Morning Comrades!
We are doing something entirely different today, for one, I need a little break from the intensity of writing these past months and I figured you would appreciate one as well.
I was re-reading the Manifesto the other, something I highly recommend to anyone that feels they need a little alignment in their life, and one line from the pamphlet that changed the world was this:
The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.
That led me down the path of organized resistance to capitalism and the hell the bastards have unleashed on the planet for the past 600 years and logically I ended up at the I.W.W - the Industrial Workers of the World Union - full disclaimer, I am a member and no, this isn’t a recruitment email. Specifically, I wanted to share a little history with you about the Little Red Songbook. Today’s email is about music and art that was created to help bring us all workers together in the struggle against those that exploit us. Specifically, this email is going to focus on the songs that built an alternative reality in the North American Continent, the UK to a certain extent since it is here that these possibilities were so utterly crushed. To note, there is a massive history in the French, Spanish and German speaking worlds of union and labour struggle related songs that I can only urge you to check out additionally.
Additionally, I do fear that this history of poetry and music will soon be utterly forgotten. The “newest” work here really comes from the 1970s and a lot of the work comes from the 1890s-1930s and I guess this is some sort of seemingly futile attempt to maintain a small hold on this glorious work. I am a realist and have no illusions as to how futile that hope is, but indulge me. If anything I hope you can take some of these songs into your homes, breathe some new life into them and relish in the knowledge that whatever our struggles are, one we are never alone and secondly, we stand in a long line of comrades who have fought against oppression before us, and if we do it right, this will continue.
The Little Red Songbook (1909), also known as I.W.W. Songs or Songs of the Industrial Workers of the World, subtitled occasionally to Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent, is a compilation of tunes, hymns, and songs used by the I.W.W. to help build morale, promote solidarity, and lift the spirits of the working-class during the Labor Movement. You will probably know some of the more famous songs such as “Solidarity Forever” and “The Internationale” but there is heaps more!
The Little Red Songbook was first published by a committee of Spokane, Washington IWW members in 1909. It was originally called Songs of the Workers, on the Road, in the Jungles, and in the Shops—Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent. It includes songs written by Joe Hill, Ralph Chaplin, T-Bone Slim, and others. The early editions contain many of the most well-known labor songs, such as "The Red Flag," "The Internationale," "The Preacher and the Slave," and "Solidarity Forever." Thirty-six editions were published between 1909 and 1995.
A Canadian I.W.W. Songbook, compiled and edited by Jerzy (George) Dymny, featuring 41 songs with a Canadian slant, was published in 1990. An edition commemorating the centennial of the IWW's founding in 1905 was published in 2005. The latest edition of the Little Red Songbook was printed in 2010.
The 190 different songs included in the Little Red Songbook between 1909 and 1973 are collected and annotated in The Big Red Songbook, edited by Archie Green, David Roediger, and Franklin Rosemont and published in 2007.
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general unionism with industrial unionism, as it is a general union, subdivided between the various industries which employ its members. The philosophy and tactics of the IWW are described as "revolutionary industrial unionism", with ties to socialist, syndicalist, and anarchist labor movements. The IWW promotes the concept of "One Big Union", and contends that all workers should be united as a social class to supplant capitalism and wage labor with industrial democracy. It is known for the Wobbly Shop model of workplace democracy, in which workers elect their own managers and other forms of grassroots democracy. The IWW does not require its members to work in a represented workplace, neither does it exclude membership in another labor union ( except, rightfully so, cops ).
A big Wobbly characteristic since their inception has been a penchant for song. To counteract management sending in the Salvation Army band to cover up the Wobbly speakers, Joe Hill wrote parodies of Christian hymns so that union members could sing along with the Salvation Army band, but with their own purposes. For example, "In the Sweet By and By" became "There'll Be Pie in the Sky When You Die (That's a Lie)".
From that start in exigency, Wobbly song writing became common because they "articulated the frustrations, hostilities, and humor of the homeless and the dispossessed."
The IWW collected its official songs in the Little Red Songbook and continues to update this book to the present time. In the 1960s, the American folk music revival in the United States brought a renewed interest in the songs of Joe Hill and other Wobblies, and seminal folk revival figures such as Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie had a pro-Wobbly tone, while some were members of the IWW.
Among the protest songs in the book are "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum", "Union Maid", and "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night". Perhaps the best known IWW song is "Solidarity Forever". The songs have been performed by dozens of artists, and Utah Phillips performed the songs in concert and on recordings for decades. Other prominent IWW songwriters include Ralph Chaplin who authored "Solidarity Forever", and Leslie Fish.
The patreons of this newsletter will get a very warm hearted special on Utah Phillips on Thursday, only because I love the man and his work.
The IWW aimed to promote worker solidarity in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the employing class; its motto was "an injury to one is an injury to all", which improved upon the Knights of Labor's creed, "an injury to one is the concern of all" which was at its most popular in the 1880s.
In particular, the IWW was organized because of the belief among many unionists, socialists, anarchists, Marxists, and radicals that the AFL not only had failed to effectively organize the U.S. working class, but it was causing separation rather than unity within groups of workers by organizing according to narrow craft principles. The Wobblies believed that all workers should organize as a class, a philosophy which is still reflected in the Preamble to the current IWW Constitution.
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.
We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.
One of the IWW's most important contributions to the labor movement and broader push towards social justice was that, when founded, it was the only American union to welcome all workers, including women, immigrants, African Americans and Asians, into the same organization. Many of its early members were immigrants, and some, such as Carlo Tresca, Joe Hill and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, rose to prominence in the leadership. Finns formed a sizable portion of the immigrant IWW membership.
The Finnish-language newspaper of the IWW, Industrialisti, published in Duluth, Minnesota, a center of the mining industry, was the union's only daily paper. At its peak, it ran 10,000 copies per issue. Another Finnish-language Wobbly publication was the monthly Tie Vapauteen ("Road to Freedom"). Also of note was the Finnish IWW educational institute, the Work People's College in Duluth, and the Finnish Labour Temple in Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, which served as the IWW Canadian administration for several years.
Further, many Swedish immigrants, particularly those blacklisted after the 1909 Swedish General Strike, joined the IWW and set up similar cultural institutions around the Scandinavian Socialist Clubs. This in turn exerted a political influence on the Swedish labor movement's left, that in 1910 formed the Syndicalist union SAC which soon contained a minority seeking to mimick the tactics and strategies of the IWW. One example of the union's commitment to equality was Local 8, a longshoremen's branch in Philadelphia, one of the largest ports in the nation in the WWI era. Led by Ben Fletcher, an African American, Local 8 had more than 5,000 members, the majority of whom were African American, along with more than a thousand immigrants (primarily Lithuanians and Poles), Irish Americans, and numerous white ethnics.
I could go on forever about this topic, especially the music as there is so much out there but if anything I hope this serves as a little inspiration to dig a little further, research some of the lyrics, art and people who worked tirelessly for the betterment of all workers.
As always, thank you for your time and attention today comrades. Yours, without compromise,
V.