Our next Red Roundtable in New York City is on October 29 at 6pm. Socialist historian and activist Michael Sturza, author of The London Revolution 1640-1643: Class Struggles in 17th Century England, will discuss the bourgeois revolutions against feudalism. The English events, carried out by many thousands of ordinary people, are the original source for democratic ideas eventually codified in the U.S. Bill of Rights. The historical lessons drawn will shed light on the relevance of democratic rights to revolutionary struggles today. Email [email protected] to reserve a seat and for directions.

#OTD 1887: John Reed born. Already a well known socialist, Reed was eyewitness to #Bolshevik Revolution and wrote Ten Days that Shook the World. #Lenin hailed it:“Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages. It gives a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” In 1919, Reed and other leftists expelled from #Socialist Party founded #Communist Party in United States. The next year, he attended Second Congress of Communist International, then Congress of the Peoples of the East in Baku, Azerbaijan, where he got spotted typhus. Due to imperialist blockade he could not receive needed medication and died on October 17, 1920. After a hero's funeral, Reed's body was buried at the Kremlin wall.

This is an excellent episode and we urge everybody to listen and take up these cases.

#OTD 1926, Eugene V. #Debs, a spokesman and candidate for the #Socialist Party, cofounder of the militant Industrial Workers of the World, and opponent of imperialist war, died. Among his last political acts was to support the International Labor Defense, the class-struggle social and legal defense group organized by #Communist Party leader James P. Cannon. Last month, PRL Research Associate Jacob Zumoff (@ZumoffA) recently spoke with the @cleanbreaknow Gimme A Break podcast about Debs' legacy, and what lessons leftists today should draw from his life--and what lessons to NOT draw. In particular, he defended Debs from those "socialists" who support the capitalist Democratic Party, ignoring Debs' lifelong struggle for working-class independence. Listen to "Saving Debs from His Epigones" here: open.spotify.com/episode/2vr…

#OTD 1927, more than 10,000 coal miners in Colorado struck under leadership of Industrial Workers of the World. The IWW organized an elected general strike committee comprising representatives of the ethnic and racial groups among strikers, including Mexican, black, Anglo, Italian, Slavic, and Greek miners. Strikers faced massive repression, culminating in the Columbine Mine Massacre of November 21, when state police fired on 500 picketer, killing six men and injuring at least 20 more strikers. Despite the repression, the strike was a success: even though the workers did not gain all their demands, they obtained a wage increase and ended the strike through a vote in January instead of being smashed. The Communist Party and the International Labor Defense built solidarity with the strike among workers throughout the country, including organizing a protest outside the Standard Oil headquarters in Lower Manhattan after the massacre in November, highlighting the Rockefellers’ role in the Colorado coal industry.

The united front and the popular front--and the differences between the two--are vital issues for the left and the workers movement. We urge everybody interested in these questions to register and attend this class.

This look at the Socialist Workers Party in the United States after the Second World War should be read by all those who are interested in the history of socialism in the United States and internationally--and for those who seek to build a revolutionary movement today. One of the specialties of the PRL is documenting the history of the Trotskyist movement in the United States, including internal material that is not easily available elsewhere, including online. If you are interested in any of the sources mentioned in the article, or in taking a deeper look at the subject, please contact us at [email protected]. iclfi.org/spartacist/en/2026…

PRL Research Associate @ZumoffA will be presenting on the fight of the International Labor Defense to free class-war prisoners Sacco and Vanzetti. We are going to the conference and looking forward to this panel!

The PRL is going to be at the North American Labor History Conference at Wayne State University in Detroit this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Look for our table! We will also be on the panel 2B on Thursday, 2:15-3:45pm. #NALHC2026 #laborhistory

We have posted the video of our first Red Round table at the PRL featuring Jacob Zumoff discussing the 1926 Passaic strike in New Jersey: youtu.be/FK4AUVziZKI?si=1oBG… During the anti-labor 1920s, some 15,000 workers, largely immigrants and women, struggled for more than a year for better conditions, higher wages, and a union. This was the first mass strike in the United States led by supporters of the Communist Party. Although ultimately defeated, the strike is rich in lessons for the left and labor movement today. @ZumoffA is a research associate of the PRL and author of The Red Thread: The Passaic Textile Strike, published by @RutgersUPress #laborhistory #NJhistory #labor #communism

Just a reminder about our upcoming Red Roundtable in NYC on October 29 at 6pm. Mike Sturza will be discussing his book, The London Revolution, 1640-1643: Class Struggles in 17th Century England. Email [email protected] to register and for location.

#OTD 1879: Birth of labor martyr #Joe Hill, Industrial Workers of the World (#IWW) militant, organizer and troubador, framed on murder charges and executed by a Utah firing squad in 1915. In 1902 Hill immigrated from Sweden to the U.S. He joined the IWWs San Pedro (California) local in 1910 and became its secretary. Opposed to craft unionism, IWW (also known as the Wobblies), organized all workers regardless of skill, sex, race or nationality. Hill traveled from railroad yard to fruit camp to dock front helping out in strikes and free-speech fights. In 1911 Hill joined fought with anarchist rebels in Mexico. Hill and other Wobblies wrote songs for workers in struggle. Hill explained, “A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over.” His first, “Casey Jones—the Union Scab,” was written to assist South Pacific Line strikers facing defeat by scabs. His most famous and enduring song “The Preacher and the Slave” (“Pie in the Sky”), parodied the Christian Gospel Hymn “The Sweet By and Bye” to expose the church’s hypocrisy: “Work all day, live on hay. You’ll get pie in the sky when you die. (That’s no lie.)” Following a hard-won victory by IWW Local 69 against the Utah Construction Co. in June 1914, the Salt Lake City police waged war against the union. IWW meetings were broken up, speakers arrested and jailed. Hill hopped a train to join the free-speech fights. On January 10, 1914 two masked men entered a grocery store and shot the owner and his son. Hill he was arrested and framed up for the grocer’s murder. In response to a police request for information about Hill, San Pedro police chief stated he “was an IWW agitator and the author of IWW songs. What more is needed to convict him?” Despite the lack of any evidence Hill was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Facing execution Hill telegrammed IWW leader Big Bill Haywood, “I die like a true rebel. Don't waste any time mourning—organize!”

#OTD 1936: In what became known as the Battle of Cable Street, on 4 October 1936 a united front of tens of thousands of trade unionists, Irish dockworkers, miners, communists and Jews with the rallying cry “They Shall not Pass,” stopped fascist Oswald Mosley and his Black Shirts in East London. Some 6,000 police tried to secure the fascists’ march route by attacking protesters who had set up barricades. Militant and determined anti-fascists fought back, forcing the cops and Black Shirts to call off their march and disperse. #CableStreet

#历史上的今天 #中华人民共和国 成立了 “中国不能在资本主义的道路上发展下去。…… 唯一可能发展，甚至是维持中国工业的路径便只能是社会主义化的道路，这也是毛泽东政府不得不走的道路。 不断革命论，作为一个关于殖民地革命发展的理论，已经以一种令人印象深刻的方式在中国的发展中被证实了。”（坎农【1955】论中国问题）

#OTD #PRC #历史上的今天 #中华人民共和国 成立了 “中国不能在资本主义的道路上发展下去。…… 唯一可能发展，甚至是维持中国工业的路径便只能是社会主义化的道路，这也是毛泽东政府不得不走的道路。 不断革命论，作为一个关于殖民地革命发展的理论

#OTD #PRC founded October 1, 1949 “China could not be developed on the bourgeois path…. The only one possible way to develop the industries of China, or even to keep them going, was the way the Chinese regime of Mao Zedong had to take, and that was the road of socialization. In the evolution of China, the theory of the permanent revolution, as a theory of development in the colonial revolution, has been vindicated quite impressively.” (James P. Cannon, “On the Chinese Question,” 1955)

This is the best, short treatment of the history of Chinese #Trotskyism, which all leftists should read.

#OTD 1864 the International Working Men's Association, or First International, was founded in London. Karl #Marx subsequently observed: "To conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working classes." Forging revolutionary leadership for the working class and oppressed remains the outstanding task for #Marxists today, in the age of imperialist decay. We invite leftists and workers to visit the PRL (in person on through our website, prl.org) to learn from the struggles of the international working class as part of preparing for tomorrow's struggles.

Just a reminder: @ZumoffA will be speaking next Thursday, 24 September, at 6pm at the PRL in NYC on the Passaic textile strike--the historic strike of 15,000 workers, mainly immigrants and women, led by the Communist Party in 1926. The strike holds lessons about the importance of the struggle Communist leadership in the labor movement today. Jacob Zumoff is research associate of the PRL and author of Red Thread: The Passaic Textile Strike, published by @RutgersUPress To register and directions, email [email protected] fill out this form: shorturl.at/Id8bE