A Century of Global Class Struggle

During a recent debate, an American libertarian informed me in no uncertain terms that "even when their lives are crumbling, workers have never banded together globally."

However, a cursory examination of the past century indicates certain periods are more conducive to revolutionary sentiment around the world:

1917-1923

• Successful socialist revolution in Russia (October 1917) leads to short-lived Soviet republics in Hungary and Bavaria
• Workers' councils take control in Germany (November 1918) and force an end to World War I
• Egyptian Revolution of 1919 leads to Britain recognizing independence in 1922
• Mexican Revolution ends with victory of social democratic forces
• Irish War of Independence (1918-1921) against British rule
• Revolutionary conditions in Italy with mass strikes, factory occupations, and rule by workers' councils that led to the Fascists taking power to crush the labor movement
• First Red Scare in the United States (1919-1920). Authorities were very seriously afraid of revolution after labor unrest such as the Seattle General Strike, resulting in the Palmer Raids to arrest and deport radical leftists
• Winnipeg General Strike (1919) in Canada leads to a situation of dual power between strike committees and the bourgeois municipal government

1931-1939

• Spanish Revolution; threat of the radical left in Spain (anarchists, communists) and mass labor unrest leads to military coup against the Republican government
• Germany and Italy support Franco's Fascist forces because - as I was just reading the other day in Ian Kershaw's definitive biography on Hitler - the Nazi leader was deathly afraid of Bolshevism taking root in western Europe
• Leftist volunteers from many countries, including France, Britain, the United States, Canada and Poland, go to Spain to fight for the Republican forces

1960s

• Colonial Revolution continues in the developing countries, with many countries gaining independence through anti-colonial struggle or waging war against imperialist powers (Algeria, Vietnam, Cuba) and instituting nationalized planned economies
• Civil rights movement, counterculture, antiwar protests, Black Panther Party (Marxist militants) in the United States. Domestic turmoil practically tears the country apart.
• Cultural Revolution in China. Mao was merely trying to re-assert his own power, but the spontaneous revolutionary action of millions of youth in China clearly indicated some real resentments in society (shared by confused Maoist students in the West). There were many corrupt and bourgeois elements in Chinese society at the time; Mao simply exploited that mass feeling for his own cynical ends.
• Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia (1968) - period of political liberalization calling for "socialism with a human face." Crushed by Stalinists.
• May 1968 in France. Mass protests begin with student occupations, later joined by workers. Largest general strike ever brings economy to a standstill. Government leaders literally feared civil war or revolution. Betrayed by leaders of the trade unions and French Communist Party, who sided with the de Gaulle government.

1998-2011

• Election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (1998) leads to Turn to the Left throughout Latin America
• Left-wing or left-leaning governments elected in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, etc.
• Anti-globalization movement targets World Bank and the IMF before post-9/11 reaction
  

2011-2012

• Arab Spring
• Occupy movement
• Indignados in Spain
• Anti-Putin protests in Russia