This Land Is Their Land A Revolutionary Working People’s History of the United States George Gruenthal Second revised and expanded edition January 2019 Contents Introduction ...................................................................................... 1 1. The Americas before Columbus ................................................... 3 Buffy Sainte Marie: My Country ‘Tis of Thy People You’re Dying .................................................................................... 6 2. African Slaves ............................................................................... 9 European Indentures ................................................................ 11 3. Formation of the 13 Colonies into the United States .................. 13 4. Andrew Jackson, “Representative of the Common People,” Indian Fighter and Slave-owner ............................................... 16 5. Compromises and Struggles between the Plantation South and the Capitalist North ............................................................. 18 Slave Rebellions ...................................................................... 18 6. The Mexican American Wars, 1836-1848 .................................. 22 7. Civil War .................................................................................... 25 8. Reconstruction and the Development of the Afro-American Nation ............................................................... 29 Presidential Reconstruction ..................................................... 29 Reconstruction Governments ................................................... 30 9. The Unification of the U.S. Capitalist State ............................... 33 10. 1886 and the Fight for the 8-Hour Day ..................................... 36 Lucy Parsons ............................................................................ 37 11. Workers’ Struggles, 1880 to 1920 ............................................ 39 Joe Hill Song ............................................................................ 40 12. Development of Imperialism and the Spanish-American War of 1898 ............................................................................. 42 Major General Smedley D. Butler ........................................... 45 13. World War I .............................................................................. 46 14. The Russian Revolution in and its Influence on the United States ................................................................. 49 15. Formation of the Communist Party USA ................................. 52 16. Reformist and Revolutionary Organizations within the Black National Movement ......................................................... 55 Claude McKay:If We Must Die ............................................... 57 17. The “Roaring Twenties” ........................................................... 59 18. The Great Depression ............................................................... 61 Early Workers’ Struggles during the Depression .................... 62 19. Workers’ Struggles During the New Deal ................................ 65 Fascist Attacks and Bourgeois Reforms .................................. 67 20. The International Situation Leading up to World War II.......... 70 Woody Guthrie: Jarama Valley ............................................... 73 21. World War II and the Role of the Major Powers ...................... 75 Bertold Brecht: What Did the Soldier’s Wife Reeceive? ......... 79 22. The International Consequences of World War II .................... 81 23. Post-World War II, McCarthyism and the Trade Union Movement ................................................................................ 84 24. The Korean War ....................................................................... 88 25. The Civil Rights Movement ..................................................... 92 Malcolm X ............................................................................... 94 Billie Holiday: Strange Fruit .................................................... 97 26. The Rise of the Revolutionary Afro-American Liberation Movement .............................................................. 98 The Black Panther Party ........................................................ 100 Other Revolutionary Afro-American Groups ........................ 103 Gil Scott Heron: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised ...... 104 27. Other Revolutionary National Movements ............................. 107 The Puerto Rican National Movement................................... 107 The Chicano/Mexicano Movement ........................................ 108 Asian-American, Native American and Other Movements ... 109 28. The Vietnam War and the Anti-War Movement .................... 112 Nixon and Watergate; Ford, the Totally Unelected President .. 116 Phil Ochs: Love Me, I’m a Liberal ........................................ 117 29. The Women’s Movement ....................................................... 119 The Movement of the 1970s .................................................. 121 30. The LGBT Movement ............................................................ 123 AIDS ...................................................................................... 124 31. The Rise and Decline of the New Marxist-Leninist Movements ............................................................................ 127 Maoism .................................................................................. 130 Other Problems of the New M-L Movements ....................... 132 32. A Period of Ebbs and Flows ................................................... 136 The International Situation .................................................... 138 33. From the 2000 Elections to the Attacks of September 11, 2001 .............................................. 141 34. “Terrorism” and Endless Wars ............................................... 144 Invasion of Iraq ...................................................................... 145 35. Scapegoating of Muslims and the USA PATRIOT ACT ....... 148 Dr. Aafia Siddiqui .................................................................. 150 36. May Day 2006 and the Immigrant Rights Movement ............ 152 37. The Crisis of 2008 and the Decline of U.S. Imperialism ........ 155 38. Continuing Imperialist Wars, Inter-Imperialist Crises and Internationalism ................................................................ 158 Imperialism in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East .................................. 158 The Class Nature of Russia and China Today ....................... 163 39. Oppressed Nationalities .......................................................... 167 Mass Incarceration ................................................................. 167 Recent Police Killings and Black Lives Matter ..................... 168 Struggles of Other Oppressed Peoples ................................... 170 40. Environmental Destruction and Capitalism ............................ 172 Fracking ................................................................................. 172 Global Warning and Climate Change .................................... 172 Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and Monsanto ..... 173 Chemtrails and Geo-Engineering ........................................... 175 41. Trump and Increased Reaction ............................................... 177 The Role of the Democratic Party ......................................... 178 The Need for a United Front .................................................. 180 The Internationale ......................................................................... 182 General Bibliography: .................................................................. 184 List of Illustrations Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan, central Mexico ................................. 1 Colonists vs. Native People ................................................................... 5 Buffy Sainte-Marie ................................................................................ 6 Slaves in the cotton fields ...................................................................... 9 European indentured servants .............................................................. 12 Black Seminoles, Florida ..................................................................... 17 Book cover: On to New Orleans .......................................................... 19 Fires in New York City, 1741 .............................................................. 20 Northern Mexico, annexed by the United States, 1836-53 .................. 22 St. Patrick’s Battalion: Commemorative plaque in Mexico City ......... 23 Plaque honoring volunteers with the Union Army .............................. 25 Black troops in the Union Army .......................................................... 27 Blacks and whites in state Reconstruction governments ......................... 30 Black and white militia defend progressive Reconstruction government in Arkansas ................................................................................... 32 Chinese railroad workers ..................................................................... 33 Troops shooting down railroad workers, Baltimore, 1877................... 34 Poster for meeting at Haymarket Square, 1886 ................................... 36 Lucy Parsons ........................................................................................ 37 Foreign-born