Eugene Debs: The Red Flag “Is a Sign of Terror to Every Tyrant”
In 1907, Eugene Debs waxed poetic about the red flag, calling it “a sign of terror to every tyrant” and "the flag of Universal Freedom." We reprint his article here in full.
A red flag waves during a May Day rally in Madrid, Spain, in 2006. Soman / Wikimedia Commons
A vast amount of ignorant prejudice prevails against the red flag. It is easily accounted for. The ruling class the wide world over hates it, and its sycophants, therefore, must decry it.
Strange that the red flag should produce the same effect upon a tyrant that it does upon a bull. The bull is enraged at the very sight of the red flag, his huge frame quivers, his eyes become balls of fire, and he paws the dirt and snorts with fury.
The reason of this peculiar effect of a bit of red coloring upon the bovine species we are not particularly interested in at this moment, but why does it happen to excite the same rage in the tsar, the emperor, and the king; the autocrat, the aristocrat, and the plutocrat?
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