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Political and Social Movements - Who Were The Wobblies?
Who were the Wobblies?
The Wobblies were members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), an organization founded in 1905 by leaders of forty-three labor organizations in the United States. The Wobblies used strikes (works stoppages) and acts of sabotage (destruction of an employer's property) to achieve their goal of overthrowing capitalism and rebuilding society based on socialist principles. (Capitalism is an economic system based on private or corporate ownership and free enterprise. Socialism is an economic and political theory that advocates government or community ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.) One IWW organizer proclaimed that the "final aim is revolution." Though IWW membership probably never exceeded 100,000, the Wobblies attracted national attention because of their extremist views and tactics.
The IWW was founded and led by William "Big Bill" Haywood...
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