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freest country in the world. Although clubs and societies were allowed, not one of
them was permitted to unite with the other. To overcome this interdict those
societies, which were made up of workers, hit upon the following method: They
formed Corresponding Societies wherever it was possible -- associations which kept
up a constant correspondence among themselves. At the head of the London society
was the shoemaker, Thomas Hardy (1752-1832). He was a Scotchman of French
extraction. Hardy was indeed what his name implied. As organiser of this society he
attracted a multitude of workers, and arranged gatherings and meetings. Owing to
the corrosive effect of the Industrial Revolution on the old manufactory production,
the great majority of those who joined the societies were artisans -- shoemakers and
tailors. The tailor, Francis Place, should also be mentioned in this connection, for he,
too, was a part of the subsequent history of the labour movement in England. One
could mention a number of others, the majority of whom were handicraftsmen. But
the name of Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809), shoemaker, poet, publicist and orator,
who played an important role at the end of the eighteenth century, must be given.
In 1792, when France was declared a republic, this Corresponding Society
availed itself of the aid of the French ambassador in London and secretly dispatched
an address, in which it expressed its sympathy with the revolutionary convention.
This address, one of the first manifestations of international solidarity and sympathy,
made a profound impression upon the convention. It was a message from the masses
of England where the ruling classes had nothing but hatred for France. The
convention responded with a special resolution, and these relations between the
workers' Corresponding Societies and the French Jacobins were a pretext for the
English oligarchy to launch persecutions against these societies. A series of
prosecutions were instituted against Hardy and others.
The fear of losing its domination impelled the English oligarchy to resort to
drastic measures against the rising labour movement. Associations and societies
which heretofore had been a thoroughly legal method of organisation for the well-to-
do bourgeois elements, and which the handicraftsmen could not by law be prevented
from forming, were, in 1800, completely prohibited. The various workers' societies
which had been keeping in touch with each other were particularly persecuted. In
1799 the law specifically forbade all organisations of workers in England. From 1799
to 1824 the English working class was altogether deprived of the right of free
assembly and association.
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To return to 1815. The Luddite movement, whose sole purpose was the
destruction of the machine, was succeeded by a more conscious struggle. The new
revolutionary organisations were motivated by the determination to change the
political conditions under which the workers were forced to exist. Their first
demands included freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and freedom of the
press. The year 1817 was ushered in with a stubborn conflict which culminated in the
infamous "Manchester Massacre" of 1819. The massacre took place on St. Peter's
Field, and the English workers christened it the Battle of Peterloo. Enormous masses
of cavalry were moved against the workers, and the skirmish ended in the death of
several scores of people. Furthermore, new repressive measures, the so-called Six
Acts ("Gag Laws/index.htm"), were directed against the workers. As a result of these
persecutions, revolutionary strife became more intense. In 1824, with the
participation of Francis Place (1771-1854), who had left his revolutionary comrades
and succeeded in becoming a prosperous manufacturer, but who maintained his
relations with the radicals in the House of Commons, the English workers won the
famous Coalition Laws (1824-25) as a concession to the revolutionary movement.
The movement in favour of creating organisations and unions through which the
workers might defend themselves against the oppression of the employers, and
obtain better conditions for themselves, higher wages, etc., became lawful. This
marks the beginning of the English trade union movement. It also gave birth to
political societies which began the struggle for universal suffrage.
Meanwhile, in France, in 1815, Napoleon had suffered a crushing defeat, and
the Bourbon monarchy of Louis XVIII was established. The era of Restoration,
beginning at that time, lasted approximately fifteen years. Having attained the
throne through the aid of foreign intervention (Alexander I of Russia), Louis made a
number of concessions to the landlords who had suffered by the Revolution. The land
could not be restored to them, it remained with the peasants, but they were consoled
by a compensation of a billion francs. The royal power used all its strength in an
endeavour to arrest the development of new social and political relations. It tried to
rescind as many of the concessions to the bourgeoisie as it was forced to make.
Owing to this conflict between the liberals and the conservatives, the Bourbon
dynasty was forced to face a new revolution which broke out in July, 1830.
England which had towards the end of the eighteenth century reacted to the
French Revolution by stimulating the labour movement, experienced a new upheaval
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as a result of the July Revolution in France. There began an energetic movement for
a wider suffrage. According to the English laws, that right had been enjoyed by an
insignificant portion of the population, chiefly the big landowners, who not
infrequently had in their dominions depopulated boroughs with only two or three
electors ("Rotten Boroughs/index.htm"), and who, nevertheless, sent representatives
to Parliament.
The dominant parties, actually two factions of the landed aristocracy, the
Tories and the Whigs, were compelled to submit. The more liberal Whig Party, which
felt the need for compromise and electoral reforms, finally won over the conservative
Tories. The industrial bourgeoisie were granted the right to vote, but the workers
were left in the lurch. As answer to this treachery of the liberal bourgeoisie (the ex-
member of the Corresponding Society, Place, was a party to this treachery), there was
formed in 1836, after a number of unsuccessful attempts, the London Workingmen's
Association. This Society had a number of capable leaders. The most prominent
among them were William Lovett (1800-1877) and Henry Hetherington (1792-1849).
In 1837, Lovett and his comrades formulated the fundamental political demands of
the working class. They aspired to organise the workers into a separate political
party. They had in mind, however, not a definite working-class party which would
press its special programme as against the programme of all the other parties, but
one that would exercise as much influence, and play as great a part in the political life
of the country, as the other parties. In this bourgeois political milieu they wanted to
be the party of the working class. They had no definite aims, they did not propose any
special economic programme directed against the entire bourgeois society. One may
best understand this, if one recalls that in Australia and New Zealand there are such
labour parties, which do not aim at any fundamental changes in social conditions.
They are sometimes in close coalition with the bourgeois parties in order to insure
for labour a certain share of influence in the government.
The Charter, in which Lovett and his associates formulated the demands of
the workers, gave the name to this Chartist movement. The Chartists advanced six
demands: Universal suffrage, vote by secret ballot, parliaments elected annually,
payment of members of parliament, abolition of property qualifications for members
of parliament, and equalisation of electoral districts.
This movement began in 1837, when Marx was nineteen, and Engels
seventeen years old. It reached its height when Marx and Engels were mature men.
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