With all legal avenues exhausted and one week until their scheduled execution, the only thing that could have prevented the judicial murder of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco was an uprising of strikes and protest by an enraged working class. Knowing that was a practical impossibility in those years of retreat was a devastating reality for their many impassioned defenders. As the hour came closer, and death was ever-more certain, the pleas became more desperate, and more profound. A week before August 23, 1927 and Olgin wrote this, on his knees.

‘The Blood of Martyrs’ by Moissaye J. Olgin from The Daily Worker. Vol. 4 No. 183. August 16, 1927.

Translated from the Freiheit by Joseph N. Katz.

THEY are spilling our blood.

They squeeze it out with iron presses in the iron factories; they let it drip–pitch-black streamlets–in coal catacombs; they suck it into delicate silks, expensive points, caressing furs, beauty, splendor.

They stand over our heads with a whip woven of hunger, fear, desperation. They pelt our bodies with thorns of shame, contempt and hatred. They stand up a golden mummy among us and say: “Bow! Kiss the fat paw! Burn incense for the wide-opened mouth!”

When we say “No,” they call the executioners.

Adorned with things showy are the executioners. Velvety-soft the clean hands. Clear oil the round words. Pious the mien, holy the sigh. “In the name of Justice. In the name of Equality. In the name of God almighty, we put you down on the block, and for your own good, in order that you should no more be able to sin, we cut asunder for your rebellious neck. Amen. Amen.”

In the name of Right. In the name of Democracy.

***

A WIND blows. A quiet evening falls down upon fruit-laden fields. Rivulets murmur. Somewhere sings a grill. Somewhere smells a rose. Above lies a wide blue sky. In their death-house wait two comrades. In their grave-house count two comrade the remaining minutes. One turns for the last time with death-scorched lips to the brother workers of the whole world. One weaves yet from gall and irony an unfinished curse. A large, bony hand reaches out, grips them around, chokes, chokes…

In large libraries, among old, heavy bands, with clean mind and quiet heart, sit the learned executioners. Beautiful is the world. God is just. Godly is the sentence. The will of the rulers be done.

Hey, you, overworked, famished, wake up!

You, iron-smelters of Gary, lift up your eyes from the inferno, wipe the sweat from the burned brows, look about!

You, copper-diggers from Montana, straighten out your bent spines, let down your heavy axes, which drill the belly of the earth, listen!

You, gum-spillers of Akron, turn away your faces from the hot, bad-smelling stuffs, catch the pain-racked breath, ask: what’s happening?

You, weavers of Lawrence, stop the devilish-hastening machines, go out of the overheated torture chambers, talk things over!

You, railway-machinists over the length and breadth of the mighty land. Catch the news, that carries itself from near and far, conclude, understand its meaning;

You, workers of steel and wood, of linen and stone, of meat and pitch, of oil and coal and cotton and leather and gold and tin, you who work upon the ground and under the water and in the woods and over the houses and in the bellies of the heavy-laden ships, who build the mighty land–from the age-old Canadian woods to the blue Caribbean waters, from the eternally feverish New York to the dreamy, flower-woven San Diego and far over the shores of Mexico and further–you all tortured, driven, never with bread sure, with feet stepped upon, by no man respected–look about what is done with you. For a word of restlessness they send your brothers to death. For not willing to make peace with your slavery they slaughter these fighters. Insolent, haughty, brutal, before all your eyes they lead upon the echafot the storm-birds of your class, the callers of your emancipation?

Hey, you, slaves, when will you already feel, that you are the strong and that no strength can stand against you, if you only will?

***

SACCO! VANZETTI! Brother martyrs! Like the first birds of Spring you hit against the ice of your brothers’ hearts, the ice of ignorance, dullness, indifference. You have drop by drop given away the warm blood of your love-full hearts and the ice is beginning to melt. Sacco! Vanzetti! In a dark time you were brought to the edge of the grave, in an hour of history when the whip whistles, the wolves howl and the appetite grows–and loosely hang the hands of the masses and you have been betrayed by the leaders, and the yellow god of plunder and shame grinds his teeth and laughs at the world.

Sacco! Vanzetti! We have done and do all, that we can–we the few, the seeing, the forward-going, the undefeated. We have surrounded you with our love, as with a red fortress; we have fanned you with the storm of our protests; we have lifted up our voices in a high and burning cry. But small is our number among the tens of millions of our class-brothers, who still lie caught in the foe’s nets, and great is the betrayal of those, who could, but did not want to drill through the deaf wall and uplift the masses.

But you must live!

***

BROTHERS! Martyrs! Great is the pain. Heavy the heart. Why should we deny it–it is a day of mourning for us all.

Sacco! Vanzetti! Take heart: you are not alone. We are with you. Our heart is filled with your pain. Our blood trembles with every drop of your blood.

Sacco! Vanzetti! We swear. By your martyrdom do we swear to hold fast the flag, to go daringly forward, to awaken the fallen away, to unite the divided, to make seeing the blind, to forge a strength, to lift a fist. Sacco! Vanzetti! Not for nothing is your sacrifice. Upon good ground fall the seeds of your work. There will come a day. The slave will arise. A brother will recognize a brother. The ranks will close. Revenge will come. Freedom will come.

From martyr-blood will arise liberation.

We swear.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1927/1927-ny/v04-n183-NY-aug-16-1927-DW-LOC.pdf