Stephen Salter - The Working Class and Politics in Europe and America, 1929-1945

First published 1990 by Longman Group Limited

Published 2014 by Routledge
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ISBN 13: 978-0-582-00622-5 (pbk)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
The Working Class and Politics in Europe and America, 19291945.
1. Western world. Politics. Role of working classes, 19291945
I. Salter, Stephen II. Stevenson, John 323.32

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Working class and politics in Europe and America, 19291945/
edited by Stephen Salter and John Stevenson,
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
Contents: Introduction/Stephen Salter and John Stevenson
Austria/Tim KirkFinland/David KirbyFrance/Roger Magraw
Germany/Stephen SalterGreat Britain/John StevensonItaly/
Paul CornerPoland/John Coutouvidis, A. Garlicki, Jaime Reynolds
Spain/Martin BlinkhornThe Soviet Union/Hiroaki Kuromiya
United States of America/Patrick Renshaw.
ISBN 0-582-05285-8.ISBN 0-582-00622-8 (pbk.)
1. Labor and laboring classesEuropePolitical activityHistory
20th century. 2. Labor and laboring classesUnited States
Political activityHistory20th century. I. Salter. Stephen, 1957.
II. Stevenson, John, 1946.
HD8378.W67 1990 322.2094dc 19

892395
CIP

The aim of this volume is to examine the experience of the working class in Europe and North America from the onset of the Depression to the end of the Second World War. Its rationale lies in an attempt to document workers experience of depression, dictatorship and war across national boundaries, both highlighting common experiences and responses and noting national particularities. A decision was taken at an early stage not to extend the scope of the study beyond Europe and North America both in order to avoid an excessively encyclopaedic approach and to retain the possibility of meaningful comparison between societies with a degree of common background in terms of culture and development. In addition to its presentation of a range of national studies this volume seeks to move away from the equation of the history of the working class with the history of those economic and political organizations which claimed to speak on behalf of this class; attempting to summarize for the non-specialist the now vast literature on workers political attitudes and behaviour viewed from below. Each of the essays has been written by a specialist actively engaged in research in his area.

We would like to offer our special thanks to those people who helped to make this book possible; Dr Martin Clark (University of Edinburgh), Professor R. W. Davies (University of Birmingham), Dr Rod Kedward (University of Sussex), and Dr David Levy (formerly of the University of Salford) for their suggestions of possible contributors; Mrs Pat Holland, Mrs Susan Sharman and Mrs Maveen Smallman of the Department of History at Sheffield, who typed much of the manuscript and most of the correspondence connected with the volume; and Longman for patience and flexibility in overseeing the preparation of the essay collection for publication.

Stephen Salter
John Stevenson

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

Between 1850 and 1914, industrialization transformed the economic and social structures of much of continental Europe. Accelerated economic growth, the extension of the factory system, major occupational and locational redistributions of the labour force saw the creation of a large class of wage workers, often concentrated in the rapidly growing industrial conurbations. In many states, new organizations emerged to represent the economic interests of this new class and this period also saw the widespread development of political parties claiming to represent the interests of workers at the political level, parties which generally subscribed to socialist ideas, in most cases of at least nominally Marxist variety. Yet only in France, Germany and the United Kingdom were these parties major political forces by 1914; seldom, most notably in France, did the rare combination of universal adult (male) suffrage with constitutional arrangements ensuring that government was genuinely accountable to representative parliamentary institutions permit the full expression of the political weight of parties claiming to represent the interests of the working class.

The First World War was to change this situation dramatically, leading as it did not only to a major expansion of trade-union membership throughout Europe but also to the collapse of the three imperial semi-autocracies of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia and their replacement by a range of new states informed by both the nationalist concept of self-determination and, usually, democratic principles. By 1920, democratic republics had been established in Austria, the Baltic States, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Poland, which now joined those democratic states which had remained monarchies Italy, Norway and Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom along with Europes major democratic republic of pre-1914 vintage (France). All of these states witnessed either the confirmation or extension or introduction of a democratic adult suffrage which, significantly, in some instances was now extended to women (in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Bulgaria and Sweden: female suffrage of varying degrees of comprehensiveness was a feature of Finland and Denmark before 1918 and was introduced in the United Kingdom in that year).