Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T12:00:43.901Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Labor Insurgency and Class Formation

Comparative Perspectives on the Crisis of 1917-1920 in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

James E. Cronin
James E. Cronin*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The modern working class is not especially noted for its optimism or idealism. Indeed, the industrial proletariat may well have pioneered in the adoption of those secular and cynical life-styles and values that have come increasingly to pervade twentieth-century society and culture (Hobsbawm, 1978a). This makes it all the more surprising, then, to rediscover the deep feelings and high expectations with which Europe's workers launched the greatest wave of strikes in their history just after World War I. For a brief moment, the apocalyptic hopes of the left-wing socialists and the fantastic fears of the forces of order seemed about to come true: Soldiers deserted en masse and turned against their officers and their governments; workers in almost every industry struck for unprecedented demands; workers’ councils were established from Limerick to Budapest (Kemmy, 1975-1976). And if Lenin and Trotsky, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and Gramsci were wrong in their optimism, they were no more misguided than their panic-stricken opponents, such as Churchill, Lloyd George, the diplomats at Versailles, and the various generals and police commanders charged with controlling and suppressing the volatile crowds of urban workers and discontented ex-soldiers (Mayer, 1959, 1967).

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Winter 1980 , pp. 125 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1980 

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.)

Footnotes

fn00

Author's Note:An earlier version of this article was read to the annual convention of the American Historical Association in San Francisco, December 28–30, 1978. Helpful comments on that version were made by Robert Moeller, Jonathan Schneer, Margo Conk, Charles Stephenson, Michael Hanagan, and Jon Amsden. I also wish to acknowledge the financial assistance of the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee in the research upon which this article is based.

References

Abherve, B. (1975) “Les origines de la grève des métallurgistes parisiensjuin 1919.” Le Mouvement Social 93 (October-December): 75–85.Google Scholar
Abrams, P. (1963) “The failure of social reform.” Past and Present 24: 43–64.Google Scholar
Adams, W. S. (1953) “Lloyd George and the labour movement.” Past and Present 3: 55–64.Google Scholar
Andrae, C.-G. (1975) “The Swedish labour movement and the 1917-1918 revolution,“ pp. 232–253 in Koblik, S. (ed.) Sweden's Development from Poverty to Affluence, 1750-1970. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Bagwell, P. S. (1971) “The Triple Industrial Alliance,” pp. 96–128 in Briggs, A. and Saville, J. (eds.) Essays in Labour History. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bagwell, P. S. (1963) The Railwaymen. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Barth, E. (1919) Aus der Werkstatt der deutschen Revolution. Berlin: A. Hoffmann.Google Scholar
Behrend, H. (1974) “The impact of inflation on pay increase expectations and ideas of fair pay.” Industrial Relations J. 5 (Spring): 5–10.Google Scholar
Bell, D. (1978) “Worker culture and worker politics: the experience of an Italian town, 1880-1915.” Social History 3, 1: 1–21.Google Scholar
Berger, S. (1979) “Politics and antipolitics in Western Europe.” Daedalus 108 (Winter): 27–50.Google Scholar
Bertrand, C. [ed.](1977) Revolutionary Situations in Europe, 1917-1922. Montreal: Interuniversity Centre for European Studies.Google Scholar
Bonjour, E. and Potter, G. (1963) A Short History of Switzerland. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Braverman, H. (1974) Labor and Monopoly Capital. New York: Monthly Review.Google Scholar
Brelet, M. (1923) La Crise de la Mètallurgie. La politique èconomique et sociale du comitè des forges. Paris: E. Sagot.Google Scholar
Bry, G. (1960) Wages in Germany, 1891-1975. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Bullock, A. (1960) Ernest Bevin, 1. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Bulmer, M. [ed.] (1975) Working-Class Images of Society. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Butler, D. and Stokes, D. (1969) Political Change in Britain. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Cammett, J. M. (1967) Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Carre, J.-J., Dubols, P., and Malinvaud, E. (1975) French Economic Growth. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Checkland, S. (1975) The Upas Tree. Glasgow: Glasgow Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Clinton, A. (1970) “Trades councils during World War I.” Int. Rev. of Social History 15, 2: 202–234.Google Scholar
Cole, G.D.H. and Cole, M. I. (1937) The Condition of Britain. London: Gollancz.Google Scholar
Comfort, R. (1966) Revolutionary Hamburg. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Commission on Foreign Inquiry of the National Civic Federation (1919) The Labor Situation in Great Britain and France. New York: Elsevier North-Holland.Google Scholar
Cornford, J. (1973) “The transformation of conservatism in the late nineteenth century,” pp. 287–318 in Stansky, P. (ed.) The Victorian Revolution. New York: New Viewpoints.Google Scholar
Cronin, J. (1978-1979) “Theories of strikes: why can't they explain the British experience?” J. of Social History 12, 2: 194–220.Google Scholar
Cronin, J. (1977) “Strikes in Britain, 1888-1974: a statistical and historical analysis.” Ph. D. dissertation, Brandeis University.Google Scholar
Cross, G. (1973) “Productivity and French labor: 1910-1931.” M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Deak, I. (1968) “Budapest and the Hungarian revolutions of 1918-1919.” Slavonic and East European Rev. 46, 106: 129–140.Google Scholar
Desmarias, R. (1971) “The British government's strike-breaking organization and Black Friday.” J. of Contemporary History 6, 2: 112–127.Google Scholar
Desmarias, R. (1970) “The supply and transport committee: a study in the British government's methods of handling emergencies stemming from industrial disputes.” Ph. D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Dickinson, R. (1951) The West European City. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dorst, T. [ed.] (1966) Die Muenchener Raeterepublik. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Duczynska, I. (1978) Workers in Arms. New York: Monthly Review.Google Scholar
Dupeux, G. (1972) La Société Française, 1789-1970. Paris: A. Colin.Google Scholar
Feldman, G. (1977) “Socio-economic structures in the industrial sector and revolutionary potentialities, 1917-22,” in Bertrand, C. (ed.) Revolutionary Situations in Europe, 1917-22. Montreal: Interuniversity Centre for European Studies.Google Scholar
Feldman, G. (1975) “Economic and social problems of the German Demobilization, 1918-19.“ Journal of Modern History XLCII: 1–47.Google Scholar
Feldman, G. (1966) Army, Industry, and Labor in Germany, 1914-1918. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, G., Kolb, E.. and Ruerup, R. (1972) “Diemassenbewegungenderarbeiterschaft in Deutschland am ende des Ersten Weltkrieges (1917-1920).” Politische Vierteljahres-schrift 13, 2: 84–105.Google Scholar
Ferro, M. (1973) The Great War, 1914-1918. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fontaine, A. (1926) French Industry during the war. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Fox-genovese, E. and Genovese, E. D. (1976) “The political crisis of social history: a Marxian perspective.” J. of Social History 10, 2: 204–220.Google Scholar
Gallo, M. (1966) “Quelques aspects de la mentalité et du comportement ouvriers dan les usines de guerre, 1914-1918.” Mouvement Social 56 (July-September): 3–33.Google Scholar
Geary, D. (1978) “Radicalism and the worker: metalworkers and revolution, 1914-23,“ pp. 267–286 in Evans, R. J. (ed.) Society and Politics in Wilhelmine Germany. London:Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Goguel, F. (1970) Géographiedes élections françhise sous le Illeet la IVe République. Paris: A. Colin.Google Scholar
Graubard, D. (1957) British Labor and the Russian Revolution. Cambridge, MA:Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Great Britain, Commission of Enquiry into Industrial Unrest Reports. British Parliamentary Papers (1917-1918) XV. Cd. 8662-8669, 8696.Google Scholar
Great Britain, Directorate of Intelligence [Home Office] (1921) “A survey of revolutionary movements in Great Britain in the year 1920.” Cabinet Papers, CAB 24/118, C.P. 2455.Google Scholar
Groh, D. (1979) “Intensification of work and industrial conflict in Germany, 1896-1914.” Politics and Society 8, 3-4: 349–397.Google Scholar
Groh, D. (1973) Negative Integration und Revolutionaerer Attentismus. Frankfurt am Main: Propylaen.Google Scholar
Gulick, C. A. (1948) Austria. From Habsburg to Hitler. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Hardach, G. (1977) The First World War, 1914-1918. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Haupt, G. (1972) Socialism and the Great War. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hinton, J. (1976) “Rejoinder to Jean Monds.” New Left Review 97: 100–104.Google Scholar
Hinton, J. (1973) The First Shop Stewards’ Movement. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. (1978a) “Religion and the rise of socialism.” Marxist Perspectives 1 (Spring): 14–33.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. (1978b) “Man and woman in socialist iconography.” History Workshop 6: 121–138.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. (1963) Labouring Men. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Hoggart, R. (1957) The Uses of Literacy. London: Chatto & Windus.Google Scholar
Homburg, H. (1978) “Anfaenge des Taylorsystems in Deutschland vor dem ersten Weltkrieg. Eine problemskizze unter besonderer beruecksichtigung der arbeiterskaempfe bei Bosch 1913.” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 4, 2: 170–194.Google Scholar
Hyman, R. and I., Brough (1976) Social Values and Industrial Relations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Johnson, G. Z. (1960) “Differential fertility in European countries,” pp. 36–72 in National Bureau of Economic Research, Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Kaelble, H. (1978) “Social mobility in Germany, 1900-1960.” J. of Modern History 50, 3: 439–461.Google Scholar
Kemmy, J. (1975-1976) “The Limerick Soviet.” J. of the Irish Labor History Society 2: 45–52.Google Scholar
Kendall, W. (1975) The Labour Movement in Europe. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Kendall, W. (1969) The Revolutionary Movement in Britain. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.Google Scholar
Knodel, J. (1974) The Decline of Fertility in Germany, 1871-1939. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Knowles, K. G. and D. J., Robertson (1951) “Differences between the wages of skilled and unskilled workers, 1880-1950.” Bull, of the Oxford University Institute of Statistics 13, 4: 109–127.Google Scholar
Kocka, J. (1975) “The problem of democracy and the lower middle classes in the first third of the 20th century: some results and perspectives of research.” Int. Congress of Historical Sciences 14.Google Scholar
Kriegel, A. (1972) The French Communists. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kriegel, A. (1966) Croissance de la C.G.T., 1918-1921. Paris: Mouton.Google Scholar
Kriegel, A.(1964) Aux Origines du Communisme Françhise, 1914-1920. Paris: Mouton.Google Scholar
LaFleur, I. (1976) “The Bolshevik Revolution and Austrian socialism—the January 1918 strike.” J. of the Great Lakes History Conference 1: 82–96.Google Scholar
Landes, D. (1969) The Unbound Prometheus. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Levine, A. (1967) Industrial Retardation in Britain. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.Google Scholar
Livi-bacci, M. (1977) A History of Italian Fertility. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lorwin, V. (1966) The French Labor Movement. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.Google Scholar
Lucas, E. (1976) Zwei Formen von Radikalismus in der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung. Frankfurt: Verlag Roter Stern.Google Scholar
Lucas, E. (1974) Maerzrevolution 1920. 2 vol. Frankfurt: Verlag Rotor Stern.Google Scholar
Lucas, E. (1969) Frankfurt unter der Herrschaft des Arbeiter- und Soldatenraete, 1918-19. Frankfurt: Verlag Neu Kritik.Google Scholar
Lyttleton, A. (1977) “Revolution and counter revolution in Italy, 1918-1922,” pp. 63–73 in Bertrand, C. (ed.) Revolutionary Situations in Europe, 1917-22. Montreal: Interuniversity Centre for European Studies.Google Scholar
Macartney, C. A. (1926) The Social Revolution in Austria. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Maier, C. (1977) “Political crisis and partial modernization: the outcomes in Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Italy after World War I,” pp. 119–130 in Bertrand, C. (ed.) Revolutionary Situations in Europe, 1917-22. Montreal: Interuniversity Centre for European Studies.Google Scholar
Macartney, C. A. (1975) Recasting Bourgeois Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Margadant, T. W. (1978) “Primary schools and youth groups in pre-war Paris.” J. of Contemporary History 13, 2: 323–336.Google Scholar
Marrus, M. (1974) “Social drinking in the belle epoque.” J. of Social History 7, 2: 115–141.Google Scholar
Marwick, A. (1968) “The impact of the First World War on British society.” J. of Contemporary History 3, 1: 51–63.Google Scholar
Mayer, A. (1975) “The lower middle class as historical problem.” J. of Modern History 47, 3: 409–436.Google Scholar
Mayer, A. (1967) Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking, 1918-1919. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Mayer, A. (1959) Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1918-1919. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
McBride, T. (1976) The Domestic Revolution. New York: Holmes & Meier.Google Scholar
McKay, J. (1975) Tramways and Trolleys. The Rise of Urban Mass Transport in Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Meacham, S. (1977) A Life Apart. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Miliband, R. (1961) Parliamentary Socialism. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Mitchell, A. (1965) Revolution in Bavaria. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. (1975) European Historial Statistics. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, H. and Stearns, P. (1971) Workers and Protest. Itasca, IL: Peacock.Google Scholar
Mommsen, W. J. (1978) “Die deutsche Revolution, 1918-1920: Politische Revolution und Soziale Protestbewegung.” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 4, 3: 377.Google Scholar
Monds, J. (1976) “Workers’ control and the historians: the new economism.” New Left Review 97: 81–100.Google Scholar
Montgomery, D. (1976) “Workers’ control of machine production in the nineteenth century.” Labor History 17, 4: 485–509.Google Scholar
Moore, B. (1978) Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt. White Plains, NY: Sharpe.Google Scholar
Morgan, D. W. (1975) The Socialist Left and the German Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Moss, B. (1976) Origins of the French Labor Movement: The Socialism of Skilled Workers. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mueller, R. (1924-1925) Vom Kaiserreich zur Republik. 2 Volumes. Vienna: Malik.Google Scholar
Negt, O. and Kluge, A. (1972) Oeffentlichkeit und Erfahrung: Zur Organisations-Analyze von buergerliche und proletarischer Oeffentlichkeit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Nettl, J. P. (1966) Rosa Luxemburg, Vol. 11. London: Oxford.Google Scholar
Neufeld, M. (1961) Italy: School for Awakening Countries. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ.Press.Google Scholar
Niethammer, L. and Brueggemeier, F. (1976) “Wie wohnten arbeiter im Kaiserreich?” Archiv fuer Sozialgeschichte 16: 61–134.Google Scholar
Opel, F. (1957) Der Deutsche Metallarbeiter-Verband waehrend des ersten Weltkrieges und der Revolution. Hannover: Institut fuer wissenschaftliche Politik.Google Scholar
Papa, A. (1969) “Guerra e terra, 1915-1918.” Studi Storici 10: 3–45.Google Scholar
Papayanis, N. (1975) “Masses revolutionaries et directions réformistes: les tensions au cours de gréves des metallurgists français en 1919.” Mouvement Social 93 (October-December): 51–73.Google Scholar
Pelling, H. (1967) The Social Geography of British Elections. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Phelps Brown, E. H. with Browne, M. (1968) A Century of Pay. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Phillips, G. A. (1976) The General Strike. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.Google Scholar
Pribicevic, B. (1959) The Shop Stewards’ Movement and Workers'Control. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Pritchard, R. M. (1976) Housing and the Spatial Structure of the City. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Ranki, G. (1977) “Structural crisis in agriculture in postwar years,” pp. 105–116 in Bertrand, C. (ed.) Revolutionary Situations in Europe, 1917-22. Montreal: Interuniversity Centre for University Studies.Google Scholar
Renouvin, P. (1968) “L'opinion publique et la guerre en 1917.” Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 15.Google Scholar
Ritter, G. (1978) “Workers’ culture in Imperial Germany: problems and points of departure for research.” J. of Contemporary History 13: 165–189.Google Scholar
Roberts, R. (1973) The Classic Slum. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
Roth, G. (1963) The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany. Totowa, NJ: Bedminster.Google Scholar
Ruerup, R. [ed.] (1975) Arbeiter und Soldatenraete in rheinisch-westfaelischen industriegebiet. Wuppertal: Hammer.Google Scholar
Ruerup, R. (1968) “Problems of the German revolution, 1918-1919.” J. of Contemporary History 3, 1: 134.Google Scholar
Saville, J. (1977) “May Day 1937,” pp. 232–284 in Briggsand, A. Saville, J. (eds.) Essays in Labour History, 1918-1939. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Sellier, H., Bruggeman, A., and Poete, M. (1926) Paris pendant la Guerre. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Sender, T. (1939) The Autobiography of a German Rebel. New York: Vanguard.Google Scholar
Shorter, E. (1975) The Making of a Modern Family. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Shorter, E. and Tilly, C. (1974) Strikes in France, 1830-1968. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Soave, E. (1964) “Appunti sulle origini teoriche e pratichc die Consigli di fabbrica a Torino.” Revista storica del socialismo 7, 21.Google Scholar
Spriano, P. (1975) The Occupation of the Factories, Italy 1920. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
Stearns, P. (1976) “The unskilled and industrialization: a transformation of consciousness.” Archiv fuer Sozialgeschichte 16: 249–282.Google Scholar
Stearns, P. (1975) Lives of Labor. New York: Holmes & Meier.Google Scholar
Stedman Jones, G. (1974) “Working-class cultur e and working-class politics in London, 1870-1900.” J. of Social History 7: 460–508.Google Scholar
Storm-Clark, C. (1971) “The miners, 1870-1970: a test case for oral history.” Victorian Studies 15, 1: 49–74.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (forthcoming) “Collective violence in European perspective,” in Graham, H. and Gurr, T. (eds.) Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (1974) An Urban World. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. Tilly, L., and Tilly, R. (1975) The Rebellious Century. Cambrige. MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. (1958) Essays on “The Wefare State.” London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Tokes, R. L. (1967) Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Von Oertzen, P. (1963) Betriebsraete in der November Revolution. Beitraege zur Geschichte des Parliamentarismus und der politischen parteien. Dusseldorf: Droste Verlag.Google Scholar
Watson, D. R. (1962) “The nationalist movement in Paris, 1900-1906,” pp. 49–84 in Shapiro, D. (ed.) The Right in France. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. (1978) “Organized sport and organized labour: the workers’ sports movement.” J. of Contemporary History 13, 2: 191–210.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. (1977) “‘Ex oriente lux?’ The Soviet example and the German Revolution,” pp. 30–49 in Bertrand, C. (ed.) Revolutionary Situations in Europe, 1917-22. Montreal: Interuniversity Centre for European Studies.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. (1974) “German labor and the Comintern: a problem of generations.” J. of Social History 7, 3: 304–321.Google Scholar
White, J. (1978) The Limits of Trade Union Militancy. Westport, CT: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Williams, G. (1975) Proletarian Order. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
Winkler, H. A. [ed.] (1974) Organisierter Kapitalismus. Geottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Wohl, R. (1966) French Communism in the Making, 1914-1924. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Yancey, W., Ericksen, E., and Juliani, R. N. (1976) “Emergent ethnicity: a review and reformulation.” Arner. Soc. Rev. 41: 391–403.Google Scholar
Zeldin, T. (1973) France, 1848-1945. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar