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SW Online's archive
The history of our struggle
SUBJECTS BELOW:
Class struggle U.S.A.
A world of resistance and revolution
The struggle for liberation
Stopping their wars
What they didn't teach in school
CLASS STRUGGLE U.S.A.
The march of the Bonus Army
With the Great Depression causing mass unemployment, some 40,000 war veterans made their way to Washington, D.C., in 1932 to demand an immediate bonus payment.
When Big Brown was shut down
The Teamsters strike at UPS 10 years ago delivered labor movement's first decisive victory in decades and pointed a different way forward for unions.
America's first nationwide strike
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 spread like a wildfire from Baltimore to Pittsburgh to St. Louis and Chicago--and was only defeated with utmost brutality on the part of the government.
The first May Day
The 19th-century struggle of a largely immigrant working class in the U.S. for the eight-hour day is honored by the international workers' holiday on May 1.
The defeat of PATCO:
Signal of the employers' offensive
In just five small letters, one event encapsulates the employers' offensive of the 1980s--PATCO.
Striking the textile towns of Lawrence and Paterson
The power of workers united
Two strikes in the textile industry--in Lawrence, Mass., in 1912 and Paterson, N.J., in 1913--illustrated the potential for workers of many different nationalities to build solidarity.
The hidden history of workers' struggle in the U.S.
Subterranean Fire
SW columnist Sharon Smith is the author of a new book that tells the hidden history of working-class radicalism in the U.S. Here, we reprint excerpts from Subterranean Fire.
A hundred years of the Industrial Workers of the World
One big union
Many of the questions faced by the union movement today were debated 100 years ago at the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove on:
Voices of a People's History
The authors of a wonderful new book that helps reveal the other side of history talk to Socialist Worker.
Kurt Vonnegut on the socialists who fought for workers
Celebrating socialism in the U.S.
Kurt Vonnegut is one of America's best-known novelists. In October, Vonnegut was given the Carl Sandburg Literary Award from the Friends of the Chicago Public Library--and used his acceptance speech to discuss Sandburg's commitment to socialism.
The story of the great Lawrence textile strike of 1912
Bread and roses
James Oppenheimer wrote the song "Bread and Roses" to honor the great strike of textile workers in Lawrence, Mass., 90 years ago this month. He took the title from the banners of strikers, who demanded not just decent treatment at work, but the right to dignity and a better quality of life.
Framed and put to death because of their political beliefs
Sacco and Vanzetti
Seventy-five years ago this month, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti--two Italian immigrants--were executed in the state of Massachusetts. But not before the case and the movement that was organized to save them made a huge impact around the world.
When San Francisco longshore workers beat the bosses
War on the docks
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is facing a tough battle against the port bosses on the West Coast docks. Union leaders need to remember the tactics that won the 1934 strike to win union recognition in the ports.
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A WORLD OF RESISTANCE AND REVOLUTION
The legacy of a revolutionary
Who was Che?
Che Guevara's image has inspired millions of people who want to fight for a better world. But very few people, especially in the U.S., know much about his life or politics.
Ireland's greatest revolutionary
Ireland's political establishment canonizes James Connolly as a great "patriot." But they would feel ill at ease with his lifelong commitment to working class self-emancipation.
The uprising that shook Eastern Europe's tyrants
Hungary '56
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 represented an uprising from below against an oppressive system that ruled in the name of socialism.
Revolution in Germany
Pierre Broué's book on the German Revolution of 1918-23 recovers the history of one of the most courageous and tragic episodes in the workers' movement.
The hope amid the horror of 1930s fascism
The Spanish Civil War
At its height, the Spanish Civil War that began 70 years ago provided a glimpse of how millions of ordinary workers could join together to lay the foundation for a more just society.
The rebellion that revived South Africa's liberation struggle
Soweto 1976
Thirty years ago, Black students in South Africa opened a new period of resistance to the racist apartheid system when they rose up to protest oppression in the schools.
Fifteen months in 1980-81:
The story of Solidarnosc
The Solidarnosc workers rebellion in Poland in 1980-81 stands with the great revolutionary upheavals of the past in showing the promise of a new society based on workers' power.
"The great dress rehearsal"
Russia's 1905 Revolution
One hundred years ago, the Russian working class took center stage for the first time with strikes and demonstrations that shook the power of the dictatorial tsar.
How the Russian Revolution was won
The real history of the Russian Revolution is about ordinary people coming to life as they discovered their own potential for creating a truly democratic society.
The alternative to a system controlled by a tiny few
How will workers run society?
"Nice idea, but it will never happen." For many people, this is the common-sense response to socialism--a society based not on greed and violence, but on cooperation and fulfilling human need. But history provides many examples of workers uniting and fighting back.
How Russia went from a workers' state to state capitalism
Why did Stalin rise to power?
Joseph Stalin is rightly remembered as one of the most horrible tyrants of the 20th century. But to most people, his name is also associated with socialism.
Thirty years after the coup that toppled a left-wing government
Chile's tragedy
This week marks 30 years since Gen. Augusto Pinochet--backed to the hilt by the U.S.--led a military coup to overthrow Chile's democratically elected left-wing government.
Twenty-five years after
The Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution was the biggest defeat for U.S. imperialism in the years after the Vietnam War, and it permanently changed the political terrain of the Middle East.
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THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION
Forty years after King's last stand
The unfinished struggle
Martin Luther King was assassinated in the midst of a struggle that he saw as part of the next stage for the civil rights movement.
Radical roots of the civil rights movement
The standard history of the civil rights movement given by the media obscures the radical sources of the struggle against racism.
Civil War and Reconstruction:
How slavery was ended
Abolishing the crime of slavery took an immense Civil War and a postwar period of Reconstruction that involved dramatic political struggles.
The Black Power revolt
Before the ink had dried on the 1960s civil rights legislation ending legal racism in the South, Blacks in the North went into revolt against the conditions that defined their lives.
Rebellion in Detroit
Forty years ago this summer, of Detroit was rocked to its core by what became known as the "Great Rebellion"--clashes with police in the leading city of American industry.
The civil rights movement after Montgomery
The early days of the African-American civil rights movement, when activists faced widespread resistance from supporters of Jim Crow, have important lessons for today.
Lawyer and political activist Stephen Bingham on...
The assassination of George Jackson
Stephen Bingham, a lawyer who worked with George Jackson, talks to SW about the murdered prison activist's legacy--and his own fight for justice.
United States Prisoner No. 89637-132
The persecution of Leonard Peltier
Three decades ago, Leonard Peltier was convicted in federal court in one of the most infamous political frame-ups in modern U.S. history.
The governator's hit list
In rejecting clemency for death row prisoner Stan Tookie Williams, Arnold Schwarzenegger smeared the legacy of 11 Black and Native American revolutionaries. SW tells their stories.
Malcolm X: Legacy of a revolutionary
Malcolm X, who was assassinated 40 years ago, was a revolutionary and internationalist who confronted questions of imperialism and racism that remain with us today.
The MLK they don't talk about
Martin Luther King's radical antiwar views don't fit with the image that has been sanitized for school textbooks and hijacked by Corporate America--so it's ignored.
The story of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
"We didn't come to compromise"
Today, the Democrats like to call themselves the "party of civil rights," but the struggle of Southern Blacks to win the vote tells quite a different story.
Brown v. Board: 50 years later
Fifty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. the Board of Education decision declared an end to segregation in public schools--and helped launch an era of struggle for civil rights.
Forty years since the civil rights march that changed U.S. politics
Hidden story of the March on Washington
Four decades since the historic civil rights march where Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech, Socialist Worker tells the hidden story of how the Kennedy administration frustrated and betrayed the civil rights movement.
Thirty years after Roe
The fight to defend abortion rights
January 22 marked the 30th anniversary of the legalization of abortion in the U.S. Socialist Worker looks at history of the fight for a woman's right to choose and the struggle today.
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STOPPING THEIR WARS
Tet: The turning point in Vietnam
Forty years ago, a nationwide offensive by the fighters of the liberation struggle in Vietnam exposed the lie that the U.S. was winning the war.
SDS and the struggles of the 1960s
Students for a Democratic Society came to symbolize the explosion of dissent and protest on college campuses during the 1960s.
The soldiers' revolt in Vietnam
Rebellion in the ranks
The rebellion within the U.S. armed forces that contributed to the U.S. defeat in Vietnam has been erased from public memory. The republication of a classic account of this revolt is welcome.
Mike Alewitz on Kent State and its aftermath
"The spark that set it off"
A leader of the antiwar struggle at Kent State University talks about the shootings of four students by the Ohio National Guard.
Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War
The fall of Saigon
On April 30, 1975, the U.S.-backed government in Saigon collapsed, ending three decades of war in Vietnam and serving the U.S. its greatest military defeat ever.
The real story of the...
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against John Kerry represents the latest effort by right-wing groups to erase from history the role that U.S. soldiers played in ending the war in Vietnam.
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WHAT THEY DIDN'T TEACH IN SCHOOL
What really happened in 10,000 B.C.?
The way films like 10,000 B.C. depict early societies sheds a lot of light on how human history is mangled.
Specialists in coups and killing
In light of the tendency of some liberals to identify Bush's critics within the CIA as the "good guys," it's worth recalling the agency's real history.
The truth about the "good war"
The usual portrayal of the Second World War minimizes the atrocities carried out by the Allied powers--and even justifies them as unavoidable lapses in a necessary war.
Sports and the politics of the Terrordome
Sportswriter Dave Zirin and Chuck D of Public Enemy spoke in May about Welcome to the Terrordome--Dave's newly published book, for which Chuck D wrote the introduction.
A passionate writer and opponent of injustice
Vonnegut's life and art were shaped by personal tragedies, but they also reflected his connection to some of the most terrible public tragedies of the 20th century.
The real Gerald Ford
The stories that politicians like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld told about Gerald Ford as an "ordinary guy" are so much political myth-making.
Mark Steel on the new movie about Marie-Antoinette
The celebrity view of history
The author of a newly republished book on the French Revolution criticizes the recently released film Marie Antoinette, directed by Sofia Coppola.
The right-wing, scandal-ridden "charity" that isn't really a charity
The truth about the Red Cross
For many people, the American Red Cross is the very embodiment of lifesaving. But the real story of the organization isn't nearly as noble and humanitarian as the image.
What Watergate showed us about the political system
Crooked from top to bottom
The unmasking of Deep Throat serves as a reminder of the depths of corruption, deceit and ruthless ambition among the people who run the U.S. government.
The lessons of McCarthyism
It isn't hard to draw the link from the terrible days of the McCarthyite witch-hunts of radicals to the political climate in the U.S.today.
Does Abraham Lincoln deserve all the credit?
Who freed the slaves?
Many myths surround the American Civil War, including one that tells us that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves with a stroke of his pen.
Allies destroyed Dresden, but never bombed Auschwitz
American war crime in the "good war"
Just beneath the surface of the "good war" are the same obscene policies present in all Great Power conflicts. Two anniversaries demonstrate this clearly.
Was he calling for armed rebellion or preaching obedience?
Who was the real Jesus?
Bush says that Jesus' teachings are the "foundation for how I live my life." But Bush seems to have forgotten about "Blessed are the peacemakers" as he plans a war that will kill thousands of Iraqis.
John Steinbeck: Poet of the dust bowl
One hundred years after John Steinbeck's birth, his books continue to be read and loved by millions around the world. He gave voice to workers' struggles during the Great Depression and expressed hope for a better world.
Stephen Jay Gould: A scientist of the people
Stephen Jay Gould, who died of cancer last month, was one of the most influential evolutionary theorists of his generation and the most talented popularizer of science in the past century.
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