Today in Labor History Nov 2, 1917: The Balfour Declaration proclaimed British support for the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. The declaration supposedly said "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities."
This was a flier we made back in the early '90s, when the janitors at the End Up night club, in San Francisco, organized with the IWW.
The teamsters honored our picket line and refused to deliver booze. So, management rented a U-haul and tried to deliver it themselves. We blocked them for a while, until the cops came and arrested some of us.
But a lot of angry patrons couldn't understand why we were fighting against other queers (i.e., management) and, in their eyes, jeopardizing a queer-safe place. The idea that queer capitalists were exploiting queer workers seemed a radical idea to many people back then. Probably still does to a lot of people. One big happy queer family, right?
Today in Labor History February 21, 1848: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the “Communist Manifesto,” in Brussels, just as the Revolutions of 1848 began to erupt across Europe. After the French overthrew their monarchy, revolutions broke out in Germany, Italy and Austria. When the Prussian democratic parliament collapsed, and the king imposed new counter-revolutionary measures, Marx moved to Paris, then London, where he and his family lived in poverty while he continued to publish. He wrote his most important work there, “Das Kapital.”
Today in Labor History October 8, 1965: The Indonesian military, led by future dictator Suharto, began torturing and massacring thousands of "suspected" Communists, leading ultimately to the overthrow of leftist President Sukarno. Other targets of the murders were members of the Gerwani women’s movement, trade unionists, ethnic Javanese Abangan, ethnic Chinese, atheists, teachers, students, and alleged leftists in general. The U.S. embassy provided the death squads with the names of suspected “communists.” Intelligence agencies from the U.S., U.K., and Australia provided anti-communist propaganda, as well as military and logistical aid. Overall, the genocide (1965-1966) led to 500,000 to 1.2 million civilian deaths and 1.5 million imprisoned. A top-secret CIA report from 1968 called the massacres "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century, along with the Soviet purges of the 1930s, the Nazi mass murders, and the Maoist bloodbath of the early 1950s." Nevertheless, Western media either downplayed the events, or celebrated them. Suharto remained in power until 1998, continuing to imprison, torture and slaughter workers and civilians. He also presided over the East Timor Genocide of up to 300,000 people in the 1970’s.
Today in Labor History August 28, 1921: The Soviet Red Army dissolved the stateless Anarchist Free Territory, after driving the Black Army out of Ukraine. The anarchist rebel leader, Nester Makhno, barely escaped, and with serious injuries.
The Free Territory within Ukraine, also known as Makhnovia (after Nestor Makhno), lasted from 1918 to 1921. It was a stateless, anarchist society that was defended by Makhno’s Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army (AKA the Black Army). Roughly 7 million people lived in the area. The peasants who lived there refused to pay rent to the landowners and seized the estates and livestock of the church, state and private landowners, setting up local committees to manage them and share them among the various villages and communes of the Free State.
Michael Moorcock’s “A Nomad of the Time Streams” is a steampunk/alternative history novel where Makhno survives into the 1940s.
Today in Labor History August 26, 1942: At Chortkiv, the Ukrainian police and German Schutzpolizei deport two thousand Jews to Bełżec extermination camp. Five hundred of the sick and children were murdered on the spot. This continued until the next day. Prior to this, Chortkiv had a large Jewish community. Overall, an estimated 900,000-1.6 million Ukrainian Jews were executed during the Holocaust, with the collaboration of the Ukrainian military. According to German historian Dieter Pohl, roughly 100,000 Ukrainians joined police forces that participated in Nazi atrocities. Many participated in mass shootings of Jews, as well. Ivan the Terrible was a Ukrainian who served as a guard at the Treblinka death camp. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), founded in 1929, is an ultra-right, racist and nationalist organization that, during the WWII era, boasted tens of thousands of members, and which also collaborated with Nazi atrocities, including the Lviv pogroms of 1941, in which up to 6,000 Jews were massacred. During the Cold War, and despite their fascistic and antisemitic tendencies, the CIA and other western intelligence agencies funded and supported the OUN because of their anti-communist ideology. The organization, which still exists today, helped to popularize the nationalistic slogan “Slava Ukraini!” in the 1930s, though the slogan first appeared during the Ukrainian War of Independence (1917-1921). The OUN was active in the 1914 Euromaidan protests, and they are one of numerous far right nationalist organizations participating in the current war against Russia.
Today in Labor History October 18, 1968: the Olympic committee attempted to strip American Olympic track medalists John Carlos & Tommie Smith of their awards for giving the "black power" salute on October 16th at the México City Olympics.
Today in Labor History August 11, 1894: Federal troops drove over 1,000 jobless workers from the nation's capital. Led by Charles "Hobo" Kelley, an unemployed activist from California, and Jacob Coxey, they camped in Washington D.C. starting in July. Kelley's Hobo Army included a young journalist named Jack London and a young miner-cowboy named Big Bill Haywood. Frank Baum was an observer of the protest and some say it influenced his Wizard of Oz, with the Scarecrow representing the American farmer, the tin man representing industrial workers and the Cowardly Lion representing William Jennings Bryan, all marching on Washington (Oz) to demand redress from the president (the Wizard). 650 miners, led by a "General" Hogan, captured a Northern Pacific train at Butte, Montana, en route to the protest. The Feds caught up with them at Billings, forcing a surrender, but a few eventually made it to Washington.
Today in Labor History September 4, 1970: Socialist Salvador Allende was elected President of Chile. As president, he tried to nationalize major industries, expand education and improve conditions for the working class. On September 11, 1973 (the other 9/11), he was ousted in a coup by Augusto Pinochet, leading to a dictatorship that lasted until 1990. Thousands of workers, socialists, union members and activists were killed, including folk singer Victor Jara, who continued to sing, as his torturers mashed his fingers and demanded that he play his guitar. The coup and dictatorship were supported by the CIA, and by President Nixon, and by the Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Today in Labor History October 1, 1964: The Free Speech Movement began on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, when activist Jack Weinberg was arrested for refusing to show his identification to the campus police while standing at an illegal political literature table. Thousands of students spontaneously surrounded the police car, which remained there for 32 hours, with Weinberg inside. Protesters used the car as a speaker's podium. The Free Speech Movement lasted for two years and was the first mass act of civil disobedience on an American college campus in the 1960s. Students were fighting for, and won, the right to have public political activities on campus, particularly in support of the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War Movements.
Today in Labor History February 27, 1973: 300 Oglala Sioux activists from the American Indian Movement (AIM) liberated and occupied Wounded Knee, South Dakota. This was the site of the infamous Massacre at Wounded Knee (1890). They occupied the site to protest a campaign of terror against them by the FBI, and corrupt tribal officials, and the tribal thugs knowns as GOONs (Guardians of Oglala Nation). The occupation lasted over 2 months, before being quashed by the U.S. government. 3 Native activists were killed. Dennis Banks and Russell Means were indicted for their roll, but charges were later dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct.
Today in Labor History August 19, 1953: The U.S. CIA and British MI6 help Iranian royalist troops overthrow the liberal-leaning Premier Mohammed Mossadegh. As Prime Minister, he introduced reforms such as social security, land reforms and higher taxes including on rental income. He also nationalized the nation’s petroleum industry, which the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC/AIOC), later known as British Petroleum (BP) could not tolerate. As a result, they installed the brutal, pro-Western Shah Mohammed Pahlevi. The brutality of his regime, the torture, secret police, disappearances and mass imprisonment of opponents, set the stage for the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and over 40 years of US aggression against Iran.
“Michael Dunn has created the characters that bring the 19th Century's Mine Wars to life for today's readers. Anywhere but Schuylkill will remind readers of John Sayles and Tillie Olsen and the best in the long tradition of labor literature.”
—James Tracy, co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Interracial Solidarity in 1960s-70s New Left Organizing
Today in Labor and Writing History July 10, 1925: The Scopes "Monkey Trial" Trial began in Dayton, Tennessee. John T. Scopes was a high school science teacher accused of violating the Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee wrote about it in their play “Inherit the Wind” (1955). However, they said that their play was a response to the McCarthy anticommunist witch hunt and a statement in support of free speech. Ronald Kidd's 2006 novel, “Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial,” was also based on the Scopes Trial. Scopes was defended by labor Clarence Darrow, who had defended Eugene Debs, during the Pullman strike (1893); and Big Bill Haywood against false murder charges (1905); and the McNamara brothers for the false charges in the L.A. Times bombing (1910).
Today in Labor History October 19, 1889: The first nationwide school strike against corporal punishment began on this date in Hawick, Roxborough, Scotland and quickly spread across the lowlands then to Tyneside and then to London, Bristol & Cardiff.
Today in Labor History January 5, 1919: Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg launched the Spartacist Uprising in Berlin. Part of the post-WWI Revolution occurring throughout Germany, the Spartacist uprising was essentially a power struggle between the Spartacists and other Council Communists (left-wing, anti-authoritarian communists) against the Social Democrats. 500,000 workers participated in the General Strike they called for January 7 to replace the moderate Social Democratic government with a communist one. Many of the workers obtained arms. They tried, but failed, to get the support of the Navy, which remained neutral in the conflict. However, the Social Democrats got the anti-Communist Freikorps paramilitary to fight for their side. The Freikorps had weapons and military equipment leftover from WWI and were able to quash the uprising within a week. The Freikorps was comprised of WWI vets, many of whom were suffering from PTSD. Many went on to became Nazis. Up to 200 people died in the fighting, including 17 Freikorps soldiers. The Social Democrats captured, beat and executed Liebknecht and Luxemburg.
Today in Labor History November 5, 1916: The Everett Massacre occurred in Everett, Washington. 300 IWW members arrived by boat in Everett to help support the shingle workers’ strike that had been going on for the past 5 months. Prior attempts to support the strikers were met with vigilante beatings with axe handles. As the boat pulled in, Sheriff McRae called out, “Who’s your leader?” The Wobblies answered, “We’re all leaders!” The sheriff pulled his gun and said, “You can’t land.” A Wobbly yelled back, “Like hell we can’t.” Gunfire erupted, most of it from the 200 vigilantes on the dock. When the smoke cleared, two of the sheriff’s deputies were dead, shot in the back by their own men, along with 5-12 Wobblies on the boat. Dozens more were wounded. The authorities arrested 74 Wobblies. After a trial, all charges were dropped against the IWW members. The event was mentioned in John Dos Passos’s “USA Trilogy.”
Today in Labor History January 12, 1876: Working class novelist Jack London was born. As a kid, he was an oyster pirate in Oakland, along the shores of the San Francisco Bay. As a young man, he became a hobo, riding the rails from town to town, looking for handouts and sometimes work. He wrote about these experiences in his short novel, “The Road.” He was also a lifelong alcoholic, which contributed to his early death. In his novel, “John Barleycorn,” he wrote about both his alcoholism and his experiences as a laborer in numerous low-paid, backbreaking jobs. He was also a socialist and a champion of unions and working-class activism. With respect to strikebreakers, he famously wrote: "After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a cork-screw soul, a water-logged brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles." London was also one of the first Haoles (non-Native Hawaiian, or white person) to learn how to surf in Hawaii.
Today in Labor History January 19, 1812: Luddites torched Oatlands Mill in Yorkshire, England. In order to avoid losing their jobs to machines, Luddites destroyed equipment in protest. Their movement was named for Ned Ludd, a fictional weaver who supposedly smashed knitting frames after being whipped by his boss. Luddite rebellions continued from 1811-1816, until the military quashed their uprising.
Chant no more your old rhymes about bold Robin Hood
His feats I but little admire
I will sing the Achievements of General Ludd
Now the Hero of Nottinghamshire.
The sentiment for this poem comes from the fact that Robin Hood was a paternalistic hero, a displaced aristocrat who stole from his class brethren and gave to the poor; whereas Ned Ludd represented the autonomy and self-sufficiency of the working class.
Today in Labor History February 4, 1979: Six workers were killed by police in the massacre of Cromotex, Lima Peru. The workers had taken over the factory after it went bankrupt and its owners tried to close it down. Led by a hardline revolutionary, Hemigidio Huertas, workers armed with sticks took the premises over. They held out for a week, killing a police captain in the process. When police later stormed the factory, they killed six workers including Huertas. One of the survivors, Nestor Cerpa, was arrested and jailed for 10 months. After his release, he went underground and started to organize the MRTA, or Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.
“In the tradition of Upton Sinclair and Jack London, Michael Dunn gives us a gritty portrait of working-class life and activism during one of the most violent eras in U.S. labor history. Anywhere but Schuylkill is a social novel built out of passion and the textures of historical research. It is both a tale of 1870s labor unrest and a tale for the inequalities and injustices of the twenty-first century.”
-Russ Castronovo, author of Beautiful Democracy and Propaganda 1776.
Available on Sep 19, 2023, from all the usual online distributors, or direct from my publisher: http://wix.to/M9gMx11
Today in Labor History August 25, 1819: Allan Pinkerton was born. He founded the Pinkerton private police force, whose strike breaking detectives (Pinkertons, or 'Pinks') slaughtered dozens of workers in various labor struggles. Ironically, Pinkerton was a violent, radical leftist as a youth. He fought cops in the streets as a member of the Chartist Movement. He had to flee the UK in order to not be imprisoned and executed. Yet in America, he became the nation’s first super cop. He created the secret service. He foiled an assassination attempt against Lincoln. He fine-tuned the art of spying on activists and planting agents provocateur in their ranks. His agents played a major role in destroying the miners’ union in the 1870s, as portrayed in my novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill.” Later, they assassinated numerous organizers with the IWW and came within inches of successfully getting Big Bill Hayward convicted on trumped up murder charges.