Who was Samuel Gompers and what is his significance?
Well the irony about Sam Gompers is that he was a Marxist who forged an anti-Marxist labor movement. Gompers was born in a poor family in London and moved to the United States in his teens. Becomes a skilled cigar maker. Helps to form a union, which is one of the strongest craft unions in America. And all this time he is a socialist. Hes reading Marx. Hes reading Engels. Hes reading other classics of European socialism and he believes that the best way to organize workers, to demand their emancipation, the best way to achieve socialism, is by making the trade unions themselves stronger. And in this hes basing himself on Marxs own writings. Because Marx said famously that the emancipation of the working class will be the work of the working class itself. And, Gompers thought thats what he was doing. And he opposed the socialist comrades, you might say, who believed that only through a socialist party, only through a political party could the workers gain that kind of strength. Gompers b
