the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Apr 17, 2023
Movie: Harlan County USA, award winning documentary, 1976, director Barbara Kopple, available on YouTube.com or on HBOMax
In the summer of 1973, the coal miners working at the Brookside Mine, located in Harlan County, Kentucky, voted to join the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). What followed was a 13-month-long strike when the bosses refused to sign a contract. Film director Barbara Kopple lived with the strikers for a year, and recorded events as they unfolded, including violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their militant womenfolk. The film records the workers themselves choosing their strategy, dealing with obstacles. It includes the music of the miners’ culture and fights and highlights the unity that made the strike known across the country.
Book: Teamster Rebellion, by Farrell Dobbs, 1972
This book tells the story of the strikes and organizing drives of the Teamsters for a union contract carried out by working men and women in Minneapolis in 1934. It was a brutal life-and-death fight and it engrossed the entire city.
The fight was led by Trotskyist communists who understood what they were up against. If the police attacked the pickets and let the scabs go in, the next day the organizers had hundreds ready to push back the attack. When the police or the company’s henchmen then attacked, shooting unarmed picketers, injuring 67 and killing two, the workers responded with a funeral procession of 20,000 which marched to the strike headquarters.
When the governor declared martial law enforced by the military, banned the strike, and jailed most of the leaders, the workers still found a way to continue the strike. The book shows the power workers have to run or shut down an entire city.