Magnificent Fight: The 1919 Winnipeg General Strike Dennis Lewycky by Dennis Lewycky, and: Direct Action Gets the Goods: A Graphic History of the Strike in Canada by Althea Balmes et al., and: 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike by David Lester (review)

For several months in 2019, Winnipeggers across the political and social spectrum celebrated the centenary of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike with events, exhibitions, unveilings of public artworks, and parades. Not only were unionists, historians, archivists, curators, and students preoccupied by the six-week wildcat strike by thirty-five thousand working men and women, public and private sector workers, police and firefighters; remarkably, city and provincial politicians also lauded the strike as a foundational event in the evolution of human rights. The widespread interest awakened by the hundredth anniversary of the longest general strike in labor history is reflected, as well, in some newly published popular accounts of the strike, among them two graphic histories produced by activist scholars and artists and a popular history of the strike by a global labor activist. All depict a usable past with the express intention of inspiring today's working people to mobilize in struggle for progressive social change. Two of these works are comic books produced by the highly innovative Graphic History Collective, a group of young activist artists, writers, and scholars who have individually and collectively produced a number of pathbreaking works intended to inspire critical consciousness and educate people about the history of the workers' movement. The other is a more traditional account by a labor activist who has produced a clear and accessible synthesis of the extensive historical literature on the strike.

Like the sources on which they draw, these books present differing views about whether the strikers sought only to improve their quality of life by forcing employers to grant a living wage and the state to legalize collective bargaining, or whether they considered themselves part of a revolutionary movement. They also present differing views about the strike's legacy. What they share is the conviction that Winnipeg's historic general strike has always served as an inspiration for workers, demonstrating what working people can achieve when they organize and act collectively. By reviving this important event in the history of working people's resistance, they hope to instill class consciousness among today's young workers, who, they suggest, face exploitation as serious as that endured by the workers who revolted in 1919.

The Graphic History Collective and artist David Lester's comic 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike depicts the events preceding, during, and after the strike in powerful images and simple but effective text that lead to only one conclusion: a better future for working people can only be achieved through well-planned organization and collective struggle. The collaboration of capital and the state, and their vociferous opposition to the strike, are captured brilliantly in roughly rendered and dynamic images of the violent police riot of Bloody Saturday, when mounted police sent by the federal government to end the strike and armed thugs hired by the employers to replace the municipal police—who had been fired en masse for supporting the strike—rode down peaceful protesters, murdering two and injuring many others. State-sponsored violence ended the strike, but workers' struggle continues. Today, as the Graphic History Collective argues in the concluding pages, employers and the state continue to thwart workers' efforts to achieve justice and equality, just as they did in 1919, and workers must therefore continue to resist.

Dennis Lewycky's popular history, Magnificent Fight, adopts a less radical view of the strike, contending...