The return of remains of Korean forced laborers who died in Japan between 1940 and 1945 has been a major controversy for over half a century for Koreans. These deaths reveal the tragic consequences of Japan’s World War II forced labor system. Japan forcefully mobilized nearly 800,000 Koreans who were taken to at least 1,589 worksites in Japan and 381 worksites in Hokkaido. Over 10 percent of all Koreans forcefully mobilized throughout the empire are estimated to have died or disappeared, but the precise number of Korean forced laborers’ deaths inside Japan remains unknown. Until 1989, remains recovered from graves throughout Japan by local people were immediately cremated by Japanese Buddhist priests, making cause of death and precise identities forensically impossible. This account relates the first and only comprehensive effort to exhume Korean forced labor graves without immediate cremation, coordinated by Korean and Japanese activists and academics based in Hokkaido. This effort helped revive a neglected aspect of Korean forced labor history while focusing on the concerns of bereaved Koreans seeking the remains of their lost family members. Nevertheless, the project had serious limitations due to working in a difficult political environment and neglect of forensic science protocols in mass grave excavations and identification. This complex situation prevented identification of victims’ names and cause of death that could have held the Japanese government and companies involved accountable.

This study delves into the intricate relationship between warfare and social rights during the Second French Republic. As recent scholarship suggests that the emergence of social rights in the 18th century involved a transition from Christian charity principles to secular obligations, primarily influenced by proponents of free markets, this research uncovers a distinct path during the July Monarchy. Here, socialists framed social rights using a unique language centered on warfare, which was overtly at odds with the prevailing free-market discourse. This transformation led to the concept of “guerre industrielle” or industrial warfare, portraying industrial workers as modern soldiers in the international economic competition among nations. Such a narrative significantly molded the political demands of the emerging French working class, focusing on securing decent employment and extending to workers the social provisions already granted to the military. These demands gained substantial momentum during the tumultuous 1848 Revolution, fueling a call for comprehensive societal transformation, emphasizing cooperative production and mutual assistance. Nevertheless, the rejection of these radical ideas was primarily attributed to the reluctance of moderate republicans to embrace the profound societal changes implied by such demands. By delving into the intricacies of this relationship, the article offers fresh insights into the development of social rights before the emergence of the Welfare State and their impact on the construction of tools of socioeconomic governance during the last two centuries.

This is an attempt to locate the idea of socialism and the socialist and working-class movements in history. This will here be done by relating the trajectory of socialism to capitalism, as a rival, and by highlighting the main social forces carrying the idea of socialism in the 20th century. These forces were two grand social dialectics, that of industrial capitalism and its generating working-class growth and strength; and, little studied, the dialectic of capitalist colonialism which needed and created a subordinated colonial intelligentsia, which came to organize and lead anti-colonial movements to independence, very often under a banner of socialism. Both dialectics have now largely expired. The victories of socialism were nowhere constructions of fully postcapitalist societies but vehicles of precapitalist development. Here achivements were considerable, as were socialist reforms within capitalist societies. However, catching up with its older and richer brother caitalism turned out an ever elusive goal of socialism, and the socialist horizon faded. A new postcapitalist vision is emerging with the climate crisis.

This paper looks not at workers’ struggles, which had their ups and downs over the last two hundred years, but specifically at the revolutionary socialist movement, which aims to eliminate capitalism. While there have been contributions to the vision of a classless, stateless society by utopian socialists and anarchists, the paper concentrates on Karl Marx and Frederick Engels and their legacy. It identifies three bifurcation points in this particular revolutionary socialist tradition where a substantial part of the movement abandoned democracy, internationalism, or both, and argues that this has had a disastrous effect on the movement and needs to be reversed.

This article is about contingency and determination. It identifies three “inflection points”—tipping points or points of no return—in the not-so-longue durée of Soviet history: 1929, 1959, and 1989. The article thus reflects on the collectivization of agriculture and associated brutalities; the promise and limitations of Khrushchev’s reforms as well as the appeal—again, limited—of the Soviet Union to the emerging Third World; and the opportunities presented by perestroika and glasnost to reconfigure relations and purposes of production before the waves of nationalism and neoliberal market madness washed over the Soviet Union.

This paper explores how the years after World War II in Western Europe were an extreme case of working-class power. An initial theoretical discussion claims that while class can best be understood as a social category, at the same time politics in the broadest sense—and hence class-based movements—can shape social structure. This was the case in the in the post-World War II period when the working class dominated West European societies: especially perhaps in Britain, the “weight” of the working class shaped the nation. Trade union organization and state power ensured collective rights and were the basis for autonomous consumption; class identity was a source of pride. The end of this period saw trade union density continuing to increase. In the USA as well as in Western Europe, the power of management in the workplace was challenged. Especially in Western Europe, there was widespread radicalization of working-class youth. This was the last offensive of the working-class movement. However, power in the workplace remained essentially a veto-power. In the USA, oppositional politics became ethnic politics and even before de-industrialisation the white working class began to abandon its traditional politics. Nonetheless, in Western Europe the long shadow of the working-class movement ensured the partial survival of social rights long after the traditional social basis of the movement had withered away.

In this short contribution, we look at the trajectory of the largest international trade union organization, today ITUC, from the central questions in this exercise; why labor movements have achieved certain successes?, Why they sometimes failed?, And what major failures we have seen?

In the history of the left, the conjuncture 1914–1917 is the “bifurcation point” per definition. Leaving an enduring mark on the labor movement, it also shaped subsequent historiographies. For the pro-Bolshevik left, 1914 epitomized the betrayal of a group of reformist leaders. Conversely, anti-communist social democrats regarded the Second International as an uncomfortable political heritage. Despite irreconcilable disputes, both traditions shared a lack of interest in defending the period 1889–1914, let alone delving into its history. The real take-off of Second International historiography came later and coincided with the outset of the Cold War, experiencing a “golden age” in the 1960s and 1970s. Studies of socialism lost momentum from the 1980s onwards, but the last 15 years have seen a resurgence of interest in the Second International and even a popular reappraisal of Karl Kautsky. Linking historiography to wider social and political phenomena, this article reflects on this new interest in the Second International in both activist and academic circles. The first section summarizes the historical significance of the International and examines how the crisis of 1914 became a crucial “bifurcation point” with significant political and historiographical impact. The second section explores recent trends in scholarly research on the subject. The third section provides an analysis of the vindication of Karl Kautsky among radicals and socialists in the United States over the past 10 years. The conclusion summarizes the main arguments and reflects on the contribution this analysis can make to a discussion about the “long cycle” of socialism.

In early modern times, workers, especially the unskilled, in many countries were already striking against low wages and long working hours before the advent of the trade union movement. These modern trade unions on the other hand were mainly a form of organization invented by skilled labor from around 1800. Trade unions became a part of the labor movement or the workers’ movement. For over a century the movement of the workers and the workers’ movement merged although this marriage was not always a very happy one. There have been periods of tensions between the two. Since the crisis of the 1970s both have been on the defensive, which can be seen from lowering union density rates and the plummeting of strike activity in most Western countries.

Many trade unions have been connected to the political part of the labor movement (more specifically social democracy) which in turn grew into the existing political and socioeconomic form of capitalism.1 Can a bureaucratic trade union movement that is so embedded in capitalist society be able to become the advocate of a future rise of working-class struggles? Is there a future for trade unionism or will another form of organization arise? And will the strike as a weapon of the working class really disappear as was predicted so many times? And was there a moment in time when both strikes and trade unions took the path that took them into the dangerous direction where they ended up in such life-threatening circumstances. Let’s go back in time to look for answers to these questions.

Among the dilemmas faced by labor, socialist, and other movements of the subaltern classes striving to change society over the past two centuries, three are discussed here: forms of ownership, bureaucracy and “big tent” formulas for both unity of the working class broadly defined, and alliances with movements of independent owners or undefined class status. Examples are drawn from various countries (France, Italy, Britain, the USA, Brazil, Korea) and from international programmatic discussions. Socialists, notably Marxists, shared the radical republican goal of a true democracy of equals, but differed on the extent of collective ownership (state, local, cooperative) needed in the economy, and the definition of privately owned personal goods that insured an individual’s dignity and independence. The rise and contraction of capitalist states with social services (“welfare states”) complicated the issue. Such movements also accumulated experiences with the growth of experts and/or bureaucrats, and the means to limit their privileges and transformation into a caste-type elite. Three environments which generate such phenomena are identified: social-democratic and big labor, post-capitalist states and, more recently, nongovernmental organizations. Finally, the author discusses alliances with broader social forces which include working-class and non-working-class interests, and the management of cross-class ideologies such as certain varieties of nationalism, feminism, environmentalism, and anti-tax movements.

As labor in the capitalist system practically tripled to some three billion workers, solidary organizations of labor simultaneously dwindled in relative size and power. This is true globally but also for the historical core countries. While this is a paradox, it is not a contradiction. Capital is a (spatialized) social relationship. The globalization of capital since the 1970s has shifted the power relations with localized labor fundamentally in favor of capital, as Charles Tilly noted in this journal almost thirty years ago. Over time, power balances within capitalist states, and between capitalist states and transnationalizing capital, have reflected that basic class-relational shift. This article explains why the globalizing cycle of weakened labor may now be reversing.

This review article surveys recent books that explore black women’s integral role in the labor history of Latin America and the Caribbean. As emancipated Latin American and Caribbean black women transitioned away from slave labor, they faced intense, enduring racial and gender discrimination in the labor market. Despite these hostile conditions, these black women tirelessly resisted and rebelled against oppression. Moving beyond the framework of black women as mere contributors to social, political, and economic systems, the reviewed books’ authors center black women as historically inextricable from these foundational elements that sustain the region.

Labor scholars have increasingly recognized the need to look beyond the workplace and explore where and how workers lived, socialized, shopped, or protested. The six books reviewed in this essay contribute to understanding how modern cities shaped the process of working-class formation as well as workers’ identity, experiences, and economic and material conditions. From different standpoints, these urban and labor histories of Paris, Mexico City, Miami, Port Said, Montevideo, and Santiago, Chile, demonstrate the impact of urban modernization, industrial capitalism, and migration on working families. By bringing together books from different regions and historiographical traditions, this essay also reflects on the possibilities and challenges of writing a global labor urban history.