Trade Unions, Anarchism and Marxism

6.2. Workers

- Factory workers formed the industrial and urban proletariat. It was a very numerous and disadvantaged group.

-In the beginning there was no legislation which established the conditions of employment of workers.

- As a result, conditions of life and work seemed harsh: a working day was 12 to 14 hours long and with an insufficient remuneration.

6.3. The first workers' associations

- The first reaction of the workers was their opposition to mechanisation.

-Their protests were directed towards the destruction of machinery and the burning of industrial establishments.

- Meanwhile, some sectors of workers realized they were part of the same social class, with the same problems. To defend their interests, they created workers' organizations called, Trade Unions: a union formed by workers of various trades.

7. A MARXISM, ANARCHISM AND INTERNATIONALISM

7.1. Marxism and socialism

- In the middle of the nineteenth century, Marx and Engels denounced the exploitation of the working class and defended the need for a workers' revolution to destroy capitalism.

- The end of private property would bring to the gradual disappearance of classes in order to achieve the ideal communist society that is to say classless society.

- From the last third of the nineteenth century, Marxists proposed the creation of socialist labour parties.

7.2. Anarchism

- Anarchism thinkers (Proudhon, Bakunin, ...) who had in common three basic principles:

• The exaltation of individual freedom and social solidarity.

• The criticised the private property and the advocated forms of collective ownership.

• The rejection of authority, mainly the state.

• They defended the revolutionary action of the workers and peasants to destroy the state and create a collectivist and egalitarian society.

7.3. Internationalism

- Marxists and anarchists advocated the need to unite the efforts of the working class all around the world to fight against capitalism.

- On Marx's initiative, in 1864, the International Workers Association (TIA) was created which will united marxists, anarchists and trade unionists.

- After the differences and internal clashes in the AIT in 1889, some Socialist leaders founded in Paris the Second International (International Socialist).