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Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States

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There are stories in this book that should be part of every textbook in the United States. The attacks on the miners in the Appalachians, the Ludlow massacre of women and children in Colorado, the police and military attacks on striking textile workers in Gastonia, NC, the remarks of various capitalists regarding their opinion of those that made them their riches, the persecution of labor and other radicals throughout the past 150 years, and the manipulation of the public by the two-party system--a manipulation that means the worker gets screwed no matter who he or she votes for. Women on the barricades and the Wobblies. Likewise, the tales of racial and ethnic prejudices that caused strikes and solidarity to fall apart should be told. This latter aspect of US labor history is very important today as immigrants flex their political muscle in the streets of the country and the power elites attempt to create and widen divisions between these immigrants and those US workers that were born here. If workers don't learn from history and oppose these attempts to divide us, Subterranean Fire makes it abundantly clear that all workers will suffer. And only the bosses will win. When lessons from our history are common knowledge we can move ahead in a manner that will bring a movement back onto US soil that protects the lives and rights of the working people in this country.
Smith's book is the perfect vehicle for such an endeavor. It is a readable, lively tale of the worker's movement in the United States. A collection of statistics and anecdotal stories combined with a critical analysis, it is at times despairingly downbeat and at other times exhilaratingly hopeful. Subterranean Fire's a piece of agitational literature. If there's one message that exists in its pages, it is this: Don't just read, organize.

Sharon Smith's Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States is a critical history of the U.S. labor movement and workers' resistance from the nineteenth century to the present day. From class struggle, to the uphill battle for industrial unions, to the harsh retaliation of employers, to the dismantling of the New Deal labor laws by Neoliberal presidents and the rise of the Neocons, Subterranean Fire explores a fierce battle on both sides for power, wealth, and legitimacy. A very heavily researched history that not only chronicles worker efforts to fight back, but also warns against the uncertain future that excessive compliance can and might bring, Subterranean Fire is informative reading, especially for students of the American labor movement.

This brilliant book is indispensable reading for any labor activist worth their salt. Get it and clear your schedule for the next 24 hours while you soak up the electrifying history of working-class radicalism in the United States.

Smith's case is meticulous and convincing: The American working-class is far more combative and ingenuitive than its given credit for by the mainstream. And the author's conclusions are provocative: The working-class is a juggernaut in need of an independent, democratic leadership that can fully realize its class interests.

This book is worth it for the highlights of class struggle alone from Toledo, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Birmingham, Detroit, New York, Seattle and beyond. But what makes it truly valuable is its political analysis of the current labor movement slump. Smith is no labor cheerleader nor academic arm-chair quarterback, she's the salt of the movement.

In a culture of induced amnesia, recovering labor history amounts to an insurrectionary act. The blackout has been in process for some time. The roots go back to the McCarthy purges when labor's vision was severed from its arms, legs, and spirit. How surprising is it that the movement has been stumbling ever since. The twin crashes of the Republican administration and Wall Street culminate a process that began with HUAC, passed into George Meany, to Ronald Reagan, before dead-ending in a Bush. Now the cumulative effects have finally caught up as Americans struggle to pay big bills with little wages, resulting in an economy that unsurprisingly teeters on the brink. It's tempting to say that the proverbial chickens have finally come home to roost.

Smith's account begins in 1900 with the battle for industrial unions and ends with hurricane Katrina. It's a good medium-length (300 pps.) compendium: scholarly, non-polemical, but with a pro-labor perspective. Much of the history is familiar, particularly those classic periods of intense organizing (e.g. 1930's). Smith's work extends the standard coverage through 2006 to include the illustrative UPS and Caterpillar strikes of the new millennium. The story of labor's decline is told in a series of revealing statistics leading up to and prefiguring the current economic impasse. Also distinguishing the text is an illuminating chapter on racism and how it has propelled the American labor movement onto a unique path that diverges, for example, from European counterparts.

Now that the heady days of a new capitalism have collapsed into an uncertain future, yesterday's impossibles have become today's possibles. The bread and butter that labor thought so secure is now off the table and renewed vision is needed. But it's hard to know where to go unless you know where you've been. Smith's handy tome lays out those footprints.