Sam Murray writes to comrades in San Francisco with news of the Baja Commune briefly taken by the Mexican Liberal Party and their insurrecto allies, and urges the means to continue the fight.

‘From the Red Republic’ by Sam Murray from Revolt (San Francisco). Vol. 1 No. 8. June 17, 1911.

Tia Juana, Mexico.

Dear Comrades: All is lovely in the Red Republic, capitalist press and Appeal to Reason to the contrary notwithstanding. The Reds control the situation internally, and we will probably move on Ensenada in the near future.

The Dick Ferris affair was probably an effort on the part of a bunch of American capitalists to turn this into a filibustering expedition in their own interests, but the. I.W.W.’s nipped the scheme in the bud. Believe me, the Mexican Liberal Party will continue to engineer this proposition and there will be no Baja California republic separate from the rest of Mexico. We’ propose to fight in co-operation with the anti-Madero rebels all over Mexico until the peons are free and the land has been restored to them: Practically every man in camp is a unit on this matter.

We are getting a fine bunch of men together here as can be found anywhere. Every man comes here freely and knows that he is going up against a hard proposition when he comes, and as he is at liberty to beat it any time he finds his feet growing cold a sort of weeding-out process is going on all the time.

However, we need more men, and are badly in need of “sinews” for the work ahead of us. We are particularly in need of artillery. This means that we are in need of money, for with money we can get what we need.

What is the matter with the so-called revolutionists? I noticed as I came down that the political Socialists are knocking this proposition. They were not slow to make political capital out of the misery of the Mexican peons, but now that we are on the firing line and using the only means possible to free those peons, they seem to be throwing us down. If they are too cowardly to fight and too stingy to contribute, why do they prevent others from doing so?

I hope REVOLT will publish a part of this letter, or something similar. You need not be afraid to encourage any one to come down who can stand fire. No self-seekers, politicians or cuspidore philosophers wanted, but men who can fight better than they can talk.

The best part of it is that we are eating Hearst’s beef, riding H.G. Otis’ horses and making bombs out of Spreckels’ dynamite. With best wishes and regards to all,

SAM MURRAY.

Revolt ‘The Voice Of The Militant Worker’ was a short-lived revolutionary weekly newspaper published by Left Wingers in the Socialist Party in 1911 and 1912 and closely associated with Tom Mooney. The legendary activists and political prisoner Thomas J. Mooney had recently left the I.W.W. and settled in the Bay. He would join with the SP Left in the Bay Area, like Austin Lewis, William McDevitt, Nathan Greist, and Cloudseley Johns to produce The Revolt. The paper ran around 1500 copies weekly, but financial problems ended its run after one year. Mooney was also embroiled in constant legal battles for his role in the Pacific Gas and Electric Strike of the time. The paper epitomizes the revolutionary Left of the SP before World War One with its mix of Marxist orthodoxy, industrial unionism, and counter-cultural attitude. To that it adds some of the best writers in the movement; it deserved a much longer run.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/revolt/v1n08-jun-17-1911-Revolt.pdf