A number of events converged during the middle and latter parts of the nineteenth century to cause a momentous event in St. Louis. The revolutions that shook Europe in 1848 resulted in massive German immigration to the city; many of the immigrants were German radicals, socialists, and revolutionaries. In 1871, many French revolutionaries associated with the Paris Commune joined their German counterparts and immigrated to St. Louis. In 1872, Karl Marx relocated the International Workingmen’s Association, or First International, from London to the United States. That organization was especially strong in St. Louis, with English, French, German, and Bohemian sections. Finally, a severe depression began in 1873 and continued for several years. All of those events converged and led to the St. Louis general strike and the establishment of the St. Louis Commune.
By July 1877, railroad workers throughout the United States had suffered a series of pay cuts that reduced their income by half. Railroad work was dangerous, and with the reduction in earnings, workers were unable to feed their families. Railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and Baltimore struck the railways, and the strike spread westward spontaneously. Within a few days, hundreds of thousands of railroad workers were on strike across the nation, and railroad freight traffic was stopped.
As part of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, workers in St. Louis—led by radical German immigrants and the Marxist Workingmen’s Party of the United States—declared a general strike, shut down and took control of the city, and established the St. Louis Commune. They demanded an eight-hour workday, an end to child labor, safe working conditions, and a living wage. The event is considered the first general strike in American history and the only occasion on which a major American city was ruled by a Marxist political party.