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CLASS AND POWER in EUROPE (2 of 5)

According to Michael Beaud, between 1881 and 1911, the number of industrial workers in Britain grew from 5.7 million to 8.6 million -- the 1911 figure divided between 6.2 million in manufacturing, 1.2 million in mining and 1.2 million in construction. In Germany, beween 1895 and 1907, those working in industry grew from 41 percent of the population to 43 percent, while those classified as workers grew from 5.9 million to 8.6 million.

Working conditions and life for ordinary workers were poor compared to 21st century standards. There were economic booms and busts and periods of high unemployment. Factory and shop environments were dreadful. Many workers lived in tenements or slums. There was child labor. Trade unionism grew in response to these conditions, spreading from the skilled to the less skilled occupations. Bourgeois interests in Britain got a bill through parliament that outlawed strikes. In Britain, France and Russia, military force was used against strikers. In 1887 in London, armed police attacked a march by unemployed men. Three of the marchers were killed and many more injured. In 1889 in Germany, infantry and cavalry attacked striking coal miners. In 1890 mass strikes took place in St. Petersburg, Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, where a decade of industrial growth was beginning. In 1892 in Russian ruled Poland, 46 workers were set upon and killed. That year 92 workers were killed in Sicily. And there were more strikes in Russia in 1894, '95 and '96.

Labor did win a reduction in work time. Before the year 1850 workers were putting in 12, 14 and 16-hour days, with work on Saturday and sometimes Sunday -- from 70 to 100 hours per week. Hamerow describes a steady decrease in the workweek after the middle of the century for Europe as a whole. The average work week in Britain at the end of the century was 53.5 hours. [note]

Despite the rise in real income, by the end of the century life was still hard for the average European, compared to 21st century European standards. In Britain the average male was dead at 51.5 years of age, the average woman at 55.4. In France these figures were 45.4 and 50, in Spain at 41 and 42.5. Figures for the Russians, available in 1895, have the average male dead at 31.4 years and the average woman at 33.3. [note]

Many felt too burdened by their work to get involved in politics, to attend meetings or, if they could, to read newspapers. Politics and reading continued more with those who had some leisure, except for those who belonged to labor unions. The labor movement united people into a greater force. Labor unions were political, and political parties were formed that were sympathetic to labor. In Germany, the Social Democrat Party supported labor and was socialist. Two attempts to assassinate the king, Wilhelm I, were made by those believed to be Social Democrats, and Germany's chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, responded by promoting anti-socialist laws and outlawing socialist organizations, driving the Social Democrat Party and its press underground.

Between 1881 and 1889, Bismarck promoted laws regarding social insurance and working conditions, to prevent attraction by Germans for socialism. A law was passed compelling employers to insure their workmen in case of sickness or accident. Laws regulating working hours and working conditions were passed. Compulsory insurance against death and old age were introduced. Welfare was provided for widows and orphans. But the socialist movement continued to grow.

With a new king, Wilhelm II, and his dismissal of Bismarck in 1890, the Social Democratic Party in Germany began operating in the open again. Wilhelm II disagreed with what had been Bismarck's plan to renew the law making the Social Democratic Party illegal. The Social Democrats were becoming more popular, and Wilhelm II wished to be a ruler loved by all his subjects.

In 1891, the Social Democratic Party advocated its Erfurt Program: the 8-hour day; prohibition of child labor under the age of 14; government regulation of working conditions; and the abolition of laws that restricted the right of people to assemble. The Erfurt program included calls for equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot; judges elected by the people; an end to laws that put women at a disadvantage as compared with men; a graduated income and property tax; free medical attention; a people's militia for defense rather than a professional army; secularized public education and no public money supporting religious institutions.

At the end of the 1800s, governments in Western Europe tended to be run by parliaments while in central and eastern Europe, including Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia, governments bypassed parliament and were authoritarian bureaucracies.

In Russia the Social Democratic Party was also a labor party, and it was illegal. In Russia the government formed its own trade union to compete with and control the labor movement. In 1903, Russia's Social Democratic Party held a party congress in the safety of Britain, which was attended by representatives from a variety of pro-labor groups. At this congress a political organizer, Vladimir Lenin, temporarily swung a majority of the delegates to his side, creating those who would be called Bolsheviks -- which in Russian means majority. Bolshevik's rivals among Russia's Social Democrats were called Menshiviks.