A labour revolt or worker's uprising is a period of civil unrest characterised by strong labour militancy and strike activity. The history of labour revolts often provides the historical basis for many advocates of Marxism, communism, socialism and anarchism, with many instances occurring around the world in both the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Canut Revolts in Lyons, France, were the first clearly defined worker uprisings of the Industrial Revolution.[ citation needed ] The First occurred in November 1831 and was followed by later revolts in 1834 and 1848. Following the closure of the national workshops after the 1848 revolution in Paris, there was an uprising in Paris involving 100,000 insurgents involved in a three-day battle with the army, volunteers and reserve forces.
The Paris Commune in France (1871) is hailed by both anarchists and Socialists as the first assumption of power by the working class,[ citation needed ] but controversy of the policies implemented in the Commune helped the split between the two groups.
The earliest revolts in the United States include the pockets of rebellion by slaves and servants acting together in actual uprisings or planned revolts throughout its colonial period. [1] For instance, there was the case of the 1712 incident where 23 slaves who killed nine whites in New York to avenge their harsh treatment. [1] Slaves have also joined farmers in several uprisings against the social system wherein royal authorities, proprietors, trading companies and large land owners were in charge. [2] One of the most dramatic was the uprising in the Royal colony of Virginia in 1676 led by Nathaniel Bacon against the corrupt royal governor, Sir William Berkeley. [1]
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the 1877 Shamokin Uprising occurred in the United States. [1] It is considered the bloodiest labor-management confrontation in U.S. history. [3] The uprising was in response to the railroad executives decision to cut wages and lay off employees due to the economic downturn caused by the panic of 1873. [4] The strike began in July 1877 when workers of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad blocked railway traffic after the company imposed a 10 percent pay cut. [3] It sparked similar movements among railroad workers everywhere and an estimated 100,000 workers joined the uprising nationwide. [5] The revolt included riots and destruction of railroad property and was met with violent crackdowns. These Revolts led to the progression of labour movements in the United States, therefore in return led to fairer wages, better working conditions, and the overall well being of workers.
The Battle of Blair Mountain in Logan County, West Virginia, U.S. (1921), was the largest organised armed uprising in American Labour History since the Civil War, [6] and had a major impact on labour legislation in the United States.[ citation needed ] The confrontation was so violent that the then President Warren Harding ordered the aerial bombing of entrenched miner positions. [6]
The Revolution of 1905 in led to the creation of the Saint Petersburg Soviet or worker's council which became the model for most Communist Revolutionary Activity.[ citation needed ] The Soviet was revived in the Russian Revolution and the model was repeated in the German Revolution of 1918–19, The Bavarian Soviet Republic and the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
Some revolutionary activity within the Eastern Bloc resembled Labour Revolts, such as the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Polish 1970 protests although many communists would dispute this as 'Counter-Revolutionary' activity.[ citation needed ]
A Red Clydeside was a period of labour and political militancy in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, between the 1910s and the 1930s. Most famously, this resulted in raising the red flag in the Battle of George Square.[ citation needed ]
Some observers claimed that the protests of 1968 were part of a "revolutionary wave",[ citation needed ] with much of the activity motivated by students.
Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the labor movement that, through industrial unionism, seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes, with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of production and the economy at large through social ownership. Developed in French labor unions during the late 19th century, syndicalist movements were most predominant amongst the socialist movement during the interwar period that preceded the outbreak of World War II.
In politics, a red flag is predominantly a symbol of left-wing politics, including socialism, communism, Marxism, labour movement, and anarchism. The originally empty or plain red flag has been associated with left-wing politics since the French Revolution (1789–1799).
The history of anarchism is ambiguous, primarily due to the ambiguity of anarchism itself. Scholars find it hard to define or agree on what anarchism means, which makes outlining its history difficult. There is a range of views on anarchism and its history. Some feel anarchism is a distinct, well-defined 19th and 20th century movement while others identify anarchist traits long before first civilisations existed.
The Kiev Arsenal January Uprising, sometimes simply called the January Uprising or the January Rebellion, was a Bolshevik-organized workers' armed revolt that started on January 29, 1918, at the Arsenal Factory in Kiev during the Soviet–Ukrainian War. The goal of the uprising was to sabotage the ongoing elections to the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly and to support the advancing Red Army.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, sometimes referred to as the Great Upheaval, began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) cut wages for the third time in a year. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was the first strike that spread across multiple states in the U.S. This strike finally ended 52 days later, after it was put down by unofficial militias, the National Guard, and federal troops. Because of economic problems and pressure on wages by the railroads, workers in numerous other cities, in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, into Illinois and Missouri, also went out on strike. An estimated 100 people were killed in the unrest across the country. In Martinsburg, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and other cities, workers burned down and destroyed both physical facilities and the rolling stock of the railroads—engines and railroad cars. Some locals feared that workers were rising in revolution such as the Paris Commune of 1871, while others joined their efforts against the railroads.
Anarchism in China was a strong intellectual force in the reform and revolutionary movements in the early 20th century. In the years before and just after the overthrow of the Qing dynasty Chinese anarchists insisted that a true revolution could not be political, replacing one government with another, but had to overthrow traditional culture and create new social practices, especially in the family. "Anarchism" was translated into Chinese as 無政府主義 literally, "the doctrine of no government."
Anarchism in Russia developed out of the populist and nihilist movements' dissatisfaction with the government reforms of the time.
The uprising of the Nghệ-Tĩnh soviets was the series of uprisings, strikes and demonstrations in 1930 and 1931 by Vietnamese peasants, workers, and intellectuals against the colonial French regime, the mandarinate, and landlords. Nghệ-Tĩnh is a compound name for the two central provinces, Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh, where the revolt mainly took place. Demonstrations expressed the general anger against French colonial policies such as heavy taxation and state monopolies on certain goods, as well as the corruption and perceived unfairness of local notables and mandarins. Demonstrators, while violent, were armed with little more than basic farm weapons, and were brutally suppressed by the overwhelming military strength of the French. The revolt waned by the second half of 1931 due to famine and suppression.
The Magonista rebellion of 1911 was an early uprising of the Mexican Revolution organized by the Liberal Party of Mexico, which was only successful in northern Baja California. It is named after Ricardo Flores Magón, one of the leaders of the PLM. The Magonistas controlled Tijuana and Mexicali for about six months, beginning with the liberation of Mexicali on January 29, 1911. The rebellion was launched against the rule of Porfirio Díaz but was put down by forces loyal to Francisco I. Madero. Acting on a tip from Madero's agents, leaders of the Magonista movement were arrested in the United States.
The Revolutions of 1917–1923 were a revolutionary wave that included political unrest and armed revolts around the world inspired by the success of the Russian Revolution and the disorder created by the aftermath of World War I. The uprisings were mainly socialist or anti-colonial in nature. Some socialist revolts failed to create lasting socialist states. The revolutions had lasting effects in shaping the future European political landscape, with for example the collapse of the German Empire and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary.
The Kronstadt rebellion was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors, naval infantry, and civilians against the Bolshevik government in the Russian port city of Kronstadt. Located on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland, Kronstadt defended the former capital city, Petrograd, as the base of the Baltic Fleet. For sixteen days in March 1921, rebels in Kronstadt's naval fortress rose in opposition to the Soviet government they had helped to consolidate. Led by Stepan Petrichenko, it was the last major revolt against Bolshevik rule on Russian territory during the Russian Civil War.
A workers' council, or labor council, is a type of council in a workplace or a locality made up of workers or of temporary and instantly revocable delegates elected by the workers in a locality's workplaces. In such a system of political and economic organization, the workers themselves are able to exercise decision-making power. Furthermore, the workers within each council decide on what their agenda is and what their needs are. The council communist Antonie Pannekoek describes shop-committees and sectional assemblies as the basis for workers' management of the industrial system. A variation is a soldiers' council, where soldiers direct a mutiny. Workers and soldiers have also operated councils in conjunction. Workers' councils may in turn elect delegates to central committees, such as the Congress of Soviets.
A general strike is a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen the bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large coalitions of political, social, and labour organizations and may also include rallies, marches, boycotts, civil disobedience, non-payment of taxes, and other forms of direct or indirect action. Additionally, general strikes might exclude care workers, such as teachers, doctors, and nurses.
The history of socialism has its origins in the Age of Enlightenment and the 1789 French Revolution along with the changes that it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-48 just before the Revolutions of 1848 swept Europe, expressing what they termed scientific socialism. In the last third of the 19th century parties dedicated to Democratic socialism arose in Europe, drawing mainly from Marxism. The Australian Labor Party was the world's first elected socialist party when it formed government in the Colony of Queensland for a week in 1899.
Iosif Solomonovich Bleikhman was a Belarusian Jewish anarchist communist revolutionary. He was the leader of the Petrograd Federation of Anarchist-Communists at the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, organising a series of demonstrations against the Russian Provisional Government that culminated in the July Days. Following the October Revolution, he also began to agitate against the new Bolshevik government, which resulted in him being arrested and sentenced to periods of penal labor a number of times. During one of these periods, he contracted tuberculosis, which he succumbed to shortly before the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921.
Anarchism in Guatemala emerged from the country's labor movement in the late 19th century. Anarcho-syndicalism rose to prominence in the early 20th century, reaching its peak during the 1920s, before being suppressed by the right-wing dictatorship of Jorge Ubico.
Anarchism in the Philippines has its roots in the anti-colonial struggle against the Spanish Empire, becoming influential in the Philippine Revolution and the country's early trade unionist movement. After being supplanted by Marxism-Leninism as the leading revolutionary tendency during the mid-20th century, it experienced a resurgence as part of the punk subculture, following the fragmentation of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Anarchism in Hungary emerged from the social democratic movement in the late 19th century, coming to play a prominent role in the anti-militarist movement during World War I and in the subsequent revolution that culminated in the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The anarchist movement was then repressed by the Horthy regime, before re-emerging as part of the anti-fascist resistance movement during World War II. This second wave of anarchism was also repressed, this time by the newly established communist regime. Anarchist ideas were briefly expressed during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but remained largely suppressed until the fall of socialism, which gave way to a third wave of anarchism in Hungary.
Anarchism in Latvia emerged from the Latvian National Awakening and saw its apex during the 1905 Russian Revolution. Eventually the Latvian anarchist movement was suppressed by a series of authoritarian regimes in the country.
