9
Yesterday all was well; yesterday there were inherited firmly established
relations between the employers and the workers. Now everything was changed and
the employers relentlessly threw out of employment tens and hundreds of these
workers. In response to this basic change in the conditions of their very existence the
workers reacted energetically. Endeavouring to get rid of these new conditions they
rebelled. It is obvious that their unmitigated hatred, their burning indignation should
at first have been directed against the visible symbol of this new and powerful
revolution, the machine, which to them personified all the misfortune, all the evils of
the new system. No wonder that at the beginning of the nineteenth century a series of
revolts of the workers directed against the machine and the new technical methods of
production took place. These revolts attained formidable proportions in England in
1815. (The weaving loom was finally perfected in 1813). About that time the
movement spread to all industrial centres. From a purely elemental force, it was soon
transformed into an organised resistance with appropriate slogans and efficient
leaders. This movement directed against the introduction of machinery is known in
history as the movement of the Luddites.
According to one version this name was derived from the name of a worker;
according to another, it is connected with a mythical general, Lud, whose name the
workers used in signing their proclamations.
The ruling classes, the dominant oligarchy, directed the most cruel
repressions against the Luddites. For the destruction of a machine as well as for an
attempt to injure a machine, a death penalty was imposed. Many a worker was sent
to the gallows.
There was a need for a higher degree of development of this workers'
movement and for more adequate revolutionary propaganda. The workers had to be
informed that the fault was not with the machines, but with the conditions under
which these machines were being used. A movement which was aiming to mould the
workers into a class-conscious revolutionary mass, able to cope with definite social
and political problems was just then beginning to show vigorous signs of life in
England. Leaving out details, we must note, however, that this movement of 1815-
1817 had its beginnings at the end of the eighteenth century. To understand,
however, the significance of it, we must turn to France; for without a thorough grasp
of the influence of the French Revolution, it will be difficult to understand the
beginnings of the English labour movement.
10
The French Revolution began in 1789, and reached its climax in 1793. From
1794, it began to diminish in force. This brought about, within a few years, the
establishment of Napoleon's military dictatorship. In 1799, Napoleon accomplished
his coup d'etat. After having been a Consul for five years, he proclaimed himself
Emperor and ruled over France up to 1815.
To the end of the eighteenth century, France was a country ruled by an
absolute monarch, not unlike that of Tsarist Russia. But the power was actually in the
hands of the nobility and the clergy, who, for monetary compensation of one kind or
another, sold a part of their influence to the growing financial-commercial
bourgeoisie. Under the influence of a strong revolutionary movement among the
masses of the people -- the petty producers, the peasants, the small and medium
tradesmen who had no privileges -- the French monarch was compelled to grant
some concessions. He convoked the so-called Estates General. In the struggle
between two distinct social groups -- the city poor and the privileged classes -- power
fell into the hands of the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie and the Paris workers. This
was on August 10, 1792. This domination expressed itself in the rule of the Jacobins
headed by Robespierre and Marat, and one may also add the name of Danton. For
two years France was in the hands of the insurgent people. In the vanguard stood
revolutionary Paris. The Jacobins, as representatives of the petty bourgeoisie,
pressed the demands of their class to their logical conclusions. The leaders, Marat,
Robespierre and Danton, were petty-bourgeois democrats who had taken upon
themselves the solution of the problem which confronted the entire bourgeoisie, that
is, the purging of France of all the remnants of the feudal regime, the creating of free
political conditions under which private property would continue unhampered and
under which small proprietors would not be hindered from receiving reasonable
incomes through honest exploitation of others. In this strife for the creation of new
political conditions and the struggle against feudalism, in this conflict with the
aristocracy and with a united Eastern Europe which was attacking France, the
Jacobins -- Robespierre and Marat -- performed the part of revolutionary leaders. In
their fight against all of Europe they had to resort to revolutionary propaganda. To
hurl the strength of the populace, the mass, against the strength of the feudal lords
and the kings, they brought into play the slogan: "War to the palace, peace to the
cottage." On their banners they inscribed the slogan: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."
11
These first conquests of the French Revolution were reflected in the Rhine
province. There, too, Jacobin societies were formed. Many Germans went as
volunteers into the French army. In Paris some of them took part in all the
revolutionary associations. During all this time the Rhine province was greatly
influenced by the French Revolution, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
the younger generation was still brought up under the potent influence of the heroic
traditions of the Revolution. Even Napoleon, who was a usurper, was obliged, in his
war against the old monarchical and feudal Europe, to lean upon the basic victories
of the French Revolution, for the very reason that he was a usurper, the foe of the
feudal regime. He commenced his military career in the revolutionary army. The vast
mass of the French soldiers, ragged and poorly armed, fought the superior Prussian
forces, and defeated them. They won by their enthusiasm, their numbers. They won
because before shooting bullets they hurled manifestoes, thus demoralising and
disintegrating the enemy's armies. Nor did Napoleon in his campaigns shun
revolutionary propaganda. He knew quite well that cannon was a splendid means,
but he never, to the last days of his life, disdained the weapon of revolutionary
propaganda -- the weapon that disintegrates so efficiently the armies of the
adversary.
The influence of the French Revolution spread further East; it even reached
St. Petersburg. At the news of the fall of the Bastille, people embraced and kissed one
another even there.
There was already in Russia a small group of people who reacted quite
intelligently to the events of the French Revolution, the outstanding figure being
Radishchev. This influence was more or less felt in all European countries; even in
that very England which stood at the head of nearly all the coalition armies directed
against France. It was strongly felt not only by the petty-bourgeois elements but also
by the then numerous labouring population which came into being as a result of the
Industrial Revolution. In the years 1791 and 1792 the Corresponding Society, the first
English revolutionary labour organisation, made its appearance. It assumed such an
innocuous name merely to circumvent the English laws which prohibited any society
from entering into organisational connections with societies in other towns.
By the end of the eighteenth century, England had a constitutional
government. She already had known two revolutions -- one in the middle, the other
at the end, of the seventeenth century. [1642 and 1688] She was regarded as the
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