A History of the European Working Class

It is the birth of the British working class. It takes over a century for these new workers to invent its own culture, organization and make social demands: regulation of child labor, wages, hours of work, freedom of association, right to strike and universaa suffrage. A new revolution is underway

Unlike England, France is carrying out a slow indistrial revolution, without large factories and without massive rural exodus. Yet it is there that the most radical socialist and revolutionary movements develop, and several revolutions make Europe tremble in the 19th cetury. All fail. Iit's in Germany where the first mass workers party adopt Marxism as an offical doctrine. But the revolution doesn't happen. The conditions of the workers slowly improve and a new image of the working class appears.

At the end of the 19th century, enlightened employers undertand that to produce better and faster, they must treat their workers well and feed them better. At the end of the 19th century, enlightened employers undertand that to produce better and faster, they must treat their workers well and feed them better. Line work develops after the first world war, and Taylorism gains ground after peace is restored. The Russian revolution gives hope to an entire generation of workers, but the attempts to take up arms are crushed by the ruling classes. Italian fascism ag German nazism take power by pretending in the name of the mythical "worker", but soon decalre the end of the class struggle.

In the 1930's, the working class seems very powerful. But again, it will be defeated. In Spain, Franco, in Germany, Hitler, in Italy, Mussolini, enslave Europe and the workers become pawns to do the dirty work. In the 1930's, the working class seems very powerful. But again, it will be defeated. In Spain, Franco, in Germany, Hitler, in Italy, Mussolini, enslave Europe and the workers become pawns to do the dirty work. After the war, the Soviet block deprive workers of trade unions and the right to strike, while claiming to represent them. In the West, the working conditions get better, in the purest Fordist tradition. Today deindustrialization has caused mass unemployment and social misery. We talk of the disappearance of the working class.