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Between Class War on All Fronts and Anti-Political Autonomy: The Contested Place of Politics in the Working-Class Movements of Leipzig and Lyon during the Inter-War Years
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 December 2012
Abstract
This article investigates the contested boundaries of the political within the working-class movements in Leipzig and Lyon at the end of the Weimar Republic and during the Popular Front. What the appropriate issues and places of politics should be was a question that was highly contested among the organisations of the local working-class movements in both cities. The article argues that an over-politicisation of the left-proletarian milieu in Leipzig contributed to the working-class movement's failure successfully to mobilise against the Nazis, while the dynamics of politicisation in Lyon helped the formation of the Popular Front in Lyon, but then contributed to its rapid collapse.
La lutte des classes sur tous les fronts et l'autonomie antipolitique: le débat sur la place de la politique dans les mouvements de la classe ouvrière à leipzig et à lyon entre les deux guerres
Cet article examine le débat concernant les limites de la politique au sein des mouvements prolétaires à Leipzig et à Lyon à la fin de la république de Weimar et pendant le Front Populaire. Au sein des organisations ouvrières dans ces deux villes, la portée et la place de la politique faisaient l'objet de fortes contestations. L'article soutient d'une part que l'échec de la mobilisation ouvrière contre les Nazis à Leipzig était dû en partie à un excès de politisation du milieu prolétarien de gauche, et d'autre part que la dynamique de politisation à Lyon contribua non seulement à la formation du Front Populaire, mais aussi à son effondrement rapide.
Zwischen klassenkampf an allen fronten und politikfeindlicher autonomie: die umstrittene rolle der politik in den arbeiterbewegungen in leipzig und lyon während der zwischenkriegszeit
Der Aufsatz befasst sich vergleichend mit den umkämpften Grenzen des Politischen in der Arbeiterbewegung in Leipzig und Lyon gegen Ende der Weimarer Republik beziehungsweise während der französischen Volksfront. Was Gegenstand von Politik sein sollte und wo diese stattfinden sollte, war zwischen den Organisationen der Arbeiterbewegung in beiden Städten heftig umstritten. Der Aufsatz argumentiert, dass die Überpolitisierung des links-proletarischen Milieus in Leipzig zu einer Schwächung der Arbeiterbewegung im Kampf gegen den Nationalsozialismus führte, während Dynamiken der Politisierung in Lyon zunächst zur Formierung, dann aber auch zum schnellen Ende der Volksfront beitrugen.
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References
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37 SAZ, 27 Oct. 1930.
38 See, for example, the article ‘Politics of the Street’ (‘Politik der Straße’), in the bourgeois Neue Leipziger Zeitung, 23 Oct. 1932.
39 SStAL, PP-S 926. Interestingly, the police, too, qualified the incident as political.
40 LVZ, 3 Jan. 1930. See also LVZ, 11 Jan. 1930, calling communist rioters [Radaubrüder], suggesting that they had nothing but ruckus in mind.
41 LVZ, 16 June 1930.
42 For the murder, see SStAL, PP-St 7, Bl. 153, PP-S 268.
43 LVZ, 3 July 1931.
44 LVZ, 7 Jan. 1931. On the ‘Cowboys and Indian’ games, see Dobson, Sean, Authority and Upheaval in Leipzig, 1910–1920: The Story of a Relationship (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001)Google Scholar, 55f.
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47 See, for one example, SStAL, PP-S 383.
48 See for the entire incident and all quotes, SStAL PP-S 1451. The police file does not specify what precisely the accusations of the denunciation were about and how this was political.
49 For a similar incident, see SStAL, PP-S 7024/32.
50 For more information on the Benz family, see SStAL, PP-S 125.
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55 See, for example, Bundesarchiv (BArch), RY 1 I/3/8–10/156, Bl. 57f, et passim.
56 See, for the entire conflict within the soccer league, Gellert, Kampf. See in this context also Mallmann, Kommunisten, 166–81. He stresses that many communist members of the associations valued their leisure-time activities higher than politics. See finally, for two other conflicts, Sportmuseum Leipzig, Archivstücke Nr. 3152d and 3156.
57 See Adam, Arbeitermilieu, 126–30.
58 Gellert, Kampf, 6.
59 SAZ, 28 Oct. 1929.
60 Gellert, Kampf, 18.
61 Ibid., 18–22.
62 BArch, RY 1 I/3/8–10/156, Bl. 3.
63 BArch, RY 1 I/3/10/116, Bl. 678ff.
64 Lösche and Walter, ‘Organisationskultur’, 525f. I disagree with their claim that the associations remained a locus of social democratic politics.
65 See, for example, Sportmuseum Leipzig, Archivstücke Nr. 157, Nr. 2038. In a circular letter of March 1933, Gellert warned that communists would try to join the sports associations. ‘Take care of the purity of the movement!’ Generally speaking, communist material in the Sportmuseum focuses mostly on party political issues, in particular attacking social democracy, while social democratic material focuses on issues related to sports, such as instructions for training. Only rarely, for example, before elections, did the ATSB encourage its members to vote for the SPD.
66 SStAL, PP-St 26, Bl. 33.
67 On the failure of factory cells, see Eumann, Ulrich, Eigenwillige Kohorten der Revolution: Zur regionalen Sozialgeschichte des Kommunismus in der Weimarer Republik (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2007), 97–128, 258–76Google Scholar; Mallmann, Kommunisten, 306–12. Specifically for Leipzig, see BArch, RY 1/ I 3/8–10/154.
68 On factory council elections, see Zollitsch, Wolfgang, Arbeiter zwischen Weltwirtschaftskrise und Nationalsozialismus: Ein Beitrag zur Sozialgeschichte der Jahre 1928 bis 1936 (Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft, 88, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In contrast to Zollitsch, however, I would stress the importance of politics during factory council elections.
69 The Oppositional Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei (Opposition), KPO) was formed in 1928 by communists critical of the leftist turn the KPD made and the party's new strategy of breaking radically with social democracy. On the KPO, see Bergmann, Theodor, Gegen den Strom: Die Geschichte der Kommunistischen-Partei-Opposition (Hamburg: VSA-Verlag, 1987)Google Scholar.
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72 LVZ, 1 Aug. 1929.
73 SAZ, 3 Aug. 1929.
74 StAL, Kap. 70 Nr. 214 Bd. 6.
75 BArch, RY 1 I/3/10/114.
76 See in this context on the collaboration between national socialists and communists during the public transportation strike in Berlin at the same time, Röhl, Klaus Rainer, Nähe zum Gegner: Kommunisten und Nationalsozialisten im Berliner BVG-Streik von 1932 (Frankfurt/Main: Campus Verlag, 1994)Google Scholar. See further Fischer, Conan, ‘Class Enemies or Class Brothers? Communist-Nazi Relations in Germany, 1929–1933’, European History Quarterly, 15 (1985), 259–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, Timothy S., Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists between Authenticity and Performance (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009)Google Scholar.
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78 See, for example, SStAL, PP-St 82, Bl. 126ff. On communist attempts to organise the unemployed, see also Crew, Germans on Welfare, 200–3.
79 LVZ, 20 Feb. 1930. Communists snatched the pamphlets away from their social democratic opponents and tore them apart.
80 LVZ, 16 Jan. 1930.
81 On the welfare system in Leipzig, see Brandmann, Paul, Leipzig zwischen Klassenkampf und Sozialreform: Kommunale Wohlfahrtspolitik zwischen 1890 und 1929 (Geschichte und Politik in Sachsen, 5, Cologne: Böhlau, 1998)Google Scholar.
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83 LVZ, 2 Aug. 1930.
84 SAZ, 10 Dec. 1930.
85 LVZ, 17 Sept. 1931.
86 It is difficult to find exact numbers on the two parties’ strength in Lyon before 1934. In 1935, an internal party report claimed 1,760 members. Numbers before the emergence of the Popular Front must have been significantly lower. By 1932, the KPD in Leipzig had 6,634 members, see Vogel, Parteibezirk, 728f. In contrast to Leipzig, where both the SPD and KPD published a daily newspaper, the parties in Lyon published only fairly brief weeklies, and publication of these frequently ceased due to financial problems.
87 During the early 1920s, construction workers’ unions were deeply shattered by political conflicts, see Ochandiano, ‘Formes syndicales’, 36–45. See also Boris Ratel, ‘L'Anarcho-Syndicalisme dans le bâtiment en France entre 1919 et 1939’ (Masters’ dissertation, Paris I, 2000), Part A.
88 This idea of ‘direct interests’ also explains the notion of ‘action directe’, which included all forms of ‘direct’ struggles with employers, both violent and non-violent, see Ratel, ‘L'Anarcho-Syndicalisme’, 75f.
89 See, for example, Ridley, Syndicalism.
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91 See the multiple ideological debates in L'Effort, the newspaper of the Cartel Autonome, and Le Travail, the newspaper of the Communist Party in Lyon, both available at the Archives départementales du Rhône (ADR), PER 307/308, and PER 358.
92 See ADR 10/M/465 and 466. See also the rhetorical battles in Le Travail and L'Effort, 1929–1932, both available at the ADR.
93 On strikes, see Ochandiano, ‘Formes syndicales’, 115–31. See also ADR 10/M/465 – 468. On strikes in the construction trade outside of Lyon, see Ratel, ‘L'Anarcho-Syndicalisme’, 181–9.
94 See for those practices Ochandiano, ‘Formes syndicales’, 74–85.
95 Le Travail, 19 Jan. 1929.
96 ADR 10/M/466. It is probably not by accident that communists in both Leipzig and Lyon were particularly strong in publicly owned transportation companies.
97 Archives départementales Seine-Saint-Denis (AD SSD), 3 Mi 6/62 Séquence 412.
98 There are, as far as I can see, simply no sources suggesting conflicts about the politicisation of such places, nor sources indicating that these places were used for political agitation.
99 L'Effort, 23 Sept. 1933.
100 La Voix du Peuple, 30 Sept. 1933. (La Voix du Peuple was a communist newspaper that had replaced Le Travail.)
101 On the riots in Paris, see most recently Millington, Chris, ‘February 6, 1934: The Veterans’ Riot’, French Historical Studies, 33 (2010), 545–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the events in Lyon, see ADR 4/M/235 and 10/M/470, and Lyon Républicain, 8–12 Feb. 1934; La Voix du Peuple, 10 and 17 Feb. 1934; and L'Avenir Socialiste, 10 and 17 Feb. 1934.
102 For Lyon, see in general Fauvet-Messat, ‘Extrême droite et antifascime’; Moissonnier, Maurice, ‘1934: Six Mois de Lutte Ouvrière à Lyon’, Cahiers CGT d'Histoire Sociale, 36 (1996), 4–14Google Scholar. For France, see Prost, Antoine, ‘Les manifestations du 12 février 1934 en province’, Le Mouvement social, 54 (1966), 532–45Google Scholar.
103 See, in addition to the sources quoted above, Moissonnier, Mouvement ouvrier, vol. 1, 226–36. Whether autonomous construction workers participated remains unclear. They did, however, massively participate in anti-fascist demonstrations that took place during the preceding days.
104 See, for example, La Voix du Peuple, 31. Mar. 1934, and Moissonnier, Mouvement ouvrier, vol. 1, 249.
105 See Fauvet-Messat, ‘Extrême droite et antifascime’, 176f.
106 See ibid., 160–4.
107 See in this context Tartakowsky, Danielle, ‘Stratégies de la rue 1934–1936’, Le Mouvement social, 135 (1986), 31–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Les manifestations de rue en France, 1918–1968 (Histoire de la France aux XIXe et XXe siècles, 42, Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1998), Chs 9–16.
108 See, for example, Noiriel, Workers, Ch. 5; Boulouque, Sylvain, ‘Les unitaires, le Front populaire et l'unité syndicale: mutations sociales, actions collectives et pragmatisme partisan’, in Morin, Gilles and Richard, Gilles, eds, Les deux France du Front populaire: Chocs et contre-chocs (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2008), 157–65Google Scholar.
109 See AD SSD 3 M I 6/117, Séquence 743.
110 On the elections, see Moissonnier, Mouvement ouvrier, vol 1, 339–61; for the numbers, 357, fn. 128. See also AD SSD 3 M I 6/117, Séquence 743.
111 See Ochandiano, ‘Formes syndicales’, 152–4, 166–9. See also ADR 10/M/471.
112 Construction site delegates, for example, who had not had any legal protection before 1936 and had hence to rely on the support of their fellow workers, received legal protection after 1936, which made the support of their fellow workers less important. In fact, some (younger) workers regarded them as a new form of ‘government’, the police remarked, see ADR 4/M/236.
113 Nationwide, the PCF gained seventy-two seats (previously: eleven); in Lyon, they gained two seats (previously none). For Lyon, see ADR, 4/M/236, and Jérémy Faure, ‘Le Front Populaire à Lyon et autour de Lyon: Evénements, Images et Représentations (Avril – Juillet 1936)’, Mémoire de Maîtrise, Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Lyon, 1998, 32.
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116 See, for example, ADR 4/M/236, report of 20 Aug. 1937. See further Ochandiano, ‘Formes syndicales’, 167; Prost, Front populaire, 110.
117 Lyon Républicain, 7 July 1937, quoted in Ochandiano, ‘Formes syndicales’, 165.
118 On the new forms of regulated labour arbitration, see Weber, Sozialpartnerschaft, 1037–64.
119 Fau, Albert, Maçons au pied du mur: Chronique de 30 années d'action syndicale (Montreuil: Fédération Nationale des Travailleurs de la Construction CGT, 1989), 234fGoogle Scholar.
120 Weber, Sozialpartnerschaft, 1074f.
121 Lyon Républicain, 30 Nov./1 Dec. 1938. La Voix du Peuple, 3 Dec. 1938, claimed that between 70 and 75% of the workforce participated in the strike, while the police reported some 22%, see ADR 4/M/236. See also Mann, Keith, Forging Political Identities: Silk and Metal Workers in Lyon, 1900–1939 (International Studies in Social History, 16, New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 241fGoogle Scholar.
122 Wickham, James, ‘Social Fascism and the Division of the Working Class Movement: Workers and Political Parties in the Frankfurt Area 1928–30’, Capital and Class, 7 (1979), 1–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also idem, ‘Working-Class Movement and Working-Class Life: Frankfurt am Main during the Weimar Republic’, Social History, 8 (1983), 315–43. It is telling that Wickham pays little attention to the violence between communists and national socialists. For a related argument concerning leftist campaigns in favour of legalising abortions, see Grossmann, Atina, ‘Abortion and Economic Crisis: The 1931 Campaign against §218 in Germany’, New German Critique, 14 (1978), 119–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.