Historical Events of the Revolutionary World Movement

SACCO AND VANZETTI August 22, 1927

Following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917,

there was widespread fear that revolutionary unrest would sweep across Europe and threaten the United States. This climate of fear was also an opportune time for the government to undermine leftist organizations. Allied with these fears of disorder and revolution were concerns regarding the rising tide of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. Anti-immigrant attitudes coupled with anti-radicalism promote an environment of xenophobia which cost Sacco and Vanzetti their lives.

This struggle against discromination of migrants goes on until today - in America and all over the world !

Therefore this website is not limitted in a historical review to honor the legacy and sacrifice of Sacco and Vanzetti - but an appeal of global class struggle for the emancipation of the migrants.

ECCI APPEAL ON BEHALF OF SACCO AND VANZETTI

6 August 1927 Inprekorr, vii, 80, p. 1726, 9 August 1927

Once again, at the twelfth hour, the Communist International appeals to the workers of the entire world. Once again it raises its voice to summon all vvorkers to stay the arm of the executioners who are about to execute the sentence of American class justice. In tremendous demonstrations the workers of all countries have protested against the torture of the two revolutionaries, Sacco and Vanzetti, who for seven years have languished in gaol in constant danger of death. The sentence passed on them is a challenge to the world proletariat. It is an overture to, an announcement of new, ferocious reprisals, against not only the American but the international working class. The sentence shows that in 'civilized America' proletarian revolutionaries share the benefits of only one technical invention, the electric chair.

We appeal to all workers and to all revolutionary organizations:

Protest against the execution of the sentence; organize mass demonstrations against those responsible for this crime; organize protest strikes.

Only the united efforts of the world proletariat can save Sacco and Vanzetti from the electric chair.

Fight to the utmost against the bloodthirsty American bourgeoisie.

Immediately after midnight on 23 August 1927 Nichola Sacco a 'good shoemaker' and Bartolomeo Vanzetti a 'poor fish peddler' were executed in the State prison of Charlestown, Massachusetts. They had been convicted, seven years earlier, of the murder of two guards of the weekly payroll of a shoe factory. A crime they did not commit.

A long succession of disclosures, following their trial, aroused interest in their plight far beyond the boundaries of Massachusetts and even the United States, until the case became one of those rare cause celebres which are of international concern. The case of Sacco and Vanzetti is arguably the greatest miscarriage of justice the last century.

THE names of the "good shoe-maker and poor fish-peddler" have ceased to represent merely two Italian workingmen. Throughout the civilised world Sacco and Vanzetti have become a symbol, the shibboleth of Justice crushed by Might. That is the great historic significance of this twentieth century crucifixion, and truly prophetic, were the words of Vanzetti when he declared, "The last moment belongs to us–that agony is our triumph."

NICOLA SACCO (1891–1927) was born in Torremaggiorre, in southern Italy. As a youth he worked in his father's vineyard, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1908 and eventually found work in a shoe factory in Milford, MA. He married in 1912 and had children. Soon after he became a devoted anarchist and a comrade of Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In May 1920, Sacco was arrested and charged with taking part in a robbery and murder in South Braintree, MA. In 1921, he was found guilty. After all appeals failed, he was executed on August 23, 1927.