[GM105] History of the labor movement in the United States

The presentation of the work on the American labour movement continued with a description of the activity of the sections of the First International within the North American working class in the early 1870s. The internationalists were particularly active amongst the unemployed where they met with some success. The most active workers were the Germans, who imported the socialist message from Europe. Along with them came also the questions which in the mother country divided the Marxists from the Lassalleans, with the consequent weakening of the movement which resulted aggravated by a tendency of the Germans to keep apart from the “native” workers. A comment by Marx and Engels on the situation from their correspondence of the period highlighted this situation. In 1876, on the occasion of the dissolution of the First International, there was a rapprochement, and the Working Men’s party of the United States was formed almost contemporaneously, although the old differences would soon re-emerge to the detriment of the Marxist wing, and be compounded once the anarchists had given shape to their own political organisation. Another series of events connected to the European origins of the movement, Irish this time, was the rise and fall of the Molly Maguires, who were mainly present in the mining districts of Pennsylvania.

The greater part of the report was however devoted to describing the major struggles of those years and in particular the Great Railway Strike of 1877; a strike which made the ruling classes tremble and gave the proletariat a measure of its strength. But in the end, thanks to its combined force of army, private troops, militia, police, press and courts, the bosses would defeat the railway workers after a bloody crackdown, leaving many dead, even if proletarians did obtain certain concessions. What is for sure is that the average American worker learned at least two things: first of all came the realisation of the great power the class was capable of expressing when it moved as one; and that this great power could achieve nothing unless there was an organisation to give it continuity, connectivity and capacity to resist. Hence the decisive push to form national trades unions, capable of mobilising large numbers and, thanks to membership subscriptions, of providing support to strikers for prolonged periods.

These important struggles would give rise in 1878 to the International Labor Union, a national trade union organisation which exhibited a characteristic feature of a class organisation, in that it supported its weakest sectors, namely blacks and above all women. But it didn’t last long, finally fizzling out in 1883. The experience of the participants would not however be lost and would prove to be a precious asset within the Knights of Labor.