Before Bernie Sanders

Long before Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, there was Eugene Debs who also talked of a working class revolution.

Federal Troops arrive in Chicago to "end" the Pullman Strike

Debs, a labor union leader from Indiana, is probably most famous for organizing a strike against the Pullman Railroad Company in 1894 that paralyzed the nation's railroads and mail delivery systems. While serving time in jail as a result of the Pullman Strike he became convinced (mostly from reading Marx's Das Kapital) that the working class could only be helped through socialist policies and political activism...Debs founded the Socialist Party of America in 1901.

He ran for President of the United States five times during his political career...the most famous run was in 1920 (he garnered over 900,000 votes), while he was in jail (serving a 10 year sentence for treason at the hands of Woodrow Wilson) for the second time for encouraging Americans to resist the military draft leading up to WWI...insinuating that the war was being fought for the benefit of greedy capitalists.

"If war is right let it be declared by the people...you who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war and peace!"

Eugene Debs: A man who stood with the poor, the working class, and viciously attacked the millionaire class.