Spectre of Communism

In the aftermath of World War Two, American workers launched the biggest strike wave in the country’s history. In a single year, over 100 million workdays were lost, and the bosses were forced to give ground. Yet by 1980, unions were in retreat, living standards were stagnating and the rich were getting richer. What happened?

In part two of our series on the history of the US labour movement, Fred Weston, leading member of the Revolutionary Communist International, rejoins Joe Attard to pick up where we left off.

We start with Roosevelt’s New Deal, which the reformist left celebrates as a victory for the working class. Was FDR really a friend of labour, or was he saving capitalism from itself? From there, we follow how the movement was reined in, first by its own leaders during the war, then by repression and the postwar boom.

But the calm didn’t last. The 60s and 70s saw a new wave of radicalisation, wildcat strikes and class struggle, only for it to be crushed by the Reagan offensive and followed by a long period of dormancy.

But now, from the Wisconsin uprising to the Minneapolis general strike, this sleeping giant is stirring again, rediscovering its strength, and becoming increasingly open to the ideas of communism and revolution...

This is the real history of the American class struggle that Donald Trump and Elon Musk don’t want you to hear – and one full of lessons for class fighters today.

If you haven’t already, watch part one first!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4StM0c2c2w

📖 Texts mentioned 📖
Book: "A People’s History of the United States" by Howard Zinn
Book: "Socialism on Trial" by James P. Cannon
Movie: "Harlan County, USA" by Barbara Kopple
Article: Why does the CPUSA support Democratic Party candidates for the presidency instead of running their own candidates?
https://www.cpusa.org/interact_cpusa/why-does-the-cpusa-support-democratic-party-candidates-for-the-presidency-instead-of-running-their-own-candidates/
Article: Social democrats are not the enemy right now
https://www.cpusa.org/article/social-democrats-are-not-the-enemy-right-now/
Article: Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay by Leon Trotsky
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/tu.htm

⏱️ Timestamps ⏱️
0:00 Introduction
1:24 The New Deal and the Wagner Act
14:23 Strikes in World War Two
19:19 The no-strike pledge and the Communist Party
30:58 Soldiers, war profits and the Labor Party question
43:37 The 1945-46 strike wave
58:22 Taft-Hartley and the Red Scare
1:09:11 The postwar boom and the AFL-CIO merger
1:15:19 Strikes of the 1960s
1:21:33 The 1970 postal strike and the 1970s
1:29:00 Harlan County, USA
1:33:50 The 1970s internationally
1:38:17 Chrysler bailout and PATCO
1:40:55 Union decline and recent strikes
1:48:57 Wages, productivity and Minneapolis
1:56:12 Lessons for the coming class war

🫵 Join the Revolutionary Communist International: https://marxist.com/join-us.htm
📚 Marxist literature: https://wellred-books.com/
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68nGNHz5lB8UZXICGIDMva?si=682ef70551644443
📱 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/against-the-stream/id1777793987
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/
💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/

Mass strikes; gun battles with scabs, cops and Pinkertons; revolutionary communists on the picket lines. This is the real history of the American labor movement that Donald Trump and Elon Musk don’t want you to hear.While often presented as a bastion of reaction, the United States has a long and rich history of class struggle. In the first of this two-part series, Fred Weston, leading member of the Revolutionary Communist International, joins Joe Attard to uncover the forgotten history of the US labour movement from the rise of American industrial capitalism to the great class battles of the 1930s – and to draw out the lessons of these struggles for communists and class fighters today.(NOTE: The New Deal will be covered in next episode)📖 Books mentioned 📖Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. MoraisAmerican Labor Struggles: 1877–1934, by Samuel Yellen🫵 Join the Revolutionary Communist International: https://marxist.com/join-us.htm 📚 Marxist literature: https://wellred-books.com/🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68nGNHz5lB8UZXICGIDMva?si=682ef70551644443 📱 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/against-the-stream/id1777793987 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/

Imperialism threatens humanity. Our burning task is to overthrow it – but how? Many revolutionaries have turned to Mao and Stalin for answers, as they are associated with the biggest blows to imperialism in world history: the Russian and Chinese revolutions. But did Stalin and Mao really fight imperialism? And what would we have done differently? These are the questions we set out to answer in the latest episode of Spectre of Communism.

As communists, we aim to learn the lessons of the past in order to conquer the future. In the 20th century, no lessons are more important and controversial than those of Stalinism and Maoism. On the one hand, they are associated with anti-imperialist liberation struggles. On the other, they are accused of betraying and undermining those same struggles in their own interests.

Brushing aside the vicious lies and attacks of the capitalists, who use Stalin and Mao to slander communism in general, we invited Daniel Morley, member of the Executive Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, to set the record straight.

📺 Related episodes 📺
The truth about Mao and the Chinese Revolution – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXZR5t4Bo4k
The Spanish Revolution and Civil War: A Complete Timeline – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjMcYaCMBSY
Stalinism on trial – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JevkQNg98E

📖 Texts cited 📖
SPEECHES ON WAR AND PEACE AT A MEETING OF THE C.C. OF THE R.S.D.L.P.(B.). JANUARY 11 (24), 1918 – https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/jan/11.htm
Out of the Night, Jan Valtin – https://files.libcom.org/files/2025-02/Out%20of%20the%20Night%20(Jan%20Valtin)%20(Z-Library).pdf
The Third International After Lenin, Leon Trotsky – https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/index.htm
West European Unity Against Hegemonism ls a Historical Necessity (Peking Review 1978 no.9 p.20) – https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/peking-review/1978/PR1978-09.pdf

📖 Recommended reading 📖
Stalinist land programme wins peasants – Chiang’s conscripts roped to prevent escape, by Ted Grant – https://marxist.com/ted-grant-china-jan-1949.htm
Reply to David James, by Ted Grant – https://www.marxists.org/archive/grant/1949/james.htm
On Imperialist War: Lenin Selected Writings – https://wellred-books.com/on-imperialist-war-lenin-selected-writings/
China: From Permanent Revolution to Counter-Revolution – https://wellred-books.com/china/

⏱️ Timestamps ⏱️
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:59 Why are we so critical?
00:06:43 Comintern: Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks
00:17:38 Stalin, Zinoviev and the German Revolution
00:23:40 Socialism in One Country + Stalin's Foreign Policy
00:36:19 The Spanish Revolution + Popular Front
00:40:57 WWII
00:48:49 Stalin and the Founding of Israel
00:51:15 Mao's Foreign Policy and the Sino-Soviet Split
01:08:08 China and Western Europe (1960s–1970s)
01:15:00 The Indian Subcontinent
01:21:31 Southeast Asia
01:22:26 Angola
01:26:50 Conclusion

🫵 Join the Revolutionary Communist International: https://marxist.com/join-us.htm
📚 Marxist literature: https://wellred-books.com/
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5JSs2U1TANlRkawQCH7luP?si=ec9ca883b8f940f0
📱 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/spectre-of-communism/id1659878020
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/
💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/

A stereotype holds that British workers have always been conservative and averse to radical class struggle. But a century ago, they waged a general strike that reached revolutionary proportions, threatening the very foundations of capitalist society. The Guardian newspaper declared on 10 May 1926: “It is just a week since Civil War was declared in this country. It is not a war of arms; it is not yet even a war of tempers; it is a trial of strength.” But the strike ended suddenly after 9 days: at its peak. What happened?

Shamefully, little has been written to mark the centenary of the 1926 general strike, and the accounts that do exist completely misrepresent it in various ways.

Right-wing historians say the unions were simply a ‘boil that needed lancing’ and the workers’ case was a hopeless one (despite the terror the strike struck into the hearts of the establishment at the time).

Meanwhile, some left-wingers deny the workers were actually defeated! Which rather raises the question of why they were forced to accept brutal wage cuts, lengthened hours and targeting sackings, leading to a whole period of paralysis on the industrial front.

The real story of the 1926 general strike reveals a tragic failure of leadership. Despite the immense power and courage of the British workers – who paralysed the country, established their own embryonic seats of power and even developed a rival press – they were ultimately sold out by the trade union leadership.

This major episode in the British and world class struggle is full of lessons for class fighters today, at a time when the capitalist system is one more in an historic crisis and trying to force ordinary people to shoulder the burden.

We are delighted to welcome onto the show Ben Gliniecki, General Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party and author of A Communist History of the British General Strike, to set the record straight.

📖 RECOMMENDED READING 📖

A Communist History of the British General Strike, Ben Gliniecki: https://wellredbooks.co.uk/product/a-communist-history-of-the-british-general-strike/

Accounts critiqued:

The 1926 General Strike: revolutionary potential, reformist betrayal, and the lessons for today, Dylan Murphy: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/1926-general-strike-revolutionary-potential-reformist-betrayal-and-lessons-today

How the 1926 General Strike shaped trade union solidarity, Aslef general secretary David Calfe: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/how-1926-general-strike-shaped-trade-union-solidarity

“Their Greatest Effort Ever”: The British General Strike at 100, Cal Winslow: https://jacobin.com/2026/05/general-strike-britain-labor-history

General Strike was 'the boil that needed lancing', BBC (citing David Torrance, author of ‘The Edge of Revolution: The General Strike that Shook Britain’): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7057jy14j1o

Reflections on the General Strike, 100 years on, Paul Nowak, General secretary of the Trades Union Congress: https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/reflections-general-strike-100-years

Did you know that Adam Smith, the poster child of free-market capitalism… was also a major influence on Karl Marx? 

While Smith is celebrated today as the father of capitalism and Marx as the founder of communism, they are actually part of the same theoretical tradition of political economy.

Unlike the lunatic libertarians and hired guns for capitalism who lay claim to Smith’s legacy today; in his day, he actually aimed to scientifically understand the workings of “commercial society”.

Although the apologists of capitalism don't like to admit it, Smith identified labor – not trade or crafty entrepreneurs – as the true source of a nation's wealth. In so doing, he elaborated on the labor theory of value: the idea that a commodity's worth is determined by the labor required to produce it.

But his analysis was incomplete and inconsistent, leaving him fundamentally unable to understand the mysteries of the burgeoning capitalist world, with all its inequality, chaos and crisis.

By taking Smith's insights and pushing them to their logical conclusions, most notably by distinguishing between labor and labor-power, Marx unlocked the secret of profit: workers produce more value than they receive in wages, with the difference – surplus value – falling to the capitalist.

By combining the labor theory of value with dialectical materialism, Marx revealed the fundamental laws governing capitalism and demonstrated why the system inevitably generates crises and exploitation. 

In this episode of Spectre of Communism, Adam Booth (leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party and co-author of Understanding Marx’s Capital) joins Joe Attard to explore how two seemingly opposed economists are connected.

📖 RECOMMENDED READING 📖

From Adam Smith to Karl Marx: The Wealth of Nations and Das Kapital
https://marxist.com/from-adam-smith-to-karl-marx-the-wealth-of-nations-and-das-kapital.htm
Understanding Marx's Capital
https://wellredbooks.co.uk/product/understanding-marxs-capital/

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️

0:00 — Intro — Who was Adam Smith?
8:56 — Division of labour
21:37 — The labour theory of value
43:58 — Exchange-value and price
55:04 — 'The invisible hand of the market'
1:00:36 — Profit and surplus value
1:12:44 — Decay of bourgeois economics

🌐 LINKS 🌐

✊ Join the Revolutionary Communist International:
https://marxist.com/join-us.htm
🎧 Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/68nGNHz5lB8UZXICGIDMva?si=682ef70551644443
📱 Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/against-the-stream/id1777793987
📸 Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/
💬 Twitter:
https://x.com/revcomintern/