Introduction:

These notes prove that the Blair Mountain revolt in 1920-1921 could only have happened with the memories of the recent 1912 Cabin Creek rebellion against Socialist Party national leadership. The lie that the WSWS perpetrates against its readership: Keeney betrayed the rebellion by not joining with the rest of the Socialist locals in a national rebellion against the US government. In fact, Keeney rebelled against Socialist Party national leadership, making the strike and armed rebellion possible. His argument, that the strikers could not win in the battle with the US government, did not mean opposition to armed rebellion to overthrow the US government but instead a conscious and correct policy of retreat when the forces of the revolution are at greater risk from a direct confrontation with the military. Keeney only had to generalize his struggle against Socialist Party national leadership in order to provide a theory for the unity of all socialists nationally and internationally. This would be the necessity for a Leninist, not a Debsian Party, a legal party of the socialist revolution, that would defend armed rebellion as a legal, moral, and necessary outcome of the criminal repression of the legal ideas and organizations of the working class.

Debs had made an agreement to consciously betray the workers in armed rebellion in exchange for help from union officials in selling his “boring from within” alternative to revolutionary politics. According to Debs’ argument, winning over the trade unions was the end of socialism and not the means to an end. This created a necessity for many workers to come to Lenin through a reverse-logic: no more trust in the national leadership of the Socialist Party. Lenin had worked, rather, to bring together socialists from throughout Russia to form a united national party and national newspaper. This reverse-Leninism, forced upon the rank-and-file, sabotaged the Blair Mountain rebellion, which could have brought tens of thousands of armed workers to Washington DC in another week of struggle. A national struggle to divide, or bring into the open the existing division within the Socialist Party, as Lenin had conducted to separate the Bolsheviks from the Menshevik “Socialists”, could have connected the West Virginia strike with a national armed rebellion and general strike. That could have divided the US armed forces enough to create a path for the armed workers to enter Washington DC.

Instead, workers falsely believed that Debs represented revolutionary socialism rather than unionism combined with compromise with the forces of reaction. Keeney and his co-thinkers of today must take on the task of building a national leadership that will stand against a “boring from within” policy and also against a policy of blaming local leadership for the failures and open betrayals of the national leadership. Such betrayals require open analysis and the preparation of national and international factions for participation in national and international congresses to resolve this leadership crisis openly. Members of the party like Keeney do not represent accidentally present but flawed figures, as the WSWS history implies, but the necessary first initiates of an open break from Debsian socialism and Norman Thomas socialism for a socialism based on Democratic Power. Democratic Power represents the unity of all local rebellions for an organized national and international armed insurrection and a new revolutionary state or federation of states to defend the political positions and the material gains of the revolutionary movement of the working class.

1. The strike assumed new dimensions when West Virginia Socialists began to take an active role in the conflict. Initially local Socialists had given little attention to the dispute. But, as the intensity of the strike increased, they realized that they could not ignore it. They conducted mass meetings to raise financial and moral support for the strikers. They organized strike committees to “bootleg” guns and information into the strike zone and smuggle information and pictures out. They publicized the outrages against miners in their newspapers. The Socialists performed many of the most dangerous tasks of the labor war. Socialist support was so strong that Governor Glasscock publicly blamed them for causing “all the trouble.” In a speech in Huntington, Glasscock proclaimed: I have always believed that if the Socialists had attended to their political affairs and left the matters in dispute between the miners and the operators ... [the] trouble would never have assumed the proportions that it did.” P. 4

2. By February 1913, UMWA was also supporting strikes in Colorado and Vancouver, which forced the union to switch from ‘voluntary” to “coerced’ levies. Threatened with bankruptcy, and apparently believing that a “total victory” (recognition of all of the miners’ original demands) was inn possible to obtain at the time, union officials twice proposed settlement terms to the coal operators. The operators, believing they could defeat the union, rejected both proposals.” P. 5

3. In March 1913, the newly elected governor of West Virginia, Henry D. Hatfield, who had campaigned on a platform that he had a plan to end the war, attempted to bring the strike to an immediate end. The first phase of his program was to eliminate the '‘troublemakers.” Continuing martial law and exercising his powers, Hatfield ordered the imprisonment of strike leaders and created military tribunals to try them. Within a single week, while the civil courts were open and functioning normally, forty-nine Socialist miners and strike leaders, including Mary “Mother’ Jones, were court-martialed." P.5-6

4. Because they wanted to stay on strike, members of the local claimed that they had been “constantly hounded by the officials of our union together with certain representatives of Governor Hatfield to go from our tents and seek employment.” P.7

5. The local members further explained that they were "disgusted at the action of our officials in forcing upon us a method not accepted by us" and, therefore, claimed they would "ignore every act" of the officials until new officials were obtained." P. 7-8

6. To insure rank-and-file acceptance of the settlement, Hatfield issued a "36 hour ultimatum"; he ordered the strikers to return to work within thirty-six hours or he would deport them from the state. To enforce this decree, Hatfield sent soldiers into the coal fields to question and then escort each worker back to the mines.14 The miners, with little alternative, accepted the governor's dictates.
	Next, Hatfield moved to silence the Socialist presses. On April 30, federal soldiers, under Hatfield's instructions, arrested the assistant editor of the Socialist Charleston Labor Argus.27 Two days later, soldiers under Hatfield's orders incarcerated the temporary editor of the Labor Argus, Fred Merrick, and confiscated the paper's presses." Three days later, Hatfield issued warrants for the arrest of the editors and stockholders of the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star (fifty miles outside the martial law zone!) and ordered the destruction of its presses." On the night of May 8, the military and civil authorities implemented Hatfield's orders. They seized, transported, and im-prisoned the editors and stockholders. Other officials went to the office of the paper, smashed the presses, and confiscated the next edition.' The suppression of the two newspapers had sudden and dramatic national repercussions; both the United States Senate and SPA now felt compelled to investigate conditions surrounding the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike.  P. 8

7. The secretary of the Socialist Party of West Virginia, Harold L Houston, condemned the party's indifference. He wrote that "West Virginia Socialists are disgusted with the paralytic apathy of the National organization. It seems totally oblivious of the epochal struggle now on here." Following Hatfield's suppression of the Socialist presses, the temporary secretary of the state party—Houston had fled the state to escape incarceration by Hatfield—pleaded for aid. He told the national
office that its intervention was essential for the "preservation of the Socialist Party in the state of West Virginia.' P. 9-10

8. Above all, NEC instructed the committee to "co-operate with the officers of the U.M.W. of A." while in West Virginia.37 This in-struction was crucial. As already noted, UMWA favored the com-promise settlement, which the local party members opposed. Moreover, the union officials were cooperating with the governor who was responsible for the repression of the Socialists involved in the strike. Thus, while in West Virginia, the investigating committee would have to support either the local Socialists or, as NEC commanded, UMWA and Hatfield.
	Why NEC ordered its investigators to cooperate with UMWA is not entirely clear, for NEC never announced its reasons. When he proposed the resolution, Duncan McDonald simply stated that "my sole intention in the matter is to create a unity of action between the Socialist Party and the U.M.W. of A… ”  P. 10

9. From their national perspective, SPA leaders may have felt that the West Virginia conflict provided the opportunity to win the cooperation of UM WA's hierarchy, which would ultimately be necessary for the overthrow of Gompers' control of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). By 1912, the right wing of SPA, committed to a "boring within" policy, had captured control of the party. By then, Socialists had also gained control of several major trade unions, including the Brewers, Machinists, Tailors, and the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), thereby constituting a potential challenge to Gompers' leadership. Despite their strength within AFL, however, the Socialists remained only a challenge."  P. 11

10. Once assembled, the committee initiated a plan of action. On the night of Berger's arrival, the three eminent Socialists, ignoring the local radicals, met with Thomas Haggerty, who had negotiated the settle-ment. The next day, still slighting the West Virginia Socialists, the committee and Haggerty had two conferences with Hatfield."  P. 12

11. The investigating committee's report, written by Debs and approved by Germer and Berger, was based exclusively on the interview with Hatfield—an interview held at a time when sixteen Socialists were in jail, two Socialist newspapers were idle, and sixty-six coal miners were in prison, all under Hatfield's orders. The report, released two weeks later, exonerated the governor of any abuse of power." The Socialist in-vestigators praised Hatfield because he had "guaranteed the right of free speech and free press," declined to send more of the miners detained in :he bullpen to prison ("although he had evidence and power to do so"), ind refused to arrest more of the strike leaders although he possessed "abundant evidence with which to convict." According to the report, "not in a single instance had he [Hatfield] affirmed a conviction of the military commission," but rather "it was under the administration of Glasscock, and not Hatfield. . that Mother Jones, John Brown, C. H. Boswell and numerous others were court-martialed and convicted." Among the many other vindications of Hatfield, the investigating com-mittee insinuated that Hatfield never made the infamous thirty-six hour demand." In essence, in their effort to win the cooperation of UMWA officials, the Socialist investigators exonerated Hatfield of nearly all of the local Socialists' charges. P. 12-13

12. The editor of the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star, Wyatt H. Thomp-son, branded the report as a "weak mass of misstatements" and "a sickening eulogy of dictator Hatfield." The Socialist editor claimed that UMWA officials and Hatfield had duped the investigators and that the committee had "failed as investigators.' This stinging denunciation of the committee's report precipitated a bitter feud between Debs and a the West Virginia Socialists.  P. 14

13. Debs declared that "the report needs no defense," claiming that there are "those who are assailing our committee's report today who in less than six months will wish they could retract their words." He em-phatically announced: "I want it distinctly understood that I stand by that report. I WOULD NOT CHANGE A SINGLE WORD OF IT."
	Although Debs asserted that he would not "change a single word" of the report, his next correspondence with the editor read to the contrary. He explained that, "I should have made the exception heretofore noted in reference to the administration under which Mother Jones, John Brown, C. H. Boswell and other comrades were tried by the military commission," He now admitted that it was under the "Hatfield ad-ministration that these comrades were tried by the military commis-sion."  P. 14

14. "[A]ll the people generally were amazed, astounded, and indignant at the whitewashing freely given to the State Governor," Gompers wrote in the American Federationist. He exclaimed that "The clean bill of health given to the Governor caused those who understood the situation in West Virginia to have doubts as to the sanity or the honesty of the Socialist committee." P. 15

15. Berger told his Socialist readers in Milwaukee that the West Virginians were actually content with the settlement and the attacks upon the report were merely "tricks of the coal barons and capitalist press to divide the socialists."" During a meeting at party headquarters in Indianapolis, however, Berger excused himself from the controversy by stating: "Well, it [the report] was written by Debs, and he was the revolu-tionary member of the committee.'"  P. 15

16. He announced that the West Virginia Socialists were actually Wobblies, whose "true animus" was for the destruction of UMWA, and, therefore, they opposed the compromise settlement simply "because a contract had been signed.”  P. 15

17. Explaining that he was an "industrial unionist," not "an industrial bummereyite," Debs charged: “The whole trouble is that some Chicago I.W.W.-ites… are seeking to disrupt and drive out the United Mine Workers to make room for the I.W.W. and its program of sabotage and 'strike at the ballot box with an ax.'" Moreover, "those who are among the miners of West Virginia magnifying every petty
complaint against the United Mine Workers… are the real enemies of industrial unionism and of the working class.""   P. 16

18. The historian of West Virginia's Socialist party points out that the state radicals were probably to the left of the mainstream of SPA, but they strongly disagreed with the Wobblies on several major issues." For example, West Virginia Socialists were opposed to IWW's policy of "striking at the ballot box with an ax." The West Virginians were politically oriented. They used their newspapers for the political as well as the economic education of the working class. They always published the party's election platforms and supported the Socialist party ballot. The secretary of the West Virginia party insisted that West Virginia Socialists have long known the power of their political weapon." Indeed, many of the leading critics of the report and the settlement were often Socialist candidates for political office, and they steadfastly denied any Wobbly infiltration in the dispute.   P. 16

19. Seizing the opportunity to capitalize on the affair, the Wobbly editor commented on "the mess Debs made of himself when he assisted in giving Governor Hatfield a generous coat of whitewash… We thought he would be the last man in the labor movement to knife the struggling and outraged miners in the back, but he did it."  P. 17

20.  Although two months had elapsed since UMWA's convention had ratified the contract, the rank-and-file miners were not about to accept the compromise. Following the ratifying convention, miners had staged wildcat strikes, fought pitched battles with mine guards, dynamited mines, and burned tipples in pro-test against the settlement. Meanwhile, more locals expelled or asked for the recall of several national union officials, including Haggerty—Debs' escort in West Virginia.  P. 17

21.  UMWA district officials rushed to the coal fields, asked the miners to remain on the job, and attempted to negotiate a new contract. The miners claimed that union officials did not represent them-and refused to negotiate. They demanded that the UMWA officials declare the strike "still existent" and walked off the job. UMWA hierarchy, placed in the embarrassing position of having to recognize a strike that they had- declared "settled," excused the reversal by claiming that the operators had "not acted in good faith" by blacklisting the leaders of the initial phase of the strike. The union then capitulated to its local membership. With the Senate daily exposing the governor's and the military's actions during the martial law periods, the coal operators could not depend upon the governor to issue another proclamation of martial law. They quickly granted all of the miners' original demands."  P. 18

22.  On the national level, the Senate further embarrassed the SPA investigators and provided concrete evidence that the West Virginia Socialists had correctly analyzed  the Hatfield administration.  The Senate's report was a stinging denunciation of the governor, the military authorities, and the coal operators; it told a startled nation about the atrocities committed upon the miners.  Congressional investigators, unlike their Socialist peers, cited numerous violations of the Constitu-tion, West Virginia state laws, and human decency." The senators pointed out that miners and Socialists were court-martialed and detained in jails "while the civil courts were open" (a clear violation of the Supreme Court's decision in ex pane Milligan) and denied due process of law (for example, "no attempt was made to try them before a jury"), although "the offenses for which the parties were tried were of lenses which could have been punished under the civil law and in the common-law courts of the state." The report rebuked Hatfield for his "arbitrary arrests outside the martial-law zone" and his use of the
drumhead courts. According to the senators, "the military tribunal deemed itself bound alone by the orders of the commander-in-chief, the governor of the state, and in no respect bound to observe the Constitution of the United States or the constitution or the statutes of the State of West Virginia,"" Shortly after the release of the reports, Senator Kern told an Indiana AFL convention: "The investigation has made an end to military law in this country.' 
	SPA's national office never commented on the Senate report, but it must have been embarrassed. The United States Senate, an institution Socialists often denounced as the leading bulwark of the capitalist system, had vehemently censured a governor and his anti-labor policies which their own committees had praised.  P. 18  

23.  In an article for the Appeal to Reason, "An Appeal to the Miners of West Virginia," Debs called upon the miners to "resolve their differences for organization." "I appeal to you," he wrote, "to subordinate all differences to unity and solidarity until the present crisis is passed… I know there are weak spots in the United Mine Workers… but I am willing to trust to the rank and file to continue the elimination of the weak and false until the organization shall be manned without exception by the strong and true."   P. 20

24.  "I believe the United Mine Workers and the Socialists," Debs telegraphed the na-tional office, "will now enter upon… a spirit of mutual confidence and good will," Within a couple of months, however, UMWA officials established their own newspaper, the Montgomery Miners' Herald, to combat the growth of Socialism in the southern West Virginia coal fields.  The editor of the newspaper later explained that his instructions were "to run the newspaper according to the ideas of John Mitchell, not according to the ideas of Eugene Debs.  P. 20  

25.  Other radicals involved in the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike, who were later to play important roles in the American labor movement, also left SPA following the betrayal. Ralph Chaplin, author of labor's anthem "Solidarity Forever," and future editor of the IWW's official publi-cation, Industrial Worker, and Elmer Rumbaugh, author of several prominent labor songs and a future leader of the Bisbee strike, both deserted SPA and joined the Wobblies less than a month after the Socialist reports' Frank  Keeney,  leader of the second strike that eventually achieved the rejection of the compromise settlement, and, later, president of UMWA district 17, and L. C. Rodgers, who was elected first president of UMWA district 29 because of his efforts during the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike, both dropped out of SPA shortly following the incident. Never again would either mine workers' leader have any connection with any national Socialist organization."   P. 21

[ADDED NOTE:  No national Socialist organization, only local organizations. This is Lenin’s “What is to Be Done?” in reverse. Lenin worked to build a national organization from local organizations. Debs worked to sacrifice local organizations to a national organization that betrayed it.]

26.  [Quoting Mother Jones on why she opposed Debs’ candidacy for congress:] “I owe the socialists no apology, nor will I offer one to them. I have seen enough of their treachery to those who have fought the battle and want to keep the party clean."  P. 21

27.  As Joseph R. Conlin writes: "the S.P.A. flourished best between 1910 and 1913 in those areas where it was more militant, and languished when the reformists framed party tactics. It was in the revolutionist areas a well that the party suffered its worst losses beginning in 1913.'  P. 22

Also see:  Notes on “Citizens of this Great Repulic” by Roger Fagge
Also see:  Notes on “The I.W.W. and the Socialist Party” by Joseph R. Conlin
                                                                          

Corbin, David A. “Betrayal in the West Virginia Coal Fields: Eugene V. Debs and the Socialist Party of America, 1912–1914.” Journal of American History 64.4 (1978): 987-1009.