When Workers Shot Back: Class Conflict from 1877 to 1921

Historical Materialism #162

by Robert Ovetz

When Workers Shot Class Conflict from 1877 to 1921 explores one of the most tumultuous times in United States history. Self-organized workers recomposed their power by devising new strategies and tactics to disrupt the capitalist economy and extract concessions. Mine, railroad, steel, and iron workers pursued a strategy of tension that sometimes erupted into militant class conflict and general strikes in which workers took over and ran a number of cities. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, When Workers Shot Back argues that the escalation of working-class conflict drives rather than reacts to the consolidation and reorganisation of capital and economic and political reform of the state. Studying the class composition of this period illustrates why workers escalated the intensity of their tactics, even using tactical violence, to extract concessions and reforms when all other efforts to do so were blocked, co-opted or repressed.

Genres: Labor, History, Nonfiction, United States

606 pages, Paperback

Published September 3, 2019

Reviews

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a history book, it is an examination of labor disputes, tactics and strategy. It is a bit of a slow read, but it is important history; too bad we are not taught this history in school or even college/university (unless specializing in labor history). 1877-1921 was a volatile time in this country. This book taught me a lot I didn't know, but the most striking piece, was the military forces who looked the other way during Reconstruction in the south, left the south to commit genocide in the west to clear the land of indigenous for further colonization and business expansion, then murdered striking railroad workers...I don't mean the same military organization, but the exact same officers, soldiers.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand missed opportunists for economic equality, early examples of interracial worker organizing (men and women), and especially, anyone who is dissatisfied with the watered down history they may have learned in school.