Today in Labor History April, 21, 1913: Andre Soudy and Raymond Callemin, members of the anarchist Bonnot Gang, were executed. Callemin had started the individualist paper "L'anarchie" with author and revolutionary Victor Serge. The Bonnot Gang was a band of French anarchists who tried to fund their movement through robberies in 1911-1912. The Bonnot Gang was unique, not only for their politics, but for their innovative use of technology, too. They were among the first to use cars and automatic rifles to help them steal, technology that even the French police were not using. While many of the gang members were sentenced to death, Serge got five years and eventually went on to participate in (and survive) the Barcelona and Soviet uprisings. Later, while living in exile, Serge wrote The Birth of Our Power, Men in Prison, Conquered City, and Memoirs of a Revolutionary.
Today In Labor History April 4, 1866: Russian revolutionary, Dmitry Karakozov attempted to assassinate Czar Alexander II. He failed and the government executed him. Some believe that Karakozov chose the year 1866, since that was the year in which a character in Chernyshevsky’s “What Is To Be Done?” planned to launch a revolution. In the book, the protagonist, Vera Pavlovna, escapes a controlling family, and an arranged marriage, to start a socialist cooperative and a truly egalitarian romantic partnership. She starts a seamstress commune, with shared living quarters, profit-sharing and an on-site school to further the women’s education. Chernyshevsky wrote the novel in response to Turgenev’s “Fathers and Sons.” He wrote the book while imprisoned in the Peter and Paul fortress. The book inspired generations of Russian radicals, including the nihilists, anarchists and even many Marxists.
“There was a time in the history of France when the poor found themselves oppressed to such an extent that forbearance ceased to be a virtue, and hundreds of heads tumbled into the basket. That time may have arrived with us.”
A cooper said this to a crowd of 10,000 workers in St. Louis, Missouri in July, 1877. He was referring to the Paris Commune, which happened just six years prior. Like the Parisian workers, the Saint Louis strikers openly called for the use of arms, not only to defend themselves against the violence of the militias and police who were sent to crush their strike, but for outright revolutionary aims:
Today in Labor History March 23, 1931: The authorities hanged Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar for killing a deputy superintendent of police during the Indian Independence movement. Singh was a anti-colonial revolutionary, from Punjab, who was inspired by both Bolshevism and anarchism.
Today in Labor History March 19, 1742: Tupac Amaru was born. Tupac Amaru II had led a large Andean uprising against the Spanish. As a result, he became a mythical figure in the Peruvian struggle for independence and in the indigenous rights movement. The Tupamaros revolutionary movement in Uruguay (1960s-1970s) took their name from him. As did the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary guerrilla group, in Peru, and the Venezuelan Marxist political party Tupamaro. American rapper, Tupac Amaru Shakur, was also named after him. Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, wrote a poem called “Tupac Amaru (1781).” And Clive Cussler’s book, “Inca Gold,” has a villain who claims to be descended from the revolutionary leader.
PSA: Imagination is not just for kids. The idea that adults shouldn't day dream, play, and just generally using their imagination is, imo, a tool of #Capitalist socialization and #Oppression to stunt the growth of #Revolutionary movements.
Intersectional feminism MUST be central to any revolutionary theory or praxis. Anything else, and it’s not revolution, it’s the status quo.
Image shows the main cast of PGSM. From left to right: Sailor Venus, Mercury, Moon, Jupiter, and Mars look up at the camera with very serious expressions on their face. Text says “the revolution will be feminist.”
Today in Labor History February 20, 1931: An anarchist uprising in Encarnación, Paraguay briefly transformed the city into the revolutionary Encarnación Commune. Students and workers created popular assemblies to run the city. They tried to create communes in other towns, too, but the authorities thwarted their attempts. When the authorities began to retake Encarnacion, many of the insurrectionists stole steamboats and fled to Brazil. Along the way, they attacked yerba mate companies and burned records related to indentured servants. Gabriel Casaccia alluded to the uprising in his novel “Los Herederos.”
Today in Labor History November 17, 1947: Revolutionary and author Victor Serge died. Serge lived in Paris in the early 20th century, where he was loosely associated with the Bonnot gang of anarchist bank robbers, and where he collaborated with Raymond Callemin on the newspaper L’anarchie. He was in Barcelona during their anarchist uprising and contributed to the CNT’s newspaper, “Tierra y Libertad.” He went to Russia in 1918, initially in support of the communists. However, he quickly became disillusioned with the repressive, autocratic rule, criticized the party and was imprisoned. He wrote numerous books, including the classic “Birth of Our Power” and his autobiographical “Memoirs of a Revolutionist.”
A thought-provoking reconsideration of how the revolutionary movements of the 1970s set the mold for today's activism. The 1970s was a decade of "subversives". Faced with various progressive and revolutionary social movements, the forces of order—politicians, law enforcement, journalists, and conservative intellectuals—saw subversives everywhere.
Today in Labor History October 15, 1966: The Black Panther Party was created by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, in Oakland, California. One of their early core practices was open-carry armed citizen’s patrols monitoring abusive police behavior. They also implemented free breakfast programs and community health clinics, and advocated for revolutionary class struggle. The FBI sabotaged the Panthers through its COINTELPRO and participated in the assassination of Panthers, like Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. In 1969, the Panthers officially declared sexism to be counterrevolutionary and ordered its male members to treat women as equals. In 1970, Huey Newton expressed support for the Women’s Liberation Movement, and the LGBTQ Liberation Movement which, he correctly noted, were subject to much of the same police brutality as were African Americans.