US Labor & Imperialism Pt. 1: the War Against Communism w/ Jeff Schuhrke

Upstream

News, Politics, Society & Culture

4.9 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2025

⏱️ 113 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, part 1 of a 2-part miniseries on US labor and imperialism, Jeff Schuhrke joins us for a conversation on how US labor aided and at times even led the US's global fight against communism throughout much of the 20th century.

Jeff Schuhrke is a labor historian, journalist, union activist, and assistant professor at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University. He's the author of Blue-Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor's Global Anticommunist Crusade, and No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine.

In this conversation we take a deep dive into Jeff's book Blue-Collar Empire, exploring US labor's role in fighting global communism during the 20th century. The conversation opens with a history of the early US labor movement, anchored by the AFL, the CIO, and the IWW which all presented different approaches and ideological orientations towards labor and capital. We then look at how labor was systematically deradicalized over the course of the first half the 21st century, leading to a mostly anticommunist, class-collaborationist labor movement by the post-WWII era. We then look at how the AFL-CIO and its various arms participated and at times led the global war against communism abroad, participating in sabotage campaigns and in outright regime change operations led by the CIA and the State Department—from France to Guyana to Brazil to Chile to Vietnam to the USSR. Finally, we explore how US labor's anticommunist, pro-imperialist positions throughout the 20th century impacted the US proletariat and the international working class more broadly.

Part 2 of this miniseries takes a deep dive into Jeff's book No Neutrals There, looking at US labor's role in supporting Zionism and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

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Intermission music: "Only Got One Body" by Shiv and the Carvers

Cover art: Berwyn Mure

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Transcript

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0:00.0	In some ways, the labor movement in the U.S. was a victim of the Cold War.
0:25.3	But as I argue throughout the book, the U.S. labor movement, the U.S. labor official then we should more precisely say, was actually driving the Cold War.
0:32.5	The Cold War didn't happen to unions.
0:35.3	Unions and union leaders were pushing it and encouraging it, the fact that
0:39.8	the AFL-CIO was working so hard to defang labor movements around the world, to take away those
0:44.8	more militant, class-struggle-oriented traditions and replace them with this kind of class
0:49.4	collaborationist, play it safe, be friendly with the government, and, you know, that style of trade unionism, really set up
0:57.6	worker movements all over the world to be taken advantage of by capital.
1:02.7	You're listening to Upstream.
1:04.9	Upstream.
1:05.9	Upstream.
1:06.8	Upstream.
1:07.7	A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you thought
1:13.0	you knew about the world around you.
1:15.3	I'm Della Duncan.
1:16.6	And I'm Robert Raymond.
1:18.5	Throughout much of the 21st century, the United States devoted an unimaginable amount
1:23.9	of resources and energy towards fighting communism globally.
1:28.5	These efforts have taken many shapes, from outright wars to coups to economic sabotage.
1:35.3	But one specific tactic, which has remained largely unknown, is how the United States
1:40.9	has used organized labor federations like the AFL-CIO in this anti-communist
1:47.0	crusade. The term AFL-CIA isn't just a hyperbolic jab. Organized labor in the United States
	...

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