Pérez Collado (1915 - 2014)

Sun Oct 17, 1915

Concha Pérez Collado, born on this day in 1915, was an anarchist involved with the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and anti-fascist soldier during the Spanish Civil War.

When the Civil War broke out, Collado already had access to weapons and training because she was part of an anarchist group that were preparing for what they saw as an inevitable military uprising. She saw action in Barcelona and Aragon, attacking prisons, building barricades for her neighborhood, and working in a munitions factory, before eventually moving to a French refugee camp where she gave birth to her only son.

Pérez Collado returned to Spain under Francisco Franco's rule and ran a jewelry shop with her partner Maurici Palau which doubled as a secret meeting place for anarchists. From 1982 to 1984, Collado participated in a series of interviews with Nick Rider about anarchism in Spain during the 1930s.

• Date: 1915-10-17
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, libcom.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays, #Anarchism, #Fascism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Empire Zinc Strike (1950)

Tue Oct 17, 1950

The Empire Zinc Strike, also known as the Salt of the Earth strike, was a 15-month-long miners' strike that began on this day in 1950 in Silver City, New Mexico, against the Empire Zinc Company in protest of its discriminatory pay and company housing practices. Later, workers also demanded indoor plumbing and hot water for Mexican-American homes as well.

Empire Zinc fought back by sending police to harass picketers, posting eviction notices on company houses, and cutting off credit to strikers at the company grocery store. Labor activist Clinton Jencks, who was the union's business agent, was arrested on strike and kept in solitary confinement for 16 months. After the company got a court injunction forbidding picketers to return to the picket line, the workers' wives and children took their place.

After 15 months of protest, the company came to an agreement with the striking workers on January 21st, 1952, giving the strikers nearly everything they asked for. The strike drew national attention, and, after it was settled in 1952, a movie entitled "Salt of the Earth" (1954) was released that offered a fictionalized version of events.

• Date: 1950-10-17
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.pri.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #Imperialism, #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Million Man March (1995)

Mon Oct 16, 1995

Image: This photograph taken from the US Capitol Building shows thousands of people gathered on the Mall during the "Million Man March" in Washington D.C., on October 16th, 1995.

On this day in 1995, a collaborative rally of various civil rights and black liberation groups known as the "Million Man March" took place in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of thousands strong, the march included groups from across the political spectrum, from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to the National of Islam (NOI), and its purpose was to "convey to the world a vastly different picture of the Black male".

The rally's events were broken down into several sessions on specific topics, including "Sankofa: Lessons from the Past Linkages to the Future" and "Atonement and Reconciliation". Many prominent civil rights activists spoke at the event, including Betty Shabazz (widow of Malcolm X), Dr. Cornel West, Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Rev. Benjamin Chavis, Jr., and Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Two years after the march, the Million Woman March was held in response to fears that the Million Man March had focused on black men to the exclusion of black women. Farrakhan held the 20th Anniversary of the "Million Man March: Justice or Else" on October 10th, 2015, in Washington, D.C.

• Date: 1995-10-16
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.blackpast.org.
• Tags: #Civil Rights.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Karl Kautsky (1854 - 1938)

Mon Oct 16, 1854

Karl Johann Kautsky was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician born on this day in 1854. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative proponents of Orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, including during the Second International.

Kautsky founded the important socialist journal "Neue Zeit". Following the war, Kautsky was an outspoken critic of the Bolshevik Revolution, engaging in polemics with Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin on the nature of the Soviet state. Towards the end of his life, he became close friends with Rosa Luxemburg.

Of the USSR, he famously wrote "Foreign tourists in Russia stand in silent amazement before the gigantic enterprises created there, as they stand before the pyramids, for example. Only seldom does the thought occur to them what enslavement, what lowering of human self-esteem was connected with the construction of those gigantic establishments."

For his part, Lenin excoriated Kautsky's interpretations of Marxist thought stating "Kautsky has beaten the world record in the liberal distortion of Marx." (see Lenin's essay "How Kautsky Turned Marx Into A Common Liberal").

Kautsky is notable for, in addition to his anti-Bolshevik polemics, his editing and publication of Marx's Capital, Volume IV (usually published as "Theories of Surplus Value").

• Date: 1854-10-16
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.marxists.org.
• Tags: #Marxism, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Black Panther Party Founded (1966)

Sat Oct 15, 1966

Image: 1969 photograph of Black Panther Party members outside a courthouse in New York City

On this day in 1966, in the wake of spontaneous riots against police brutality, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California.

In an interview recorded for the 1990 documentary "Eyes on the Prize II", Seale described the founding of the BPP in his own words:

"Black Panther Party, 1966, when Huey and I founded that organization, that particular year, numerous acts of police brutality had sparked a lot of spontaneous riots, something that Huey and I were against, the spontaneous riots.

Even a year earlier, in 1965, in Watts, you know, sixty-five people were killed, 200 wounded, 5,000 arrested. And Huey and I began to try to figure out how could we organize 5,000 youthful Black folks into some kind of political-electorial power movement.

Stokely Carmichael [Kwame Ture] was on the scene with Black Power. We were questioning, Huey and I, about the need for a functional definition of power and we came up with this, that 'power is the ability to define phenomena then in turn make it act in a desired manner.'

With the phenomena of racism structured in the city council at that time, Huey and I working with the North Oakland Neighborhood Service Center, the advisory board, we got 5,000 signatures for them to go to the city council, to get the city council to try to set up a police review board to deal with complaints of police brutality. Well, the city council ignored them.

So, that phenomena was that the city council was just a racist structure which could care less about the forty-eight percent Black and Chicano people who lived in the city of Oakland. So, there we are trying to figure out what to do. We finally concluded through those months that we had to start a new organization.

And we sit down and began to write out this Ten-Point Platform and Program in the North Oakland Neighborhood Service Center in North Oakland, California, in the community where Huey and I lived. And we wrote out this program.

'We want power to determine our own destiny in our own Black community', alluding to the needs to be organized-political electoral power. Full employment, decent housing, decent education that taught us about our true selves, not to have to fight in Vietnam, immediate end to police brutality and murder of back people was point number seven.

The right to have juries of our peers in the courts, what have you. We summed it up. We wanted land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace. And, in the tail end, we stuck in two famous paragraphs: 'When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to separate themself from the political bondage' - that was the emphasis, the political bondage - 'which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the Earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitled them.'

I mean, this was the kind of summarization we gave to our meaning. And we summarized that Ten-Point Platform Program, flipped a coin to see who would be chairman. I won chairman and we created the Black Panther Party."

• Date: 1966-10-15
• Learn More: repository.wustl.edu, www.youtube.com, www.britannica.com, www.jacobinmag.com.
• Tags: #Riots.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Thomas Sankara Assassinated (1987)

Thu Oct 15, 1987

Thomas Sankara was a Burkinabé revolutionary who expanded social welfare and nationalized natural resources in Burkina Faso. On this day in 1987, Sankara was assassinated in a coup led by Blaise Compaoré, who succeeded Sankara in power.

Thomas Sankara was a Burkinabé revolutionary and President of Burkina Faso, assassinated on this day in 1987. A Marxist-Leninist and Pan-Africanist, he was viewed by supporters as a charismatic and iconic figure of revolution and is sometimes referred to as "Africa's Che Guevara".

Sankara came into power when allies instigated a coup on his behalf in 1983. He immediately launched programs for social, ecological and economic change and renamed the country from the French colonial name Upper Volta to Burkina Faso ("Land of Incorruptible People"), with its people being called Burkinabé ("upright people").

Sankara's administration refused foreign aid to remain politically independent, with him stating "Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms, a loan, food aid, blackmail". He also began nationalizing land and mineral wealth and promoted literacy, women's rights, and public health.

On this day in 1987, Sankara was assassinated by troops led by Blaise Compaoré, who assumed leadership of the state shortly after having Sankara killed. A week before his murder, Sankara had declared: "While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas".

• Date: 1987-10-15
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.thomassankara.net, jacobin.com, www.marxists.org.
• Tags: #Marxism, #Assassinations.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Max Hoelz (1889 - 1933)

Mon Oct 14, 1889

Max Hoelz, born on this day in 1889, was a German Communist most known for his role as a "Communist Bandit" in the 1920s, leading raids against police, releasing prisoners, and destroying property deeds.

Hoelz was politically radicalized by the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and by contact with Georg Schumann, a member of the socialist Spartakusbund (Schumann was later to be executed by the Nazis in 1945).

In 1920, after the right-wing Kapp Putsch, Hoelz organized workers from Falkenstein and Oelsnitz in a Red Guard, leading armed bands against the police, the army, and the far-right paramilitary Freikorps. In this role, he became a kind of "Robin Hood", raising money from employers under threat of reprisals, liberating prisoners, destroying property deeds and police archives, and burning villas of the rich.

Later in life, after the Nazis began to come into power, he moved to Soviet Russia. There, however, he became a dissident, criticizing bad working conditions in the country. On September 15th, 1933, he died in a "boating accident", which is speculated by anarchist historian Nick Heath to actually have been an NKVD assassination.

• Date: 1889-10-14
• Learn More: libcom.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Communism, #Birthdays, #Fascism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Marcus Thrane (1817 - 1890)

Tue Oct 14, 1817

Image: Portrait of Marcus Thrane for business cards. Chicago circa 1875 [snl.no]

Marcus Thrane, born on this day in 1817, was a socialist labor activist who founded the first organized workers' movement in Norway. After a union he founded petitioned the King for universal suffrage and legal equality, Thrane was imprisoned.

Born into a bourgeois family, Thrane was orphaned at the early age of 15 and spent the rest of his youth studying abroad in Europe. He returned to Norway, working as an educator.

In 1848, Thrane began working as the editor of the local newspaper Drammens Adresse. Inspired by the February Revolution in France, Thrane expressed radical political opinions and was dismissed from the position after less than a year.

Around this time, Thrane founded the Drammens arbeiderforening (Drammen Labour Union) and began publishing the union's paper. Between 1849-50, the trade union movement (also called the Thranite Movement) grew very quickly, to approximately 30,000 members.

Members of the Thranite Movement were both urban and rural - both small farmers in the countryside and urban craftsmen participated.

This trade union movement is often associated with a petition presented to King Oscar I on May 19th, 1850. The petition, backed by nearly 13,000 signatures, demanded universal suffrage, abolition of protective tariffs, reform of the public school, and improvement of householders ' conditions.

Over the following years, this growing labor movement was repressed by the state - its leadership, including Thrane, were surveilled, arrested on false charges, and imprisoned. These tactics successfully broke the Thranite Movement, and Thrane himself left Norway for the U.S. in 1863.

In 1890, Thrane died in Wisconsin. His remains were returned to Norway in 1949, and he is buried in the Æreslunden at Vår Frelser's cemetery in Oslo.

• Date: 1817-10-14
• Learn More: snl.no, en.wikipedia.org, www.britannica.com.
• Tags: #Labor, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Sid Mills Fish-in Arrest (1968)

Sun Oct 13, 1968

Image: Photo from the Facebook page "We the Indigenous"

On this day in 1968, while conducting a "Fish-in" protest on the Nisqually River in Washington state, activist Sid Mills was arrested. This was just one action from Mills' campaign of civil disobedience in demand of lawful fishing rights.

The Fish Wars were a series of protests in the 1960s and '70s in which Native American tribes around the Puget Sound pressured the U.S. government to recognize fishing rights granted by the Point No Point Treaty. The acts of protest often involved participants fishing "illegally" on rivers that previous treaties, then ignored, had granted them rights to.

On this day in 1968, while conducting a Fish-in protest at Frank's Landing on the Nisqually River, activist Sid Mills was arrested. He issued a statement:

"I am a Yakima and Cherokee Indian, and a man...I served in combat in Vietnam-until critically wounded...I hereby renounce further obligation in service or duty to the United States Army.

My first obligation now lies with the Indian People fighting for the lawful Treaty to fish in usual and accustomed water of the Nisqualiy, Columbia and other rivers of the Pacific Northwest, and in serving them in this fight in any way possible.

...My decision is influenced by the fact that we have already buried Indian fishermen returned dead from Vietnam, while Indian fishermen live here without protection and under steady attack..."

• Date: 1968-10-13
• Learn More: www.historyisaweapon.com, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Indigenous, #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Ding Ling (1904 - 1986)

Wed Oct 12, 1904

Ding Ling, born on this day in 1904, was a prominent Chinese Marxist and feminist author. Despite being a member of the Communist Party, she was imprisoned and sentenced to manual labor during the Cultural Revolution.

In her early career, Ding Ling wrote highly successful short stories centering on young, unconventional Chinese women. Around 1930, she became a major literary figure of the leftist literature.

In 1931, her husband, communist poet Hu Yepin, was executed in Shanghai by the right-wing Kuomintang government for his association with the Communists. Shortly thereafter, Ding joined the Chinese Communist Party and her work reflected communist values.

According to authors Glenn Kucha and Jennifer Llewellyn, in 1957 Ding was denounced as a "rightist", purged from the party, imprisoned, and her fiction and essays were banned.

Ding and her husband were then sent to the countryside and compelled to do manual labor for more than a decade. She was rehabilitated sometime in the years following Mao Zedong's death in 1976.

"Happiness is to take up the struggle in the midst of the raging storm and not to pluck the lute in the moonlight or recite poetry among the blossoms."

- Ding Ling

• Date: 1904-10-12
• Learn More: alphahistory.com, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Communism, #Labor, #Marxism, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Dorothy Bolden (1923 - 2005)

Sat Oct 13, 1923

Dorothy Lee Bolden, born on this day in 1923, was the founder of the National Domestic Worker's Union of America and civil rights activist who fought for women's rights and an end to segregation.

Bolden began working as a domestic worker at the age of nine and would eventually utilize her past experiences to form the Domestic Worker's Union in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Domestic Worker's Union had over 13,000 women members throughout the United States and won better pay and working conditions for them. Bolden was also responsible for registering thousands of black Americans to vote.

"I would say to [young people] that you have got to show yourself that you can be independent on your own. You don't have to follow. Why do we have to follow Tom, Dick and Harry to anything when we have the strength to be ourselves and be what we ought to be. What do you want to be? Ask yourself. Get in the mirror and look at yourself and say, 'So what do I want to be, what do I want to do? Where do I want to go and how do I get there?"

- Dorothy Bolden

• Date: 1923-10-13
• Learn More: www.blackpast.org, webapps.library.gsu.edu.
• Tags: #Labor, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Battle of Virden (1898)

Wed Oct 12, 1898

Image: Miners gathered on the train tracks in Virden, Illinois, the day before the Battle of Virden. October 11th, 1898. From the Mother Jones Museum.

On this day in 1898, the Battle of Virden began when armed members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) surrounded a train full of strikebreakers and exchanged fire with company guards. 13 people were killed, dozens more wounded.

After a local chapter of the UMW began striking at a mine in Virden, Illinois, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company hired black strikebreakers from Birmingham, Alabama and shipped them to Virden by train.

The company hired armed detectives or security guards to accompany the strikebreakers, and an armed conflict broke out when armed miners surrounded the train as it arrived in town. A total of four detectives and seven striking mine workers were killed, with five guards, thirty miners, and an unrecorded number of strikebreakers wounded.

After this incident, Illinois Governor John Tanner ordered the National Guard to prevent any more strikebreakers from coming into the state by force. The next month, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company relented and allowed the unionization of its workers.

"When the last call comes for me to take my final rest, will the miners see that I get a resting place in the same clay that shelters the miners who gave up their lives on the hills of Virden, Illinois...They are responsible for Illinois being the best organized labor state in America."

- Mother Jones

• Date: 1898-10-12
• Learn More: sangamoncountyhistory.org, www.motherjonesmuseummtolive.org, en.wikipedia.org, www.zinnedproject.org.
• Tags: #Labor.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

El Centro de la Raza Founded (1972)

Wed Oct 11, 1972

Image: Group in classroom at occupied Beacon Hill School, Seattle, October 11th, 1972. Photo by Phil H. Webber [historylink.org]

On this day in 1972, ESL staff from South Seattle Community College, students, and families occupied a vacant school building in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, founding El Centro de la Raza ("The Center for the People of All Races").

After three months of occupying the building and numerous rallies, petitions and letters, the Seattle City Council finally agreed to hear the case of the occupiers. Although City Council approved the lease, Mayor Wes Uhlman vetoed the action, causing supporters to occupy the mayor's office. A five-year lease signed January 20th, 1973, at $1 rent annually.

According to author David Wilma, in 1997 the school district insisted on fair market rates, causing rent for the property to rise to $12,000 a month. By 1999, El Centro owed $150,000 in back rent. Grants from the City of Seattle and from Washington state totaling $1 million finally allowed El Centro to buy the site from the school district.

Today, El Centro de la Raza continues to function as an educational, cultural, and social service agency. It is considered a significant part of civil rights history in the Pacific Northwest.

In 2015, El Centro de la Raza built more than one hundred moderately-priced apartments south of its main building. The apartments are designed for families making 30-60% of the average median annual income in Seattle, or $24,000 to $49,000.

• Date: 1972-10-11
• Learn More: www.elcentrodelaraza.org, www.historylink.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

D.C. Jail Uprising (1972)

Wed Oct 11, 1972

Image: Inmates shouting to reporters and others gathered outside the D.C. jail. Source: Washington Area Spark and DC Public Library, Star Collection

On this day in 1972, inmates at a Washington, D.C. jail seized control of part of their prison, taking hostages and demanding to be released.

The uprising began when an inmate pretending to have a seizure drew a loaded .38 pistol on the two officers that came to check on him. After subduing the officers, they freed 50 other inmates and took control of the cellblock, capturing several other guards as hostages in the process.

The inmates demanded to speak to a prison reporter, Washington Claiborne. Inmates issued varying statements to him that indicated a revolutionary fervor among prisoners:

"We don't want nothin' but the sidewalk. What do you think we want, better food? Bullshit. We want the sidewalk, man."

"We want you to understand one thing very clearly. This is not a riot, it's a revolution."

"We ain't bitches, man. We don't mind dying for the fucking cause."

Prison negotiators eventually got the inmates to back off of demanding release, but only in exchange for the opportunity to go before a federal judge to air their grievances about the jail and the promise of no reprisals for their actions. The inmates got their hearing, and a new facility was built.

Despite the promise of no reprisals, all nine inmates who participated in the uprising were prosecuted and convicted on various charges.

• Date: 1972-10-11
• Learn More: boundarystones.weta.org, dccrimeandpunishment.wordpress.com.
• Tags: #Journalism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

West African Railway Strike (1947)

Fri Oct 10, 1947

Image: A train traveling along the Dakar–Niger Railway, c. 1908 [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1947, the longest strike in African history at the time began, stretching across all branches of railway in French West Africa, the wharfs in Dahomey, and the Ivory Coast.

For more than six months, 17,000 railway workers and 2,000 workers in the wharfs refused to work. The timing of the strike was crucial, undermining new French economic goals for the railway.

The strike was organized by Ibrahima Sarr, the Federal Secretary of the Railway Union. Workers demanded housing, rights for temporary workers, wages to follow regional differences in the cost of living, and clearer standards for promotions.

The government did not respond for three months, assuming the strike would collapse due to economic pressure. Workers had prepared for this, however, taking up community collections, the community exiling strikebreaking workers, and women of the household economically sustaining families while workers were on strike.

On March 19th, the workers' union accepted a set of proposals favorable to their demands and returned to work. The strike ended with a long, celebratory march into Thiès, followed by meetings and dancing.

• Date: 1947-10-10
• Learn More: nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu, libcom.org.
• Tags: #Labor.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Panama City Tenants' Revolt (1925)

Sat Oct 10, 1925

Image: American troops patrolling the streets of Panama City during the latter days of the tenant revolt [panamaviejaescuela.com]

On this day in 1925, striking tenants in Panama City held a massive, illegal rally to protest high rent and bad living conditions. Riots began after police killed four demonstrators, prompting a U.S. occupation that lasted until October 23rd.

In the months preceding the uprising, the "Liga de Inquilinos y Subsistencia" (English: Tenants' Subsistence League) had been organizing against rent increases and poor living conditions. On the last day of September, in response to the government of Panama repressing this organizing, the League announced a rent strike to begin October 1st.

On Saturday, October 10th, 1925, the League organized a massive rally in Panama City to protest increased rents and poor living conditions. This was held in defiance of a state ban on such a gathering.

Panama City Mayor Mario Galindo had permitted the National Police to respond to any large gatherings with violent force. Accordingly, at the October 10th rally, four tenants were shot dead by police following a confrontation at Parque de Santa Ana, and many more were injured.

Riots broke out following this violence. By Sunday, October 11th, the city district of Santa Ana had come almost entirely under the control of the Tenants' League. With the police ineffectual in stopping the revolt, the government of President Rodolfo Chiari requested the military intervention of the United States.

Within a few days (sources differ on the exact day, ranging from October 12th to October 15th), approximately 600 United States soldiers entered Panama City. Stationing themselves at Parque de Santa Ana and Parque de Lesseps, they conducted raids on the offices and apartments of Tenants' League leaders, quickly crushing the uprising by arresting its prime organizers.

While the uprising was ongoing, government officials met with tenant and landlord representatives in Panama City. According to the Academy of American Franciscan History, the government promised more public works projects, a shake-up of the national police force, and to establish a rent claims commission that met daily to hear tenant grievances.

The U.S. troops continued to occupy Panama City until October 24th, by which point the protests had subsided. On October 30th, the League and landlords signed an agreement to end the strike.

"With rhythmic heels that oppressed the heart and clouded the eyes, an army of soldiers in battle dress, with helmets of the kind used in the European war, entered with a fixed bayonet, sweaty, their backpacks on their shoulders, and their revolvers on their belts."

- Revista Lotería, October-November 1973 issue, describing the American military presence

• Date: 1925-10-10
• Learn More: www.academia.edu, publicandohistoria.com, www.panamaviejaescuela.com.
• Tags: #Riots, #Tenant, #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Nikolai Bukharin (1888 - 1938)

Tue Oct 09, 1888

Nikolai Bukharin, born on this day in 1888, was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist who, with Stalin, helped oust Leon Trotsky in 1927. His controversial trial and execution in 1938 alienated communist sympathizers in the West.

As a young man, Bukharin joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906, becoming a member of the Bolshevik faction. He served on a committee that was infiltrated by the Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, and was imprisoned and exiled in 1911.

In 1911, Bukharin escaped exile, fleeing to Germany. During this period, he met Vladimir Lenin for the first time and authored "Imperialism and World Economy", a work that predated and influenced Lenin's "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism".

After Lenin's death in 1924, Bukharin became a full member of the Politburo, allying himself with Stalin in the power struggles of that period. Bukharin formulated the thesis of "Socialism in One Country" put forth by Stalin in 1924, which argued that socialism could be developed in a single country, even one as underdeveloped as Russia.

Bukharin was aligned with the forces that defeated Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev, and Grigory Zinoviev in various power struggles within the Communist Party. A supporter of the market-based New Economic Policy (NEP), Bukharin opposed Stalin's support of collectivization policies in the late 1920s. On this basis, he was criticized and began politically conspiring against Stalin.

After the trial and execution of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and other "Old Bolsheviks" in 1936, Bukharin was arrested in 1937 and charged with conspiring to overthrow the Soviet state. The following trial was controversial and drew international criticism, alienating some communist sympathizers abroad.

French author Romain Rolland wrote to Stalin directly, arguing that "an intellect like that of Bukharin is a treasure for his country" and drawing comparisons to the execution of chemist Antoine Lavoisier, guillotined during the French Revolution: "We in France, the most ardent revolutionaries...still profoundly grieve and regret what we did...I beg you to show clemency." Bukharin was executed by gunshot on March 15th, 1938, at the Kommunarka shooting ground.

"We see now that infringement of freedom is necessary with regard to the opponents of the revolution. At a time of revolution we cannot allow freedom for the enemies of the people and of the revolution. That is a surely clear, irrefutable conclusion."

- Nikolai Bukharin

• Date: 1888-10-09
• Learn More: www.marxists.org, en.wikipedia.org, spartacus-educational.com.
• Tags: #Communism, #Socialism, #Marxism, #Birthdays, #Imperialism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Che Guevara Executed (1967)

Mon Oct 09, 1967

Image: **

On this day in 1967, communist revolutionary Che Guevara was executed by CIA-assisted forces in Bolivia, where he had been attempting to foment revolution. His last words were "Shoot, you are only going to kill a man."

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.

After serving in Castro's government, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia. While agitating for communist revolution in Bolivia, Guevara was captured by CIA-assisted state forces and summarily executed on this day in 1967.

On November 3rd, 1966, Guevara had secretly arrived in La Paz on a flight from Montevideo under the false name Adolfo Mena González, posing as a middle-aged Uruguayan businessman working for the Organization of American States (OAS). Once there, Guevara had difficulty getting cooperation from both local dissidents and the Bolivian Communist Party, despite besting the Bolivian military in several skirmishes.

To help crush the resistance movement, the Bolivian government and U.S. military relied on the expertise of fugitive Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, who had undermined the French Resistance and was responsible for the torture and murder of its leader, Jean Moulin.

Some of the inhabitants willingly informed the Bolivian authorities and military about the guerrillas and their movements in the area, which contributed to Guevara's capture on October 7th, 1967. He famously shouted "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and I am worth more to you alive than dead!", however he remained defiant in captivity.

On October 9th, on orders from the Bolivian President René Barrientos, Guevara was executed. In the documentary "My Enemy's Enemy", German journalist Kai Hermann alleged that Barbie devised the strategy that led to Guevara's capture.

"The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality."

- Che Guevara

• Date: 1967-10-09
• Learn More: nsarchive2.gwu.edu, en.wikipedia.org, www.thenation.com, www.marxists.org, www.theguardian.com.
• Tags: #Communism, #Marxism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

West Coast Longshore Strike (1923)

Mon Oct 08, 1923

On this day in 1923, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) in Vancouver struck for higher wages. With a force of 350 company guards protecting the dock and scabs, work continued until the strike's defeat in December.

The Shipping Federation imported strikebreakers, housed in the CPR ship Empress of Japan, while an armed group of 350 men guarded the waterfront from potential interference from striking workers.

The longshoremen gave up on December 10th, and the Shipping Federation took over the dispatch of the work force, formerly controlled by the union, and set up a company union, the "Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers Association".

This union would go on to lead the more well-known West Coast Longshore Strike of 1935.

• Date: 1923-10-08
• Learn More: www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca.
• Tags: #Labor.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Antonio Soto (1897 - 1963)

Fri Oct 08, 1897

Antonio Soto Canalejo (also known as "El Gallego Soto"), born on this day in 1897, was one of the principal anarcho-syndicalist leaders in the 1921 rural strikes of Argentine Patagonia.

In early 1921, Patagonic landowners were refusing to make concessions to an increasingly discontented working class, continuing with layoffs, holding back pay, and maintaining of poor working conditions. In response to this, a general strike was declared on March 25th.

Soto and his comrades traveled along farms of the cordillera of the Andes recruiting rural workers of several large farms, driving the southeast of Santa Cruz into an uprising. They requisitioned arms and food for the campaign, granting vouchers promising to eventually return the goods and occasionally taking the landowners and managers hostage.

In the aftermath of the strike, Soto fled the country and settled in Puntas Aras, Chile. There, he managed a small hotel which served as a meeting place of libertarians, intellectuals, and free-thinkers and founded the "Centro Republicano Español". His tombstone can be found in the Cementerio Municipal de Punta Arenas.

• Date: 1897-10-08
• Learn More: libcom.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Chilean Protests and Strikes (2019-20)

Mon Oct 07, 2019

Image: Demonstrators display flags and banners during a protest against President Sebastian Piñera on October 21st, 2019 in Santiago, Chile [time.com]

On this day in 2019, protests and riots began throughout Chile in response to a raise in the Santiago Metro's subway fare, the increased cost of living, privatization, and inequality prevalent in the country.

The protests have been called the "worst civil unrest" in Chile since the end of Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship due to the scale of damage to public infrastructure, the number of protesters, and the measures taken by the government to put down the rebellion.

On the 25th of October, over a million people took to the streets throughout Chile to protest against President Piñera, demanding his resignation. As of December 29th, 2019, 29 people have died, nearly 2,500 have been injured, and 2,840 have been arrested.

Human rights organizations have received several reports of violations conducted against protesters by security forces, including torture, sexual abuse and sexual assault.

• Date: 2019-10-07
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.bbc.com, www.marxist.com.
• Tags: #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Joe Hill (1879 - 1915)

Tue Oct 07, 1879

Joe Hill, born on this day in 1879, was a Swedish-American labor organizer, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In 1915, he was convicted of murder in a controversial trial and executed by the state.

Hill, an immigrant worker frequently facing unemployment and underemployment, became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union. His most famous songs include "The Preacher and the Slave", "There Is Power in a Union", and "Casey Jones - the Union Scab", which describes the harsh lives of itinerant workers and calls for them to organize to improve their working conditions.

In 1914, John G. Morrison, a Salt Lake City area grocer and former policeman, and his son were shot and killed by two men. The same evening, Hill arrived at a doctor's office with a gunshot wound, and briefly mentioned a fight over a woman. He refused to explain further, even after he was accused of the grocery store murders on the basis of his injury.

Hill was convicted of the murders in a controversial trial and executed on November 19th, despite widespread calls for clemency, including from President Woodrow Wilson and Helen Keller.

"I will die like a true-blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning - organize."

- Joe Hill

• Date: 1879-10-07
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.zinnedproject.org, aflcio.org, www.youtube.com.
• Tags: #Labor, #Birthdays, #IWW.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

"Smiling Joe" Ettor (1885 - 1948)

Tue Oct 06, 1885

"Smiling Joe" Ettor, born on this day in 1885, was an Italian-American union organizer who, in the middle-1910s, was one of the leading public faces of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

Although Ettor is best remembered for his role in the Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912, he had been active in several strikes in the years leading up to it. Ettor also served on the governing General Executive Board of the IWW from 1908 to 1914.

Ettor was particularly useful for organizing immigrant workers because he could speak five languages, and he used these skills as a leader of the Lawrence Textile Strike. During the strike, a worker was shot and killed, and he and another IWW leader present, Arturo Giovannitti, were arrested on scarce evidence.

Both were eventually acquitted of charges of having been an accessory to the murder. Ettor was one of the leaders of the Waiters Strike of 1912 in New York City, and the Brooklyn Barbers Strike of 1913.

"If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists."

- Joe Ettor

• Date: 1885-10-06
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, libcom.org, archive.iww.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays, #IWW.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917 - 1977)

Sat Oct 06, 1917

Fannie Lou Hamer, born on this day in 1917, was a community organizer and leader within the civil rights movement. "I'm gonna be moving forward, and if they shoot me, I'm not going to fall back, I'm going to fall 5 feet 4 inches forward."

Hamer was the co-founder and vice-chair of the Freedom Democratic Party, which she represented at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. She was also a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, an organization created to recruit, train, and support women of all races who wish to seek election to government office.

While having surgery in 1961 to remove a tumor, a 44-year-old Hamer was also given a hysterectomy without consent by a white doctor. Known as a "Mississippi appendectomy", this was a frequent occurrence under Mississippi's compulsory, white supremacist sterilization plan to reduce the number of poor black people in the state.

Hamer was threatened, harassed, shot at, and assaulted by white supremacists and police while trying to register for and exercise her right to vote.

During a voter registration drive Hamer participated in, police fined the group because their bus was "too yellow". When she returned home, her family's landlord told her that, if didn’t withdraw her voter registration, she would be fired from her job and forced to leave.

On her way back from a SNCC organizing meeting, Hamer was arrested and beaten in custody. She sustained lifelong injuries from the assault, including a blood clot in her eye that left her partially blind.

Hamer later helped and encouraged thousands of African-Americans in Mississippi to become registered voters, and helped hundreds of disenfranchised people in her area through her work in programs like the Freedom Farm Cooperative, formed to subvert state oppression of poor black workers in the agricultural industry.

"Nobody's free until everybody's free."

- Fannie Lou Hamer

• Date: 1917-10-06
• Learn More: americanarchive.org, www.rightsanddissent.org, ccrjustice.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Civil Rights, #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Battle of the Thames (1813)

Tue Oct 05, 1813

On this day in 1813, Tecumseh was killed in the "Battle of the Thames", fought during the War of 1812 between America and Tecumseh's Confederacy. Tecumseh's death led to the dissolution of the alliances he forged.

Tecumseh (1768 - 1813) was a Shawnee warrior and chief who became the primary leader of a large, multi-tribal confederacy in the early 19th century.

Growing up during the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War, Tecumseh was exposed to warfare and envisioned the establishment of an independent Native American nation east of the Mississippi River under British protection, and established a confederacy of tribes to fight off colonization efforts.

On October 5th, 1813, Tecumseh and his second in command Roundhead were killed in the "Battle of the Thames", fought as part of the War of 1812 between America and Tecumseh's Confederacy and British allies.

Tecumseh's death resulted in the dissolution of his tribal alliances, and led many indigenous peoples to begin moving west to escape colonization, across the Mississippi River.

• Date: 1813-10-05
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.britannica.com.
• Tags: #Indigenous.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org