Volume 41 part 2 (August 1996)

Summaries

ANTHONY CAREW, Conflict Within the ICFTU: Anti-Communism and Anti-Colonialism in the 1950s
Formed as an anti-communist labour international, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) nevertheless experienced internal conflict over the appropriate approach to communism. The different perspectives of the two largest affiliates, the British TUC and the American AFL-CIO, caused disharmony and ultimately near organizational paralysis until it forced a change of leadership. Caught between these rival positions, the ICFTU secretariat's relations with the AFL-CIO were initially the most strained, but as the International extended its activity in Africa, in a bid to outflank communist organization among labour, relations with the TUC also deteriorated over the correct stance on nationalism and colonialism.

CHRISTOPH NONN, Putting Radicalism to the Test: German Social Democracy and the 1905 Suffrage Demonstrations in Dresden
Throughout the long debate on whether the workers' movement of Imperial Germany was predominantly radical or reformist in nature, little attention has been paid to attitudes at the grass-roots level. It is argued here that during the years of 1905-1906, when all Europe was witnessing turmoil and an intensification of social conflict, the German Social Democratic leadership deliberately put the radicalism of the masses to the test. The Dresden suffrage demonstrations of December 1905 were the first to end in violent clashes between participants and police. However, contrary to what has been written to date on this incident and those similar to it, the great majority of the demonstrators were not militant. But they did exhibit a remarkable readiness to engage in civil disobedience, which the Social Democrats could use to press the party's political aims.