WAYS OF TRANSFORMING SOCIETY IN THE HISTORICAL LESSONS OF THE LASSALLEAN AND EISENACHER WORKERS’ TRADE MOVEMENT IN GERMANY (60-80S OF THE XIX CENTURY)

Abstract

The article, based on publications in the German Social Democratic press of the 1860s-80s and documentary materials on the history of the labor movement, including correspondence between the classics of Marxism and their party comrades, shows the evolution of the ideological views of the leaders of the Lassallean and Eisenach labor trade union movement and the leaders of German Social Democracy on the role of labor unions in the transformation of capitalist society. The origins of the labor movement in Germany can be found in the 1840s, when the “Central Society for Increasing the Welfare of the Working Classes” was founded in Berlin in 1844. An appeal was issued to all sympathizers of the working population, and even King Friedrich Wilhelm IV off ered 15,000 thalers in a personal rescript to improve the material and moral situation of artisans and factory workers. This initiative was met with distrust by the bureaucracy, the charter was approved by the king only in 1848, and the government transferred only half of the amount promised by the king [4, p. 11]. In Germany, there was no organized labor political and trade union movement before 1848. They were banned until the revolution of 1848. There were scattered workers’ organizations for social self-help in the form of insurance funds, funeral mutual aid funds, etc. In August-September 1848, under the infl uence of revolutionary events, an independent workers’ organization, the “General German Workers’ Brotherhood”, was created at a congress in Berlin under the leadership of the printer Stefan Born. Representatives of 32 workers’ unions from all over Germany participated in its creation. Soon, it included 230 district organizations and local unions, uniting journeymen and skilled workers, whose activities were based on the principle of self-help [10, p. 33, 34]. However, the fi eld of activity of trade unions is not limited to the principle of professional solidarity and mutual assistance. An equally important mission is assigned to educational activities among workers as an ideological strategy for preparing an irreconcilable class struggle. In the discourse of political attitudes of German Social Democracy, it is education that shows the worker that the capitalist production process reduces his labor force to the status of a commodity determined by the law of supply and demand with a tendency for his economic situation to worsen. Unity of action is important not only for the economic struggle, but also for the political liberation of the working class. An important task facing trade unions in Germany was to overcome the split among the workers. A. Bebel saw the fragmentation of the proletariat as the main reason for the insuffi cient growth of the number of German trade unions and considered trade unions a means of consciously uniting workers. It was trade unions that were considered as a school for the formation of class consciousness, where eff ective social practices of the struggle against the power of capital are mastered, which makes workers socialists. The article focuses on the thesis of the ideologists of German Social Democracy that trade unions help destroy dying capitalism and are “germ cells of a new society” (K. Gilman), where the organization of workers will serve as the basis for the economic construction of a fair social system. By getting involved in the process of production management, trade unions transform the tasks of today into the tasks of the future. If earlier trade unions were a means of education, then in the people’s state they become organizers of production. But who, after winning political power, should take over the disorganized economy? Perhaps the political power together with the offi cials? Some of the leaders of the German Social Democracy completely denied such a possibility of cooperation with the bureaucratic apparatus. But are the trade unions themselves capable of taking everything into their own hands and overcoming the bureaucratic barriers in production management? The polemics of the leaders of German Social Democracy on the relationship between the party and professional labor organizations, the importance of ideological, organizational and educational work of trade unions for the development and strengthening of the labor movement are presented and analyzed.