by her denunciations of the Soviet Union. Berkman died in 1936. That same year, she travelled to Spain to support the anarchists during the Civil War. She died a few years later in Toronto, at the age of 70.
Today in Labor History June 24, 1943: Otto Rühle (1874-1943), German Left communist of the Spartacist League, died in Mexico. Early in his life, Rühle trained and worked a school teacher. He created a socialist Sunday school and criticized traditional school in "Work and Education" (1904), "The Enlightenment of Children About Sexual Matters", (1907), and, "The Proletarian Child" (1911). In 1912, he was elected to the Reichstag as a Social Democrat.
However, he is much more well known for his role as a leader of the Council Communist movement, along with Anton Pannekoek. They opposed the state communism of the Soviet Union and advocated for Workers Councils and Council Democracy. Lenin attacked them in his pamphlet, “Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.” Rühle was also a comrade of Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring and very active in the German Revolution. He opposed both World Wars and fascism.
Today in Labor History June 1, 1916: The predominantly immigrant iron miners of the Mesabi Range, Minnesota, participated in a seemingly spontaneous strike in response to overpriced housing and goods, long hours and poor pay. The group was led by radical Finns who quickly drew the attention and aid of the IWW. Wobbly organizers, including Carlo Tresca, Joe Schmidt, Frank Little, and later Joe Ettor and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, came to help local strike leaders draw up a list of demands which included an 8-hour day, timed from when workers entered the mine until they were outside; a pay-scale based upon the actual hours worked; paydays twice monthly; immediate back-pay for hours worked upon severance; abolition of the Saturday night shift; abolition of the hated contract mining system. In the Contract Mining system, the bosses hired and paid “skilled” miners to do most of the mining. The contract miners then had to hire their own laborers and pay them out of their meagre wages. The contract miners were often native-born people, while the laborers were usually immigrants. This created a racialized two-tiered system that divided the workers and made it harder to organize. The bosses would routinely offer the contract miners a small concession to get them back to work, while offering the even more poorly paid laborers nothing, destroying their solidarity and ending the strike. Flynn would later go on to cofound the American Civil Liberties Union. Tresca would go on to became a leading organizer against both fascism and Stalinism. He was assassinated in 1943, possibly on orders of the Genovese crime family, possibly on orders of Stalin, and possibly Italian fascists. Frank Little, who was Native American, was later murdered by vigilantes during a strike in Butte. You can read my biography of Frank Little here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/
From two antifa dorks with a Tumblr blog to a collective of 10 people in 8 countries on 9 different social media platforms with over 110K followers, we like to think that we've punched above our weight (sometimes literally) in the global anti-fascist movement.
Today in Labor History May 28, 1968: Students occupied the University of Madrid (still under control of fascist dictator Francisco Franco). Cops raided the campus and removed the occupiers, and then shut down the University. At the time, all political parties had been banned, except the Falange. Franco had banned all protests and labor unions, too. Thousands had been rounded up and tortured, imprisoned or killed. Like much of the world at the time, a New Left movement had formed in Spain, though Spain’s was completely underground due to the repression of the dictatorship. Protests and demonstrations had been occurring for months. Most were met with violent repression and imprisonment.
I already did this earlier, but again… I totally distance myself from the pro-Israeli fake 'left'! Important #MustRead article for anti-fascists and indeed all anti-fascist groups in all countries should distance themselves from and break any collaborations with the pro-Israeli 'left'! Not only those from Germany and Austria, but also those from other countries.
AFA Stockholm: Not our comrades – About the German pro-Israel “anti-fascists”
"For a long time now we have closely followed, with disgust, the pro-Israel German anti-fascism, or the antideutsche movement as they are called in Germany, and we have never considered ourselves to share anything in common with the groups that represent this obscure current.
However, with the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians, it is long past time for us to officially disassociate ourselves from all left-wing and anti-fascist groups, both inside and outside Germany, that support the state of Israel. …"
“Why have large carbon-consuming countries allowed the systematic murder of thousands of children in Gaza? Because Hitler has already entered their homes and they are getting ready to defend their high levels of carbon consumption and reject the exodus it causes.”
--Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s speech at the COP28 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai in December.
Today in Labor History May 23, 1928: Anarchist Severino Di Giovanni bombed the Italian consulate in Buenos Aires to protest against the Italian dictatorship. He did it because the fascists were assassinating Italian antifascists living in exile. The bomb killed nine and wounded thirty-four. Prior to that, he bombed the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires in 1926 because a U.S. court had sentenced Sacco and Vanzetti to death. He also blew up a statue of George Washington, Citibank and the Bank of Boston, among other targets. At one point, he planned to assassinate Herbert Hoover. Many of the leading anarchists of the day criticized his bombings because they thought the backlash would facilitate a fascist coup in Argentina.
On July 22, 1916, someone set off a bomb during the pro-war “Preparedness Day” parade in San Francisco. As a result, 10 people died and 40 were injured. A jury convicted two labor leaders, Thomas Mooney and Warren Billings, based on the false testimony of Martin Swanson, a detective with a long history of interfering in San Francisco strikes. Not surprisingly, only anarchists were suspected in the bombing. Swanson maintained constant surveillance and harassment of Mooney and Warren Billings, as well as Alexander Berkman & Emma Goldman. A few days after the bombing, they searched and seized materials from the offices of “The Blast,” Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman’s local paper. They also threatened to arrest Berkman. Billings and Mooney ultimately served 23 years in prison for a crime they had not committed. Governor Edmund G. Brown pardoned them in 1961.
Billings and Mooney were both anarchists, and members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). As a young man in San Francisco, Tom Mooney published The Revolt, a socialist newspaper. He was tried and acquitted three times for transporting explosives during the Pacific Gas & Electric strike in 1913. Consequently, the cops already believed he was a bomber, prior to the Preparedness Day parade.
In 1937, Mooney filed a writ of habeas corpus, providing evidence that his conviction was based on perjured testimony and evidence tampering. Among this evidence was a photograph of him in front of a large, ornate clock, on Market Street, clearly showing the time of the bombing and that he could not have been at the bombing site when it occurred. He was finally released in 1939. Upon his release, he marched in a huge parade down Market Street. Cops and leaders of the mainstream unions were all forbidden from participating. An honor guard of longshoremen accompanied him carrying their hooks. His case helped establish that convictions based on false evidence violate people’s right to due process.
The Alibi Clock was later moved to downtown Vallejo, twenty-five miles to the northeast of San Francisco. A bookstore in Vallejo is named after this clock. On May 11, 2024, I did a reading there from my working-class historical novel, Anywhere But Schuylkill, during the Book Release Party for Roberta Tracy’s, Zig Zag Woman, which takes place at the time of the Los Angeles Times bombing, in 1910, when two other labor leaders, the McNamara brothers, were framed.
In 1931, while Mooney and Billings were still in prison, I. J. Golden persuaded the Provincetown Theater to produce his play, “Precedent,” about the Mooney and Billings case. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times wrote, “By sparing the heroics and confining himself chiefly to a temperate exposition of his case [Golden] has made “Precedent” the most engrossing political drama since the Sacco-Vanzetti play entitled Gods of the Lightening… Friends of Tom Mooney will rejoice to have his case told so crisply and vividly.”
During the Spanish war against fascism (AKA the Spanish Civil War), many Americans volunteered to join the antifascist cause as part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades. One of the battalions was named the Tom Mooney Machine-Gun Company. It was led by Oliver Law, a communist, and the first black man known to have commanded white U.S. troops.
Today in Labor History May 3, 1937: The May Days began in Catalonia. This was a counterrevolution by the Spanish Republican government against radical workers and anarchists. Prior to this, the communists, socialists and anarchists had been allied against Franco’s nationalists. However, anarchist workers and their militias controlled most industries, which they had collectivized, while the communists controlled the central government and finances. As a result, this brought the various groups into conflict. To make matters worse, the Communist Party of Spain was taking orders from Moscow. And they wanted to separate the two struggles: revolution against the ruling class versus war against the nationalists. In contrast, the POUM and the anarchists saw the two struggles as one and the same. The anarchist faction included the Friends of Durruti Group and the CNT (a confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions).
This isn't some anomalous occurrence due to the happenstance of a protest. They are like this 24/7/365, lying, cheating, brutalizing, doing everything they can to stay in power, and that's why they must be dismantled.
There is a better future ahead. If their rule was just, they wouldn't have to expend so much effort to maintain it.
Today in Labor History April 26, 1937: The Nazis bombed Guernica, a town in the Basque region of Spain. Later that year, Picasso painted his famous painting, Guernica, in protest of the atrocity. This was during the Spanish Civil War. The Republicans, a coalition of anarchist, socialist and communist partisans, were fighting the Nationalists, led by the fascist, Francisco Franco. The Nazis bombed Guernica for two hours. They killed between 1,000 and 3,000 civilians, or 20-60% of the population.
Uno schizzo veloce, un disegno fatto ritagliando un tempo che non ho per celebrare l'antifascismo e la liberazione, ma soprattutto per ricordare, in primis a me stessa, che la resistenza è un atto quotidiano, che risiede in ogni atto, anche nelle pennellate improvvisate di una mattina di aprile, un 25 Aprile.
Buona liberazione e buona resistenza a tutti e tutte!
I was thinking about a more elaborate statement, but its not worth it. So i'll just say it: I'm done with #Germans telling me how I am allowed to relate my own, inherited, #nazi-caused #wartrauma to what is happening in #Palestine. I don't need to ask your permission, you don't have a say in it. And you sure as hell will never be able to relate to it, that much is abundantly clear by now. #antifa#antifascism#resistance#occupation
Today in Labor History April 1, 1976: Surrealist artist, Max Ernst, died. In addition to his artwork, he was an anti-Fascist, who was literally chased out of France by the Gestapo. He opposed Stalin’s Moscow trials. And much of his art had anti-Fascist and anti-Stalinist themes. He produced his painting “Fireside Angel” (or “Angel of the Hearth and Home”) after the Spanish Republicans were defeated by the Fascists. Ernst said, “Now this was naturally an ironic title for a sort of ungainly beast that tramples down and destroys everything in its path. It was the impression I had at the time of what was likely to happen in the world, and I was right.”
I agree that Rishi should terminate his meaningless nazi #fascist#life... many other fascist nazi #capitalist#politicians on #earth should do the fucking same before a mob turns up on their fucking #doorsteps!
Today in Labor History March 9, 1902: Actor Will Geer was born. Best known for his role as Grandpa Walton in the long-running series, “The Waltons,” Geer also appeared in the groundbreaking film, “Salt of the Earth,” which portrayed the struggle of Mexican American workers at the Empire Zinc Mine. Because of his activism on labor and political issues, he was blacklisted in Hollywood for many years. In 1934, he became a member of the Communist Party. He also met LGBTQ activist Harry Hay that year and they became lovers. Together, they supported the 1934 San Francisco General Strike and demonstrated against fascism and for workers’ rights. Hay was a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the first major gay rights group in the United States, and the Radical Faeries, an anarcho-pagan queer spiritual-political movement.
Today in Labor History February 27, 1943: The Rosenstrasse protest occurred in Berlin. The demonstration was carried out by non-Jewish wives and relatives of Jewish men targeted for deportation. It was the only mass public demonstration by Germans in the Third Reich against the deportation of Jews. The women were successful, too, forcing the Gestapo to release the 1,800 Jews they had in custody in Berlin.
Just as I have feared, mainstream media has turned into a hideous fascist-enabling hellscape populated by opportunistic and gutless sycophants who bob their heads up and down for alt-right hate merchants and practice both sides bullshit because they fear losing their jobs.
Billy Wilder's savage satire ACE IN THE HOLE now plays like a sunny Frank Capra movie.
This is where we are at RIGHT NOW and we still have nine months to go until the election. To those like @GottaLaff and @dangillmor who continue to speak out against this horrorshow, thank you. But it's clear that we need a hell of a lot more of you willing to call out the Lorenzs and the Habermans.
Today in Labor History February 25, 1941: The outlawed Communist Party of the Netherlands initiated a General Strike in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam in protest of the persecution of Dutch Jews. It started one day after a pogrom in Amsterdam. 300,000 people participated. It was the first public protest against the Nazis in Europe. The Nazis brutally suppressed the strike, ending it after three days.