Originally published as part of Marxism and the USA By Alan Woods, available from Wellred USA.

"The present work began life as a draft introduction to the American edition of Reason in Revolt. Starting out from the idea that most Americans have been prejudiced against Marxism as an alien (“foreign”) ideology, I started to explain that the history of the United States contains a great revolutionary tradition, beginning with the War of Independence that set up the U.S.A. in the first place. However, on delving more deeply into the subject, it became clear that it was much too extensive to be satisfactorily contained in the Introduction to a book."

Seventy years ago, one of the most important episodes of American labor was begun in the auto plants of Flint, Michigan. As the United Auto Workers (UAW) and General Motors (GM) faced off in a titanic battle over the unionization of the vast auto industry, workers in Flint occupied the Fisher #1 plant in order to stop the company from moving the means of production to another location.  By doing so, the workers not only stopped production at that one plant, they disrupted the entire industry and graphically posed the question: who really controls the workplace – the bosses or the working class?