It's impossible for me to wrap my head around the depth of immorality needed to carry out deceptions like this, except to say the conscious embrace of dishonest #propaganda on the American right would make #Nazi and #Bolshevik propagandists blush.
Today in Labor History March 1, 1921: Anarchist and leftwing communist soldiers and sailors rose up against the Russian Bolsheviks in the Kronstadt uprising. The rebellion, which lasted until March 16, was the last major revolt against the Bolsheviks. It began when they sent delegates to Petrograd in solidarity with strikes going on in that city, and demanded the restoration of civil rights for workers, economic and political freedom for workers and peasants, including free speech, and that soviet councils include anarchists and left socialists. The Bolshevik forces, directed by Trotsky, killed over 1,000 Kronstadt rebels in battle, and executed another 2,100 in the aftermath. As many as 1,400 government troops died in their attempt to quash the rebellion.
Today in Labor History January 9, 1905: Russia’s “Bloody Sunday” occurred, with soldiers of the Imperial Guard opening fire on unarmed protesters as they marched toward the Winter Palace. They killed as many as 234 people and injured up to 800. They also arrested nearly 7,300 people. The people were demanding better working conditions and pay, an end to the Russo-Japanese War and universal suffrage. Bolsheviks and Mensheviks opposed the march because it lacked revolutionary demands. The public was so outraged by the massacre that uprisings broke out in Moscow, Warsaw, Riga, Vilna and other parts of the empire. Over 400,000 participated in a General Strike. Protests and uprisings continued for months. The backlash was horrific. The authorities killed 15,000 peasants and sent 45,000 into exile. Another 20,000 were seriously injured. Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony is subtitled “The Year 1905.” Maxim Gorky’s novel, “The Life of a Useless Man,” depicts Bloody Sunday.
Today in Labor History January 7, 1919: Argentina’s "Bloody Week" (AKA Tragic Week) began in Buenos Aires. Workers were demonstrating for the 8-hour work day. The authorities opened fire, killing four and wounding 30. Clashes with the authorities on the day of the funerals left another 50 dead. In response, they called for a General Strike. Paramilitary groups attacked workers in collaboration with the police. By January 16 the authorities had fully crushed the strike, killing as many as 700 and wounding 2,000. Many of the victims were Jewish-Russian and Italian anarchist immigrants targeted by racists and anti-Bolshevik hysteria.
Today in Labor History December 27, 1918: The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (RIAU) seized 7 airplanes, establishing an Insurgent Air Fleet. The RIAU was an anarchist peasant army led by Nestor Makhno. During the Ukrainian War of Independence, they created a stateless libertarian communist society known as the Free Territory, or Makhnovia. It lasted from 1918 to 1921, when it was ultimately crushed by the Bolsheviks.
Today in Labor History December 11, 1905: Workers and students rose up against the Russian government and established the Shuliavka Republic in Kiev, Ukraine. The uprising lasted for four days. The majority of the protesting workers were from the Shuliavka district. On the first day of the uprising, the Council of Workers' Deputies published their manifesto demanding the abolition of absolute monarchy, freedom of speech and assembly, social services, amnesty for political prisoners, national emancipation of Ukrainians, Poles and Jews, and the immediate end to the Jewish pogroms. The workers also demanded pensions and better medical services. On December 15, Shuliavska was surrounded by the Imperial Russian Army and local authorities. The police came in, made mass arrests and confiscated any weapons they found. 1 month later, Bolsheviks led another revolt in Kiev.
Today in Labor History September 18, 1945: Russian anarchist Volin died of tuberculosis in Paris. He participated in both the Russian and Ukrainian Revolutions before the Bolsheviks forced him into exile. He participated in the protests that culminated in Bloody Sunday (1905). During the ensuing strikes he led the creation of the first St. Petersburg Soviet. He criticized the October Revolution for bringing the Bolsheviks to power and then left for Ukraine, where he became an important figure and, eventually, Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council, of the anarchist Makhnovshchina, a large enclave in Ukraine, lasting about 4 years, organized under anarcho-communist principles.
Today in Labor History September 9, 1919: Boston police walked off the job during the strike wave that was spreading across the country. The police had affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, prompting the police commissioner to suspend 19 of them for their organizing efforts, and prompting other cops to go on strike. Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge announced that none of the strikers would be rehired and he called in the state police to crush the strike. However, over half of them showed solidarity and refused to work. Coolidge then mustered the state militia and created an entirely new police force made up of unemployed World War I veterans, and Harvard students. The poorly trained “cops” killed 9 people during the strike. But all the blame was placed on the strikers. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson called their strike a crime against civilization. AFL President Samuel Gompers urged the cops, whom he represented, to return to work. The press attacked the striking cops as Bolsheviks. The NY Times wrote: “A policeman has no more right to belong to a union than a soldier or a sailor. He must be ready to obey orders, the orders of his superiors, not those of any outside body. One of his duties is the maintenance of order in the case of strike violence. In such a case, if he is faithful to his union, he may have to be unfaithful to the public, which pays him to protect it.” And ever since, the cops and their “unions” (professional association might be a more appropriate term) have overwhelmingly followed the NYT advice, rarely striking themselves (~25 in the U.S. over the past 100 years) and eagerly attacking other working class people who are on strike.
Today in Writing History May 7, 1867: Polish author Wladyslaw Reymont was born. His best-known work is the award-winning four-volume novel Chłopi (The Peasants), which won him the 1924 Nobel Prize in Literature. Also in 1924, he published his novel “Revolt,” about a rebellion of farm animals fighting for equality. However, the revolt quickly degenerates into bloody terror. It was a metaphor for the Bolshevik Revolution. Consequently, the Polish authorities banned it from 1945 to 1989. Reymont’s farm animal rebellion predated Orwell’s by 21 years.