For the fifty years prior to 1927, the struggles in the Colorado mines had been a flashpoint for labour relations throughout the mining industry and had been marked by many strikes, aborted uprisings and confrontations between miners and mine owners, and the state militia.
Miners in Colorado had observed a general strike called by the revolutionary syndicalist union the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1927 in support of the arrested anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, who were executed in August of that year and later in the year, taking notice of the continuing discontent amongst the miners, the IWW called a strike of all mine workers on October 18.
The striking miners shut down every one of the coal mines in northern Colorado except the Columbine mine, situated just north of Denver in a small town called Serene, which was being kept running (albeit with a very slow rate of production) by 150 scabs who had been brought in on the promise of a fifty cents a day increase in pay. The imported scabs were housed in Serene, which had been turned into something resembling a fortress, with barbed wire on the fences and armed guards at the gates.
All in all, 113 mines across the state had been closed, with 13 still running. The majority of miners in the state were on strike, about 8,400. As in Columbine, the 1,750 scabs who were keeping the 13 remaining mines open were lured away from the strike by promises of increased pay and other such incentives. However, frequent mass gatherings on the coalfields in the south of the state brought more and more of the miners still at work out to join the strike. Picket lines were almost constantly harassed by the police, and arrests were frequent. Union halls were closed, often violently, and arrested strikers were moved from one jail to another to prevent access by IWW lawyers, while many were just driven to the state line and left there.
Mass rallies had been held by workers outside the Columbine mine in Serene for several weeks and on the morning of November 21, about 500 miners and their families marched towards the north gate of the town. On their arrival, they were met by plainclothed militiamen with rifles, blocking the entrance to the gate, backed up by mine guards inside the town also armed with rifles and tear gas grenades.
With the militiamen still refusing the open the gate, Adam Bell, a strike leader, approached the gate and was struck on the head with a baton. As he fell to the floor, the miners surged forward to protect him as he lay unconscious. Tear gas canisters were fired by the militia, and many were thrown back by the rushing miners. The strikers began to scale the gate and a battle soon ensued, with police beating the miners back and seriously injuring several people, including a mother of sixteen, while the miners fought back with rocks.
The police retreated about a hundred yards inside the town, and fired into the mass of surging strikers with their rifles and at least two machine guns. The miners quickly scattered, but at least six people had been killed and more than sixty injured by the hail of bullets, several seriously. The miners also later claimed that not only were they fired upon by the retreated police line, but also from another machine gun positioned at the mine tipple on their flank, which would have created a devastating crossfire.
The massacre at Columbine was not the last instance of violence against miners during the strike, with two strikers being killed in Walsenburg two weeks later, as well as numerous attacks on pickets and union halls.
The owner of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, Josephine Roche (a liberal, who recognised the need for a union, so long as said union wasn't the IWW), brought an end to the strike several weeks after the incident at Columbine, declaring that the company union was to be affiliated with the American Federation of Labour, as well as eventually recognising the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).
The UMWA, whose members had responded to the massacre at Ludlow thirteen years previously with such a stunning show of aggression against the Colorado mine owners and authorities, collaborated with the owners at the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company for token improvements in pay and conditions for years proceeding the end of the strike.
However, the backbone of IWW support in the Colorado mines had been broken by the companies, and the union would never return to such prominence in the industry again. Rather unsurprisingly, no militia or policemen were ever held accountable for the massacre at the Columbine mine, the only physical reminder of the attack being a small monument at the site of the shootings.
Comprehensive list of resources for those in need of an abortion :feminism:
Resources for Palestine :palestine-heart:
Here are some resourses on Prison Abolition :brick-police:
Foundations of Leninism :USSR:
:lenin-shining: :unity: :kropotkin-shining:
Anarchism and Other Essays :ancom:
Remember, sort by new you :LIB:
Follow the Hexbear twitter account :comrade-birdie:
THEORY; it’s good for what ails you (all kinds of tendencies inside!) :RIchard-D-Wolff:
COMMUNITY CALENDAR - AN EXPERIMENT IN PROMOTING USER ORGANIZING EFFORTS :af:
Come listen to music with your fellow Hexbears in Cy.tube :og-hex-bear:
Queer stuff? Come talk in the Queer version of the megathread ! :sicko-queer:
Monthly Neurodiverse Megathread and Monthly ND Venting Thread :Care-Comrade:
Join the fresh and beautiful batch of new comms:
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Wmill's Moscow Problems :cyber-lenin:
In which plane did Volodya's father fly?
Volodya asked, "What plane did you fly during the air parade?"
His father sketched a formation of 9 planes.
"The number of planes to the right of me multiplied by the number of planes to the left of me is 3 less than it would have been if my plane had been 3 places to the right of me."
How did Volodya solve the problem?
Like usual have fun :soviet-heart: and remember to dm @Wmill the answer. I'll probably announce on monday the winners.
:amerikkka: are the worst
New Megathread Start Posting Nerds :posting:
Also Today was the assasination of Hanns Martin Schleyer :germany-cool:
Hanns Martin Schleyer was a German member of the SS, business executive, and employer and industry representative who was assassinated by the Red Army Faction (RAF) on this day in 1977. Schleyer's conservative anti-communist views, anti-union activities, and his past as a former SS officer made him a target for radical elements of the German student movement in the 1970s.
On September 5th, 1977, the RAF (a West German, far-left militant organization) kidnapped Schleyer in an attempt to force the West German government to release Andreas Baader and three other RAF members. The government steadfastly refused to negotiate with the RAF, and after discovering that three RAF members were killed in prison, his kidnappers executed Schleyer in a car en route to France on October 18th, 1977.
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:this: I will not accept pronunciation revisionism
:geordi-no: Learning that Colin Powell is dead by reading the news
:geordi-yes: Learning that Colin Powell is dead by reading the comments on the hexbear megathread
Shout out to the Bay leaf. Most underrated seasoning component/aromatic ever. Adds that something extra to a ton of dishes.
Also shoutout to all the hexbear streamers that entertain me when I wake up in the middle of the night, until I get back to bed
Company is making me do anti bribery training, buddy if someone wants to bribe me I'm taking it
Getting my period a few hours after taking a pregnancy test :meow-cactus:
I am so done with like 90% of people on this planet. Like holy fuck how can there be this many stupid fucks in the world? I hate that I hate the vast majority of people because no one is perfect, but my god most of humanity is so vapid and unlikeable. :owl-pissed:
Well, when you put it that way, lol.
In all honesty I'm just having a bad week and the covid discourse at my work is driving me mad.
reading some queer christian scholarship, learning theory
ancient eunuch's were considered to be genderless or gender ambiguous by most societies. they weren't allowed to be full members of the Israelite community (deuteronomy 23:1, leviticus 21:16, etc), and there's plenty of quotes by greco-roman bros calling eunuch's neither male nor female or "half-males." one of the first christian converts we find in acts is an ethiopian eunuch, accepted for who he is/they are, fully included in the kingdom of god. queer scholars apply this is various ways but lots of work has been done specifically on acceptance of gender and trans-identities from this story
get fucked terfs :jesus-cleanse:
I went to pet my dog and he pissed on my leg. Im not mad just disappointed
Cheap tomatoes in the US have no flavor. Sucks ass that you gotta pay insane money for your tomatoes to taste like anything. Sucks ass even more that once you taste the good shit there's just no going back.