Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T13:38:33.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Labor Question in Colonial Cyprus, 1936–1941: Political Stakes in a Battle of Denominations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2009

Alexis Rappas
Alexis Rappas
Affiliation:
European University Institute
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Taking as a starting point two strikes in colonial Cyprus in the 1930s—the miners' strike in 1936 in which both Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots were involved and the all-female spinners' strike in 1938—this paper looks at how the labor movement deeply transformed the political landscape of the island. In a society closely monitored by British colonial authorities and well acquainted with the Greek-Cypriot claim for Enosis, or the political union of Cyprus with Greece, the labor question became a locus, or “interstice of power structure,” articulating competing and mutually exclusive visions of Cyprus as a polity. More generally the paper investigates the modalities of formation of a collective group allegiance in a context of constraint.

Type
Article
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , Fall 2009 , pp. 194 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1. Sir Oakden, Ralph, Report on the Finances and Economic Resources of Cyprus, Government of Cyprus, 1935, 105Google Scholar.

2. National Archives, London, Colonial Office, Cyprus, Original Correspondence (henceforth CO 67), CO 67/278/6 Cyprus: Activities of the Cypriot Press, June–July 1937. Secret report of the press officer, enclosure to governor's secret dispatch, July 1, 1937.

3. Sir Ralph Oakden, Report, 5.

4. Ibid., 104–132.

5. Annual Report on the Social and Economic Progress of the People of Cyprus, Nicosia, Government of Cyprus Printer, 1936, 26.

6. Butler, Larry, “Industrialisation in Late Colonial Africa. A British Perspective,” Itinerario 23 (1999):123–135CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 125.

7. Georghallides, Georgios S., Cyprus and the Governorship of Sir Ronald Storrs: The Causes of the 1931 Crisis (Nicosia, 1985)Google Scholar. Markides, Diana and Georghallides, Georgios S., “British Attitudes to Constitution-Making in Post-1931 Cyprus,” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 13 (1995):63–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Cooper, Frederick and Stoler, Ann Laura, Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley, 1997), 18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. My understanding of the public sphere in this paper is inspired by Craig Calhoun and refers to public rational-critical debates around issues of societal importance and implying a wider variety of private individuals than in Habermas's use of the term. See Calhoun, Craig, “Introduction: Habermas and the Public Sphere,” in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed., Calhoun, Craig (Cambridge MA, 1992), 1–45Google Scholar, here 3.

10. Sir Ralph Oakden, Report, 11.

11. Annual Report on the Social and Economic Progress of the People of Cyprus 1933, London, His Majesty's Stationary Office, 11.

12. Sir Ralph Oakden, Report, 11-26.

13. Cyprus. Report of the Census of 1931, prepared by C. H. Hart-Davis, superintendent of the census, Nicosia, Government Printer, 1932, 14–16.

14. Cyprus. Census of Population and Agriculture 1946. Report and Tables prepared by D. A. Percival, colonial administrative service, superintendent of the census, London, Crown Agents for the Colonies, 65.

15. Crouzet, François, Le Conflit de Chypre 1946–1959 vol.1 (Brussels, 1973), 68Google Scholar.

16. Anexartitos (Nicosia-based, Greek-Cypriot daily newspaper), June 17, 1939.

17. Eleftheria (Nicosia-based, Greek-Cypriot daily newspaper), June 21, 1938.

18. Atran, Scott, “The Surrogate Colonization of Palestine, 1917–1939,” American Ethnologist 16 (1989): 737CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. Lavender, David, The Story of the Cyprus Mines Corporation (San Marino CA, 1962), 79Google Scholar, 110, 120, 177.

20. Lavender, The Story, 118.

21. Lavender, The Story, 237; Sir Ralph Oakden, Report, 21; Neos Kypriakos Fylax (Nicosia-based, Greek-Cypriot daily newspaper), September 13, 1936.

22. Annual Report on the Social and Economic Progress of the People of Cyprus 1933, London, HSMO, 28. 540 piastres equals £3.

23. Statistics drawn from Annual Report on the Social and Economic Progress of the People of Cyprus 1933 and 1936, 29 and 28 respectively.

24. Eleftheria, September 1, 1936.

25. Michaelides, Michalis, “The Turkish Cypriot Working-Class and the Cyprus Labour Movement, 1920–1963,” The Cyprus Review 5 (1993):33–57Google Scholar, here 39.

26. Eleftheria, September 11, 1936.

27. Lavender, The Story, 108.

28. CO 67/277/15, Cyprus. Administrative and Political Reports for Various Districts, 1937. Report of the district commissioner of Famagusta for June 1937, enclosure to governor's secret dispatch, July 8, 1937.

29. Oakden (Report, 22) reports that there were 63 cotton ginneries in Cyprus in 1933, employing a total daily labor of 97.

30. CO 67/291/4, Famagusta Cotton Factory. Strike At- 1938, report of the district commissioner, Famagusta, to the colonial secretary, Cyprus, June 7, 1938, enclosure to governor's dispatch to the secretary of state for the colonies, June 11, 1938.

31. CO 67/291/4, extract from English-language Cypriot newspaper Embros of July 21, 1938.

32. CO 67/291/4, the extract of the aforementioned English-language newspaper Embros states that “[t]he accused were former workers at the mills (…).”

33. Jan Asmussen writes that 252 villages were intercommunal in 1931; see “Life and Strife in Mixed Villages: Some Aspects of Inter-Ethnic Relations in Cyprus Under British Rule,” The Cyprus Review 8 (1996):101-110, here 102.

34. CO 67/299/2, Cyprus: Political Situation February 1939 to April 1940. Extract from monthly report on the Nicosia and Kyrenia districts for March 1939 by the commissioner, enclosure to governor's secret dispatch, April 20, 1939.

35. Supplement No. 1 to The Cyprus Gazette No. 2223 of June 10, 1932, “A Law to Amend the Newspaper, Book and Printing Presses Law, 1930,” 2–3.

36. The Cyprus Blue Books of Statistics for the Year 1937, 218.

37. CO 67/299/2. In his monthly report for March 1939, the district commissioner of Nicosia wrote that D. Stavrinides was “an exception” and of “a higher standard of intelligence,” Section 1 “Political” (b), enclosure to governor's secret dispatch, April 20, 1939.

38. Georghallides, Cyprus and the Governorship, 201.

39. Eleftheria, September 1, 1936.

40. CO 67/291/4, Resume of leading article in Eleftheria, June 6, 1938, enclosure to governor's dispatch to the secretary of state for the colonies, June 11, 1938.

41. CO 67/299/2, “Secret. The Political Situation in Cyprus from the 1st April to the 30th June, 1939,” enclosure to governor's secret dispatch, July 7, 1939.

42. Both extracts in Neos Kypriakos Fylax, December 3, 1935.

43. Eleftheria, September 15, 1936.

44. Anexartitos, June 6, 1939.

45. Anexartitos, June 6, 1939 and ibid., August 5, 1939.

46. Anexartitos, July 14, 1939.

47. See series of articles Anexartitos, May 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, 1939.

48. Anexartitos, December 12, 1938.

49. Anexartitos, December 15, 1940.

50. Anexartitos, May 20 and 21, 1939, and July 14, 1939. See also CO 67/299/2, secret report, enclosure in Governor's secret dispatch, October 13, 1939.

51. CO 67/299/2, “Secret. The Political Situation in Cyprus from the 1st April to the 30th June, 1939”, enclosure to governor's secret dispatch, July 7, 1939.

52. Anexartitos, March 8, 29, 30, and June 30, 1939; ibid., February 13, 22, March 6, and August 1, 1940.

53. Anexartitos, March 12, April 1, and June 6, 1939; ibid., January 17, 1940.

54. Ioannou, Michalakis, “I Exelixi tou Syndikalismou stin Kypro (The Evolution of Trade Unionism in Cyprus),” in Kypriaka 1878–1955. Dialexeis Laïkou Panepistimiou No. 2 (Cypriot Issues. Proceedings of the Conference of the Popular University 2), ed., Ioannides, G.K. (Nicosia, 1986), 114Google Scholar.

55. CO 67/305/5, Cyprus: Appointment of a Labor Adviser, 1939. J. G. Hibbert, minute, December 6, 1939. See also Crouzet, Le Conflit, 135–138 and Peristianis, Nicos, “To Kinima tis Aristeras kai I Dekaetia tis Vatheias Diairesis ton Ellinokyprion (The Left-Wing Movement and the Decade of Deep Division of the Greek-Cypriots),” in O Fifis Ioannou, I Aristera kai to Kypriako (Fifis Ioannou, the Left and the Cypriot Question), ed., Peristianis, Nicos (Nicosia, 2004), xxivGoogle Scholar.

56. Anexartitos, March 30, 1939; ibid. March 6, 1940.

57. Anexartitos, July 8, 1939. For the “building-up” to the Conference, ibid., May 20 and 21, 1939 and ibid., June 12 and August 8, 1939.

58. The Cyprus Blue Book of Statistics for the Year 1938, 228.

59. Giannides, Lefteris, “Oi Metallorychoi [The miners],” in Anexartitos, March 12, 1939Google Scholar.

60. CO 67/253/4 Cyprus. Political Situation 1934, “Cyprus. Memorandum by Sir R. E. Stubbs,” October 16, 1933.

61. The Cyprus Gazette (No. 2320, Friday October 27, 1933), “Order-In-Council No. 1543 Made Under the Cyprus Criminal Code, 1928 to 1933,” 534.

62. Eleftheria, April 18, 1936.

63. Cooper, Frederick, “Our Strike: Equality, Anticolonial Politics and the French West African Railway Strike of 1947–1948,” Journal of African History 37 (1996): 81–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 83.

64. CO 67/274/5, Cyprus. Political Situation. Quarterly Reports Jan. 1937–1938, The Political Situation in Cyprus from November 1 to December 31, 1937, enclosure to governor's secret dispatch, January 21, 1938.

65. CO 67/299/2, Governor's secret dispatch, November 14, 1939.

66. The title of this section is inspired by James Ferguson's The Anti-politics Machine. “Development,” Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Cambridge, 1990).

67. CO 67/291/9, Cyprus: Labor Adviser Vacancy 1938. Governor's semi-private letter to A.B. Acheson, August 11, 1938.

68. CO 67/291/9, Governor's secret dispatch to the secretary of state, July 6, 1938. Italics added, “real” underlined in the text.

69. Cyprus. Report of the Census of 1931, prepared by C. H. Hart-Davis, Superintendent of the Census, Nicosia, Government Printer, 1932, 14–15.

70. CO 67/305/5, Governor's secret dispatch, March 3, 1939.

71. CO 67/278/6 Cyprus. Activities of the Cypriot Press. June–July 1937, secret report of the press officer to the colonial secretary, 30 June 1937, enclosure to governor's secret dispatch, July 1, 1937.

72. CO 67/299/2, Extract from the annual report of the district commissioner, Famagusta, for 1938, enclosure to governor's secret dispatch, March 10, 1939.

73. Respectively, CO 67/274/5 and CO 67/299/2 (annual reports from district commissioners).

74. CO 67/291/9, Governor's semi-private letter to A. B. Acheson, August 14, 1938.

75. CO 67/291/9, D. L. Tovey, Colonial Office, letter to F. W. Legett, Ministry of Labor, October 5, 1938.

76. CO 67/274/5, Secret political report in respect of the period of two months which ended on June 30, 1937, enclosure to governor's secret dispatch, July 16, 1937.

77. Anexartitos, April 7, 1939.

78. B. J. Surridge, district commissioner of Larnaca, Survey of Rural Life in Cyprus, Nicosia, Government Printer, 1930.

79. Sir Ralph Oakden, Report, 5.

80. CO 67/291/9, Governor's semi-official letter to A. B. Acheson, August 11, 1938.

81. CO 67/274/3, Cyprus: Agricultural Bank, 1937, governor's confidential dispatch No. 3, November 26, 1937.

82. CO 67/257/16, Cyprus: Cooperative Credit Societies: Appointment of a Registrar, 1934. Secretary of state for the colonies, confidential dispatch to the governor of Cyprus, November 19, 1934.

83. Agkastiniotis, Kyriakos, O Synergatismos. Gennisis kai Anaptyxis tou en Kypro (Cooperation. Its Birth and Evolution in Cyprus) (Nicosia, 1965), 62–64Google Scholar.

84. CO 67/309/6, Cyprus: Appointments to the Debt Settlement Board, 1940. Governor, confidential dispatch, February 9, 1940.

85. CO 67/247/9, Cyprus: Survey of the Administrative, Economic and General Development of the Colony, 1927–1932. Governor, official dispatch No. 272 of June 9, 1932. See also Surridge, Survey, 27.

86. CO 67/291/9, governor's secret dispatch, July 6, 1938, same file A. B. Acheson, Colonial Office memorandum, August 12, 1938.

87. Faustmann, Hubert, “Clientelism in the Greek Cypriot Community of Cyprus Under British Rule,” The Cyprus Review 10 (1998): 41–77Google Scholar.

88. An occurrence most vividly expressed by Governor Sir Storrs, Ronald (1927–1932) in his memoirs, Orientations (London, 1937), 553Google Scholar.

89. CO 67/233/14 Cyprus: Question of Revision of the Constitution 1930, Cyprus government memorandum, enclosure to Governor Storrs' confidential letter to Sir John Shuckburgh, assistant undersecretary of state for the colonies, February 12, 1930.

90. CO 67/309/6, Cyprus: Appointments to the Debt Settlement Board, 1940. Governor, confidential dispatch, February 9, 1940.

91. CO 67/264/10, Cyprus: Constitutional Situation, May 1936–Jan. 1937. Governor, secret dispatch to secretary of state, May 15, 1936.

92. Eleftheria, August 15, 1936.

93. CO 67/305/5, governor, semi-official letter to A. B. Acheson, assistant undersecretary of state for the colonies, March 1, 1939.

94. CO 67/291/9, governor, semi-official letter, to Acheson, August 11, 1938.

95. Thorpe, Andrew, Britain in the 1930s. The Deceptive Decade (Oxford, 1992), 14Google Scholar; Vickerstaff, Sarah and Sheldrake, John, The Limits of Corporatism. The British Experience in the Twentieth Century, (Aldershot, 1989), 27Google Scholar.

96. Killingray, David, “The Maintenance of Law and Order in British Colonial Africa,” African Affairs, 85 (1986), 411–437CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 435.

97. Lange, Matthew, “Embedding the Colonial State. A Comparative-Historical Analysis of State Building and Broad-Based Development in Mauritius,” Social Science History, 27 (2003), 397–423Google Scholar, here 408.

98. Nicholson, Marjorie, The TUC Overseas: The Roots of Policy, (London, 1986), 199Google Scholar, 201–206 and 223. See also Meredith, David, “The British Government and Colonial Economic Policy, 1919–1939,” The Economic History Review 28 (1975), 484–499Google Scholar, here 484.

99. Lee, J. M. and Petter, Martin, The Colonial Office, War, and Development Policy. Organisation and the Planning of a Metropolitan Initiative, 1939–1945, (London, 1982), 29Google Scholar.

100. Martin, Ross M., TUC: The Growth of a Pressure Group, 1868–1976, (Oxford, 1980), 239Google Scholar.

101. Lee and Petter, The Colonial Office, 39, 43 and Nicholson, The TUC Overseas, 199.

102. Nicholson, The TUC Overseas, 199 and Lee and Petter, The Colonial Office, 31–32. See also Malmsten, Neal R., “British Government Policy toward Colonial Development, 1919–39,” The Journal of Modern History 49(1977), D1249–D1287CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here D1279–D1282.

103. CO 67/305/5, A. B. Acheson, minute, October 5, 1939 (referring to situation in Mauritius), J. Hibbert, minute, December 6, 1939 (referring to measures proposed for Jamaica, Trinidad, and British Guiana); CO 67/315/5, Cyprus. Post of Labour Adviser 1941, J. Hibbert, minute, January 30, 1941, same official, minute, March 17, 1941 (referring to situation in West Africa and West Indies).

104. CO 67/291/9, Governor's semi-official letter to A. B. Acheson, August 11, 1938.

105. CO 67/291/1, A. B. Acheson, memorandum, August 12, 1938.

106. CO 67/305/5, J. B. Williams, minute, February 8, 1939.

107. CO 67/291/1, A. B. Acheson, memorandum, August 12, 1938.

108. CO 67/305/5, G. M. L. Clauson, minute, May 23, 1939.

109. CO 67/291/1, A. B. Acheson, memorandum, August 12, 1939; CO 67/305/5, J.B. Williams, minute, February 8, 1939; same file, R. W. Barlow, minute, March 17, 1939.

110. CO 67/291/1, A.B. Acheson, memorandum, August 12, 1939.

111. CO 67/305/5, Acheson, minute March 23, 1939.

112. CO 67/305/5, “Particulars of the Office of Labor Adviser Now Vacant in the Colony of Cyprus,” enclosure to acting governor's official dispatch No. 298, June 29, 1939.

113. CO 67/309/10, Cyprus. Appointments to the debt settlement board 1940. Secretary of state's saving telegram No. 42, October 31, 1940, to governor of Cyprus.

114. Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “Conditions for Knowledge of Working-Class Conditions: Employers, Government and the Jute Workers of Calcutta, 1890–1940,” in Selected Subaltern Studies, ed., Guha, Ranajit and Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (New Delhi, 1988), 179–230Google Scholar, here 191.

115. Anexartitos, October 15, 1940.

116. Anexartitos, January 28, 1941.

117. Anexartitos, February 12, 1941.

118. Arendt, Hanna, The Origins of Totalitarianism, (New York, 2004), 275Google Scholar.

119. Crouzet, Le Conflit, 138.

120. Anexartitos, October 23, 1940.

121. Anexartitos, July 11 and 12, 1939. See also CO 67/299/2, A. B. Acheson, Colonial Office, minute, July 28, 1939; ibid. A. B. Acheson, minute, November 13, 1939.

122. See, for instance, Archives of the Ministry of Justice, Cyprus, SA1/738/1939/1 Constitutional Liberties. Petitions for the grant of—”. Petition signed by 398 inhabitants of the village of Lapithos, Kyrenia district, May 8, 1939.

123. See, for instance, SA1/738/1939/3, petition signed by 177 inhabitants of the village of Kambos, Nicosia district, November 27, 1942.

124. SA1/738/1939/1, petition signed by 398 inhabitants of the village of Lapithos, Kyrenia district, May 8, 1939, including twenty-eight Turkish-Cypriot signatures. SA1/738/1939/3, petition signed by 177 of the village of Kambos, Nicosia district, November 27, 1942, including forty-six signatures of women.

125. CO 67/315/5, Governor's secret telegram No. 26, January 27, 1941.

126. Anexartitos, 16 and 17 April 1941.