Workers Against Work: Labor in Paris and Barcelona during the Popular Fronts

by Michael Seidman

Why did a revolution occur in Spain and not in France in 1936? This is the key question Michael Seidman explores in his important new study of the relations between industrial capitalists and working-class movements in the early part of this century. In a comparative analysis of Paris during the Popular Front and Barcelona during the Spanish Revolution, Seidman examines the strengths and weaknesses of the bourgeoisie in these two cities and traces workers' resistance to, and acceptance of, work. His emphasis on the continuing refusal to work challenges the dominant views of labor historiography and contributes to a general theory of revolutionary workers' control.

Seidman illuminates three crucial issues that have broad implications for the history of the twentieth century. His comparative approach delineates the nature of class confrontation in societies with different kinds of bourgeoisies or capitalist elites. He also shows how the differences between these elites affected the labor movements in France and Spain, and he demonstrates how rank-and-file workers actually responded to the revolutionary situation in Barcelona and to the advent of the reformist government in Paris.

A social history of acceptance and rejection of work, this book offers a new conceptualization of wage earners and a critique of work itself.

Genres: History, Politics, Labor, Nonfiction

384 pages, Hardcover

First published November 27, 1990

Reviews

[Stevphen Shukaitis · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Weir has something of a throwaway line in his book "Anarchy & Culture" about (1997:34) about anarchism functioning as a proxy Protestant reformation in Spain. I always that was quite witty, although perhaps a bit too so, as it makes thing a bit too neat and tidy. While I won't say this back completely backs such up, it does put a lot of weight behind that argument, looking at the long term forms of historical growth and development that lead to radically different outcomes during the popular front era of the 1930s and the associated radical politics of that name. That would be, namely, the widespread and much ballyhooed anarcho-syndicalism of Spain, and the more moderate but still pretty militant organizing of the popular front in France. What this book does that is particularly interesting is to look at the different ways the twin functions of trying to further working class demands for less work and more pay come (work refusal and resistance) come into conflict with the productivist ideologies and goals shared across different spectrums of the left, particularly as these conflicting goals work against each other when a leftist government is in power. You might call them the goals of struggle versus the goals of governing, or constituent versus constituted demands. In other words, people are still arguing for less work and more money, and now the leftist government is saying 'onward comrade, work harder for the revolution' and such things. While I suppose I had always sort of known about left productivism, it never really struck me how much that would be the case, or how you could even have an anarcho-syndicalist union making the case for rationalized, modernist production, with basically Taylorized work patterns (but on the grounds this was good for the worker rather than for purely profit making motives). That doesn't necessarily mean that the radical politics and organizing of the period are not still quite striking or useful to learn from, but just that there's a lot more ambivalence in how their functioning that one often gets in histories of the time, particularly those written some a sympathetic view. So definitely a good book to read for giving a more nuanced reading of the period (quite amusing to find out about the connection between the rise of the travel and tourism industry in France and it being fostered by the Communist Party).

[Dusan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book on an often overlooked element of workers revolution such as during the Spanish Second Republic and French Popular Front insurrections. Workers often did not fight for the right to work, but to be liberated from it. I am enjoying rereading in ePub electronic book format.

[Ganimarepublic · Rating 3 out of 5]

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[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What will it take to get us moving in the direction of more free time for all, so that more civic and cultural arts can be maintained?