Review of Mark Kruger’s The St. Louis Commune of 1877: Communism in the Heartland.
Published in the Western Historical Quarterly, Autumn 2022.

In The St. Louis Commune of 1877, Mark Kruger, a retired professor, lawyer, and municipal judge, shines a light on an oft-overlooked event in the history of American labor and the left, the takeover of St. Louis during a general strike amidst the nationwide railroad strike of 1877. Kruger successfully argues that this takeover was made possible by a so-called ‘perfect storm’ of precipitating conditions and events: the 1848 revolutions in Europe, the Paris Commune in 1871, Marx’s First International, the depression of 1873, and the 1877 railroad strike.

For more, see the complete review here.