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On this day, 28 February 1969, Black Panthers held an armed demonstration at the capitol building in Olympia, Washington, in protest at state attempts to disarm them. Following large numbers of police murders of unarmed Black people, the revolutionary socialist Black Panther Party started armed self-defence patrols.

The Republican mayor of Seattle had already passed one such law in the city. So state legislators proposed a law which would make exhibiting "firearms or other weapons in a manner manifesting intent to intimidate others" a gross misdemeanour. Lawmakers rushed through the legislation, and upon hearing of Panther plans to demonstrate police panic, drafting in dozens of armed state troopers and mounting a machine gun on the roof.

The Panthers arrived in four cars, unloaded their weapons at the request of the police while one of them, Aaron Dixon entered the building and made a five minute statement to the legislature, while others held the doors shut, forcing the officials to listen. Despite the protest, governor Dan Evans signed the bill into law that day. The National Rifle Association, supposedly a 'gun rights advocacy group', did not support the Panthers, and elsewhere supported Republican legal moves to take their guns away.

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On this day, 2 March 1921, a workers' uprising began in Labin, Croatia, by a multinational group of around 2,000 miners. The miners were rebelling against an Italian fascist attack on a union militant the previous day. A few days later, they declared a Republic, which lasted until April when 1,000 soldiers arrived and put down the revolt.



This is a short history of the rebellion: The Republic of Labin, 1921

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New Cross Fire anniversary march organisers call for big turnout


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(Source: Graham Turner via Getty Images)


Lest We Forget 2 March 1981​
 
On this day, 5 March 1871, the revolutionary socialist of Polish-Jewish descent Rosa Luxemburg was born. Splitting from the Social Democrats (SPD) when they supported World War I, she co-founded the Spartacus League, which later renamed itself the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), and enthusiastically took part in the German revolution of 1918.


Luxemburg was a critic both of the "ultra-centralism" of Russian Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin, and also of reformist socialists, declaring: “People who pronounce themselves in over of the method of legislative reform in place of and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modifications of the old society. . . . Our program becomes not the realization of socialism, but the reform of capitalism not the suppression of the system of wage labor, but the diminution of exploitation, that is, the suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of the suppression of capitalism itself.”

Luxemburg and her colleague Karl Liebknecht were later murdered by the right-wing paramilitary Freikorps acting on behalf of the SPD in the wake of the failed Spartacist uprising of 1919.

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On this day, 6 March 1913, Joe Hill's song "There is Power in a Union" first appeared in the Industrial Workers of the World union's Little Red Song Book.


Sung on picket lines and in working class protests around the country, it asks workers: "Would you have mansions of gold in the sky/and live in a shack, way in the back?/Would you have wings up in heaven to fly/And starve here with rags on your back?" And advises them: "There is power, there is power/In a band of workingmen,/When they stand hand in hand/That’s a power, that’s a power/That must rule in every land,/One Industrial Union Grand".

Hill was executed by the state of Utah in 1915 in what is widely regarded as a politically-motivated miscarriage of justice.

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Count Cuckula said:
On this day, 6 March 1913, Joe Hill's song "There is Power in a Union" first appeared in the Industrial Workers of the World union's Little Red Song Book.


Sung on picket lines and in working class protests around the country, it asks workers: "Would you have mansions of gold in the sky/and live in a shack, way in the back?/Would you have wings up in heaven to fly/And starve here with rags on your back?" And advises them: "There is power, there is power/In a band of workingmen,/When they stand hand in hand/That’s a power, that’s a power/That must rule in every land,/One Industrial Union Grand".

Hill was executed by the state of Utah in 1915 in what is widely regarded as a politically-motivated miscarriage of justice.

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1840 lord william russell murdered by his valet courvoisier
1859 death of alexander vom humboldt
1882 epping forest declared open to people for ever
1882 irish invincibles murder lord frederick cavendish and mr burke, phoenix park
 
On this day, 7 March 1942, Lucy Parsons, anarchist, co-founder of the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World union and lifelong advocate for working people, the homeless, women, and African-Americans, died in a house fire.


Born into slavery in Virginia to an enslaved mother, Parsons later moved to Texas and became a famous revolutionary firebrand. Instead of voting for politicians, Parsons advocated direct action to change the world, advising workers: "Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth."

As dangerous to the authorities in death as in life, after the fire the police confiscated all her papers and books. She was also the widow of Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons.

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On this day, 8 March 1917, thousands of housewives and women workers in St Petersburg, Russia defied union leaders' appeals for calm and took to the streets against high prices and hunger, thus igniting the February revolution (so-called because of the different calendar in use in Russia at the time). The following day, 200,000 workers joined them by striking, shouting slogans against the tsar and the war. Some military units began to join the workers, and by 15 March, tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate.

On the same date the following year, women in Austria celebrated International Women's Day on this date for the first time as thousands took to the streets protesting against World War I. There is a popular myth that March 8 was chosen on the anniversary of an 1857 strike of women workers in New York, and a further stoppage on the same date in 1908, however this is incorrect.

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On this day, 12 March 1912, Polish Jewish resistance activist Ala Gertner was born. While an enslaved labourer at a munitions factory under Nazi occupation, Gertner stole gunpowder which she smuggled to prisoners at Auschwitz Birkenau to build grenades. The resistance at the camp used these makeshift weapons, among others, to destroy Crematorium IV and kill several SS officers. Gertner and three other women were executed for their role in the uprising in 1945.

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1862 george peabody presented £150,000 for dwellings for london poor
1868 attempt on duke of edinburgh in new south wales by o'farrell, a fenian
1878 explosion at union brook colliery, kearsley, bolton; 43 lives lost
 
On this day, 16 March 1921, the Red Army under the command of Leon Trotsky staged their bloody final assault on the workers and sailors of Kronstadt, after they revolted against the burgeoning Bolshevik dictatorship. The rebels, mostly dissident communists and socialists, protested against the suppression of strikes in Petrograd, and were calling for trade union freedom, free speech for workers and revolutionaries, freedom for socialist political prisoners and for the abolition of enhanced food rations to Party bureaucrats.


Trotsky had previously described the sailors as the "pride and glory of the revolution" due to their key role in the 1917 revolution. But when they rebelled against the new rulers Trotsky ordered they "shoot them like partridges".

Some have attempted to claim that the Kronstadt sailors in 1921 were mostly different individuals to those in 1917, however detailed research by individuals like Israel Getzler showed that the make-up of the garrison was overwhelmingly the same.

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On this day, 18 March 1938, the German Nazi party introduced new gun laws. Right-wing US pro-gun advocates frequently claim that supposedly strict laws were introduced to disarm the population which then helped enable the Holocaust. But in reality the new legislation was a relaxation of the previous, stricter rules of the Weimar Republic in 1928, especially in terms of purchase, carrying and transfer of weapons. And they were much less restrictive than the previous 1919 German law which completely prohibited the possession of firearms.

A few months later, on November 11, 1938, Hitler imposed further regulations to confiscate weapons, including guns, as well as knives and batons, held by Jewish people. Although it is worth noting that the Weimar Republic already forbade "Gypsies" (Roma and Sinti people) from owning guns.
The 1928 law required a licence for buying or transferring any firearm or ammunition. The Nazi law abolished all regulation of rifles, shotguns and ammunition, and instead just required a licence for handguns. It also established exceptions, extending licences to children and enabling many more people to own guns without a licence, including hunters, government workers and Nazi party members.

So while it is true to state that the Nazis did disarm Jewish people, most claims from right-wingers about Hitler being an advocate of gun-control are false. Similar claims that these laws enabled the Holocaust to take place are also false, as the number of German Jews was far too small to have been able to resist the Nazi military might, even if they had all possessed guns. And most of those killed in the Holocaust were not even German Jews covered by 1938 law in any case.

And contrary to their stated objectives, the US National Rifle Association has previously supported gun-control laws in order to disarm Black Americans.

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On this day, 18 March 1871, the Paris commune, one of the most significant early attempts at a working class uprising to create socialism, was established. The workers of Paris, joined by mutinous national guardsmen, seized the city and set about re-organising a society based on workers' councils. The communards were able to hold the city until late May when, upon retaking the city, troops massacred 30,000 workers in bloody revenge.

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On this day, 21 March 1991, the abolition of the poll tax in the UK was announced, following a mass non-payment campaign and widespread rioting. The hated tax, introduced by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, charged the working class the same as the rich as there was a charge for every individual in a household.

Despite the defeat of the working class movement in Britain in the 1980s, people up and down the country self-organised an unprecedented campaign which resulted in over 17 million people refusing to pay, with thousands of people clogging the country's court system. It was later replaced by the council tax, which charged rates based on house value.

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On this day, 25 March 1939, the Nazis brought in a tougher new law forcibly conscripting all 10 to 18-year-olds into the Hitler Youth. But despite years spent trying to mould "national socialist" youths, thousands of working class young people formed gangs known as the "Edelweiss Pirates" to socialise and organise their own fun activities.

They began to get into fights with Hitler Youth patrols and when the war started they conducted sabotage, slacked at work and began to help Jewish people, deserters and POWs. Some became partisans and launched armed attacks on Nazi officials. Some of them were executed, but many survived the war, where young workers slacking off continued to be a problem for the Allied occupiers.

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On this day, on March 27, 1942, the French government of Vichy issued the decree of barbers, in which it required barbers to collect the cut hair and donate it to the war effort to make shoes and sweaters. Zazous rebels refused and let their hair grow out. Zazous were young anti-fascists who wore fancy suits, listened to jazz and swing music-which was mostly performed by black musicians-and fought fascists on the street. Police cornered them and fascist youth groups in Vichy chased them and cut their hair.

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Count Cuckula said:
On this day, on March 27, 1942, the French government of Vichy issued the decree of barbers, in which it required barbers to collect the cut hair and donate it to the war effort to make shoes and sweaters. Zazous rebels refused and let their hair grow out. Zazous were young anti-fascists who wore fancy suits, listened to jazz and swing music-which was mostly performed by black musicians-and fought fascists on the street. Police cornered them and fascist youth groups in Vichy chased them and cut their hair.

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The Zazous were an interesting youth subculture. They defied the Nazi occupation in France by dropping out, hanging around jazz clubs, dressing cool and slacking off. When the Nazis required Jews to wear yellow stars they wore their own yellow stars with Zazou written on it. Mainly aged 17 to 20 and quite middle class the Viche authorities hated them. The Viche press published loads of articles slating them and, like you say, fascists attacked them on the streets, driving the subculture underground. Ultimately when the Nazis imposed forced labour in France in 1942/43 the subculture died out, as healthy young people didn't want to draw attention to themselves.

The French Resistance hated them too, seeing their attitude to the war as apathetic and flippant.

Love this dude's look:
male-Zazou.jpeg
 
Spandex said:
The Zazous were an interesting youth subculture. They defied the Nazi occupation in France by dropping out, hanging around jazz clubs, dressing cool and slacking off. When the Nazis required Jews to wear yellow stars they wore their own yellow stars with Zazou written on it. Mainly aged 17 to 20 and quite middle class the Viche authorities hated them. The Viche press published loads of articles slating them and, like you say, fascists attacked them on the streets, driving the subculture underground. Ultimately when the Nazis imposed forced labour in France in 1942/43 the subculture died out, as healthy young people didn't want to draw attention to themselves.

The French Resistance hated them too, seeing their attitude to the war as apathetic and flippant.

Love this dude's look:
male-Zazou.jpeg
Click to expand...

Is that a young Midge Ure ?
 
On this day, 30 March 1915, Francesc Sabaté Llopart (AKA El Quicko), anti-fascist resistance fighter, and the most tenacious of the anti-Franco guerrillas, was born in Hospitalet de Llobregat, Catalonia.


With the outbreak of the civil war in 1936, Sabaté joined the anarchist Young Eagles column and fought against General Francisco Franco's Nationalists on the Aragon front. After the defeat of the Republic, Sabaté was interned in a concentration camp in France, and later joined the French resistance against Nazi occupation.
Following the end of World War II he re-entered Spain and joined the growing underground resistance to the regime. Amongst his many legendary exploits he freed other imprisoned activists, robbed banks, assassinated fascist leaders and cheated death on many occasions.

After robbing the home of a wealthy Franco supporter, Manuel Garriga, Sabaté left a note which read: "We are not robbers, we are libertarian resistance fighters. What we have just taken will help in a small way to feed the orphaned and starving children of those anti-fascists who you and your kind have shot. We are people who have never and will never beg for what is ours. So long as we have the strength to do so we shall fight for the freedom of the Spanish working class. As for you, Garriga, although you are a murderer and a thief, we have spared you, because we as libertarians appreciate the value of human life, something which you never have, nor are likely to, understand."

Sabaté outlived nearly all of the other active resistance fighters, only eventually succumbing to the bullets of the Civil Guard in 1960.

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On this day, 31 March 1990, the poll tax riots broke out in Trafalgar Square, London, after police attacked 200,000 people demonstrating against an extremely unpopular and highly regressive tax introduced by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government.


Police launched a violent assault on peaceful demonstrators, including rapidly driving police vans through the crowd. But this backfired severely when the crowd defended itself, pushed back the police, then went on the offensive, destroying property and expropriating goods from stores (looting). South Africa House, the diplomatic outpost of the apartheid regime, was set on fire.

One participant recalled: "The most important thing for me was the way people were prepared to face the riot police. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was incredible to see people running in to pull others out when they were being arrested… The next thing that sticks in my mind was seeing the ordinary pigs in full flight down Whitehall, and the roar of the crowd chasing them… The noise was brilliant, the bravery of people on my side was enough to convince me that we are not so helpless after all."

Police arrested more than 300 people on the day, with around 150 subsequent arrests. Meanwhile leading left establishment figures denounced the rioters promised to "name names" and "root out the trouble-makers". But the riot helped spur more widespread opposition to the tax, introduced the following week, and was eventually defeated by a mass non-payment campaign.

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On this day, 3 April 1948, a left-wing uprising began on the Korean island of Jeju.


Jeju had been largely self-governing following the end of World War II, when North and South Koreas were divided up between the USSR and USA following the defeat of Japan. However, Jeju islanders were angry with violent US-backed police and feared that planned elections organised by the UN in South Korea alone would reinforce the division between North and South.

They attacked police stations and right-wing paramilitaries, in particular targeting those who collaborated with the Japanese imperialists. The US military government sent troops to the island, and the US-backed South Korean authorities brutally suppressed the rebellion, massacring many thousands including women and children. When the uprising was finally crushed the following year up to 10% of the island's population were dead, and 70% of villages destroyed.

Subsequent US-backed dictatorships in South Korea banned any mention of the Jeju uprising, and speaking of it was punishable by beatings, torture and lengthy prison sentences.

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On this day, 6 April 1871, rebel national guard troops of the 137th Battalion in the Paris commune seized the local guillotine, smashed it to pieces and burned it outside the town hall of the 11th district to the applause of a huge crowd of onlookers.


The government had recently created a new type of guillotine which was quicker and easier to transport. The district commune committee had voted to seize these "servile instruments of monarchist domination" and destroy them "once and forever… for the purification of the district and the consecration of our new freedom".

While some on the left glorify the guillotine, in fact it has mostly been used as a weapon against radicals and the powerless. For example while use of the guillotine is most famously remembered in terms of the execution of aristocrats during the French revolution, the new "revolutionary" government soon began using it against those on their left.

The German Nazi government was also a big proponent of the guillotine, executing over 16,000 people with the device, including many resistance activists like Sophie and Hans Scholl. More recently it was used in places like French colonies in the Caribbean, in state socialist East Germany and in France itself, where its last use was against a Tunisian agricultural worker who was convicted of murder and was beheaded in 1977.

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On this day, 11 April 1945, as US forces approached, the inmate resistance seized control of Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. However, when the Allies took control of the concentration camps, according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum some of those interned for homosexuality were not freed but were required to serve out the full term of the sentences they had received under the homophobic Nazi penal code.

Thousands of LGBT+ people were interned in concentration camps, most made to wear a pink triangle. Many of them were subjected to medical experiments, castrated, or murdered.

After “liberation,” the US army handbook for the occupation of Germany established that, while most Holocaust survivors should be released from concentration camps, “criminals with a prison sentence still to serve will be transferred to civil prisons.” Gay and bisexual men, and trans women had been convicted under paragraph 175 of the criminal code, which had been strengthened by the Nazis, and were therefore considered common criminals. Homosexuality was also against the law at that time in Allied countries, including the US, the UK, and the USSR.

One prisoner, Hermann R, who was detained at Landsberg Fortress, southwest of Dachau, joined liberation celebrations. But two weeks later, A US military commissioner told him: “Homosexual – that’s a crime. You’re staying here!”

US occupation authorities kept the Nazified paragraph 175 on the books, and in the first four years after the end of the war, around 1,500 men per year were arrested under it. Later, West Germany kept it as well and convicted over 50,000 men before it was finally revoked in 1969. East Germany on the other hand reverted to the pre-Nazi paragraph 175, and convicted some four thousand men before revoking it in 1968.

LGBT+ people were not recognised as victims of the Holocaust and had their pensions deducted for the time they spent interned in concentration camps, with most never receiving any compensation.

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