Today in Labor History 7/16/1877: The Great Railway Strike (Great Upheaval) began in Martinsburg, WV, with strikes spreading across the country, despite the unions, which tried to block it. Boatmen, steelers, miners & workers of all ages, genders & races joined in. Militias & national guards were deployed. For the 1st time ever, federal troops were used to crush a strike. Workers fought back with rocks & bricks. They sabotaged equipment. Dumped railroad cars. Rerouted engines. Many of the poorly paid soldiers went AWOL & joined the strikers. In Lebanon, PA, they mutinied. Karl Marx called it “the first uprising against the oligarchy of capital since the Civil War.”

In Chicago & St. Louis, strikes were led by the communist Workingmen’s Party, affiliated with the First International. In Chicago, future Haymarket martyr, Albert Parsons, gave a fiery speech. In St. Louis, workers took over & ran the city for a week in what became known as the St. Louis Commune (after the Paris Commune of 1871). At a huge meeting in St. Louis, a black man asked: “Will you stand with us regardless of color?” The crowd replied: “We will!”

The Great Upheaval ended after 45 days, with over 100 workers slaughtered. In Pittsburgh, the militia killed 20 workers in 5 minutes. In Chicago, they killed another 20. In Scranton, up to 50 were killed. In the aftermath, unions became better organized, particularly the new Knights of Labor, which mushroomed in size. But the bosses learned many lessons, too. Many of the old stone armories we see across the country today were built after the Great Upheaval to provide cities with greater fire power for the next great strikes.

My novel, "Anywhere But Schuylkill," is part of the "Great Upheaval" trilogy.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #strike #wildcat #GeneralStrike #railroad #union #marx #uprising #rebellion #KnightsOfLabor #chicago #pittsburgh #StLouis #ParisCommune

#LaCommune #director #PeterWatkins

#film 🇫🇷 with English subtitles

https://iv.melmac.space/watch?v=xBq6YaK7GqU

#ParisCommune #France

It's around 5 hours, so watch it in bits. I haven't seen it & I predict my internet connection won't hold up, but I'll watch it later.

Enjoy

Louise Michel

Today in Labor History May 29, 1830: Anarchist school teacher Louise Michel was born. Also known as the Red Virgin, she was a leader of the Paris Commune. During the Bloody Week, the authorities executed 30,000 men, women and children. They forced Michel to turn herself in by threatening to kill her mother, then deported her to New Caledonia, where she taught both the children of colonists and the indigenous people of New Caledonia. Her struggle against French colonialism and her support for the indigenous people is remembered today in their local museum of anarchism.

In 1880, the French gave amnesty to commune prisoners and allowed her back into the country. Many of those prisoners could not find work and were starving. She helped set up soup kitchens to feed them and devoted herself to writing about strikes and worker protests. On Mach 9, 1883, she led a demonstration through Paris. During the march, starving workers looted bakeries and stole bread. They arrested Michel and sentenced her to six years solitary confinement. Two years after being released, a would-be assassin shot her behind her ear. During the trial, she defended the would-be assassin, arguing that he had been misled by an evil society. She died on January 9, 1905, due in part to the bullet that remained lodged in her skull.

#Workingclass #LaborHistory #LouiseMichel #anarchism #ParisCommune #prison #execution #massacre #Revolution #feminism

"Through political clubs, vigilance committees, labour organisation, planning commissions, journalism, military brigades, aiding the wounded, provisioning soldiers, rounding up deserters, and fighting on the barricades, women engaged in nearly every aspect of #TheCommune."

An Interview with Historian #CarolynEichner: Commemorating the #ParisCommune and the Lives of French Socialist Feminists
https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/interviews/interview-with-historian-carolyn-eichner-commemorating-paris-commune-and-lives-french

#CommuneDeParis #communardes #socialisme #féminisme #HistFR #LaCommune

Today in Labor History May 21, 1894: The French authorities executed anarchist Emile Henry by guillotine. His final words were, “Courage, comrades! Long live Anarchy!” Henry grew up in a family of radicals. His father had been a supporter of the Paris Commune. As a result, his family was exiled to Spain, where Henry was born. However, his father contracted mercury poisoning from his factory job there and died when Henry was ten. After this, the family moved back to France. Henry’s older brother, also an anarchist, helped him make connections with other French revolutionaries. In 1892, Henry set a time bomb at the offices of the Carmaux Mining Company, which killed five cops. In February, 1894, he set off a bomb at the Café Terminus, killing one person and wounding twenty. The authorities arrested him for this crime and sentenced him to death by guillotine.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #anarchism #atentat #assassination #execution #DeathPenalty #EmileHenry #ParisCommune #guillotine

Today in Labor History May 21, 1871: The Bloody Week, a savage orgy of repression and violence, was launched against the Paris Commune. As a result of the French government’s massacres and summary executions, 20,000 to 35,000 civilians died. 38,000 people were arrested. Prior to the repression, workers had taken over the city for 2 months, governing it from a feminist and anarcho-communist perspective, abolishing rent and child labor, and giving workers the right to take over workplaces abandoned by the owners.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #BloodyWeek #ParisCommune #anarchism #communism #Revolution #feminism

Replay

The #ParisCommune: A New History

"#CarolynJEichner & #MitchAbidor discuss Eichner’s new book, #TheParisCommuneABriefHistory ...

"The Commune stands as a critical and pivotal moment in 19th century history, as the linchpin between revolutionary pasts and futures, and as a crucible allowing glimpses of alternate possibilities."

https://youtu.be/x8N4sXa40Iw

#LaCommune #CommuneDeParis #HistFR #communardes #communards #CarolynEichner #livres #Paris #socialisme

Replay

The #ParisCommune: A New History

"#CarolynJEichner & #MitchAbidor discuss Eichner’s new book, #TheParisCommuneABriefHistory ...

"The Commune stands as a critical and pivotal moment in 19th century history, as the linchpin between revolutionary pasts and futures, and as a crucible allowing glimpses of alternate possibilities."

https://youtu.be/x8N4sXa40Iw

#LaCommune #CommuneDeParis #HistFR #communardes #communards #CarolynEichner #livres #Paris #socialisme

Today in Labor History: March 28, 1871: Over 200,000 people turned out at the Paris City Hall to see their newly elected revolutionary officials of the Paris Commune. The red flag, emblematic of the Commune, was raised over all public buildings.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #ParisCommune #revolutionary #socialism #anarchism

On March 18, 1871, workers in France's capital took control of their city and established the Paris Commune. (Just sayin'....)

#pariscommune #communedeparis
#retraites #greve #jacquestardi
[image from Le Cri Du Peuple, by Jacques Tardi & Jean Vautrin]

Today in Labor History March 18, 1871: The Paris Commune began on this date. It started with resistance to occupying German troops and the power of the bourgeoisie. They governed from a feminist and anarcho-communist perspective, abolishing rent and child labor, and giving workers the right to take over workplaces abandoned by the owners. The revolutionaries took over control of Paris and held on to it for two months, until it was brutally suppressed. During Semaine Sanglante, the nationalist forces slaughtered 15,000-20,000 Communards. Hundreds more were tried and executed or deported.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #ParisCommune #anarchism #communism #execution #massacre #feminism #ChildLabor #Revolutionary

Because its March 18, the day the Paris Commune started in 1871: the best songs of the #ParisCommune #CommuneDeParis https://parislightsup.com/2021/02/10/les-plus-belles-chansons-de-la-commune-de-paris/

Online event: The #ParisCommune: A New History Apr 8 1pm-3pm EST

"#CarolynJEichner & #MitchAbidor discuss Eichner’s new book, #TheParisCommuneABriefHistory ...

"The Commune stands as a critical and pivotal moment in 19th century history, as the linchpin between revolutionary pasts and futures, and as a crucible allowing glimpses of alternate possibilities."

https://marxedproject.org/event/the-paris-commune-a-new-history/

#LaCommune #CommuneDeParis #HistFR #communardes #communards #CarolynEichner #livres #Paris #socialisme

Online event: The #ParisCommune: A New History Apr8 1pm-3pm EST

"#CarolynJEichner & #MitchAbidor discuss Eichner’s new book, #TheParisCommuneABrief History ...

"The Commune stands as a critical and pivotal moment in 19th century history, as the linchpin between revolutionary pasts and futures, and as a crucible allowing glimpses of alternate possibilities."

https://marxedproject.org/event/the-paris-commune-a-new-history/

#LaCommune #CommuneDeParis #HistFR #communardes #communards #CarolynEichner #livres #Paris #socialisme

FSP film club! This month’s online screening will be Ken McMullen’s 1871, a stylized pageant of the Paris Commune, which seized power 152 years ago this month.

A young actress becomes politically radicalized, France’s rulers plot against the rampant workers, and the great Mauritanian director Med Hondo plays Karl Marx, commenting on history as it happens.

You can watch it Sunday, March 12 at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT — just RSVP here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe1ixclPOQmnTMKNR9SNupKUtcZZ3d0E0CR1PZzZXFIxL4zFg/viewform

#periodFilm #ParisCommune #1871

Today in Labor History March 1, 1871: The victorious Prussian Army paraded through Paris after the Siege of Paris. Three weeks later, on March 18, radical soldiers from the French National Guard seized control of the city and established the Paris Commune. The workers controlled the city for two months. They abolished child labor and gave workers the right to seize businesses abandoned by the owners. They also dismantled the police and established their own self-policing. The French army quashed the commune beginning on May 21 with the Bloody Week. During that time, they slaughtered up to 20,000 people and arrested over 43,000.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #ParisCommune #prussia #anarchism #communism #massacre #slaughter #ChildLabor #police #BloodyWeek

Today in Labor History February 23, 1903: Jean-Baptiste Clement died. Clement was a socialist and Paris Communard, poet, singer and composer of the famous song, “The Time of Cherries.” He was one of the last on the barricades during the Commune. He escaped and fled to England. The French authorities condemned him to death, in absentia. They later granted him amnesty and he returned to France in 1879. He helped found the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party in 1890. Paris has since named schools and a street after him.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #ParisCommune #poet #Revolutionary #singer #JeanBaptisteClement #barricades #prison #socialism #DeathPenalty #amnesty

Today in Labor History February 22, 1879: “Le Revolte” first appeared in Switzerland. The paper was founded by Peter Kropotkin, Francois Dumarteray and Elisee Reclus. Reclus was a veteran of the Paris Commune. They published the journal bimonthly from 1879 until March, 1885.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #anarchism #kropotkin #reclus #ParisCommune

Today in Labor History February 10, 1898: Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht was born. Brecht was a doctor, poet and playwright. He fled the Nazis only to be persecuted in the U.S. by HUAC during the Cold War. He is most well-know for his play, “The Three Penny Opera.” He also wrote “Mother Courage and Her Children” and “The Days of the Commune,” about the Paris Commune. Additionally, he wrote poetry and composed the lyrics to many of the songs performed in his plays, like “Mack the Knife” and “Alabama Song” (AKA Whiskey Bar).

https://youtu.be/6orDcL0zt34

#workingclass #LaborHistory #nazis #huac #Anticommunist #witchhunt #BertoltBrecht #marxist #Poet #playwright #ParisCommune @bookstadon

Today in Labor History February 10, 1794: The French revolutionist Jacques Roux (1752-1794) committed suicide on this date in his Paris prison cell after the Committee for Public Safety arrested him during the French Revolution. Also known as the "Red Priest," Roux denounced those monopolizing the revolution, the speculator, the merchant, government and the parliamentary state. Roux anticipated many of the themes that Karl Marx would later develop. Roux’s rhetoric inspired food riots during his day and discord in the Paris Commune, 80 years later.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #JacquesRoux #marx #ParisCommune #french #revolution #prison #suicide