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).
