1877 strike foretold growth of ‘serious workers party’ in US

Vol. 84/No. 37 - September 21, 2020
Troops attack strikers in Baltimore in 1877 general strike. Karl Marx called it “the first uprising against the oligarchy of capital since the Civil War.” From here, he pointed to the forces of the American socialist revolution — free labor, free farmers exploited by capital and freed slaves.

One of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for September is The Great Labor Uprising of 1877 by Philip S. Foner. After four years of economic depression, a walkout by West Virginia railroad workers developed into a nationwide strike involving 100,000…