Workers Know Your History, Frank Little.

         To some 100 years seems a long time, but when you are approaching 84, it doesn't seem that far back. It was 100 years ago in 1917, that Frank Little was brutally murder, by what was probably collusion between the American mine owners and the US state. Frank's crime, he stood steadfast in organising and supporting striking miners, and was out spoken against America's entry to WW1. He advocated that the people of America should fight capitalism, not German workers. His life is an example of just how vicious the system of capitalism is, and how the state will always come down on the side of big business against the desires and aspirations of the ordinary people.

This extract is from Freedom Socialist, Voice of Revolutionary Feminism:

        Legendary labor leader Frank Little was assassinated 100 years ago to stop him from doing what he did best – organize workers. His life was defined by an unshakable conviction that you had to fight tooth and nail for the working class.
      Little was a child when his parents joined thousands who jumped at the chance of grabbing 160 acres in the 1889 Oklahoma Land Rush. An extended drought, coupled with a global economic crisis, made keeping a family farm difficult to impossible for many. As the Populist Party wrote in its 1892 Omaha Platform, “The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few. ... From the … prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed two great classes — tramps and millionaires.”
       By the time Little was twenty, he abandoned farming and followed his brother Walter to California where they mined for a living. Little discovered mine owners had only one objective — the acquisition of excessive profits in any way possible. They paid miserable wages. They spared every expense that might have made this work safer. They overworked the miners, squeezing out every last ounce of blood and sweat.

       Learning the hard way that capitalism was brutal, vicious and unforgiving, he threw himself into organising against this callous savage system. He paid dearly for his dedication to his class, the ordinary people, suffering beatings and eventual a horrible sadistic brutal death.

       His last days. In 1917, Frank Little travelled to Butte, Mont., to help the miners striking against the powerful Anaconda Mining Corporation. Tensions were high. Miners were waging a militant strike, furious about the recent Speculator Mine fire that killed 168 men. Additionally, the Russian Revolution, along with the U.S. entry into World War I that same year, had prompted a ferocious pro-war, anti-communist campaign by the U.S. government and big business.
       Though crippled as the result of a vicious attack in Texas, Little vigorously supported the Butte miners and continued to speak out against U.S. workers joining the war effort. He urged workers to “fight the capitalists but not the Germans.” On the night of Aug. 1, six men kidnapped him from his boarding house room. They roped him to the bumper of their car, dragged him across cobblestone streets and then hanged him above the railroad tracks with a note pinned to his chest, “First and last warning.” No one was ever convicted of this heinous crime.
        On Aug. 8, 1917, one week after his murder, ten thousand people filled the streets of Butte for Montana’s largest funeral procession in history. They knew who was on their side, who had put his life on the line. The city fathers forced mourners to carry the U.S. flag in the procession. But once away from the city, the flag disappeared, leaving only the IWW banner to honor this brave Wobbly’s life. On his tombstone is carved, “Slain by Capitalist Interests for Organizing and Inspiring His Fellow Men.”

Read the full article HERE: 

 
   

Workers Know Your History, No Gods No Masters 3.

       Following on from parts one and two of Daily Motion's three part history of the anarchist movement, here is part 3. The three part series is quite an extensive cover of the anarchist movement world wide, well worth viewing and spreading the word.

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Workers Know Your History, No Gods, No Masters, 2 of 3.

      Following on from previous post of Daily Motion's part 1 of the history of anarchism, "No Gods, No Masters", here is part 2 of 3, 1922 1945. Enjoy, it's your history, it highlights our problems, and it points the way to the future.

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Lest We Forget.

             Here in the UK the British state’s level of brutality is relatively low at the moment, however, this is is not a sign of a mellowing, or that of a benign beast. The level of state violence rises and falls in line with the amount of protests against, and resistance to, its control over our lives. This slight trough in UK state violence is in part a sign of our compliance to its power, they see no threat. This can, and has changed dramatically, as soon as the establishment senses a rise in resistance to its power. For those lulled into a false sense that the state is a talking shop for the expression of “democracy” would do well to look back at our history.

1911 Liverpool General Transport Strike: 

          As the rail strike began to spread across the country, a mass demonstration in Liverpool was declared as a show of support. Taking place on August 13 at St Georges Plateau, 100,000 workers came to hear speeches by workers and leaders of the unions, including Tom Mann. The demonstration went without incident until about 4 o'clock, when, completely unprovoked, the crowds of workers suddenly came under attack from the police. Indiscriminantly attacking bystanders, the police succeeded in clearing the steps of St George's Hall in half an hour, despite resistance from strikers who used whatever they could find as weapons. Fighting soon spilled out into nearby streets, causing the police and troops to come under attack as workers pelted them with missiles from rooftops. Becoming known as Bloody Sunday, the fighting resulted in scores of injuries on both sides.
          Fighting across the city continued for several days, coming to a head when a group of workers attacked a prison van carrying some arrested strikers. Two workers were shot dead by troops during the ensuing struggle, one a docker and the other a carter.

Then Glasgow’s own Bloody Friday: 

             On Friday 31 January 1919 upwards of 60,000 demonstrators gathered in George Square Glasgow in support of the 40-hours strike and to hear the Lord Provost's reply to the workers' request for a 40-hour week. Whilst the deputation was in the building the police mounted a vicious and unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, felling unarmed men and women with their batons. The demonstrators, including large numbers of ex-servicemen, retaliated with whatever was available, fists, iron railings and broken bottles, and forced the police to retreat. On hearing the noise from the square the strike leaders, who were meeting with the Lord Provost, rushed outside in an attempt to restore order. One of the leaders, David Kirkwood, was felled to the ground by a police baton, and along with William Gallacher was arrested.
RIOTS AND ARRESTS.            After the initial confrontation between the demonstrators and the police in George Square, further fighting continued in and around the city centre streets for many hours afterwards. The Townhead area of the city and Glasgow Green, where many of the demonstrators had regrouped after the initial police charge, were the scenes of running battles between police and demonstrators. In the immediate aftermath of 'Bloody Friday', as it became known, other leaders of the Clyde Workers' Committee were arrested, including Emanuel Shinwell, Harry Hopkins and George Edbury.
TROOPS.
       The strike and the events of January, 31, 1919, “Bloody Friday” raised the Government’s concerns about industrial militancy and revolutionary political activity in Glasgow. Considerable fears within government of a workers' revolution in Glasgow led to the deployment of troops and tanks in the city. A full battalion of Scottish soldiers stationed at Maryhill barracks in Glasgow at the time were locked down and confined to barracks, for fear they would side with the rioters, an estimated 10,000 English troops, along with Seaforth Highlanders from Aberdeen, who were first vetted to remove those with a Glasgow connection, and tanks were sent to Glasgow in the immediate aftermath of Bloody Friday. Soldiers with fixed bayonets marched with tanks through the streets of the City. There were soldiers patrolling the streets and machine guns on the roofs in George Square. No other Scottish troops were deployed, with the government fearing fellow Scots, soldiers or otherwise, would go over to the workers if a revolutionary situation developed in the area. It was the British state’s largest military mobilisation against its own people and showed they were quite prepared to shed workers’ blood in protecting the establishment.

Then much more recently, the 1984/85 Miners Strike:

     Black and white photographs taken by friends, family and supporters at the 1984 Battle of Orgreave helped subsequently to demolish Police prosecutions for rioting that were levelled against 95 striking mineworkers. But at the time, very few close-up – and potentially incriminating – pictures made it into the news coverage of the mainstream media.
       Most press photographers and television camera crews were penned in behind police lines, and therefore kept largely to the perimeter of the eight-hour confrontation between pickets and mounted police.
       While newspapers and television news bulletins captured the scale of the conflict – and especially the graphic images of police on horseback charging through the pickets – there was nothing like the visual record of hand-to-hand combat that would be available today as a result of the abundance of camera phone pictures and videos that invariably emerges from demonstrations and protests.
        No wonder the iconic photograph taken by John Harris of Lesley Boulton, cowering as a mounted police officer approached her with a raised baton, has become an enduring image of the strike, reproduced repeatedly to illustrate the violent response of the police as the pickets assembled outside the Orgreave coke works on June 18, 1984.

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Workers, Remeber Your History, Jules Gustave Durand.

      We live under the yoke of a system that is not only unjust and exploitative, but it is also cruel, vicious and brutal. Through the years those who have fought that exploitation and injustice have felt the full force of that cruel, vicious brutality, and in some cases the fee paid for that challenge has been their liberty, their sanity, or their life. The history of the ordinary people is written in the blood and suffering of those who saw the injustice and stood up to that injustice, and who felt the full bare-knuckle force of this man made savage creation, the capitalist state. It is our duty to remember them, honour them, and pick up the challenge in their place.

     Jules Gustave Durand, Born September 6, 1880, in Le Harve. French anarchist, secretary of Le Harve Coalmen's Union and revolutionary trade unionist. Durand was an initiator of the French general strike of 1910, and was wrongly charged with the murder of a “blackleg” in a brawl. On the back of a series of corrupt witnesses and a hate campaign by the press he was sentenced to death on November 25, 1910. In a tremendous show of solidarity against this injustice protests and strikes closed the docks at Le Harve and spread across the channel to English ports and to some American ports. After further protests spearheaded by the League of Human Rights, he was released on February 15, 1911. Sadly, due to his inhumane treatment and spending 40 days restrained in a straightjacket he suffered a complete mental breakdown and spent the rest of his days in an asylum where he died in 1926. His case was re-opened and his name was cleared and on June 15, 1918, it was stated that he had been completely innocent of the charge.

     One of a legion who have paid dearly for daring to seek justice for all, and an end to exploitation.

WORKERS, KNOW YOUR HISTORY.

       Saturday 3rd July saw Paisley celebrate its long running Sma' Shot Day. This consists of a parade from Brodie Park on the outskirts of the town through the streets to the town centre. The parade is lead by the beating of the Charleston Drum with locals dressed as weavers from the 19th century, in the town centre there are stalls and fun for the kids with the day ending with the burning of the "CORK". An effigy in top hat and tails representing the boss of the weavers of old. In all the literature about the Sma Shot event very little links it to the real reason the event takes place, it was in effect a great victory for organised labour against tight-fisted capital in a bitter dispute during 1856. It is probably the longest running celebration in Britain of a strike victory. It is so easy for these events to be taken over and used as a fun parade and their origins to be forgotten. We should never allow this to happen we must always keep alive the fact that all we have was won from the bosses by what can only be described as long and sometimes very bitter struggles by our forefathers and that struggle goes on today. The events of today mean we have to prepare for further struggle as once again capital is hell-bent on attacking the living standards of the working class.  We need a new "Charleston Drum"

A short history of the Sma' Shot Strike 1856. 

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