Labor movement

Lenin gave a speech at the Putílov factory in May 1919. Picture of Isaak Brodski, Museum of History of Moscow.

Demonstration of the workers of the Shipyards of Cartagena in (1907)

The labor movement, also known as obrerismo, is a political movement in which salaried workers associate, temporarily or permanently, for professional or political purposes, but always based on his worker nature, that is, his condition as "a person who sells his labor power to another, called a capitalist, who owns the means of production and who is also the owner of the goods produced".

Origins of the labor movement in the Industrial Revolution

British weavers, ancient craftsmen, organized themselves into guilds or sororities modeled on medieval guilds. These guilds brought together workers who came together to help each other, like the Tolpuddle martyrs. Although this movement did not question industrialization, but rather demanded improvements in working conditions, the first manifestations of the labor movement took the form of Luddism: the destruction of machines, which were blamed for the loss of purchasing power of small artisans..

The first organizational form of the labor movement is called societarism, since it was based on the formation of worker societies of two types: mutual aid societies and resistance societies, so called because their purpose was "resist" to capitalism.

The reaction of the British government was to prohibit any type of labor association (Combination Acts). Part of the history of the labor movement has been marked by persecution and secrecy.

In the first decades of industrialization there was a deterioration in the living conditions of workers:

• Increase in the working day.
• Wage loss.
• Generalization of child and female work.
• Denying economic aid for diseases, forced unemployment or old age.

For all this, unions were created in which people working in the same trade met to defend their demands through strikes. They constituted mutual aid societies, which had common funds with capital coming from the membership fees.

In 1834 the Great Trade Union was formed in which membership fees for potential new members were too high.

British trade unionism originally opted for economic demands, without adhering to revolutionary political ideals.

During the 1830s and 1840s, workers' associations were founded in countries on the European continent, including Germany, France, Spain, and Belgium.

This labor movement manifested itself in most industrialized countries through other organizations, eg cooperatives.

In the years 1838 and 1848, the British labor movement took political action using Chartism (it consisted of a movement in England that tried to put pressure on Parliament by collecting signatures in support of certain letters where certain rights were claimed In one of them, specifically in the year 1838, a democratic program based on universal male suffrage was defined). Chartism organized strikes, but the movement failed due to repression, internal divisions and the defeat of the 1848 revolution in Europe.

Later, between 1850 and 1880, there is the rise of modern national and industrialized states such as Italy, Germany and France. Within this period the most important characteristics of the second half of the XIX century as regards the labor movement take place: in the first place the scientific socialism of Marx and Engels, thus giving the necessary theoretical foundation at times when modern Parliaments arise in the different capitalist countries of Europe. In relation to this, the socialist doctrines began to create class parties, (of an exclusively worker character) with the name of the Social Democratic Party (with personalities such as Kautsky in Germany in 1890 or Lenin in Russia in 1900).

At this time the workers met in bourgeois-republican or revolutionary Marxist organizations in order to achieve universal male suffrage in the first instance, leaving the mass struggle relegated in the second instance. However, the workers' union at the national level through political struggles had to be channeled within an international plane: that is the birth of the International Workers' Association (AIT), the first international.

First International

The International Workers Association (AIT) or First International, was the first major organization that tried to unite workers from different countries.

Founded in London in 1864, it initially brought together British syndicalists, French anarchists and socialists, and Italian republicans. Its aims were the political organization of the proletariat in Europe and the rest of the world, as well as a forum to examine common problems and propose lines of action. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels collaborated on it. The great tensions existing between Marx and Mikhail Bakunin generated in the Paris Commune of 1871 led to the split between Marxists and anarchists around the question of the seizure of power.

In 1872 the General Council of the AIT moved from London (where it was located since its inception) to New York, as a product of the counterrevolutionary reaction of Europe to the defeat of the Paris Commune. The main actions of this were the seizure of power in Paris by the workers, that every deputy receives the same as a worker, separation of the church from the State, abolition of the army replaced by urban militias, etc. Finally, the AIT was officially dissolved in 1876.

Second International

In 1889 (in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution) the Second International was established, of a social democratic nature, as the successor in its political purposes, and which would last until 1916.

When it was founded and as a result of the differences between Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin, among other factors, the division of the majority of the labor movement into Marxists and anarchists took place and the consequent expulsion of the Second International of the latter by of the firsts. So the International of Saint-Imier International anarchist is formed.

With imperialism and the arrival of the Great War, patriotic fervor flooded the popular classes and only a few from within the International, like the socialist Jean Jaurès, raised their voices to oppose the conflict. On the other hand, the triumph of the Russian revolution inaugurated a new way of understanding the coming to power, the Marxist-Leninist one. With the arrival of communism in Russia, therefore, the communist secession that founded the Third International (also called the Communist International or Comintern) led by Lenin after the Russian revolution in order to direct the communist parties of all the countries took place in 1918. the world.

Later on, however, the bureaucratization of the Russian workers' state and the Comintern from Stalin's leadership in power between 1924 and 1953 led to the need to found a new International to lead the revolutionary parties. The fourth communist international founded by Leon Trotsky (1879 - 1940) is born.

Third International

Created by Lenin (1920) following Marx's line, the Third International brought together communist parties from all over the world with the purpose of consolidating ties between workers in different countries. He was in the service of the Soviet Union in Moscow. It was dissolved in 1989.

Fourth International

The Fourth International is an international organization of communist parties that follow the ideas of Leon Trotsky, who was also its main leader. It was established at a congress of delegates in Perigny (Paris) on September 3, 1938, where the Transition Program was approved.

Fighting methods

• Ludismo
• Cartism
• Social dialogue
• Collective bargaining
• Civilian resistance
• Civil disobedience
• Correspondence societies
• Trade unionism
• Manifestations
• Labour strikes
• Revolution

International Workers' Day

International day of the working class is commemorated in memory of the anarchist workers murdered after the Haymarket revolt, Chicago, after fighting to demand the 8-hour working day, since it was May 1, 1886 when it began the General Strike in the United States for said demand. On May 1, unions and labor parties around the world hold rallies and demonstrations.

Concert or social peace

Today, democracies try to maintain social dialogue between the most representative trade unions and business organizations. There are critics who denounce that in this way they try to direct the economy to the benefit of employers, avoiding mobilizations or strikes, at the cost of wage containment, the extension of the working day or the reduction of workers' rights.