No one would have believed, in the last decades of the nineteenth century, that American affairs were being shaped by the timeless forces of upheaval and unrest, that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were influenced and changed by ideas greater than themselves, perhaps as narrowly as a man might divert a river without the creatures within becoming aware. With infinite complacency genteel men went to and fro over this great nation about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over labor. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one in the upper classes gave a thought to the older revolutions of man as sources of imminent danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of renewed revolution as impossible or improbable.
It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, gentlemen fancied there might be some discomfort in the working classes, amongst men inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the vast gulf between classes, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded the capital of this nation with envious eyes, and slowly but surely drew their plans against the bourgeois. And, early in the twentieth century, came the great disillusionment.
Following the events of 1877, all had seemed quiet, and many in the United States acted as if nothing had ever happened. To the naked eye, it scarcely seemed like the workers had triumphed. The communes had been crushed, ringleaders hung, exiled, or gone underground, and laborers had resumed their work in the dark underbelly of industry. And yet, something had changed. The workingmen had discovered in their trials and tribulations that it was possible to organize, to stand for their rights, to gain something for themselves. To be sure, the red flags had been torn down by Federal troops in the end, but now the proletariat knew it could be done. Learning from their mistakes, they organized and waited patiently, assured in their knowledge that the next generation of workers and thinkers would be shaped by them. All the while, the officials and leaders and managers of America carried on in their everyday affairs, unaware or uncaring of the silent revolution brewing beneath their feet.
Although this new revolution of Roosevelt, DuBois, Debs, and countless others has often been the focus of many historians, little has been said of the bloodshed which inspired them. Indeed, modern historians ignore the events of 1877 almost as much as the capitalists of the late 19th century ignored it, treating the events in St. Louis, Chicago, and elsewhere as an aberration, a failed forerunner which had to be redone by later revolutionaries, while it fact it was this and only this first bloody attempt at a workers' state which paved the way for later revolts and reforms. Only with the bodies and blood of 1877 did the Black and Red Flags of Anarchy and Communism even briefly reunify, and only out of the massacres in Pittsburgh, Reading, and elsewhere did socialist thinkers regain solidarity and form the Second Internationale.
Like all great events in history, this first revolution of the workers began with a mundane spark. In the case of the 1877 insurrection, it began with a wage cut here, a single punch there...
It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, gentlemen fancied there might be some discomfort in the working classes, amongst men inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the vast gulf between classes, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded the capital of this nation with envious eyes, and slowly but surely drew their plans against the bourgeois. And, early in the twentieth century, came the great disillusionment.
Following the events of 1877, all had seemed quiet, and many in the United States acted as if nothing had ever happened. To the naked eye, it scarcely seemed like the workers had triumphed. The communes had been crushed, ringleaders hung, exiled, or gone underground, and laborers had resumed their work in the dark underbelly of industry. And yet, something had changed. The workingmen had discovered in their trials and tribulations that it was possible to organize, to stand for their rights, to gain something for themselves. To be sure, the red flags had been torn down by Federal troops in the end, but now the proletariat knew it could be done. Learning from their mistakes, they organized and waited patiently, assured in their knowledge that the next generation of workers and thinkers would be shaped by them. All the while, the officials and leaders and managers of America carried on in their everyday affairs, unaware or uncaring of the silent revolution brewing beneath their feet.
Although this new revolution of Roosevelt, DuBois, Debs, and countless others has often been the focus of many historians, little has been said of the bloodshed which inspired them. Indeed, modern historians ignore the events of 1877 almost as much as the capitalists of the late 19th century ignored it, treating the events in St. Louis, Chicago, and elsewhere as an aberration, a failed forerunner which had to be redone by later revolutionaries, while it fact it was this and only this first bloody attempt at a workers' state which paved the way for later revolts and reforms. Only with the bodies and blood of 1877 did the Black and Red Flags of Anarchy and Communism even briefly reunify, and only out of the massacres in Pittsburgh, Reading, and elsewhere did socialist thinkers regain solidarity and form the Second Internationale.
Like all great events in history, this first revolution of the workers began with a mundane spark. In the case of the 1877 insurrection, it began with a wage cut here, a single punch there...
