Eugene V. Debs: Speaks

Rating:
Summary: socialism's roots in the U.S.
Review: A refreshing collection of Debs' speeches and writings. Debs was a railroad worker and union official, imprisoned for his role in the 1894 Pullman strike. He became a socialist in prison, was several times the Socialist Party's candidate for president, and became the a symbol of labor and Marxism for a generation.

"What's the matter with Chicago?' is a lively examination of the how capitalism affects human life. Other items discuss the labor movement of his time, the early American Federation of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the World. His 1918 Canton Ohio speech, recorded by a police spy stenographer, blasted the First World War as imperialist, hailed the Russian revolution, and landed Debs a ten-year sentence in federal prison.

Rating:
Summary: Debs, Like Malcolm, Shows Working Class Potential
Review: Eugene Victor Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison for the anti-imperialist speech he gave in Canton, Ohio in 1918. It is a fire-breathing speech full of love for the oppressed and hatred of the imperialist oppressor. After you buy this book, read this speech first. It tells you about the U.S. rulers today-and their wars. The speeches in this well-rounded book (with a superb introduction by James P. Cannon), provide socialist answers to the big questions workers face today, as well as yesterday. His writings on the capitalist prison system are especially relevant. Debs, who spent four years behind bars himself, salutes the humanity of his fellow prisoners and points to the real criminal-"Capitalism is inherently a criminal system for it is based upon the robbery of the working class and cornerstoned in its slavery." Not much question about what he would think about U.S. wars and the anti-working class measures involved in Homeland Security. Like Malcolm X, Debs shows that the U.S. working class can indeed produce great leaders.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing but the cold hard truth
Review: Those of us who live outside of North America may well be surprised to read of the momentous class battles which saw hundreds of thousands of working people give their support to Socialist ideas

Eugene V. Debs was one of the very best products of American Labor movement. He was one of the millions of workers engaged in mass struggles for the most basic of rights waged during the late 1800's and early 1900's.

Two decades as a union fighter led Debs to adopt revolutionary socialist conclusions. He did so while in Chicago's Woodstock Jail, a few months before his 40th birthday.

For the remaining thirty years of his life Debs devoted himself to convincing working people in the US that the road to their emancipation was through the overthrow of American capitalism.

Through the selection of Debs speeches and writings put together in Eugene V. Debs Speaks you see where the class battles are at their hottest, there is Debs; writing, speaking and even using his election campaigns to aid the workers involved in struggle.

Debs delivers the cold hard truth about American capitalism and it's institutions. Much in the same way as another working class leader who made his mark some 40 years later - Malcolm X.