Naively, I thought I could brush up on Bolshevism, the Russian Revolution, Communism, the Red Army, Anarchism, and the I.W.W. circa 1919 in a couple of hours in order to write up some context for today’s article. This, despite the fact that the last time I learned about any of these topics I was spending my free time listening to Korn and skateboarding through mall parking lots in JNCOs. Nope nope nope.
What I do know is that anti-Bolshevism op-ed and news articles pop up nearly every day in 1919 newspapers, so the anxiety on display in today’s article is not surprising.
What is Bolshevism and why are there so many articles opposed to it?
The Bolsheviks were a group started in Russia by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky in order to bring Marxism to Russia and beyond. Bolshevism was later known as Communism, an attempt to create a classless society where everyone is equal.
Frank Engels, coauthor of the Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx, lays out the aims of Communism as such:
“Finally, when all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain.”
The Communist Manifesto (1847)
Why did Bolshevism have so much opposition in the U.S.?
Communism/Bolshevism and Capitalism are, of course, at odds with one another, and the two political/economic systems have not played well with one another over the last 100 years.
There has always been, and probably always will be, people who have been crushed by Capitalism and would like to try a different system. Bolshevism is a promise to the lowest wage earners, the most overlooked, the least powerful people in a Capitalist system that they will have just as much as their former employers under a new system.
Today’s article posits that Bolshevism falsely promises that the “ordinary man would remain safe.” But what if you’re not safe at all in a Capitalist country? What if you’re an immigrant working the Ludlow, CO coal mines? What if you’re a woman with limited work opportunities? What if you’re a soldier returning from war to an impoverished small town? These are people who might decide that Capitalism isn’t keeping them safe, and maybe their country should give Bolshevism a try.
In the U.S. in 1919, the workforce was in transition. World War I ended with the armistice on November 11, 1918, and young soldiers were coming home, not knowing what kinds of jobs were available, nor if they were qualified for them. In many instances, women had taken jobs that men had done before they went overseas, and in Colorado, immigrants had taken work in the mines because these very dangerous positions were some of the only jobs people would actually hire them for. Would this transitional period make people more likely to ask for a different economic system? Maybe one with more parity?
Bolshevism was on everyone’s tongue. Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky were masters of propaganda, and they capably spread their idea of overthrowing the ruling class in order to bring “peace, land, and bread” back to the starving working class in Russia and throughout the entire world. Bolshevism was one of the hottest buzz words in the entire world in 1919, and that scared the hell out of people who were safe and secure and powerful because it could mean losing everything they’d worked for.
News reports of Bolshevist uprisings in Europe were covered daily in newspapers. Many articles conflated Anarchism with Bolshevism and lumping those two incongruous movements together. The Bolshevik uprisings in countries were sometimes violent, and newspapers played that aspect up as well, likely because fear sells papers.
Indeed, Anarchism would be a cause for very real fear later in April 1919, when Anarchists called Galleanists (followers of Luigi Galleani) mailed 36 dynamite filled bombs to prominent political figures and other people with power throughout the U.S.. Then in June 1919, eight larger bombs were detonated simultaneously outside homes and offices of other prominent figures.
100 years ago today, Bolshevism was the dangerous buzzword around the globe, even in the small mining town of Breckenridge, CO. Fear of this new economic/political system was all over the news, and the post-war transitional instability in the workforce made Bolshevism seem like it could be coming to a city, town, or government near you.
Pick and Sledge 