Murdered by Capitalism: A Memoir of 150 Years of Life and Death on the American Left

by John Ross

Book Overview

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2004

After spilling bourbon on Schnaubelt's grave, its pugnacious and very dead occupant becomes Ross's mentor, sidekick, and boozing companion through this epic telling of the hallucinatory, carnal, and ornery histories of the American Left and John Ross's own remarkable life. Schnaubelt navigates us through his seemingly boundless revolutionary battleground, uttering cries of subversion...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560255781
• ISBN13: 9781560255789
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Bold Type Books
• Length: 353 Pages
• Weight: 0.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Not Non-Violent

John Ross likes to visit cemeteries and chat up the bones of fallen working class heroes. Their surreal conversations cover decades of American labor history. E. B. "Eddie" Schnaubelt was murdered by capitalism in 1913. That's what it says on his grave stone in Trinidad, California. He tells Ross how he came to California from Chicago, on the lam from the police roundup that followed the Haymarket bombing in 1886. He insists that neither he nor his brother Rudolph was the bomb thrower. When Schnaubelt clams up on him, Ross descends into hell to interview President McKinley, then proceeds to a boneyard outside Chicago to chat up the remains of the Haymarket martyrs. Emma Goldman, Big Bill Haywood, Joe Hill, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Sacco and Vanzetti, William Z. Foster, and others join the conversation, discussing the pros and cons of communism and other isms. It makes for a lively discussion and even stirs the bones of Senator Joe McCarthy, who butts in all the way from Wisconsin! John Ross is a long-time radical, beat poet, and freelance foreign correspondent. His book is a zany and raucous historical memoir of epic proportions. It often lapses into poetic imagery. It is pugnacious and outrageous at times, and always unequivocally on the side of working people against their capitalist tormenters. But it is not non-violent. There is even a warning on the cover that "This book contains graphic scenes of revolutionary violence." Ross condones that violence--if it comes from the Left. But otherwise, a good read.

Fascinating memoir of the voices of the left

An outstandingly outrageous autobiography intertwined with truthfully tragic American history as seen from the left. I give this book a shining five stars and rate it a recommended read. KABOOM!

A radical assault on middle-class movement pacifism.

The great contribution of this popularly written history of American radicalism is the joyful abandonment John Ross brings to slamming the annoying pacifism and political correctness of today's anemic Left movement. Yes folks, fighting imperialism and blowing it to bits can be fun! It's supposed to be fun. This bold idea is the premise of Murdered by Capitalism. Ross captures the spirit of the working class heroes who slugged it out, toe to toe, with the capitalist villains of American history. (Not the "corporate" villains PLEASE!) In addition to enjoying lives of adventure and freedom, people like Lucy Parsons, Eugene Debs and Big Bill Haywood kicked butt and made breakthroughs that bettered the lives of all working people for decades to come. This is partisan writing. Pacifism and political correctness are middle-class ideologies that have infected the Left. The working class must break out of these limits if it is to ever mount a fight for human liberation, for freedom, and for political power. Ross wants to blow these middle-class prejudices away. And his book succeeds in doing so. The book presents the entire history of the American left since the Eight Hour Day movement of the 1880s. That's a lot of history-and a lot of contending ideologies-to cover well. Ross tries to represent the disputes fairly, and this book can serve as an introduction to the disputations that roil the adherents of anarchism, syndicalism and Leninism down to the present day. But Ross's own untamed anarcho-communist ideology comes through, in all its poetic fury, on every page. This book never descends into mere analysis of the contending trends. Explaining our past mistakes and finding the way forward is, of course, absolutely necessary if we are going to win. But a winning movement needs more than analysis. It needs to unlock all the latent creativity and combativeness of the American working class. John Ross's book is a long needed wake-up call to the Left. It is a life-affirming manifesto for working class rebellion and for revolution. "MBC" is, at the same time, a hilarious indictment of the politically-correct liberalism that is dragging our movement down.

I read it to my wife the afternoon it arrived in the mail

John Ross is a fascinating and funny storyteller. The Publisher's Weekly dweeb who dis-ed this excellent book must have no soul. Ross might be that guy you've seen by the roadside and dismissed as a homeless drunk, however this homeless drunk tells a story everyone should know, and maybe understand. The enemy is revealed, and also the reason it is so hard to defeat.

The real deal

It's true this book is funny, but it is also very moving as it traces the more pugnacious side of US Left History. You get a real sense of the actors in this drama, their personalities as well as the effect of those personalities on the unfolding of rival left "organizations." In some ways, this is a real People's History as it contains and dramatizes all the contradictions of the various movements-Stalinist, Maoist, Anarchist, etc. Ross is much more sympathetic to violent resistance than Howard Zinn is, and his running down the forgotten violence by both right and left is meant to remind us that being left can't be being in a vacuum. Pacifism, for example, didn't bring on the 8hr work day. Most importantly, it reveals that the life of a political outsider and activist need not be sheer drudgery. Though it is struggle, Ross expresses a revolutionary joy. A good primer about left history, an excellent memoir of struggle. Ross has a muscular, but finely honed prose style. A joy to read.