#socialist history

[workersolidarity]

[kh1o]

[folk-enjoyer]

Song of the day

(do you want the history of your favorite folk song? dm me or submit an ask, and I'll do a full rundown like here)

"Bread and Roses"

Judy Collins, 1976

since its labor day i thought we could talk about some good ol' IWW labor history

in 1911, Helen Todd gave a speech about women's suffrage and ended it

"Not at once; but woman is the mothering element in the world and her vote will go toward helping forward the time when life's Bread, which is home, shelter and security, and the Roses of life, music, education, nature and books, shall be the heritage of every child that is born in the country, in the government of which she has a voice."

James Oppenheim, inspired by this speech, created the poem "Bread and Roses" in 1911, whose words would later become the lyrics for the judy collins song.

in 1912, 30,000 immigrant textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, went on strike due to poor working conditions and poor pay. this strike was led by the International Workers of the World and was comprised mostly of women. the phrase "bread and roses" was all over signs and became the slogan of the strike, with it even being called the "Bread and Roses Strike". like many strikes in the USA it was absolutely brutal for the strikers, and several people died, but they were able to win some of their demands.

in 1970, the James Oppenheim poem was put to music by mimi fariña, and then covered by judy collins. my favorite cover is by Utah Phillips in 1983 , where he explains the history of the textile strike and the meaning of the slogan

Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses 🌹

[archaeologysucks]

The Madwoman of the Rockies

For those who are interested in the saga of my research into the life of my great-great-great aunt Nellie Howard Philbrick (1861-1910), aka "the Madwoman of the Rockies", author of such books as The Idiot and the Insane and Aunt Helen's Love Letters, I am in the process of compiling a google doc (currently 40 pages) of links and transcriptions of various court records, news items, journal entries, and Nellie's submissions to leftist magazines, as well as photos of her family members. It's still a long way from done, but I think it's at least coherent enough to follow. I've contacted my aunt, and she says she will send me some scanned photos of Nellie and her daughter Fae soon.

cw: involuntary institutionalizaton, child murder, suicide

Also, due to the nature of leftist politics of that era:

cw: eugenics, racism, ableism, slurs

I will reblog this post when the document is more complete.

[fixitlikeswomen]

Yesterday was the 101st anniversary of Vladimir Lenin's death, so here are some quotes from Lenin that I feel are relevant in light of recent events in the US;

"Capitalism has triumphed all over the world, but this triumph is only the prelude to the triumph of labour over capital."

"And so in capitalist society we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false, a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to communism, will for the first time create democracy for the people, for the majority, along with the necessary suppression of the exploiters, of the minority."

[agiar2000]

60th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday

Sunday, 1965-03-07:

State troopers attack nonviolent civil rights marchers in Selma, AL (1965)

[amtskind]

kafka & socialism?

image by robert crumb

although no particular political participation is actually recorded, according to his manuscripts and contemporaries, certain socialist and anarchist values are evident in kafka's worldview. of course, from our contemporary point of view, it is possible to interpret too much into his works, whereas they had such a personal value. nevertheless, certain tendencies can be discerned.

e.g.: anti-authority: the recurring motif of an individual's powerlessness in an overpowering society. - almost caricature-like, kafka draws a picture of (mostly) workers who, in what is actually a questionable society with absurd laws and unknown authority, do not question them and accept their often suddenly tragic fate. thus josef k in the trial or the parable in the penal colony. the latter as a truly extreme example.

according to his close circle, kafka himself is said to have attended the lectures in "mladych klub" (youth club), which dealt with liberalism and anti-militarism. (source)

and according to another, rather old source, he also got into an anarchist demonstration (voluntarily or involuntarily) and joined in.

max brod confirmed his friend's interests in said ideologies, however.... all this is a bit absurd. brod said things about this engagement in 1930, but took them back later for some reason. (i really don't know what was going on there, but i cite: saul friedländer in his biography "franz kafka", 2012).

[nickysfacts]

A reminder that Karl Marx was a strong supporter of democracy and freedom!

🇺🇸☭

[cult-of-the-girl-offensive]

Happy International Women's Day!

108 years ago this day, the women of Petrograd toppled an empire. In an era in which reaction may feel unstoppable, let us honor the accomplishments and sacrifices of our forebearers, and recommit ourselves to the struggle to build a better world.

[stillnaomi]

In 1917, during WW1:

The most outstanding representative of this trend [true internationalists] in Germany is the Spartacus group or the Internationale group, to which Karl Liebknecht belongs. Karl Liebknecht is a most celebrated representative of this trend and of the new, and genuine, proletarian International.

Karl Liebknecht called upon the workers and soldiers of Germany to turn their guns against their own government. Karl Liebknecht did that openly from the rostrum of parliament (the Reichstag). He then went to a demonstration in Potsdamer Platz, one of the largest public squares in Berlin, with illegally printed leaflets proclaiming the slogan “Down with the Government!” He was arrested and sentenced to hard labour. He is now serving his term in a German convict prison, like hundreds, if not thousands, of other true German socialists who have been imprisoned for their anti-war activities.

The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution by Lenin

the enemy is at home, even when "your" country is at war with other capitalist powers. even when those powers invade "your" country or threaten to. you are a proletarian and your enemy is the bourgeoisie and its allies

[workersolidarity]

In case you feel like being completely sickened by the deprivation of the US Empire in its quest to remain a Global Hegemon, learn how the CIA engineered the Coup against Allende in Chile on Sept. 11th 1973, or how the US recruited (surprise!) literal Nazis from Germany who escaped to South America after the War to coup and destabilize Socialist governments across the Global South.

Nothing really new. We know for instance that various Nazi Commanders, U-Boat Commanders, Panzer Corps. Staff Officers and even a Goebbels Assistant were all recruited by NATO and became Commanders-in-Chief of Allied Forces in Central Europe and AFNORTH such as Friedrich Guggenberger, Sturmfuhrer Dr. Eberhard Taubert, Johann Von Kielmansegg, Karl Schnell, Ernst Ferber, Franz Joseph Schulze, Ferdinand Von Senger und Etterline, and Hans Speidel.

All were prominent Nazi Commanders, all became prominent NATO Commanders.

NATO is an Offensive Fascist Alliance. The US is a Fascist Empire.

The US is and has been for a long long time, a Fascist Empire with a smile, with useless elections where Wall Street controls the ballot so the outcome doesn't have to be controlled.

[princessnastyaromanov]

The USSR was an empire and that's good actually

Western "socialists" argue back and forth and back and forth about whether the USSR was an empire (bad) or not an empire (good). It has been revealed to me through my seances that the truth is that the USSR was an empire (good)!

Through glory and conquest the USSR brought Socialism In One Country to more and more people. Socialism in One Even Bigger Country every time! International Socialism requires territorial expansion. It is only through empire that true anarchist communism can be achieved."

It is through the dialectic of science and seance that the truth is revealed. You are welcome, my little kittens.

[folk-enjoyer]

Folk Song Friday

Jesus Christ Woody Guthrie, 1944-45

"Jesus Christ" is a song written by woody guthrie in 1940, set to the traditional American folk song of "The Ballad of Jesse James", which started to appear in the 19th century. I will probably make a separate post for its history.

The interesting thing about "Jesus Christ" is that Jesus Christ in the story is depicted as a robinhood-like figure for the toilers and the downtrodden who is killed by the police. Like many other working class and socialist American folk music, Jesus Christ here is emphasized as a worker and a radical. This is different from earlier American socialist music, such as the music of Joe Hill in the 1910s, which often depicted religion, religious figures, and religious mythology in a distinctly negative light. "Casey Jones The Union Scab" hires Casey as a scab in heaven since the angels are on strike, implying that worker exploitation exists in heaven as well. And "Long haired Preachers" which is just a negative song about The Salvation Army and Christian charity as a whole, also I love it. I think both forms of rhetoric within these two types of American leftist folk are interesting and worth listening to. I really like this song !

[ichabodjane]

Happy Labor Day to Canadians and my fellow Americans!

Friendly reminder that our Labor Day is in September - instead of May 1st like pretty much all other countries that celebrate it - because the American ruling class is terrified of international worker solidarity!

May 1st was designated International Workers' Day by the American Federation of Labor in 1889 to commemorate a general American strike that started on May 1st 1886 and ended several days later with the Haymarket Affair, often cited as the culmination of the Great Upheaval, a period of strong worker organization that started in 1877.

But since this decision came from the Marxist International Socialist Congress, it was entirely TOO RED AND SCARY for the Americans. So we got our Labor Day in September.

Lameskies if you ask me but I still hope y'all enjoy your day off. If you got one at all.

[tuhkasirius]

Showed my mum around to some of our working class industrial history and took some cool pictures while at it

[agiar2000]

"A Raisin in the Sun" Debuts 66 Years Ago

Wednesday, 1959-03-11:

Black socialist Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" debuts on Broadway.