Chapter 46 PART II RESULTS CHAPTER XI THE WORKING POOR 4

4 Therefore, in terms of composition, ideology and program, the labor movement during this period was not strictly a "proletarian" movement, that is, a movement of industrial workers and factory workers, nor was it even limited to wage laborers.Rather, it is a common front representing all the forces and tendencies of the (mainly urban) working poor.Such a common front had existed for a long time, but as late as the French Revolution, its leadership and inspiration still came from the radical middle class of liberalism.As we have seen, it was "Jacobinism" and not "san-culotronism" (and regardless of the wishes of the immature proletarians) that gave the popular tradition of Paris the unity it had.But the new situation after 1815 was that, as well as against the king and the nobility, that common front was increasingly directed against the liberal middle classes, drawing its unity from the program and ideology of the proletariat.Although the industrial working class and the factory working class barely existed at the time, and were generally far less politically mature than the rest of the working poor.Both the poor and the rich tend to classify the "urban people below the social middle class" as "proletarian" or "working class" politically.Those who are concerned about the increasingly common view that the social status quo is indeed internally contradictory and unsustainable tend to lean toward socialism as the only considered and rational judgment and choice.

The leadership of emerging movements reflects a similar state of things.The most active, militant and politically awakened working poor are not the emerging factory proletariat, but skilled handicraftsmen, independent artisans, small-scale family workshop workers and others whose life and work basically identify with the pre-industrial Revolutionary, but under greater pressure.The earliest trade unions were almost without exception organized by printers, hatters, seamstresses, and the like.In a city like Leeds, the leading nucleus of Chartism was - and this was typical - a joiner turned hand-weaver, two journeyman printers, a bookseller and a carder .Most of those who adopt Mr. Owen's creed of cooperation are such "artisans", "mechanics" and handworkers.The first German working-class communists were wandering skilled craftsmen—sewers, joiners, printers, etc. In 1848, Paris rose up against the capitalists and was still a resident of the old handicraft area of ​​Faubourg Saint-Antoine in the suburbs of Paris, rather than (like the Paris Commune of 1871) residents of Belleville (Belleville), where the proletariat was concentrated.It was not until industrial development destroyed these bastions of consciousness of the "working class" that the strength of the early labor movement was dealt a fatal blow.For example, during the period 1820-1850 the British labor movement created a dense network of working-class self- and political-educational institutions—"workers' workshops," Owenian "science schools" and others.By 1850, there were 700 such institutions in the UK (excluding institutions of a more obvious political nature), 151 in Yorkshire alone, and 400 newspaper reading rooms.But by now they were in decline, and after a few decades most had either disappeared or languished.

There is only one exception.Only in Britain did the new proletarian masses begin to organize and even begin to produce their own leaders—the Irish Irving sent cotton worker John Doherty Doherty, miners Tommy Hepburn and Martin Jude.Workers made up the fighting forces of Chartism, not only skilled artisans and struggling cottages, but also factory workers as its main fighters and sometimes its leaders.But outside the UK, factory workers and miners are still largely victims rather than actors.It was not until the end of the century that they were able to participate in the work of shaping their own destiny.

The labor movement is a self-defense organization, a protest organization, and a revolutionary organization.But for the working poor, it is not just a tool of struggle but a way of life.Liberal capitalist society has brought them nothing; history has taken them out of the traditional life that conservatives have tried in vain to maintain or restore.They have little power to change the way of life in which they are increasingly involved.But the labor movement can, or rather the way of life labor forges for itself, a way of life that is collective, communal, militant, idealistic, and isolated, implies this capacity, because struggle is its essence.Movement, in turn, gives its cohesive force and purpose.The liberal myth posits that unions are formed by unresponsible agitators of unresponsible labor, but in fact unresponsible labor rarely joins unions at all, and the most intelligent and competent workers, He is the most staunch supporter of the trade union.

The best example of such a highly developed "world of labour" during that period is perhaps still the old family work.There were social groups like the Lyons silk workers, who were always in rebellion—revolted in 1831 and again in 1834, and to quote Michelet: "For the world does not Down the alley, transform yourself into another moral paradise full of sweet dreams." There are also groups like the Scottish Linen Workers, who accept the pure creed of republicanism and Jacobinism, and believe in Swedenborg (Swededs Zhao Swedish scientist , philosopher and religious writer, whose religious thoughts are characterized by adhering to the teachings of Jerusalem.) Heresy, they built trade union libraries, savings banks, mechanic workshops, libraries and science clubs, also set up galleries, missionary places, alcohol abstinence Leagues, baby schools, even a floral society and a literary magazine (Dunfermline's Gasometer), and of course they supported Chartism.Class consciousness, militancy, hatred and contempt for their oppressors are as much a part of their lives as the machines with which they weave their loom.They don't owe the rich anything but their wages.Everything they have in life is their collective creation.

But this silent process of self-organization is not limited to these older types of workers.Also found in the "trade unions" based on the original Methic Church in the area, and among the miners in Northumberland and Dalland.At the same time, this development can also be seen in the high concentration of mutual aid societies and mutual aid societies in the newly industrialized areas, especially the Lancaifu area. In 1821, the proportion of the population (17%) who were Freemasons in Lancashire was much higher than that in other counties; in 1845, almost half of the secret Masonic branches were located in Lancashire and Yorkshire.Above all, it was reflected in the thousands of men, women, and children who streamed from Lancashire's industrial towns to the moors, carrying torches aloft, to join the Chartist demonstrations ; it was also reflected in the emerging Rochdale co-operative shops, which proliferated at breakneck speed in the 1840s.