This is part 3 of Alan Woods' 4 part article on Marxism and the United
States. In the USA in the nineteenth century there was an unprecedented
development of the productive forces and this brought into being a mighty
working class with its labour organisations, starting with the Knights of Labor
in 1869. The list of working class martyrs of American Labor is endless, the
most celebrated being the Chicago martyrs of 1886 - as a result of which the
American working class gave May Day to the rest of the world. This was followed
by the IWW, the AFL and later the CIO. There is a rich history of working class
struggles in the United States that we can draw lessons from. Read the article here.