Organizing in the “Inferno of Misery”: Jewish Workers’ Struggles in Britain Between 1900 and 1914

By Panos Theodoropoulos

Introduction: Why study the history of migrant workers’ movements?

When Rudolf Rocker, one of the central theorists of anarcho-syndicalism, began exploring London in the turn of the 20th century, he witnessed “an abyss of human suffering, an inferno of misery” (Rocker 2005: 25). Eager to get acquainted with the workers and the movements in his new city, he started going to the East End to attend meetings and socialize with fellow migrant socialists and anarchists. Many recent Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe had congregated in the area, which was “a slum district”. He remembers “a church at the corner of Commercial Street, at the Spitalfields end, where at any time of the day you would see a crowd of dirty, lousy men and women, looking like scarecrows, in filthy rags, with dull hopeless faces, scratching themselves. That was why it was called Itchy Park”. The Jewish working-class Londoners who attended these meetings, primitive cells of what would soon become a powerful migrant trade union movement, “looked sad and worn; they were sweatshop workers, badly paid, and half starved” (Rocker 2005: 26-27). The destitution he saw in London led him to conclude that, contrary to popular beliefs that revolution is triggered by a worsening of living conditions, “there is a pitch of material and spiritual degradation from which a man can no longer rise. Those who have been born into misery and never knew a better state are rarely able to resist and revolt” (2005: 25). A social movement in these locations, targeting these specific circumstances, had to be based on more than abstract theory. It had to directly fight for the improvement of living conditions, while at the same time providing resources for the masses of Jewish (and English) workers to expand their horizons, emerge from the alienation of daily life, and imagine alternatives. This is a conclusion that remains relevant today.

The history of migrant workers’ movements in the United Kingdom remains, largely, unwritten. Plenty of books have been written focusing on specific ethnic groups or on specific time periods. However, no singular book or study exists that specifically surveys the historical struggles of migrant populations as migrants and as workers, attempting to draw connections between the experiences of different ethnic migrant groups and, ultimately, lessons for movements wishing to organize with migrant and marginalized people today. This is, however, an incredibly important task, as these groups not only had been organizing along broadly intersectional lines long before these concepts were formally introduced in the 1970s, but also because their methods of organizing offer fruitful suggestions for working around the effects of precarity, transience, alienation, language and cultural difficulties, and disorientation that frequently debilitate attempts by migrant solidarity movements to organize (with) these populations. Broadly speaking, despite the innumerable differences that stem from different ethnic groups’ cultural backgrounds, positions within the labor and social hierarchy in their host countries, locations on the gradient of whiteness, etc., all the migrant groups that managed to organize themselves in the UK did so by acting on at least three crucial ideas.

Primarily, they understood that, rather than fight for acceptance within the dominant structures of society and trade unions (which were often outright racist and exclusionary), their exclusion necessitated their autonomous organization. Critically, this autonomy emerges historically not as detrimental, but actually beneficial to, the empowerment of the working class as a whole. Secondarily, their autonomy and continuous empowerment depended on their physical embeddedness within the communities that they represented. Third, this embeddedness, and their wider analysis and praxis, had to extend beyond the narrow domain of class politics; they understood that cultural symbols play a key role in maintaining the illusion of disempowerment amongst oppressed groups, and thereby operationalized a broad, non-economistic conception of capitalism which recognized its multi-faceted, culturally dependent character. The example of the Jewish workers’ activities in London, specifically those coalitions that were established around the Arbeter Fraint group, is one small but inspiring instance of how a completely marginalized, hated, divided, and alienated mass of migrant workers managed to not only disprove Rocker’s initial pessimism, but also support the very same British local working class that excluded them.

The wider context: Struggling in a hostile environment

While migrant worker groups in the UK during the 1900s varied in countries of origin, occupations, and specific experiences, they shared some characteristics in terms of the social exclusion and exploitation they faced upon arrival. These characteristics bear significant resemblance to those experienced by migrant populations currently in the West. In the early 1900s, minorities in the UK consisted mainly of West Indian, Caribbean, Asian and Irish populations, all of which arrived through the networks fostered by Britain’s expansive imperial activities (Ramdin 2017; Virdee 2014; Freyer 1984). Migration in Britain is deeply historically structured by imperialism, and the role of Empire cannot be ignored when analyzing migrant lives and trajectories. As such, the experiences of migrant groups have been determined by an interplay of both the demands of British capitalism and an imperial ideology of racial difference and superiority, which enabled and justified their exploitation and socio-political exclusion (Virdee 2014; Tabili 1994).

Migrants were swiftly inserted in those occupations that demanded workers or were otherwise kept as a reserve army of labor until demand rose again (Ramdin 2017; Virdee 2014; Tabili 1994). Located in the most insecure and exploitable segments of the labor hierarchy, a variety of interrelated factors impeded migrants’ chances of joining trade unions. Perhaps the biggest contributor to this were the attitudes of the British trade union movement, which was active in anti-immigration campaigns under the claim that migrant workers represented “unfair competition” to British labor. Lack of familiarity with the English language and culture, spatial segregation, de-skilling, and the unwillingness of many bosses to employ migrants pushed them to the lowest paid and most exploitative occupations; importantly, these occupations were usually not covered by the union victories that had been gained by many British workers in the course of their historic struggle. These same characteristics, alongside a necessity to constantly fight for one’s survival stemming from their precarious circumstances, were also a contributor in migrant workers being used as strike-breakers in various instances of labor struggle. For example, when the skilled tailors from the West End of London went on strike in 1911, the owners turned to Jewish labor from small and mostly unskilled East End workshops (Rocker 2005: 127).

These factors combined in making it easy for unions, bosses, British workers, the local media and politicians to draw a fictitious connection between migrant labor and the threat to established labor rights, which was used to establish and expand a climate of hostility and exclusion that further cemented migrant disempowerment, and therefore, exploitability (Fishman 2004). Migrant workers mostly found themselves outside the organizing priorities of the major unions and were regularly directly blamed for the wider economic difficulties of the British working class. Their exclusion from mainstream unions combined with the aforementioned cultural and subjective factors to create a highly vulnerable and exploitable population.

The Arbeter Fraint and the organization of London’s Jewish workers

Williams (1980) locates the beginning of significant numbers of Jewish migration to the UK in the 1840. However, in response to an increase in pogroms and wider anti-Semitic activity in Europe, Jewish migration to the UK peaked between the 1880s and 1914, with the Jewish population increasing from 60,000 to approximately 300,000 (Virdee 2014). Between 1881 and 1882 more than 225,000 Jewish families fled Russia, with many settling in the East End of London (Fishman 2004). Newly arrived Jewish workers were predominantly absorbed by the tailoring industry, finding themselves in a complex network of independent workshops, many of which were sweatshops (Rocker 2005; Fishman 2004; Buckman 1980;). Over time, Jewish workers became fully connected in popular imagination to these workshops, which further curtailed their chances of finding other types of employment (Fishman 2004). Caught between being heavily exploited by wealthier members of their own communities, known as Masters (the owners of the workshops), and being excluded from most significant trade unions while facing intense racism from wider society, Jewish workers were forced to organize themselves and struggle for both labor and social rights (Virdee 2014; Fishman 2004; Buckman 1980). In so doing, they engaged with and directly aided the wider working-class movement, with individuals such Eleanor Marx playing key organizing roles in the social struggles of the time.

The competition inherent in capitalism combined with the general poverty of migrant Jewish communities to create a constant race to the bottom in terms of working conditions in the workshops. Rocker (2005: 89) writes that “the clothing industry in the East End was run by hundreds of small master-tailors who were sub-contractors for the big firms in the City and the West End. In order to get the contract they under-bid each other mercilessly, thus creating their own hell. They passed that hell on of course to their workers. The new immigrants, the greeners, as they were called, who had just arrived from Poland or Russia or Romania and had to earn their bread, went to these small sweatshops to learn to be pressers of machinists. They started as under-pressers or plain-machinists, working for about six months for a skilled presser or machinist, doing the first preparatory work for him, till they learned to work for themselves.”

To further complicate matters, the skilled presser or machinist was usually responsible for paying and organizing the labor of the workers under him, while he was being paid directly by the master. This is illustrative of the wider chain of relationships that created the adverse labor conditions experienced by Jewish workers: large firms and industries, themselves engaged in competition with each other, constantly demanded lower prices from masters; therefore, masters demanded more work for less remuneration by the skilled workers; who, in turn, demanded the same from the “unskilled” workers under them. Jewish workers, especially the newer arrivals, were poor and willing to accept whatever conditions saved them from starvation. According to Rocker, “the evil of the sweating system was that it was so contrived that each drove everybody else” (2005: 89). There were frequent attempts by individual workers to amass the money required to open a private workshop and join the ranks of the masters; however, this proved very difficult and only a few managed to sustain their businesses. Most workers remained workers (Fishman 2004).

The unionization of Jewish workers was rendered difficult due to a variety of factors, including the fact that organizers had to contend with the exploitation stemming from within the community as well as hostility from without. Class divisions quickly solidified as Jews were simultaneously excluded from the wider labor market and therefore pushed to find work within their communities (Buckman 2008; Fishman 2004). Jewish masters were adept at forming coalitions amongst themselves when threatened by strike or other activity and were supported by other industrialists (Williams 1980; Buckman 1980). To further problematize matters, early arrivals were unacquainted with the traditions of English unionism, exasperating local organizers when they attempted to engage with them (Buckman 1980). Furthermore, the structure of the industry meant that there was a high degree of mobility; workers moved between sweatshops as well as gradually gaining skills and rising up the hierarchy. The oscillations of the trade meant that during one season there could be a large pool of workers ready for union activity, while in the next season the majority of those workers could be unemployed (Rocker 2005; Buckman 1980). This precarity also acted as a barrier to workers’ readiness to engage in potentially risky oppositional actions. However, the most significant barrier to Jews joining unions were the unions themselves: despite some notable exceptions, generally unions were unwilling to work with Jews and were active campaigners in favor of stricter migration controls (Virdee 2014; Rocker 2005).

Despite the difficulties, the exclusion and exploitation experienced at all levels of social existence led Jewish workers to approach some local unions and to eventually begin organizing themselves autonomously as migrant workers (Virdee 2014; Buckman 1980). The efforts of the Socialist League, which included the Jewess Eleanor Marx in its ranks, were instrumental in providing an initial impetus for organization as well as material support. The Socialist League was one of the few British socialist formations of the late 19th century that explicitly rejected refused to subscribe to a myopic, white and British-centered view of the working class, instead promoting internationalism, anti-imperialism and migrant solidarity (Virdee 2017; 2014). The Jewish working class, which already had members with highly developed radical ideas, resonated with the SL and began organizing. Crucially, the SL managed to forge alliances between Jewish and British elements of the working class. In 1889, for example, the Socialist League pressured for an alliance between the Leeds Jewish tailors and the anti-immigration Gasworkers union. The tailors joined the struggle for the eight-hour movement, which culminated in a successful strike that won the demands within days (Buckman 1980). This, and subsequent victories by the Leeds Jewish Tailor’s Union made a significant contribution in the battle against anti-immigrant sentiment, while at the same time advancing the interests of the wider working class in the UK (Buckman 2008).

The years between 1900 and 1914 also witnessed a period of intense organizing and victories by Jewish workers in the East End of London (Virdee 2014; Rocker 2005; Fishman 2004). The first seeds for radical activity in the region had been sown in the 1870s through the establishment of the Hebrew Socialist Union, led by Aron Lieberman (Fishman 2004). The HSU was involved in a plethora of campaigns, its main purpose being to spread socialism amongst the Jewish working class and assist in their organization in trade unions. While the group was short lived, it set the stage for subsequent actions. A variety of Jewish unions began emerging in the late 19th century, including “the Hebrew Cabinet Makers’ Society, Stick and Cane Dressers’ Union, International Furriers’ Society, Tailor Machinist union, Tailors and Pressers Union, Amalgamated Lasters; Society, United Cap Makers’ Society and International Journeymen Boot Finishers’ Society” (Fishman 2004).

In the early 1900s, a group of Jewish radicals and anarchists centered around the radical Yiddish newspaper Arbeter Fraint expanded these attempts (Rocker 2005; Fishman 2004). The existence of the newspaper was fundamental in unionization processes because, since most British trade unions were unwilling to organize Jews, it was imperative that they organize themselves. For that, political education was of paramount importance (Rocker 2005). The paper’s readership increased significantly through the years, gaining thousands of readers and becoming firmly embedded in both local and international movement circles. Most importantly, it was read and supported by the working-class, with Rocker (2005: 96) remembering that “young girls who slaved in the sweatshops of a weekly pittance of ten or twelve shillings, literally took the bread from their mouths to give the movement a few pennies.”

In 1906, the Arbeter Fraint group opened a social club in Jubilee Street which was to play a major role in the East End Jewish workers’ movement (Rocker 2005; Fishman 2004). It quickly became one of the centers of community life, organizing events that connected Jewish workers to their culture as well as maintaining a commitment to political education and providing meeting spaces for workers to organize. It consisted of an 800-capacity gallery, some halls with space for meetings and various events, and a library. It offered classes in English, history and sociology, as well as hosting a range of cultural events, including debates, live music, and poetry readings. Importantly, most of these provisions were open for everyone regardless of club membership or background (Rocker 2005; Fishman 2004). An example of the club’s activities which illustrates the organizers’ priorities is the annual trip to Epping Forest, regarded by many workers as “the highlight of their lives, in contrast with the everyday gloom and drudgery of the sweatshop” (Fishman 2004: 262). People would bring their families, and, following a long walk, would then congregate to listen to Rocker lecture on topics ranging from literature to history and politics (Fishman 2004). Rather than simply viewing workers as faceless units in need of strict labor organization, emphasis was placed on substantial empowerment, experience of beauty, and the destruction of the alienation experienced in the course of their daily occupations.

The constant agitation and work inside the community eventually led to a wave of militant union activity, extending beyond the narrow spaces of East London (Rocker 2005; Fishman 2004). At its peak, Rocker (2005: 6) claims that the East End had “the most powerful migrant movement that had developed in Britain.” Years of political education had resulted in the mass meetings of the Federation of Jewish Anarchists being attended by “five, six, seven thousand people” (2005: 6). Crucially, and in contrast with many other immigrant communities, Jewish immigrants had no intention of returning to their countries of origin, which resulted in them becoming fully invested in the improvement of their daily lives in the UK (Rocker 2005). When, in 1912, the skilled tailors of the West End commenced strike activity, the Arbeter Fraint group used the opportunity to agitate for a general strike amongst East End Jewish tailors, many of whom were being used as strike breakers.

Thousands attended the general meeting that was called, and more than 13,000 workers participated in the strike in the first 2 days. They attempted to permanently do away with the sweatshop system, demanding a normal working day, the abolition of overtime, higher wages, and the closure of small workshops with unhygienic conditions. As this community was not wealthy, many participated in the strike without strike pay. They forged alliances with the contemporaneous London dockers’ strike and held joint meetings and demonstrations. The strike was ultimately successful after 3 weeks: the masters conceded shorter hours, no piecework, better conditions, and committed to only employ unionized workers. Emerging victorious, the Jewish workers didn’t stop there: seeing the dockers’ strike drag on, they decided to ask Jewish families to care for the dockers’ children, and over 300 were taken in Jewish homes. This strike represented the culmination of decades of organizing, its results ranging far beyond narrow material gains: it succeeded in abolishing sweatshops in the East End, while at the same time challenging the dominant British perceptions about Jewish workers and establishing strong bonds of solidarity with the local workers’ movement (Rocker 2005; Fishman 2004).

Between the East End and the future

This wave of radicalization ultimately faded away with the onset of the First World War and the British government’s crackdown on all radical activity. Rocker and many of his comrades were imprisoned, and the legacy of the East End Jewish workers was largely forgotten as it was erased from most accounts of history emanating from British trade unions. However, despite the vast differences that exist between the 1900s and now, there are several crucial lessons that can be drawn from the Jewish workers’ methods of organizing. They address structural barriers to organization that are shared by many migrant groups today: namely, their exclusion from most mainstream trade unions (despite the lip service paid to notions of “equality” and diversity”), their precarity and transience in the job market, their spatial segregation in specific neighborhoods and areas, and their exclusion from the host society more generally.

In the example of the East end workers and their club in Jubilee Street, the issues of patience and embeddedness emerge as paramount to organizing the excluded. The first noteworthy attempts at unionization and collective resistance from Jewish workers in Britain can be located at least as far back as the mid-1800s, slowly sowing the seeds for the powerful movement that emerged in the early 1900s. These consistent efforts laid the groundwork for establishing physical entities which the workers could access outside of their workplaces: this was critical for their capacity to organize because, 1) being based close to where they lived, it provided a space to come together despite the transitory and precarious nature of their labor trajectories, 2) it was a safe space to organize away from the masters and their cronies, and 3) far from myopically attempting to organize workers purely on the basis of their class status, it was a space which enabled the generation of various activities that aimed at substantial empowerment.

These elements were all undoubtedly impacted, to some degree, by the Arbeter Fraint’s broad, non-economistic conception of capitalist oppression. Their analysis, informed by anarchism, Marxist economics, but also sociology and philosophy, was able to understand how marginalization and alienation not only debilitate oppressed groups’ capacities for action now, but also penetrate deep into their psyches and foreclose those possibilities for the future as workers begin to naturalize their circumstances. The Arbeter Fraint’s patient agitating work, and the existence of a physical space that became a beacon of hope in the East End, were direct, tangible examples that another world is possible. And that we can collectively begin crafting this world today, in our daily interactions.

The combination of embeddedness and a broad conception of capitalist oppression is perhaps the most critical lesson the East End movement has to offer in terms of organizing (with) oppressed groups today. In the West’s hyper-precarious realities, where social bonds have generally grown weaker and liquified, where migrant workers are not only marginalized and exploited but are actively hunted and imprisoned, where worker transience has expanded to almost all sectors of the lower rungs of the labor hierarchy, and where capitalism is increasingly becoming naturalized as an unalterable quasi-natural phenomenon, social movements and those wishing to organize with oppressed groups must focus on becoming rooted in the communities they claim to represent. Furthermore, they must offer imaginative, inspiring alternatives that engage with workers as full human beings, rupturing the sterile and literally depressing one-dimensionality of capitalist realism. Recall how the Jubilee Street club’s annual retreat to Epping Forest represented, for many workers, the highlight of their year.

These activities are inseparably connected to the movement’s militant success: as anarchists and socialists, we are not simply fighting for improvements in our socioeconomic statuses. We are fighting to develop the conditions for all humans to have the resources, space, time, and ideas to fully actualize themselves, to emerge from the drudgery of daily alienation into an empowered state where everything is possible, as long as we work towards it together. Although we are workers, our outlook is geared towards the emancipation of labor, and towards emancipation from the status of wage laborers. In response to capitalism’s tendency to minimize, regiment, and direct the complexity of human existence purely towards the production of surplus value, the Jewish migrant workers in the East End foregrounded culture, education, community, and, crucially, having fun. These characteristics were vital in inspiring others to join their ranks as empowered individuals uniting for a collective cause, and can be equally powerful and inspirational today. To reach these horizons, community embeddedness, especially through the establishment of autonomous, open, and radical social spaces, emerges as an inescapable necessity.

This article includes segments of Panos’s PhD thesis on the barriers to the organization of precarious migrant workers in Scotland, available in full and for free here.

References

Buckman, J. (1980) Alien Working-Class Response: The Leeds Jewish Tailors, 1880-1914. In: Lunn, K. (ed.) (1980) Hosts, Immigrants and Minorities: Historical Responses to Newcomers in British Society 1870-1914. Kent: Dawson

Fishman, J. (2004) East End Jewish Radicals. Nottingham: Five Leaves Publications

Freyer, P. (1984) Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press

Ramdin, R. (2017) The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain. London: Verso

Rocker, R. (2005) The London Years. Nottingham: Five Leaves Publications

Tabili, L. (1994) “We Ask for British Justice”: Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain. New York: Cornell University Press

Virdee, S. (2014) Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider. London: Palgrave Macmillan

Williams, B. (1980) The Beginnings of Jewish trade Unionism in Manchester, 1889-1891. In: Lunn, K. (ed.) (1980) Hosts, Immigrants and Minorities: Historical Responses to Newcomers in British Society 1870-1914. Kent: Dawson

About the author:

Panos Theodoropoulos is a sociologist based in Athens, Greece, and is currently active with the Libertarian Syndicalist Union (ESE). His Ph. D thesis was focused on examining the barriers that precarious migrant workers in Scotland experience in regard to labor organization. Previously active with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), he has been involved in various organizing campaigns as a migrant worker in the UK and is currently focused on using sociology to develop theoretical tools that can practically assist social movements organizing towards our complete liberation.

Movements Aren't Won or Lost in Elections: Putting India Walton's Campaign for Mayor of Buffalo in Context

(Photo: Friends of India Walton)

By Russell Weaver

India Walton — the progressive, working-class, 39-year-old, Black mother-of-four who stunned Buffalo’s Democratic establishment with her June 2021 upset win in the Mayoral Primary Election — appears to have lost her bid to become the city’s Chief Executive. As of this writing, she’s received 41% of the General Election vote, with unnamed write-in candidates (but, presumably, Primary loser and 16-year-incumbent, Byron Brown) winning the remaining 59% of ballots cast. 

Some observers, including Brown, have been quick to characterize Walton’s loss as a “rebuke” of her leftist brand of politics, stating that her General Election performance should serve as a “warning” to Democrats that leftward movement will cost the party at the ballot box. To paraphrase the celebratory words of New York State’s Republican Committee Chairperson on election night, Brown did not simply beat Walton — he defeated a socialist movement in Buffalo.  

Funny thing about movements, though: they’re not won or lost in an election. Rather, movements progress through phases of an iterative, nonlinear process. Engineer-turned-activist Bill Moyer, who’s frequently credited with steering the Chicago Freedom Movement toward its focus on fair housing in the 1960s, labeled this process the Movement Action Plan (MAP) – a concept he originated, developed, experienced, and refined through a lifetime of organizing. 

In brief, MAP proposes that successful social movements pass through eight phases: 

1. During “normal times,” systemic problems like economic inequality or housing insecurity are not prominent on the public agenda. The problems, and the policies that sustain them, are relatively overlooked by the public and mainstream media.

2. Small networks of organizations and activists with expertise on a systemic problem use official channels (e.g., media, courts, public hearings) and organizing campaigns to focus attention on that problem.

3. Growing attention to the problem produces “ripening conditions” wherein more organizations and people become sympathetic to the movement’s positions. To Moyer, by this stage some 20-30% of the public are aware of and opposed to the problem.

4. One or more highly visible “trigger events” animates the problem, clearly illustrating the need for change to a broad audience. During this “take off” phase, people and organizations flock to the movement in greater numbers. For Moyer, the fraction of the public aware of the problem and opposed to the policies or institutions responsible for it reaches 40% in this stage (recall: Walton won over 41% of General Election votes).

5. Seeing the movement’s gains during “take off” as a threat to the status quo, powerholders mobilize their disproportionate power and resources against it, blocking its more transformative demands from being implemented. At least some members of or sympathizers with the movement see these unachieved demands as failure. This “perception of failure” leads to attrition.

6. The movement’s experiences with external pushback and internal attrition help sharpen its analysis of power and of the social, economic, and institutional relations that produce and sustain systemic problems. It uses that analysis to build or expand prefigurative institutions that model solutions to those problems (e.g., in India Walton’s case, community land trusts like the one she co-founded to promote affordable housing in Buffalo). Over time, “re-trigger events” bring problems back to life and again draw people and organizations to the movement in numbers. In Moyer’s experience, this is the stage of “majority public opinion,” where most people come to see a problem in terms of the policies and institutions that create and sustain it. Thus, it’s also the stage where most people come to oppose the status quo and the powerholders who uphold it.

7. No longer just opposed to the status quo, a public majority embraces what were previously “feared” alternatives (i.e., the movement’s more transformative demands), creating the environment for structural change. In Moyer’s terms, this is a stage of “success,” where incremental proposals no longer pacify the public as they once did. Instead, old policies and institutions are changed or dismantled, new ones are built, and people and organizations from the movement begin to replace powerholders who still seek to block transformative social change.

8. Finally, in what Moyer called “continuing the struggle,” the movement works to extend successes, fend off attempts to undo progress, and transcend the boundaries (spatial, social, or political) of its prior victories.

The champions of the status quo sounding the death knell on Buffalo’s progressive movement either aren’t thinking at the MAP temporal scale; or, more likely, they’re intentionally conflating Walton’s election loss with evidence that progressive politics aren’t capable of taking root in the existing political-economic system, thereby attempting to accelerate attrition from the Buffalo-based movement that Walton’s come to represent.  

Don’t fall for that tactic.  

Walton’s campaign pulled back the curtain on Buffalo’s “resurgence” narrative, highlighting how the city’s pro-growth economic agenda has exacerbated inequality, creating wealth and benefits for affluent developers and property owners while making life more precarious for the disempowered masses. She helped elevate systemic problems like housing insecurity, food deserts, and care deficits to the public agenda. And, perhaps most importantly, she advanced alternative policies and institutions — public—community partnerships to build networked land trusts, participatory budgeting, a public bank, and more — that have the potential to address those problems at a structural level.  

Not long ago, these proposals — which her opponents breathlessly call “radical socialist” — might not have won much favor in a “moderate, business friendly” city like Buffalo. But Walton just captured over 41% of the general electorate, while bringing scores of people (especially young people) into progressive politics. Her campaign was a trigger event that helped the movement reach “take off” (stage four). Her loss will be perceived by some as a failure (stage five). But, in truth, it’s a transition point.  

The speed and ease with which establishment Democrats and Republicans joined forces to drag Brown over the finish line as a write-in candidate laid bare the real fight. It’s not about shifting power from one political party to another — but from the opulent minority to the working-class majority. Notably, Walton seemingly won over Buffalo’s working-class communities. On that backdrop, and with the Mayoral election in the rearview mirror, Buffalo’s progressive movement looks poised to drive headstrong into MAP stage six: institution building.  

By working outside of elected office (for now) to continue building the prefigurative, people-centered organizations that Walton’s campaign promised to everyday Buffalonians, progressives in the city can institutionalize their recent gains. That way, when the next “re-trigger event” calls Buffalo’s collective attention to the city’s worsening inequality, concentrated poverty, housing insecurity, or related problems — and such an event will inevitably occur, given the choice to keep a developer-friendly strategy in place — the movement will have ready-made infrastructure on which to greet the general public, whose eventual rejection of business-as-usual will come with demands for transformative alternatives (stage seven).  

India Walton might have lost an election, but she also might have helped Buffalo progress more than halfway through the stages of a winning social movement. Now isn’t the time for despair, but for sustained building and organizing: “success” is arguably just a stage (or two) away. 

Russell Weaver is a Rust Belt-based geographer and data analyst who studies economic democracy and spatial patterns of inequality. Follow him on Twitter @RustBeltGeo 

50 years since Attica Rebellion: Reflections on the Prisoners’ Paris Commune

By Sharon Black

Republished from Struggle La Lucha.

Including a special interview with Tom Soto, Prisoners Solidarity Committee observer. 

On Sept. 9, 1971, approximately 1,500 prisoners in Cell Block D seized the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York, after submitting a 27-point manifesto to the prison administration in an attempt to address the torturous conditions inside the prison.

At the time of the uprising, 2,300 prisoners were sandwiched into a prison built for barely 1,600 people. White supremacy behind the walls was evident everywhere, from how prisoners were housed to brutal work assignments. 

Prisoners were allowed one shower per week and one roll of toilet paper a month. They labored for five hours a day and were paid between 20 cents and $1 for the entire day. For 14 to 16 hours, they were locked in tiny 6-foot by 9-foot cells.

A revolutionary mood

It is critical to understand the broader historical context in which this rebellion took place. How could people who were so beaten down, whose lives hung in the balance at the whim of a guard, take such heroic action?

Outside of the jails and also inside many prisons, a battle was raging for the national liberation of Black, Puerto Rican, Indigenous and Chicanx people. A new revolutionary mood was sweeping the country to end all kinds of oppression. 

Millions of people were protesting the Vietnam War. The women’s liberation movement was beginning to blossom. The Stonewall Rebellion had sparked a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and Two Spirit (LGBTQ2S) liberation movement. Just two years later, the occupation of Wounded Knee by the American Indian Movement (AIM) took place. 

The McKay Commission (New York State Special Commission on Attica) later commented: “With the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century, the State Police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War.” 

Organizing behind the walls

Serious organizing was going on inside Attica prior to the rebellion. Many of the groups outside the prison were reflected inside, including the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, the Nation of Islam and the Five Percenters. Many had study groups. The Attica Liberation Faction developed in this period.    

In July 1971, the Attica Liberation Faction presented a list of 27 demands to Commissioner of Corrections Russell Oswald and Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. This list of demands was based on the Folsom Prisoners’ Manifesto crafted by Chicanx prisoner Martin Sousa in support of a November 1970 prisoner strike in California. (For more background, see Project NIA.)

Then, on Aug. 21, 1971, Black Panther leader George Jackson was gunned down by racist guards in California’s San Quentin prison. Prisoners all across the country, including several hundred in Attica, went on hunger strikes. The assassination of George Jackson became the glue that allowed the Attica prisoners to unite across religions, nationalities and political factions.

The prisoners’ Paris Commune

On Sept. 9, Attica prisoners seized the facility. They took corrections officers hostage to ensure that their protest would be heard, since they had received no response to their manifesto from the corrections commissioner or governor.

While the events that took place on Sept. 9 were spontaneous and began as a clash between guards and prisoners, the level of organizing and what became a full-scale uprising were the result of the revolutionary leadership and consciousness that had grown during this period.

What’s remarkable is the high degree of organization and discipline of the thousands of prisoners who took part. They elected a central committee, which rotated chairpeople; they organized a 33-person observers’ committee, which included not only attorney William Kunstler, Black Panther Bobby Seale, New York State Assemblymember Arthur O. Eve, and representatives of the Young Lords, but also Tom Soto of the Prisoners Solidarity Committee. 

Demands were continually being developed. A major one was amnesty for all prisoners.

Countless photos show the rows of tents, preparatory ditches and many of the other measures the prisoners organized. They voted on demands and rationed food and water for survival. During the entire occupation, the 40 hostages were treated humanely.  

The concrete demands that developed during the insurrection included all aspects of survival in the prison, including health, food, ending solitary confinement, the right to visitation and a list of labor rights, including the right to a union and an end to exploitation.

The first time the working class took power into its own hands was the insurrection known as the Paris Commune of 1871. The communards canceled rents, recognized women’s rights, abolished child labor, took over workplaces and set up their own form of government. The commune served as a historical example to many revolutionary socialists of the potential for a workers’ state. It was ultimately put down in blood, but the lessons remain.

A century later, on Sept. 13, 1971, Gov. Rockefeller ordered the storming of Attica prison. With helicopters flying overhead, close to 1,000 state troopers, national guard troops and prison guards fired into the yard, killing 39 people and wounding 85 in what can only be described as a massacre. This took place in just 15 minutes.

Many of those wounded received no medical care. The prisoners had no guns or bullets to defend themselves.

The press screamed that the 10 captive guards who died had their throats slit. But autopsies showed that all 10 had been shot to death by Rockefeller’s storm troopers. 

What happened in the immediate aftermath of the slaughter is too painful to fully describe.  Prisoners were stripped naked, beaten, made to run through gauntlets of guards and brutally tortured. Guards stormed into the yard chanting “white power.”

A battle cry for liberation 

Nevertheless, the Attica uprising and the massacre stirred prisoners everywhere. It’s estimated that 200,000 prisoners protested and held strikes in its aftermath. The number of prison rebellions doubled. 

It continues to serve as a beacon today for those fighting against racism and mass incarceration and for workers’ rights everywhere.

How 'Justice for George Floyd!' Shook the Ruling Class to the Core

By Nino Brown

Republished from Liberation News.

On May 25, 2020, 44-year-old white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on 46-year-old unarmed Black man George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds, sadistically murdering him. Floyd was accused of using a counterfeit 20 dollar bill at a local convenience store in the middle of a pandemic that left tens of millions of Americans out of work and deeper in poverty. Floyd was a victim of the capitalist system, one of the tens of millions who were out of employment. The deadly encounter between Floyd and Chauvin was captured on video by community members and went viral shortly thereafter. 

The next day, the Black working-class communities of Minneapolis led thousands of people of all nationalities demanding justice and accountability, inspiring a nationwide protest movement against racism and police brutality that brought an estimated 35 million people into the streets in righteous and militant indignation. Solidarity protests were held in 60 countries all over the world from Palestine to Haiti to South Korea and more. As brutal force and thousands upon thousands of arrests were employed to repress the movement, the racist underbelly of so-called U.S. democracy was on display to the entire world.

One year since these rebellions began, many reforms have been passed and changes made to combat racism. Politicians and corporations have pivoted to allay the rage of the masses of people across the country sick and tired of racist police terror and the entire system of capitalism with its disgusting inequality. All across the country organizers, activists and progressive groups have demanded radical change, with some raising the slogan “defund the police” and “abolish the police” — representing a marked shift in the struggle for justice.

Derek Chauvin was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter on April 20. Facing sentencing in June, Chauvin could be put in prison for 40 years for second-degree murder, up to 25 years for third-degree murder and up to 10 years for manslaughter. 

Yet, since that fateful day in May 2020, many more people have been killed by U.S. police. Some of these people’s names are widely known, such as Daunte Wright, Ma’Khia Bryant, Adam Toledo and Andre Brown. George Floyd’s murder was the “straw that broke the camels back.” But no matter how much negative attention the police get, as an institution of racist rule by a tiny class of the super-rich, they cannot help but enact all kinds of violence against poor and working-class communities, especially Black communities. The fundamental task of the police is to preserve the racist, capitalist status quo.

In the year since Floyd’s murder, activists all over the country have taken aim at qualified immunity, which shields officers from civil and criminal liability. President Joe Biden met with the Floyd family and other families of police brutality on Tuesday in a push to get the Senate to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. The bill would impose limitations on the use of police chokeholds, standards for no-knock warrants and limits on the sharing of military equipment by the Defense Department with police departments. Many of these reforms were already on the books in various cities and towns, yet they have not significantly hindered the police from continuing to kill and enact wanton violence on the people. The ruling class is far more reluctant about stripping the police of qualified immunity — their carte blanche to kill, maim, harass and bully. This continues to be an important front of struggle.

The police have been killing people since they were formalized as an organization growing out of the slave patrols in the U.S. South and out of the needs of the capitalist class to police immigrants and low-wage workers in the industrial North. The violence is not new, and many outright murders and assassinations have been captured on camera by civilians. So what is new? What has changed? It is the consciousness of the working class. All of last summer and even into the fall and winter, people continued to rise up against racist police terror and state violence.

As revolutionaries, we know that in order to win basic reforms and so much more, the working class and oppressed people of this country need to be organized. Our class must continue to keep the pressure on through mobilization, education and agitation — drawing in more people to the fight for justice in the immediate sense and also more broadly against racism and capitalism and imperialism. The rebellions have changed the political calculus of the ruling class and thus the terrain of the class struggle. 

In the aftermath of the conviction of Derek Chauvin, many debated what more needed to be done to win true justice. While the verdict was a victory secured through arduous struggle, we know that true, enduring justice can only be enjoyed by winning a new system that removes the basis for white supremacy and all the other unspeakable injustices in this society. To honor George Floyd’s memory, millions have and will commit themselves to this task.

How Black Student Civic Agency Impacted the 2020 Elections

By Asha Layne

The years of Trumpism have been marked by relentless assaults on facts and evidence based science leaving an indelible memory on the minds of all Americans. In the final months of his presidency, Trump’s futile efforts along with other Republicans, to cancel out the votes of many Americans, specifically Black voters, in many Democratic states was representative of voter disenfranchisement. True to form, one of his most outrageously alarming act of voting misinformation, was when the former president encouraged his supporters to commit voter fraud, by suggesting that voters should send in a mail-in ballot and to vote in person. When that failed, Trump and his allies quickly began targeting voting ballots with largely Black voter populations in a desperate attempt to discredit Joe Biden’s presidential win. Recently, former Trump lawyer and staunch ally, Mr. Rudy Giuliani was handed a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems accusing him of spreading false claims about the company’s handling of the November 2020 elections. In keeping up with the barrage of viral misinformation and right wing voting conspiracies, we must not overlook the civic agency of young Black student voters that prevented Trump from retaining power despite his unprecedented attempts to disenfranchise Black voters.

In November, Black voters showed up to the polls in record numbers in response to the former President’s appalling, yet unsurprising attempts of racial division and voting suppression, the COVID pandemic, and a nationwide call for racial justice after the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. According to exit poll data, Black voters overwhelmingly voted Democratic and with a surge in turnout among young people of all races. Research conducted by Tufts University, Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), reported that Black youths played a critical role in the 2020 election especially in key swing and voter suppression states like Georgia where 90% of young Black youth voted for Joe Biden. In the same report, data also showed that young Black women strongly supported the President-elect Joe Biden by voting slightly higher at 90% compared to 84% for young Black men. This data reflects the significance of Black students who fall under two categories: the Black vote and student vote.

Black student civic agency is nothing new, it has a deep rich history that affirms the tradition Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) play in politics. Historically, HBCUs became known as sites for political activism during a time when White supremacist ideologies prevented Black students from entering White college institutions and mainstream society. These educational institutions would also serve as sites for political activism and agency as tools of empowerment. HBCUs held and still today, possess the unique advantage in increasing political activity among young Black people. Civic engagement and HBCUs have played a critical role in American democracy and democratic politics.

HBCU representation in politics can be traced back to the Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century at which this political process produced prominent leaders of that time who lead Black students in political agency activities like sit-ins, boycotts, and voter registration drives that would help shape the legacy of HBCUs for generations to come. What this 2020 election have shown the country is that HBCUs are not only leading institutions of higher educations but the producers of political stalwarts for the Democratic Party such as Spelman alum Stacey Abrams, Morehouse College alum Raphael Warnock, and Howard alum and Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.

The November elections confuted the misconceptions that Black students and Blacks do not vote. The truth is, young Black voter agency propelled the now President, Joe Biden to the White House and Democratic Georgia Senators Jon Osoff and Ralphael Warnock to the Senate affirming the significance of young Black voters. More than ever young Black students at HBCU campuses have become more civically engaged as a result of Trumpism, racial injustice, the pandemic, and desperate need for change. Despite the United States’ long history of voter suppression of people of color, the recent events during the tenure of former President Donald J. Trump will not only empower young voters to critically think but to continue the fight against injustices.

If Unions Had Organized the South, Could Trump Have Been Avoided?

By Chris Wright

At a time when activists and commentators are puzzling over the United States’ enduring conservatism, Michael Goldfield’s new book The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s (Oxford University Press, 2020) provides some perspective. Goldfield argues that the old question “Why no socialism in the U.S.?” reduces to “Why no liberalism in the South?”, which itself is answered, in large part, by unions’ failure to organize the region in the early and middle twentieth century. The book consists of case-studies defending this thesis and exploring what went wrong and how things might have turned out differently. Chris Wright interviewed Goldfield in early November about his arguments and his thoughts on the labor movement today.

One of the major theses of your book is that the failure of the CIO in the 1930s and 1940s to organize certain key industries in the South, such as woodworkers and textile workers, has shaped U.S. politics and society up to the present. For example, the “liberal”—as opposed to laborite—character of the civil rights movement, Republicans’ racist “Southern Strategy” (influenced by George Wallace’s presidential campaigns in 1964 and 1968), businesses’ relocation to the South in the postwar and neoliberal periods, and in general the conservative ascendancy of the last fifty years were all made possible by the CIO’s earlier missteps. How did these failures to organize a few industries have such far-reaching effects?

Underlying my argument is the unique ability of workers organized at the workplace to engage in what I call civil rights unionism, including demands inside the workplace for more hiring and upgrading of non-whites, especially women, desegregation of facilities, etc. Secondly, this involves broader struggles for desegregation, access, and other issues, in the community at large. Of special importance here is the ability of workers at the workplace to resist and successfully fight against right-wing, racist repression, something that was so successful in silencing and destroying individual white liberals in the South. I discuss a number of such examples in the book, including the Farm Equipment Workers (FE) at International Harvester in Louisville and Local 10 of the ILWU in San Francisco. These instances, though vitally important in their limited impact and providing clear templates for future struggles, were too isolated to affect the general course of events.

There is a clear contrast here with the UAW and the NAACP, the liberal civil rights organization. By 1945-46, the autoworkers union with Walter Reuther at the head had become very bureaucratic. They were on record as supporting civil rights, and Reuther was allied with the NAACP. But what did they actually do? In Detroit, for instance, there were restaurants and bars around auto plants that were segregated, not allowing Blacks in. Reuther and the NAACP sent letters to all the bars and restaurants saying that they should integrate—and of course nobody did anything. At left-wing locals, on the other hand, workers organized. Interracial picket lines went up around the restaurants and bars; the workers told the owners that if they didn’t allow Blacks in, they would have no business from anybody in the union. Instantly, owners changed their policy—thus demonstrating the effectiveness of civil rights unionism.

I can give you an example from my own experience, when I worked at an International Harvester plant outside Chicago. We had a Black worker in our plant who bought a house in a racist all-white community; his house was firebombed twice. Our group controlled the Fair Practices Committee, and we got the union local to vote to support a round-the-clock picket line at the house. Immediately, all the violence stopped. Our plant was about a third African-American, and there were probably quite a few workers who were not sympathetic to what we were doing. But if any of us had been attacked, the whole local would have gone berserk. That type of strength that unions had when they were fighting for civil rights was different from most of what existed across the South.

The organizing, then, of over 300,000 woodworkers (an industry that existed across the deep South, 50% of whose workers were African-American) had the potential to make a tremendous difference. And if the USWA and other unions had maintained their civil rights focus, the course of the civil rights struggle and of history might have been altered.

You’re very critical of the leadership of both the CIO and the Communist Party in the 1930s–40s. Briefly, what mistakes did they make? Why did organizations that, for a time, showed such militancy and effectiveness in organizing particular industries (such as steel, automobiles, and meatpacking, among many others) fail so dismally to organize large swathes of the South?

This is discussed extensively in the book. I analyze in detail how the Stalinization of the Comintern and the U.S. Communist Party undermined many of their laudatory efforts. I also agree with Nick Fischer’s argument in Spider Web, that liberal anti-communism, as practiced by the UAW under Reuther and the USWA under Philip Murray, aligned itself with racists and fascists. In order to defeat the CP leadership of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Murray and the USWA allied themselves de facto with the KKK in Birmingham, destroying a progressive civil rights unionism (or at least weakening and limiting its influence) in Alabama. The CIO did the same in destroying the Winston-Salem Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers local. The United Packinghouse Workers did not do this and continued to be a civil rights union. Auto, steel, and meatpacking actually were organized in the South. As Matt Nichter’s forthcoming article in Labor shows (entitled “Did Emmett Till Die in Vain? Organized Labor Says No!”), the UAW and USWA had no rank-and-file civil rights presence, while the UPWA sent an interracial male and female southern delegation to the Emmitt Till trial in Mississippi.

Broadly speaking, the failure of interracial unionism in the South is attributable to three primary causes. First, the right-wing leadership of the CIO—the forefathers of the leadership of the contemporary labor movement—refused to seriously confront white supremacy in the South, squandering golden opportunities to organize Black workers in a number of large southern industries. Second, the left-wing of the labor movement—which had been the major goad behind interracial class unity in the first place—liquidated itself at the behest of the Soviet Union, which demanded labor peace during WWII, then limited their civil rights activity during the Cold War. Third, the postwar red scare—including the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act—dealt a crippling blow.

You argue that in order for workforces to successfully organize, they generally need either “structural power” or “associative power” (or both). For instance, coal miners during the period you write about had immense structural power and therefore tended to serve as a “vanguard” of the labor movement. Textile workers, by contrast, lacked structural power, so they had to rely—or should have relied more than they did—on associative power, making alliances with other organizations and social forces. Today, do you see any industries that have notable structural power and should be a prime target for organizers? Or do you think most workers now are compelled to rely primarily on associative power, on making connections with other groups and social movements?

Miners had structural power in part because they were providing the main fuel to the economy, which they don’t anymore. There are hardly any coal miners left in the United States, despite all the rhetoric. But other people have the power to bring the economy to a halt, like truck drivers and others in the transportation industry. Airline workers could potentially—they could have done it during the air traffic controllers’ strike, but of course the unions wouldn’t have considered that.  It’s interesting that workers in the food production industry and the warehouse and logistics industries are suddenly realizing how important they are, given the pandemic, and are mobilizing around their terrible treatment. There have been 44,000 cases of Covid-19 in the hundred-plus meat processing plants and over two hundred deaths. People are not happy about this. In Detroit, where I am, bus drivers have struck over the lack of safety. It seems to be a generalized phenomenon that’s taking place, but I don’t know how to gauge it. I read Labor Notes and I subscribe to it, but its reporters are always seeing a new upsurge taking place. The United States is a big country and there are always strikes happening somewhere, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that a large movement is in the offing.

Still, we’re seeing people in places that were historically difficult to organize getting more upset and taking action. Many of the logistics hubs, for instance, are in the South. One of the biggest in the country is in Memphis, there’s a big one in Louisville, etc. These are urban, interracial workforces. The South, of course, is very different now than it was in the 1930s and 1940s: it has much more economic dynamism, including a significant percentage of the auto industry, particularly transplants (foreign plants that have their production facility in the U.S.). While Detroit still has more auto production and more parts, there are huge parts corridors in states across the South.

Public service workers, too, are getting screwed really badly. The reason we had so many teachers’ strikes in so-called red states is that the budget cuts were much more severe there. When these people struck, they had broad associative power and huge amounts of public sympathy. The Chicago Teachers Union organized parents and others in the community to support them, which hadn’t previously been done as much by teachers’ unions. In West Virginia, a state that overwhelmingly voted both in 2016 and 2020 for Trump, schoolteachers were militant and had broad support throughout the state. The same was true in Oklahoma, and some of these same things happened in Mississippi. So I think that the possibilities for a Southern upsurge, as well as in the country as a whole, are real. On the other hand, there isn’t the same insurgent, radical leadership that there was in the 1930s.

It’s obviously hard to generalize over the labor movement, but are you concerned that unions today too often adhere to the same earlier, self-defeating trends of centrism and collaborationism? Or do you see cause for hope that the kinds of errors the CIO made in its Southern campaigns—and that the AFL-CIO continued to make for decades thereafter—are finally being overcome? Do you think organized labor is starting to turn the corner?

No. While there are insurgent parts of the organized labor movement, including those who had threatened a general strike if Trump tried to steal the election, the AFL-CIO and its major unions, short of insurgencies and new leadership, are too sclerotic to lead the next wave of struggle.

Racism and white supremacy are central to your analysis. The CIO’s inability to organize the South made possible the extremes of white supremacy we saw in the postwar era and we’re seeing today, which have catastrophically undermined class solidarity. What do you think of the current Black Lives Matter movement? Is it wise to place the dominant emphasis on police brutality and defunding the police, or are there more effective ways to challenge white supremacy? Should activists organize around shared class interests with allegedly racist whites rather than the divisive issue of abolition of the police?

The police were established to play the role of repressing labor and communities, as much recent literature documents. This is central to capitalist rule and its function should be abolished. As such, police unions are not unions and do not belong in the labor movement. On the other hand, the demand to abolish the police needs to be sharpened. As many have noted, lots of things the police do, including responding to disturbed people, should be delegated to others, and removed from policing. On the other hand, there are certain types of protective services for which there should be an organization that serves. What to do about rape and violence against women? Who do you go to when your car is stolen? This whole range of concerns and demands needs to be delineated clearly so that people can be sure that we get rid of the police in their anti-labor, racist functioning, but still have necessary services so that we do not merely exist in an anarchic state of chaos, which is the impression that opponents of our demands give.

Many left-wing unions and some others as well combined broad class issues, interracial solidarity, with racial egalitarian demands (I discuss these questions also in The Color of Politics). The examples I give of certain civil rights-oriented unions (such as FE and ILWU Local 10) were successful at doing this, too.

Challenging Neoliberal Complacency: The Future of Leftist Organizing

By Mahnoor Imran

Republished from Michigan Specter.

The lesser evil has prevailed. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have defeated the demagogic megalomaniac in the White House otherwise known as Donald Trump. However, in the middle of a mismanaged pandemic that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, nationwide protests against the epidemic of police brutality, and the looming threat of climate change, Biden’s insipid promise of returning to some semblance of normalcy feels uninspiring. A return to the pre-Trump status quo will not actively transform the material conditions of the working class, and a massive shift in the political paradigm is desperately needed.

Although their win has prompted celebration, there is something to be said about the failure of establishment Democrats to provide compelling narratives that take on Wall Street, insurance companies, and the fossil fuel industry. Though progressives and leftists are frequently vilified for expressing concerns about the incoming Biden-Harris administration, both Biden and Harris have problematic records that warrant criticism about their vision for the future.

Last year, Biden assured his wealthy donors that “nothing would fundamentally change” if he were elected, once more reminding us that elite centrists will always prioritize the interests of the ruling class. Despite having an atrocious record of racist tough-on-crime policies, Biden operated his campaign under the assumption that people of color were obligated to vote for him simply because he was not Trump. In addition to these things, many resistance liberals have conveniently forgotten about him leading support for the Iraq War, the Obama-Biden administration carrying out mass deportations that ripped families apart, his inappropriate displays of unwanted affection toward women, and credible sexual assault allegations against him. As Attorney General of California, Harris fought hard to keep the wrongfully convicted in prison, withheld evidence that would have freed incarcerated people, criminalized and imprisoned parents because their children were truant, and received criticism from the transgender community for denying gender-affirming healthcare and banning forums that sex workers use to protect themselves.

In the next four years, the Biden-Harris administration will continue to champion neoliberal governance and imperialist interests. Their transition team is filled with wealthy corporate executives and lobbyists from companies like Uber and Amazon who are entirely disconnected from the struggles of the working class. The team also comprises Obama administration alumni like Cecilia Muñoz, President Obama’s top immigration advisor who continually justified harsh immigration enforcement policies and rationalized the separation of parents from their children.

Though centrism may have won at the top of the ticket, it proved to be electorally shaky. In fact, many moderates lost their seats or came dangerously close to losing their seats. Although Democrats tried to blame the Left for their own shortcomings, progressive organizers, many of whom were people of color, were the ones who helped secure Biden’s win in swing states. Black communities, indigenous communities, and Hispanic communities did the heavy lifting for a democracy that never worked in their favor. Representative Rashida Tlaib, who represents one of the most impoverished districts in the country, recently told Politico that “If [voters] can walk past blighted homes and school closures and pollution to vote for Biden-Harris, when they feel like they don’t have anything else, they deserve to be heard.” Instead of paying lip service to social issues and defaulting to vague bromides about unity, the incoming Biden administration owes these communities more than just a nod of thanks. They deserve a bold vision for the future of America.

The reality is that our nation’s current modality of political and economic operation is committed to half-hearted incrementalism and assumes that anything other than that is impossible. This concession to pragmatism inhibits real progress. The pursuance of middle-ground politics paves the way for excessive globalization at the expense of developing countries, corporate tax breaks paid for through austerity, and rhetoric about civility at the expense of communities of color.

Neoliberalism is degenerative. It allows for oligarchs to dictate our political agenda and influence our political process. It launches wars based on lies and makes billions in profits by selling arms to repressive regimes. It tries to convince us that the levers of the capitalist market are capable of producing equity and sustainability. It fuels a for-profit healthcare system that burdens people with thousands of dollars in medical debt. It maintains an egregious carceral system that disproportionately harms and kills black, indigenous, Hispanic, immigrant, mentally ill, and disabled communities. It deceives us into believing that individual hard work is the key to amassing wealth and achieving the American Dream. It generates cult-like infatuations with billionaires who would be nothing without government subsidies and the workers whom they underpay and exploit.

When governments abandon their obligation to transform socioeconomic outcomes for the better, political efficacy diminishes. This points to the inextricable link between neoliberalism and the triumph of Trumpism. In four years, we may have hard-right candidates try to take the presidency again. In that terrifying prospect, the pullback might be stronger than the push forward. The only way to prevent this is for the Democratic Party to muster the moral and political courage to get behind popular movements and policies like the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and defunding the police.

Unfortunately, both Biden and Harris have spent a considerable amount of energy contemptuously distancing themselves from progressivism and denouncing socialism. Although the word “socialist” is used pejoratively by Republicans to lambaste any Democrat with a pulse, the more that Democrats try to distance themselves from progressivism and socialism as if they were inherently bad, the more it legitimizes GOP framing.

Instead of waiting out an interregnum in our political history, we must continue to fight for progressive policies that are actually popular among rural, urban, and suburban voters. The future for leftist organizing and movement building is far from bleak. In fact, 67% of Americans support increasing the minimum wage to $15, 69% support Medicare for All, and 63% support free public college.

Furthermore, 26 out of 30 of the Democratic Socialists of America’s nationally endorsed candidates won their races. All four members of “The Squad” — Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Presley, and Ilhan Omar — have won their reelections and will be joined by progressive insurgents Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush. Every single swing-seat House Democrat who endorsed Medicare for All won their race and 99% of Green New Deal co-sponsors won their races in this cycle.

Although Biden’s win has undoubtedly exacerbated neoliberal complacency, this is a critical moment to push for an unapologetic agenda that promotes justice, challenges structural racism, combats climate change, increases political accountability, dismantles institutions of oppression, and radically redistributes wealth. We can continue to organize by supporting indigenous sovereignty, fighting for police and prison abolition, developing ecosocialist frameworks for promoting environmental justice, and creating mutual aid networks. When we build community power and cultivate solidarity, we can rise above the forces of oppression, marginalization, and vituperation that threaten to destroy us. The horizon of a liberated future is within our line of sight. We just have to keep moving forward and pushing left.

The Future of Unions During COVID-19

(Pictured: Railroad workers in Chicago)

By Cameron Mancini and Brendan Muckian-Bates

When the pressure of the moment becomes untenable, it is the working class that has continued to muster the strength to hold the business class accountable. Strength in numbers alongside the panic of immediate loss of income and employment are an organizer’s best weapons. However, meeting the challenge of the present means that we must be strategic about what type of world we want to see once COVID-19 is over.

One hundred and one years ago, as American soldiers returned to the US following the end of the Great War, the pandemic of the H1N1 strain of influenza, known as “Spanish Flu” at the time, began ravaging the world. Between 1918 and 1920, it is estimated that around 17 to 50 million people died from this pandemic.

At the same time that millions were dying, workers began striking across major industries. The 1919 Steel Strike was one of the first attempts to organize basic industry by the mainstream labor movement, with the assistance of radicals like William Z. Foster and Mother Jones. In Seattle, WA, “nothing moved but the tide” as workers took over the city for a week. Coal miners struck and won a 14% wage increase.  In all, 1919 saw 4 million workers - 1/5 of the workforce - walk off the job in the US. But it did not end there; Winnipeg, Canada saw a massive General Strike, and in Italy and Germany, workers struck in the industrial centers of their nations, seized factories, and declared socialist republics.

At times of economic and social crisis, mass labor actions are not uncommon. Workers demand immediate changes to their living conditions when those conditions become unstable. Already in 2020, we’ve seen wildcat strikes shut down the Big 3 automakers, longshore workers threaten a walk out in Bay Area ports unless there is proper sanitary conditions in the port, grocery workers demand and win hazard pay in the Puget Sound area, Pittsburgh area sanitation workers refusing unsafe working conditions until they have proper protective gear, and tenants in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood threaten a rent strike.

It’s impossible to say how long or the effects to which COVID-19 will have on the US economy, but here’s what we know so far:

• On March 17th, White House officials briefed Senate Republicans that the unemployment rate could reach 20 percent. For context, at the height of the Great Depression, the unemployment rate was around 25%.

• Two weeks ago, the Imperial College of London released their model for how to combat the spread of COVID-19. Without severe disruptions to our daily routines, and the possibility of long-term, periodic quarantines, COVID-19 could return, killing an estimated 2.2 million people in the US alone.

• The Dow Jones dropped almost 10,000 points in the span of a month, from a high of 28,992 on February 21 to 19,173 on March 20. The percentage of the drop on March 16th is on par with that of the infamous Black Thursday of 1929.

The likelihood of COVID-19 disrupting the everyday living habits of Americans, not to mention the profound and unexpected impact it has had on everyday workers, would have been impossible only a month ago. Now, it is all but certain to have unforeseen, devastating impacts on everything it touches.

At times like these, we often remark with platitudes such as, “If only there was something we could’ve done.” It is clear at this point that President Trump’s handling of the situation has been abysmal. Every morning briefings are given downplaying the impact of this crisis, as though you can cover your eyes and ears and see no evil, hear no evil. The two capitalist parties in government haggle over relief efforts, each trying to outflank the other for electoral gains in the upcoming general election. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve doles out trillions of dollars to attempt to keep the economy afloat. It all amounts to covering up the reality that the economy is simply a juggernaut of immiseration for the working class. Keeping this juggernaut from sinking is the primary objective of the capitalist elites, which is obvious from the framing of the debate around what to do: keep the economy going -- but human needs and comfort are complete outside the scope of understanding for those in control of society. We need a cooperative commonwealth governed by the principle, “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”

While political pundits are seeking to negotiate policy proposals to mitigate this disaster, unions are organizing workers in the here and now. Take, for example, some of the recent actions by members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Just last week, IWW members in Portland, Madison, and Milwaukee took direct action against their bosses to demand specific changes in their workplace conditions. In Madison and Milwaukee, union members at CapTel Industries engaged in a one-day sickout over pay. Although these workers are classified by the state of Wisconsin as Telecommunications Service Priority Level 3, the same level designated for state and local first responders, their pay is far below those of other essential personnel. In Portland, when workers at the historic Crush Bar were told they would be laid off during the city’s lockdown, members of the Crush Bar Worker’s Collective marched on their boss, demanding they be paid their sick time and provide half-pay for their scheduled shifts. Instead of meeting their demands, management called the Portland Police Department on their former employees, despite the order from PPD that they would not respond to calls unless for severe, life-threatening emergencies. Following this action in the city, Wobblies at Voodoo Doughnuts, a popular tourist attraction, formally announced their plans to unionize. This coincided with management’s recent decision to temporarily lay off over a dozen employees. According to one member, management at Voodoo doughnuts is not paying out accrued paid time off in accordance with their store’s own policy.

In each of these cases, workers won some or all of their demands.

CapTel workers won a ninety percent adherence at work, meaning they have less time they need to be on call at their desks. Crush Bar workers won their accrued sick time after the bar closed. Voodoo Doughnuts workers are pushing for, and winning the fight on, union recognition, despite Trump’s NLRB suspending union elections.

Now, workers in several other industries are calling for actions to shut down their workplaces, too.

Whole Worker, a grassroots movement seeking to unionize Whole Foods stores across the country, are calling for a mass sick out on March 31st to protest lack of protection for workers and consumers.

On March 23rd, workers with the Starbucks Solidarity Movement called a nationwide sick out to protest corporate’s desire to keep stores open despite being deemed “non-essential personnel.”

First, these actions signify a shift in the thinking of many low-income workers. For workers in low-wage industries like food and beverage production or distribution, a missed paycheck can mean the difference between making end’s meet and skipping bills. Fast food and distribution workplaces are notoriously difficult to unionize. Few workers in these settings have connections to unions, and fewer attempt to help organize them. The mass surge in workplace actions in these industries shows that workers are beginning to understand the motto that, “Direct action gets the goods.”

Second, building unions that can continue organizing after a major crisis, continue to win demands, and continue to accelerate class consciousness need a legal framework from which to win. Many unions are bogged down by “no strike” clauses in their contract. A “no strike” clause means that during the duration of the contract, no union member is allowed to engage in a strike or sympathy strike against the employer. If they fail to abide by that, the union is legally required to denounce the action or face stiff fines and penalties. This can quickly drain union coffers, making union leaders more like business bureaucrats negotiating with management rather than with membership. Yet, these actions are often done without the use of these union contracts, and are therefore not subject to the same rules. Strikes and slowdowns can be called almost immediately, leaving management in a more vulnerable position.

Lastly, working people need institutions that can provide organizing capabilities in the most hard-to-organize industries. Around 36% (57 million)  Americans participate in the “gig economy” in some way, and around 10% of them work full time in this sector. A decade ago, the AFL-CIO dedicated almost thirty percent of its budget to organizing. In its internal budget for 2018-2019, however, the AFL-CIO dedicated less than ten percent of its budget to organizing. Its largest budget by-line is for political activities, which account for more than 35 percent of the budget. The #RedForEd movement that saw impressive statewide and citywide strikes across more than five states and multiple cities, winning millions of dollars from intransigent, conservative legislators and boards of education is a stark reminder that direct action gets the goods, while political lobbying is an expensive and distant form of organizing.

Too few workers are in formal unions at the moment. Only about ten percent of the overall workforce in the US is currently a dues-paying member of a union. Of this, over one in three public employees are in a union, but only around six percent of private sector employees are unionized. As COVID-19’s outbreak has shown, low-income private sector workers are the most at-risk for any financial or biological crisis that can strike at a moment’s notice, yet are also the most underrepresented unionized workforce.

A massive revival of the US labor movement is needed to circumvent the impending crisis we’re facing. An astounding three million Americans submitted unemployment applications in just the first week of major federal, state, and municipal actions designed to flatten the curve. If the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic continues as it has, we can expect even starker unemployment numbers to rise. As this happens, the strain placed on those deemed “essential” will continue. The federal government could, in all likelihood, place a federal restriction on strike actions in those industries deemed essential for the continued health of the country, as happened during WWII. Should this take place, these workers could be placed in greater risk of contamination, placing their well-being at risk for the sake of company profits.

We must be prepared for the coming crisis. We must be building for something better in the here and now. The working class is already showing how to do that. C.L.R. James wrote in his classic book Facing Reality that it was the duty of radicals to “observe and record” the actions by the working class. Given the stark reality we are facing, we can observe, record, and now take action. Here is what you can do:

1. Find out what your coworkers issues are concerned about. Meet together (perhaps a phone or video conference to be safe) and make a plan with them to get concessions from our boss. Get in the habit of practicing democracy with your coworkers.

2. Do a petition, or get a group of coworkers together and confront your boss as a group.

3. Walk off the job as a group, but state clearly you are not quitting, but you are refusing unsafe working conditions under section 502 of the National Labor Relations Act.

4. Contact the local IWW branch in your area, or our Organizing Department. Organizers from the union are ready to walk you through the steps of organizing something immediate, but also for the long haul. After the Coronavirus pandemic settles the crisis of unfair treatment, low wages, understaffing, and more remain. Organizing your coworkers into a militant, independent  collective action based union is the best chance to have power over your life at work and beyond.

Cameron Mancini is the General Secretary Treasurer of the IWW.

Brendan Muckian-Bates is the National Press Officer of the IWW.

Sorry to Bother You with Twelve Theses on Boots Riley's "Sorry to Bother You": Lessons for the Left

By Bryant William Sculos

Originally published in 2019 in Class, Race and Corporate Power.

1.   Films thus far have merely interpreted the world; the point however is to change it….

This would be more appropriate as thesis eleven, but it is a crucial starting point for what follows. No matter how radical, no matter how popular, a critical film is, a film by itself, not even one as prescient and valuable as Sorry to Bother You is, is enough to change the world. Not that anyone would suggest that it could be, but radical films can serve important purposes in the struggle against capitalism and various forms of oppression. A good radical film can inspire and even simply entertain those engaged in struggle—or those thinking about becoming more active. Sorry to Bother You will not change the world, but it can be an important basis for motivation, critical conversation, and necessary enjoyment for those in struggling to do just that.

2.   Tactics should always be informed by an organized strategy.

Sorry to Bother You highlights the difference between pure subversive tactics and an organized strategy for resistance. In the film there is a group of anarchist-types, of what size or of what degree of organization the audience never sees, whose primary role in the film is to highlight the impotence of pure tactics (in this film, this amounts to clever vandalism) disconnected from a coherent strategy for organized opposition. Juxtaposed to these tactics we see the hard work of organizing a workplace and an eventual strike. While the strike may not have heralded the end of capitalism, the audience bears witness to the clear difference in results (including both the response of the capitalist class and their police force as well as the ability of the strike to bring new layers of people into struggle).

3.   As important as the superiority of tactics informed by an organized strategy is, it is perhaps as important how those on the left address their internal disagreements about strategies and tactics.

There is a subtle scene between Squeeze (the labor activist attempting to organize the workers at the telemarketing firm, played by Steven Yeun) and Detroit (perhaps the best radical feminist of color ever seen in a popular US film, played superbly by Tessa Thompson). Squeeze becomes aware that Detroit is part of the anarchist group doing the anticapitalist vandalism and instead of criticizing Detroit’s tactics, Squeeze takes the opportunity to appreciate that they are both on the same side of the struggle. This solidaristic interaction serves as the basis to build deeper, more active solidarity in the future (some of which we see later in the film). It is often difficult for those on the left to ignore or at least put aside disagreements over tactics and strategy, and sometimes it is important that the Left not leave disagreements unaddressed, but Sorry to Bother You provides some insight into how the Left can deal with internal, and interpersonal, disagreements in ways that do not further alienate us from one another. After all, the Left needs all the comrades it can get. What makes someone a comrade is a contentious issue to be sure, but it is an important one that the Left should continue to reflect on.

4.   Solidarity across identities is crucial.

Perhaps one of the most obvious—though no less important—lessons from Sorry to Bother You, with its awesome diverse cast and characters, is that class has colors and genders and a variety of other identities that come with their own unique oppressions that condition the experience of class in diverse ways. Not only does the film illuminate the intersections of racism and capitalism (the “white voices” are the stuff of film legend here), but we also see cross-racial, cross-gender, and even cross- (fictional) species solidarity. If Sorry to Bother You does one thing well (and it does way more than just one thing well), it is expressing the importance of building this kind of intersectional solidarity, as well as how the variable experiences of class can be navigated without chauvinism or exclusion. While the treatment of non-fictional racial and gender solidarity is powerful in its own right, Boots Riley’s use of the (for now…) fictional equisapiens drives the point home. Ending the exploitation of some group at the expense of others can never be an acceptable Left position.

5.   Art can be radical, but not all subversive art is radical, at least not on its own.

Detroit, in addition to her day job as a sign twirler and then as a telemarketer, is an artist. Beyond the politics of Sorry to Bother You, the film also delves into the difficulty of being a subversive artist within the confines of capitalism, which demands that all art be commodifiable in order to be of any value. Despite Detroit’s best efforts to resist this pressure, we see her engage in a powerful and uncomfortable piece of performance art where her audience is asked to throw things at her, including broken electronics and blood-filled balloons. The scene is a bit of a parody of ostensibly “radical” art that is consumed by a primarily bourgeois audience. Subversive art that challenges the commodity-form can itself become commodified, but it can still be useful as a foundation to challenge artistic norms and social conventions, break down the barrier between performer and audience. However, even at its best there is no guarantee that anything will fundamentally change because of these dissensual elements. Sorry to Bother You is a better example of what radical, subversive art can be than the artistic performances it portrays—though neither one is the basis for revolutionary activity. While the critical theorists and postmodernists of the late twentieth century are right to emphasize the importance of aesthetics in radical politics and resist the temptation, embodied most noticeably in socialist realism, to use art strictly instrumentally, art disconnected from organized struggle is bound to be as ineffective as any tactic disconnected from organized struggle. Sorry to Bother You does not provide a clear alternative, but it does provide a powerful basis to think through the question of how art can relate to radical politics, and radical politics to art, effectively.

6.   Material conditions are shaped by ideological conditions, which in turn affect our psychologies.

As the protagonist Cassius “Cash” Green (portrayed by Lakeith Stanfield with incredible complexity and skill to make the audience cringe in every instance they are supposed to) moves up the ladder at the telemarketing company, after living in poverty for years, his perspective on poverty and the plight of workers shifts in perverse but predictable directions. Consciousness is never one-to-one with class position, something that is perhaps still too obvious for the Left to effectively grapple with, but the radical beauty of Sorry to Bother You is how well Boots Riley is able to show how consciousness changes as wealth (though not always identical to class position) increases. Capitalism as a whole dehumanizes even those who benefit from it, though workers and the poor and oppressed should have little patience or sympathy for those who benefit unequally from the exploitation they reproduce. As difficult as it is, it is important to remember this, that even as capitalists and the defenders of capitalism come to personify the evils of capitalism, they too are driven by the heinous psycho-social incentives of the system. While this is, in itself, important to be cognizant of, it is more important to be aware of the process through which this happens to middle class people, and even workers fortunate enough to escape the dregs of poverty wages.

7.   Contacting your elected officials is not nearly enough and can actually be demoralizing and demobilizing.

One of the best scenes in the film, enhanced by the speed with which is begins and ends, is when Cash decides to make public the genetic alteration plans of Steve Lift (CEO of the Amazon-like WorryFree, played by Armie Hammer). Cash goes on an absurd reality TV show and various news programs to tell the world about the equisapien experiments and implores people to contact their elected officials. The montage ends with WorryFree’s stock rising and the general public excited about the new technological developments. Nothing changes. The lesson here is that Cash was relying on the representatives of the system that encourages the kinds of perversity that Steve Lift represents to solve the problem. Cash encouraged people to place their hope in decrepit politicians. The audience experiences the results too quickly. The montage is powerful as it stands, but it is worth questioning whether the full range of critical points here might be lost on even a well-focused self-reflective audience (though I noticed so perhaps I’m the one being too cynical). Cash placed his hope in the automatic negative reactions of people—people who have been conditioned by capitalism to view all technological developments as progressive and liberating—to resist those changes. Back in the real world, while there are some instances where outrage may seem (or even actually be) more or less automatic, there is often unseen or unacknowledged organizing and propagandistic work being done to produce an effective public reaction. The best recent example of this is from the 2017 airport protests/occupations in reaction to President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban. While some of the people showed up at the airports spontaneously, there were also a number of left-wing groups, of diverse politics, working to make these actions effective. It is likely we would not have witnessed the positive results we saw from these actions had it not been for the quick, organized work of activists on the ground. And yet, it all appeared rather spontaneous.

8.  The truth is not enough, and it will not set us free. Truth is not irrelevant, but it is not enough for the Left simply to be “right.”

Related to thesis 7, Cash relies on his exposing the truth to the world to be the catalyst for widespread resistance to the practices of WorryFree. Mind you, this is all taking place in a world where all of the other dehumanizing practices of WorryFree, such as: lifetime contracts for workers, with all room and board provided but without pay, are deemed acceptable. Why would artificially producing human-horse hybrid workers be any different? While there is a vital educational role for the Left to play in providing the factual basis for the need for organized resistance and building an alternative to racist, patriarchal, imperialist capitalism, these facts are not enough. Facts can be interpreted in various ways and perverted by the mouthpieces of capitalism, often most egregiously by the ostensibly liberal vanguard of “progressive” capitalism. The Left needs to not only be “right” but it also needs to provide deeper context and present viable options to pursue. Put differently, in addition to having the truth on its side, the Left needs to be persuasive.

9.   Automation is complicated and likely will not take the forms or have the effects the public are often led to believe it will have.

The world has been browbeaten into thinking that the worst consequences of increased automation in the twenty-first century will be mass unemployment. Sorry to Bother You, believe it or not, provides a glimpse at one more realistic alternative—as well as a basis for a more honest look at the effects of automation. First, as we have seen throughout the history of capitalism, workers themselves, both physically and psychologically, are made into automatons. Second, the worst consequences of automation is not joblessness but deskilling. Part of the automation of human beings is the decreased cognitive and creative labor that more and more jobs will require or allow. Companies, whether it is WorryFree or Amazon, would much prefer the less expensive route of encouraging society, primarily through culture and schooling, to produce less thoughtful, more compliant workers, rather than spend huge sums of money on automation technologies that could become obsolete within a few years. Automation technology under capitalism is expensive. On the flipside, people under capitalism have been made to be quite inexpensive. Maybe we all will not be turned into human-horse hybrids, but given the trajectory of undemocratic automatic in the early years of the twenty-first century, we will not likely be looking at a Jetsons-esque lifestyle for everyone. People will likely continue to be subjected to intense pressures to physically, psychologically, and chemically alter themselves in order to acquire even slightly higher wages.

10.  People, especially workers within capitalism, are willing to accept very little money or benefits in exchange for their labor and even their lives.

Capitalist exploitation and oppressions degrade people. Capitalist ideology convinces people that they are merely worth whatever some boss is willing to pay them—and they are fortunate to have what little they have. After all, there are plenty of people with less. This reality puts impoverished workers in a terrible situation when bosses try to buy them off to undermine labor organizing or threaten a worker with firing for talking about politics at work. This reality is also part of the root cause of conservative labor union practices, which often sacrifice anything beyond moderate gains in wages and benefits for worker compliance. The promise of a more lavish lifestyle, new clothes and a new car (or really just a car that is reliable) is what motivates Cash to sell-out. Scabs may indeed be the scum of the Earth from a labor organizing perspective (and there’s no reason to think otherwise), but they are motivated by the very same things that motivate workers to sell their labor for a wage in the first place. So really, besides the immediacy of the betrayal, what is the difference between a scab and worker who refuses to join their union or a worker who does not vote to support a strike? The results and the motivations are fundamentally identical. This is not a defense of scabbing (as if such a defense were actually possible), but it is a lesson that needs to be learned. Capitalist ideology is extremely powerful, and it compels us all in various ways to become subjects of our exploitation and the exploitation of others. Scabs and other types of non-class-conscious workers are as much a product of capitalism as the credit card is.

11.  Sorry to bother—and even betray—you, but apologies and forgiveness matter.

Even after Cash betrays his fellow-workers and friends by crossing their picket lines multiple times, once he realizes his grave error and is determined to join them in struggle, his friends forgive him. They accept his apology. The apology does not change what Cash did, but it reflects his commitment to doing the right things moving forward. This might be one of the hardest lessons for the Left to learn from this movie. How does one forgive someone who has betrayed them, especially when it was not just a friendship that was betrayed but an entire movement? However, put differently, how can the Left ever be successful moving forward without the capacity to forgive and work alongside those who have actively worked against the Left in their past? Where is the place for former liberals (or even former conservatives or reactionaries)? Where is the place for former scabs? Sorry to Bother You argues that despite the awfulness of one’s past positions and actions, the answer to these two preceding questions is: among the Left. Very few people are born into radical politics, and almost no one holds the right views from the start, and so people need time to learn and grow. Sometimes it is a very longtime filled with egregious beliefs and behaviors—but if the Left is to ever be effective, it will be populated mainly by these kinds of people.[1]

12.  The first win (or loss) is only a beginning…

Sorry to Bother You ends with a victory of sorts. A small one. Without spoiling too much, the lesson here is that strikes, whether successful or not, can only ever be the start of a revolutionary movement. Same for protests. Protests in and of themselves are not going to bring down a government or a political-economic system. Strikes will not either. There is plenty of debate on the Left about whether a mass general strike could do that, but even with something as powerful as a general strike (which is really only practically imaginable with preliminary strikes and protests preceding it) it would be unlikely on its own to replace capitalism with socialism (or whatever your preferred label for a democratic, egalitarian form of postcapitalism is). Revolutionary transformation is not something that can be won or lost overnight, with one victory—nor can it be lost with one loss, by one strike that fails or never happens, by one protest that has low turnout or fails to motivate further actions. Hope is crucial, but it must be tempered by a realistic pessimism regarding the struggle ahead. There will be many loses and hopefully many more wins—but the struggle continues. Even if capitalism were successfully dismantled, what replaces it will also be an object of struggle, one that will require that we learn as much as we can from all the struggles that precedes it.

Bryant William Sculos, Ph.D. is Visiting Assistant Professor of global politics and theory at Worcester State University. He was formerly a Mellon-Sawyer postdoctoral fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and 2019 Summer Fellow at the Institute for Critical Social Inquiry at the New School for Social Research. Bryant is the Politics of Culture section editor for the open-access journal Class, Race and Corporate Power and contributing editor for the Hampton Institute. Beyond his work for the aforementioned outlets, his work has also appeared in New Politics, Dissident Voice, Truthout, Constellations, Capitalism, Communication, & Critique (tripleC), New Political Science, and Public Seminar. He is also the co-editor (with Prof. Mary Caputi) of Teaching Marx & Critical Theory in the 21st Century (Brill, 2019; paperback forthcoming July 2020 with Haymarket Books).

Notes

[1] Although she was writing about how socialists should deal with liberals at Women’s Marches, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s writings served as crucial inspiration for this point. See: “Don’t Shame the First Steps of a Resistance” in Socialist Worker, Jan. 24, 2017. Available online at: https://socialistworker.org/2017/01/24/dont-shame-the-first-steps-of-a-resistance.

More Than Words: Formulating Slogans for the Struggle

By Derek R. Ford

This originally appeared at Liberation School .

Slogans play a key role in all political activities, whether they be local demonstrations, pickets, strikes, or mass movements. While the fact that slogans are short might make it seem as though they're of minor importance or a mere matter of semantics, the fact is that slogans can be decisive factors in individual and more protracted political struggles, for movements for reform and revolution.

Slogans aren't just words that we put on banners and placards. They are tools to orient and guide political activity-including mass outreach-to unite different sectors of the movement, to educate people by helping them reach their own conclusions, and to educate the Party by revealing the consciousness of the people.

As crystallizations of complex situations and ideas, slogans distill political theory and strategy into concise formulas; they can't say everything. Because struggles are dynamic, they have to be re-evaluated constantly. A slogan could be correct one day and incorrect the next.

All of this means that slogans can have real, material consequences. They can advance a struggle or move it backwards, alienate people or draw them in, communicate the truth or deceive.

Whether a slogan is correct or not isn't an abstract question, but a concrete one. A slogan can be theoretically correct, in that it communicates a political truth, yet still be practically incorrect because it doesn't relate this truth to the specific conditions of struggle at that time.

Slogans have to be accessible to the broad masses of people, not only in terms of wording but in terms of the content establishing a point of contact with people's consciousness. This doesn't mean that they cater to the "lowest common denominator," but that they speak to the broadest possible segments of the movement. In other words, Marxists don't create slogans for ourselves and other Marxists, but for the masses. They're teaching tools.

Like all propaganda, slogans have different scales. They might be specific to one struggle in one town or city at one moment, or they might have national and international relevance. Some slogans take the form of demands, while others take the form of statements.

The purpose of this article is to flesh out the above elements and functions of slogans, and to illustrate the critical roles they assume during concrete struggles. This is illustrated most clearly in the twists and turns of the revolutionary struggle in Russia as it unfolded in 1917. In the final sections, we give some more contemporary examples and then walk through some guiding questions to aid in the formulation of slogans.

Lenin on slogans: All power to the Soviets!

In the middle of July 1917, Lenin published a short pamphlet "On Slogans" (note: in this section we use the Julian calendar dates). In it, he reflected on the recent drastic shift in dynamics and the corresponding need for new slogans:

"Too often has it happened that, when history has taken a sharp turn, even progressive parties have for some time been unable to adapt themselves to the new situation and have repeated slogans which had formerly been correct but had now lost all meaning-lost it as 'suddenly' as the sharp turn in history was 'sudden.'
Something of the sort seems likely to recur in connection with the slogan calling for the transfer of all state power to the Soviets. That slogan was correct during a period of our revolution-say, from February 27 to July 4-that has now passed irrevocably. It has patently ceased to be correct now. Unless this is understood, it is impossible to understand anything of the urgent questions of the day. Every particular slogan must be deduced from the totality of specific features of a definite political situation."

The slogan, "All power to the Soviets," which Lenin first proposed in his April Theses, was at this moment no longer correct because it no longer corresponded to the balance of forces. It could no longer lead the movement forward. On the contrary, it would actually lead the movement into the hands of counter-revolution. As of mid-July, it was a deceitful slogan.

The last sentence quoted above bears repeating: "Every particular slogan must be deduced from the totality of specific features of a definite political situation."

Only by soberly assessing the current political dynamics can the Party form a correct slogan. As these dynamics unfold, the Party must re-evaluate and, when necessary, withdraw, modify, or create new slogans.

To better appreciate Lenin's writing on slogans, it's helpful to review the evolution of the Bolshevik's slogans during the earlier months.

The February 1917 revolution overthrew Czarist rule and instituted a situation of dual power, a totally unique situation in which power rested both in the new Provisional Government and the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' deputies. The real power rested in the Soviets, a grassroots democracy that derived its authority from the workers, peasants, sailors, and soldiers. They were composed of various political parties, and in the early days of 1917 the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) and Mensheviks, both of whom were social democrats of one stripe or another, were the dominating forces. The Provisional Government-charged with organizing democratic elections-was dominated by the Constitutional Democratic Party, or Cadets, which favored a constitutional monarchy with workers' rights. While it's composition changed throughout the year, it also had representatives of other parties, including the SRs (beginning in March) and the Mensheviks (beginning in April).

Lenin described this situation as dual power, as power was divided between these two forces-which he called the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (the Provisional Government) and the nascent dictatorship of the workers (the Soviets)-and there was a more or less stable agreement between them. There was an unprecedented level of political freedom at that time, as communists were able to openly agitate, organize, and protest.

When he returned to Russia from exile in April, Lenin put forward the slogan "All power to the Soviets." He was initially rebuffed within the Party for this slogan (and for the April Theses), but through political explanation won Party members over. The Bolsheviks also withdrew their previous slogan, "Turn the imperialist war into a civil war" at that time.

To understand the significance of this slogan and the work it did, there are a few things to note. Most obviously, the slogan advocated that power should be transferred from the Provisional Government to the Soviets, not that the Soviets should overthrow the government. The Provisional Government was weak and required the consent of the Soviets to rule. The slogan meant that the Bolsheviks should direct all of their energy to building up the power of the Soviets and their influence within them. Further, the slogan was a message to the masses who made up the Soviets: you, the working people and the oppressed, have power and can take it! You don't need the Provisional Government!

"All power to the Soviets" also expressed total opposition to the Provisional Government. This contrasted with the SRs and Mensheviks, who called for confidence in the Provisional Government.

What is particularly interesting is that, at this time, not only were the Bolsheviks the minority of the Soviets, but the Executive Commission of the Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies was actually passing resolutions denouncing Lenin and the Bolsheviks at that time, equating their propaganda with that of the Monarchists. Why would the Bolshevik's call for all power to be transferred to an institution they have no real power in?

The slogan anticipated the inevitability of an open struggle between the government and the Soviets. The Bolsheviks knew that, due to their political orientation, the SRs and Mensheviks wouldn't be able to straddle both forms of power forever. They would have to make choices-through actions and words-and these choices would expose them before the masses. The slogan anticipated certain developments.

Through one crisis after another, the incompatibility of dual power sharpened, and each time the SRs and Mensheviks sided with the imperialist bourgeoisie in the Provisional Government rather than the workers and oppressed in the Soviets. In this way, the slogan was meant to educate the movement, not by lecturing the people with one viewpoint over and over, but by helping them come to their own conclusions based on their own experiences.

During the first crisis in late April-when the streets erupted in protests and meetings, and reactionary elements led by military officers and The Black Hundreds attacked workers-one section of the Bolsheviks marched under the slogan "Down with the provisional government," until the local central committee intervened and ordered them to retract it.

At first, the slogan might appear similar to or compatible with "All power to the Soviets." After all, if there are two powers, calling for all power to one implies zero power to the other, which would result in that power's downfall. But the slogans are different in crucial ways. In a resolution adopted immediately after the protests ended, the Central Committee wrote that the slogan, "Down with the provisional government" was "an incorrect one at the present moment because, in the absence of a solid (i.e., a class-conscious and organised) majority of the people on the side of the revolutionary proletariat, such a slogan is either an empty phrase, or objectively, amounts to attempts of an adventurist character."

It's not that the slogan was wrong in the abstract or for all time, but that it was inappropriate and premature relative to the existing political situation. It didn't do anything to educate or advance the struggle and it unnecessarily left the Party vulnerable to accusations that it wanted to mount a violent insurrection (accusations that appeared in rival newspapers in the following days).

That the Party issued contrasting slogans revealed a weakness in its internal organization and unity, which in turn resulted in a lack of organization and unity in the movement.

The crisis ended when the SRs and Mensheviks cracked under pressure, and got the Soviets to vote confidence in the government. As part of the deal, six SRs and Mensheviks joined the government as ministers. While "All power to the Soviets" remained in effect, they advanced new slogans, including "Down with the 10 capitalist ministers." By framing it this way, the Bolsheviks weren't still weren't calling for an overthrow of the government. They also weren't concentrating their agitation against the six "socialist" ministers collaborating with the imperialists. Instead, the slogan called on the SRs and Mensheviks to break with the imperialists in the government. In so doing, the slogan continued to expose the vacillation of the SRs and Mensheviks and their inability to provide the peace, land, and bread that the masses needed and demanded.

The Bolsheviks advanced these slogans during the next large protest on June 18, which Lenin said at the time marked at "turning point" in the movement because of the political maturity of the demonstrators. It was a short but mass demonstration during which the Bolsheviks' slogans clearly prevailed. Putting the slogans into the streets allowed the Bolsheviks to take the temperature of the movement, to evaluate the level of consciousness amongst the masses.

Slogans are thus a two-way street that not only educate the masses, but also educate the Party.

Just a few weeks later, in what's known as the "July Days," workers staged the most militant demonstrations yet, almost to the point of insurrection. Many workers called on the Bolsheviks to take power at that moment, but they refused because the actions were too concentrated in Petrograd and the Bolsheviks were still in the minority in the Soviets. Pro-government forces opened fire on the workers and burned the Bolshevik's printing press and headquarters.

While there wasn't a large-scale massacre, the events were another turning point in the struggle. The relative peace and freedom ushered in by the February Revolution was broken. There was no more dual power, and no other alternative than to prepare for an armed uprising. This was the moment that Lenin penned his short article "On Slogans" quoted from above.

Later, when the contours of power changed again, the Bolsheviks reintroduced the slogan. In late August, Lavr Kornilov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, attempted a coup against the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government. To defeat the coup, the Soviets and the government actually armed the Bolsheviks, who created red guards. They didn't want to, but they knew the Bolsheviks had the most militant workers on their side. In the face of the red guards, Kornilov's troops backed down. No blood was shed, but a new period began. The Bolsheviks now had the majority in the Soviets of Petrograd, Moscow, and elsewhere.

Under these new conditions, "All power to the Soviets" indicated a preparation for the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

The role of slogans in the US anti-war movement

Again, slogans are critical for the development of any movement or struggle under any conditions, including non-revolutionary times. They should speak to people, drawing them into the struggle and moving their consciousness forward.

Whenever struggles unfold, so too do contradictions. Different political forces and ideologies fight to win people over and to push the movement in particular directions. In general, whichever ideologies are dominant in society will also be dominant in mass movements, as those forces have the most resources at their disposal. The ruling class in the United States today has the most refined and extensive ideological apparatus of any ruling class in history.

They have a sophisticated ability to absorb and channel discontent. The bourgeoisie, through its liberal wing, proposes their own slogans that funnel outrage and prevent revolutionary consciousness from taking hold.

During the first war against Iraq, the liberal slogan in the anti-war movement was "Economic sanctions, not war." This was a smart slogan because it was accessible for people who were opposed to war, and then moved them into supporting economic sanctions by presenting it as an alternative to war. It worked to prevent the development of principled opposition to war by latching onto a tactical split within the ruling class and trying to draw people into one side of this split.

The opposing slogan was "No war against Iraq." It was honest and straightforward. It was principled yet appealed to the broadest number of people. It encompassed an opposition to economic sanctions, allowing us to show that they were merely another form of warfare. This, in turn, showed the class character of the conflict.

Another key difference concerns the longevity of each slogan. When the actual bombing campaign ended, the slogan "Economic sanctions, not war" was realized. Everyone who was mobilized under that slogan could, as a result, leave the struggle and stop organizing. For those who mobilized under the slogan "No war against Iraq," however, the struggle continued because the war continued by other means. This latter slogan was oriented toward building a sustained anti-war movement, while the former slogan was oriented toward preventing such a movement. Because it flowed from a Leninist analysis of imperialism, it anticipated the continuation of war.

History confirmed that we needed this long-term orientation. The sanctions regime devastated Iraq and its people throughout the 1990s. Contrasted with the pro-sanctions slogan, the "No war against Iraq" slogan allowed people to see exactly how economic sanctions are a war tactic. In the early 2000s the imperialist tactics shifted again.

As the second war against Iraq approached, our slogans were "No war against Iraq" and "Stop the war before it starts. When Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, our slogans changed to "Bring the troops home now" and "Occupation is not liberation." These slogans were principled in their opposition to war and refused to capitulate to imperialist arguments for "lesser measures" like inspections and sanctions, and to imperialist propaganda that demonized the Iraqi resistance.

Further, the "Occupation is not liberation" slogan in particular allowed people to see links between the occupation of Iraq and the occupation of Palestine. At the time this was a controversial connection to make, even in the progressive movement. The liberal section of the anti-war movement split off largely because this focus alienated them from the Democratic Party.

It's commonplace for liberals and other left forces to advance compromising or confused slogans to prevent anti-imperialist consciousness from growing. For example, during the US/NATO war against Libya in 2011 one segment of the left advocated the slogan, "Yes to the rebels, no to the intervention." This deceived people into thinking that the rebels were opposed to intervention, when they were actually the ones calling for intervention. They also mobilized around, "Down with Gaddafi." This was the exact same slogan as the imperialists. By contrast, our slogan was "Stop the bombing of Libya." Because this bombing was justified under "humanitarian" pretexts that included the demonization of Gaddafi and the Libyan government, the slogan rejected this demonization campaign.

Formulating slogans: Methods of approach and questions to consider

If carefully chosen, straightforward and simple slogans are effective because they can facilitate effective united fronts in different struggles. Slogans should be uncompromising and principled, yet formulated in a popular and accessible way that can advance mass consciousness.

To begin formulating slogans, it makes sense to first assess the different dynamics at play. When a struggle-or the possibility of one-surfaces, think: What's the immediate issue at hand? What are the larger, or systemic causes manifesting in the issue; who and what are responsible? What are different segments of society thinking about it? What is the bourgeoisie rallying around? To learn what the bourgeoisie or its different sectors think, all you have to do is read the newspaper. Are there left-liberal groups anywhere nationally engaged in a similar struggle, and if so, what are their slogans? You can find this on social media. What are people in your area thinking? To find this out, you have to speak with the people. Beyond speaking with coworkers, family, and friends, you could do a poll or survey at a bus station about the issue.

What would it take to resolve the problem, both in the immediate and long term? What, in other words, are your demands? What do they have in common? What do you want people to learn from your slogans? What do you want people to understand, and how best can you help them understand? How can you phrase them so that they can rally the most people together?

Sometimes slogans start off basic and gain greater specificity later. In general, it's better to start out broader. It's common for two or three different slogans to guide a movement, and usually one of them is quite broad ("No war against Syria," or "Justice for Trayvon"). Others that accompany it will flesh out some component of it. For example, "No to the demonization of Syrian government" is necessary for opposing war against Syria, because the demonization campaign is part of the war drive.

There are also different "levels" of slogans. One slogan might address a specific and immediate demand, while another simultaneously addresses the more systemic causes.

Let's say you're organizing a struggle around housing problems in your town or city. One slogan might focus on a particular component of the problem ("Zero tolerance for slumlords," "Tenants' rights now") or a particular target ("No tax breaks for X developer"). At the same time, another slogan might focus on the foundational causes of the problem ("Housing is a human right"). These two different levels work together and can help people make the connections between the specific manifestation and its general cause (the only way to really eliminate slumlords is to make housing a guaranteed right), or the specific remedy and the more foundational and permanent remedy (getting rid of slumlords is part of the struggle for socialism).

Slogans aren't comprehensive political platforms. It might be helpful to think about the slogan as a frame and the political platform as the picture within the frame. The frame encompasses the picture, allows the viewer to see it, and directs the viewer's attention to it (in a museum, you know to look at something if it's framed).

In the same way, the slogan should frame the issue at hand, directing people's attention to it and inviting them in. Within the frame, you'll paint a more intricate and nuanced picture with leaflets, speeches, and other propaganda and agitational materials.

Exploitation and oppression are deepening, and the capitalist ideologies are increasingly unable to provide excuses for the system. As a consequence, people are taking action and looking for real explanations and alternatives. By advancing proper slogans, we can mobilize people and deepen our collective understanding of the problems and their solutions.