Revolution from Below: Rise of Organised Labour

Question 1

Preindustrial protest:

Answer 1

a) Prior to IR, protests were often but mostly took the form of peasant revolt
b) 2 common characteristics:
- spontaneous
- socially amorphous (lacked shape)
e. g. Russia and Habsburg Empire 1770s

Question 2

2causes of protest:
a) Marx/tilly
b)

Answer 2

a) Marx theory of alienation, changes to productive system often provoke resentment among workers, esp those who used to do skille work, changed to social geog made organisation possible
- Tilly: protest a result of the contradictions of capitalism: workers aimed to replace system that sustained their exploitation
b) Artisan Thesis: 90s, emphasised relative status of skilled workers and their disproportionate presense in disturbances. This suggests that class consciousness played little role in generating labour representations.
- Challenges Marx assumption that radicalism originated in material conditions.

Question 3

what form did modern industrial protest take?

Answer 3

• strikes: frequently organsied by nascent trade unions were common form of protest.

Question 4

Result of organised labour on politics?

Answer 4

RIse of Social Democracy (socialism)

• cause by intellectual and constitutional change
  a) Early socialist parties: British Labour Party 1900, Dutch social democratic league.

Question 5

Deradicalisation thesis

Answer 5

a) Why did organised labour movements endorse parliamentary reformism?
- Deradicalisation: argument that economic boom of 1880s diluted revolutionary consciousness of the proleteriat. (working class ppl who had nothing had to work to live)

Question 6

Conclusions to organised labour movements

Answer 6

• industrialisation not uniform process
• differing explanations for rise of organised labour
  General changes in the nature of protest can be identified:
• food riots -> Strike
• spontaneous -> organised/class-based
  -Local: national and parliamentary.