PHASES OF THE GERMAN SOCIALIST LABOR MOVEMENT

PHASES OF THE GERMAN SOCIALIST LABOR MOVEMENT

1. Primitive/heroic (until 1890): The movement suffers repression; strikes are often acts of desperation, sometimes erupt in violence, and often fail.

2. “Negative integration” into society (1890-1914): The movement is tolerated and develops a skilled cadre of paid functionaries and a huge network of newspapers, workers’ libraries, consumers’ cooperatives, etc. Trade unions develop large strike chests, time their strikes carefully, and often achieve success. Socialists are still excluded, however, from any share of political power.

3. Schism during World War I between democratic socialists who pursue “positive integration” and communists pursuing the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

DISTRIBUTION OF THE GERMAN POPULATION BY SIZE OF MUNICIPALITY

Census Year

Under 2000

2-20,000

20-100,00

0

Over 100,00

0

1871 63.9% 23.6% 7.7% 4.8%

1880 58.6% 25.3% 8.9% 7.2%

1890 53.0% 26.3% 9.3% 11.4%

1900 45.7% 25.5% 12.6% 16.2%

1910 40.0% 25.3% 13.4% 21.3%

1925 36.0% 23.6% 13.6% 26.8%Germany crossed the threshold from a predominantly agricultural to a predominantly small town and urban society in the 1890s….

THE GROWTH OF THE “PROLETARIAT”

Occupational status

1882 1907 1925

Self-employed 28% 20% 17%

Family helpers* 10% 15% 17%

White-collar worker**

6% 10% 17%

Blue-collar worker 56% 55% 49%

100% 100% 100%

Total labor force(in millions) 19.0 28.1 32.0

* Mostly wives working in their husbands’ farm or small business.** Workers paid a monthly salary, not hourly wages, including clerks, salespeople, technical employees, and foremen.

FOLLOWING THE “GREAT DEPRESSION” A “SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION” BEGAN IN THE MID

1890s

The Siemens Corporation and German General Electric

began to electrify the country, while the automobile and

petrochemical industries were born….

BUT REAL WAGES STAGNATED:Average rate of annual increase of nominal wages for

workers, real wages, and the cost of living

1883-1899 1899-1913

N.W. R.W. COL N.W. R.W. COL

Germany 2.0% 1.9% 0.1% 2.2% 0.5%

1.7%

Great Britain 0.9% 2.0% -1.1% 0.9% 1.3%

-0.3%

France 0.8% 1.6% 0.9% 0.9% 1.0%

-0.1%

USA 0.7% 1.8% -1.2% 2.3% 1.3%

1.1%The food tariff increases of 1892 and 1902 depressed the living standard of German workers. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Band III: 1849-1914 (Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck, 1995), p. 777.

WEEKLY CONSUMPTION OF CERTAINFOODS BY WORKING-CLASS FAMILIES IN

1905

Food Unit United Kingdo

m

France Germany

Sugar Lbs. 5.5 1.75 2.0

Eggs No. 12 10 10

Cheese Lbs. 0.75 0.0 0.5

Butter Lbs. 2.0 1.25 1.25

Potatoes Lbs. 17.0 16.0 26.0

Bread Lbs. 22.0 29.0 25.0

Milk Quarts 5.0 4.0 6.5

Meat Lbs. 6.5 6.0 3.8

Johann Bahr, “Accident in a Machine Factory” (ca. 1890)

The AEG small motors factory, Berlin, 1908: The growth of large-scale enterprise created a true industrial proletariat

The AEG adding machine factory, Berlin, 1908:Women still comprised just 16% of the industrial work

force and showed less interest than men in trade unions

HOURLY WAGES OF GERMAN SKILLED AND

UNSKILLED WORKERS IN 1913 (PENNIES)

Skilled workers

Unskilled workers

Differential (b as % of

a)

Mining 81.1 35.9 44.3%

Metal Industry 66.2 42.5 64.2%

Construction 70.5 55.7 79.0%

Printing 61.0 48.5 79.5%

Chemical Industry

57.0 46.0 80.7%

Textile Industry 44.7 34.6 77.5%Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin discerned the rise of a “labor aristocracy” in the coal mines, steel mills, and metalworking factories….

Pickets before a mine entrance during the Ruhr coal miners strike of 1905, when

the miners were united.

In 1912 Ruhr miners read a government decree authorizing the police to open fire on picketers

Unions and strikes remained illegal for government employees (such as these railway workers), servants, and

farmworkers

A working-class neighborhood in Berlin with its “Rent Barracks” [Mietskasernen]

A working-class tenement house,

Berlin, 1909

Street scene in a working-class neighborhood, Berlin, ca. 1903

RULES POSTED AT THE ENTRANCE OF A RESPECTABLE BERLIN HOUSE IN 1900

“Servants and delivery boys may only use the outside stairs.”

“Main stairway only for ladies and gentlemen.”

“Begging and peddling forbidden.”

An old iron forge, now a dormitory for unmarried workers

(Berlin, 1906)

A working-class kitchen, Berlin, 1907

Working-class children, on their own (Berlin, 1912)

The Prussian Drill Instructor (1885):“Remember, you

came here as civilians, but you

will leave as MEN.”

(See Blackbourn, 285-88)

“The People in Arms”

(SPD, 1896)

“The German loves the uniform,

The saber and the gun,

The spiked helmet is the norm,

That’s how we have our fun.”

“The judge, the prosecutor,

The banker’s son and pastor,

They all take the floor

As a martial arts master.”

In 1906 the cobbler Wilhelm Voigt disguised himself as a

Guards captain, showed forged orders to a squad of soldiers,

invaded the City Hall of Köpenick, arrested the mayor,

and confiscated 4,000 gold marks in the city treasury “for reasons of national security.”

Anton von Werner, “The 70th Birthday of Commercial

Counsellor Valentin Manheimer” (1887):Was this the dream of most proletarians?

Ludwig Knaus,“The Malcontent”(aka, “The Social Democrat,” 1877)

Robert Koehler,

“The Socialist” (1885, finished

in the USA)

Jens Birkholm, “Gospel of the Poor” (1900)