"I wasn’t prepared for characters like Lemon Johnson, a former member of the Communist-led Share Croppers Union. In December 1986, I visited Johnson at his home in rural Montgomery County…He told stories about the 1935 cotton pickers’ strike, Stalin’s pledge to send troops to Mobile to help black sharecroppers if things got out of hand, and the night a well-armed group of women set out to avenge their comrades who had been beaten or killed during the strike.
When I asked Mr. Johnson how the union succeeded in winning some of their demands, without the slightest hesitation he reached into the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out a dog-eared copy of V. I. Lenin’s What Is to Be Done and a box of shotgun shells, set both firmly on the bed next to me, and said, ‘Right thar, theory and practice. That’s how we did it. Theory and practice.’"
–Robin Kelley, from the 25th anniversary preface to Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
If you’re feeling bummed out by electoralism I want you to remember this.
Hammer and Hoe is on my reading list. Might have to read it next once I finish Black Bolshevik.
Here you go, because providing source is comradely.
I skimmed it for the quote and it doesn’t appear to be in that edition, but it looks like an incredible read. I think there are definitely lessons we can learn from the Alabama sharecroppers in our own organising.
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Stalin offered to send troops into the US to support union strikes? Holy shit I’d love a source so I could read it
