A production to have seen. ‘The Last Revolution’ was written by Michael Gold and comrades for the Workers (Communist) Party Chicago local’s agit-prop performances in 1923. A number of these songs, like ‘I’ve Never Been a Bolshevik,’ would find their way into the Party’s canon and be sung at youth camps throughout the 1930s.

‘A Comic Opera for Proletarians’ from Voice of Labor (Chicago). Vol. 1 No. 591. March 23, 1923.

Chicago will get a chance to see something entirely new on Sunday afternoon, April 15, when there will be presented in Wicker Park Hall, 2024 West North Ave., a full-length comic opera for proletarians, written by comrades in the movement, directed by comrades and acted by comrades, and produced for the benefit of the Voice of Labor as a feature of the campaign to extend the in- fluence of the paper. The play, which is in two acts, is called “The Last Revolution;” book and lyrics are by Comrades Michael Gold and J. Ramirez, and there is original music, composed by Comrade Rudolph von Liebich. Thirty-five people will take part in the production, including at special chorus of Housemaids, Henry Dubbs and Juniors.

The play is supposed to take place in the Morganville Capitalist Colony in the year 19–after all the rest of the world has become communist. The colony was originally established by five American capitalists, John Pierpont, Julius Guggenwald, Felix Doolittle, Timothy Smith, and Henry Cabot Van Dam, and is the result of a concession secured originally from Soviet Russia, the first country to go Bolshevik. in spite of the fact that the bosses have brought with them from America “their own workmen, labor leaders, army churches and jails,” they have their troubles in the little colony. All the well-known contradictions of capitalism develop and, as there is no outside market, a financial panic occurs every ten days. Added sources of worry (for the bosses) are Rose Cohen, the Bolshevik housemaid, and Tom Peters, the factory foreman, and a little group of rebels. The detailed story of the play we dare not divulge here, as the authors might not like it. See it and find out for yourself. There are a host of things in it to assure you a pleasant time, for instance those four brothers, each a pillar of society, Bishop Bunk. Senator Bunk. Judge Bunk and General Bunk. The chief comedian is a labor leader known as Lemuel Crimpers, who looks and acts much like the great S. Gompers. Interspersed with the action of the play are some of the brightest and most spirited songs that you have heard in many a day. Everyone who has had a chance to hear them says that comrade von Liebich has composed melodies which are far beyond the sort of thing that is dished out nightly in the regular loop theaters under the name of comic opera. You will leave the theater humming the tunes to yourself.

Among those who will take part in the performance of “The Last Revolution” are comrades: A. Overgard, Frank Buzzie, Alfred Tiala, A.D. Allbright, Emily Richardson, Bertha Winer, Harry Anderson, Jack Nelson, Walter Carmon, Ernest Brady, D. Milder, M. Gomez, Natalie Gomez, Joseph Kreioff, Ella Golden, Charles Wretling, Celia Merson, Mrs. Steinberg, Ben Stein, S. Saroff, Rina Epstein, Rebecca Rubin, and R. Engel. For the chorus, the company is largely indebted to the “Freiheit” singing society, which kindly lent the services of several of its members. Following the performance on April 15 there will be supper and dancing. Come one, come all.

The Voice of Labor was a regional paper published in Chicago by the Workers (Communist) Party as the “The American Labor Educational Society” (with false printing and volume information to get around censorship laws of the time) and was focused on building the nascent Farmer-Labor Party while fighting for leadership with the Chicago Federation of Labor. It was produced mostly as a weekly in 1923-1924 and contains enormous detail on the activity of the Party in the city of those years.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/vol/v11n591-mar-23-1923-VOL.pdf