Imagine how different popular political opinion would be if people were taught real working class history. If they knew who fought for what. That it was, for example, mainly socialists and communists who fought for the weekend, for the 8 hour work day, for safety regulations.
Let's take the example of racism, and ask yourself whose side you're on. A lot can be learned about a political movement by seeing who its enemies are. In the days of American slavery, defenders of slavery would attack abolitionists by calling them socialists and communists.
The racist social theorist George Fitzhugh, while defending slavery, said:
"I shall in effect say, in the course of my argument, that every theoretical Abolitionist at the North is a Socialist or Communist"
He meant this as a bad thing! For a socialist it's a matter of pride.
Fitzhugh (who btw was friends with president Buchanan) said the principle that people "should not have [their] actions controlled and directed by the will of another" will lead people to communism, and also as proof of the evils of socialists, said they advocate for "free women".
Virginia senator Hunter, also meaning it in a bad way said: "Your socialist is the true abolitionist, and he only fully understands his mission." Again, quite a compliment. And Jefferson Davis tried to disparage abolitionists by saying they have ties to the European socialists.
So, if we go by the claims made by these anti-communists, a communist must be someone who, among other things, does not endorse slavery, does not think people should be "controlled and directed" by others, oh and also believes in the emancipation of women. Horrible!
So defenders of slavery hated communists. Who else hated communists? The KKK! Why wouldn't they? After all, communists will make you "believe in SOCIAL EQUALITY."
For a long time, most US labor unions did not allow black workers to join (many also excluded immigrants, Catholics and Jews). But there was an exception. You guessed it: The union that did not discriminate by race or nation was an explicitly socialist one: the IWW.
The IWW was the biggest US anti-capitalist union. Its end-goal was the "Abolition of the wages system!". It welcomed all workers without discrimination, and the workers, united through it, gained immense power, winning higher wages, shorter workdays, and better work conditions.
At a time when US politics were full of active KKK members in positions of power, the IWW vocally opposed the KKK, as shown in this badass poster.
Even president Roosevelt, who was and is often considered a "progressive" president, besides putting Japanese people into concentration camps as is well-known, also nominated an active KKK member to Supreme Court, and was also against making lynching into a federal crime.
So while Roosevelt didn't want to federally prohibit lynching, who was active in organizing anti-lynching campaigns? The US Communist Party (before it got filled with FBI agents, of course). It also helped organize unemployed Black workers and the Alabama Sharecroppers Union.
The Communist Party also organized many young activists who would go on to become prominent in the Civil Rights movement, like Rosa Parks. Once again, when conservatives attacked the Civil Rights movement as having ties with communism, this was not entirely unfounded.
Decades before the victory of the Civil Rights movement, the Communist party had opposed segregation, and its platform included social equality and self-determination for black people. This is a poster from around 1932.
Many liberals today think that if they lived 100 years ago, they would have been progressive. But if you oppose socialism today, it's not unlikely that you would have been one of those people who denounced abolition, racial equality, and integration by linking it to socialism.
I could do a thread like this for almost any significant social issue - anti-racist struggle is just one example. My point is that if your values are anything like mine, being denounced as a communist by liberals and the right might just mean you're doing something right.
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