Workers Councils Versus Parliament 1915-20.

Richard Müller, a leading figure of the German Revolution in 1918, is unknown today. As the operator and unionist who represented Berlin’s metalworkers, he was main organiser of the ‘Revolutionary Stewards’, a clandestine network that organised a series of mass strikes between 1916 and 1918. With strong support in the factories, the Revolutionary Stewards were the driving force of the Revolution. By telling Müller's story, this study gives a very different account of the revolutionary birth of the Weimar Republic. Using new archival sources and abandoning the traditional focus on the history of political parties, Ralf Hoffrogge zooms in on working class politics on the shop floor and its contribution to social change. First published in German by Karl Dietz Verlag as Richard Müller - Der Mann hinter der November Revolution, Berlin, 2008, this english edition was completerly revised for the english speaking audience and contains new sources and recent literature.

The Berlin council movement of 1919–20 proves that there was a left alternative beyond Social Democracy and Stalinism in the German Revolution. The movement combined an impressive mass mobilisation with extensive socialist and democratic aspirations that pointed far beyond the Weimar order. Berlin was not just the centre of the November Revolution of 1918, but also the most important arena of the Second Revolution that followed. For the first time, the movement is analysed here in all its diversity and on the basis of a broad range of sources. Beside the workers' and factory councils, it also includes councils of students, women, the unemployed and intellectuals. Central events such as the 1919 general strike and the struggle against the Kapp Putsch of 1920 are also examined.

"Broué enables us to feel that we are actually living through these epoch-making events.... [D]o not miss this magnificent work."--Robert Brenner, UCLA A magisterial, definitive account of the upheavals in Germany in the wake of the Russian revolution. Broué meticulously reconstitutes six decisive years, 1917-23, of social struggles in Germany. The consequences of the defeat of the German revolution had profound consequences for the world. Pierre Broué (1926-2005) was for many years Professor of Contemporary History at the Institut d'études politiques in Grenoble and was a world renowned specialist on the communist and international workers' movements.

This major reassessment of the relevance of Marxism in the social sciences decisively rebuts claims that it has been consigned to the dustbin of history by the collapse of communism and apparent triumph of capitalism and liberal democracy. The book first considers how Marxism has engaged with various critiques including Postmodernism, New Right theory and Feminism before assessing its continuing utility as a framework for analysis of a range of substantive issues from class and the state to culture, ecology and globalization.

“Council democracy” is a particular form of democratic socialism that strives towards democratic self-governance on the basis of active, free, and associated individuals working cooperatively within a federated council system. Both in political practice and in social theory, “council democracy” has resurfaced periodically in the past, most notably in the interwar period, in the “long 1960s,” and since the turn of the 21st century. This book offers a novel theoretical and methodological approach to the study of “council democracy.” It focuses on the processes that led to the emergence of two of the foundational and most radical instances of “council democratic” movements in Germany during the German Revolution (1918-1919) and in Italy during the biennio rosso (1919-1920). With all their diversities, ambiguities, and shortcomings, these movements, in varying degrees, sought democratic alternatives to autocratic relations, from local to state levels, and to economic relations, from workplace to national levels. The book shows how the processes through which state-led war mobilization transformed the contours of class struggle laid the ground for the emergence of “council democratic” movements with specific characteristics in Germany and Italy and not in the United Kingdom and France.

This volume offers a bold restatement of the importance of social history for understanding modern revolutions. The essays collected in Worlds of Labour Turned Upside Down provide global case studies examining: - changes in labour relations as a causal factor in revolutions; - challenges to existing labour relations as a motivating factor during revolutions; - the long-term impact of revolutions on the evolution of labour relations. The volume examines a wide range of revolutions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, covering examples from South-America, Africa, Asia, and Western and Eastern Europe. The volume goes beyond merely examining the place of industrial workers, paying attention to the position of slaves, women working on the front line of civil war, colonial forced labourers, and white collar workers. Contributors are: Knud Andresen, Zsombor Bódy, Pepijn Brandon, Dimitrii Churakov, Gabriel Di Meglio, Kimmo Elo, Adrian Grama, Renate Hürtgen, Peyman Jafari, Marcel van der Linden, Tiina Lintunen, João Carlos Louçã, Stefan Müller, Raquel Varela, and Felix Wemheuer.

This book examines how the democratic form and the struggle for democracy reflects, influences and shapes the struggle for social emancipation. In the context of increased exploitation, rising inequality, and intensified struggle for social justice in the aftermath of the economic crisis, the channelling of populism through liberal democratic institutions has had contradictory effects: giving rise to both Corbyn and Brexit, Sanders and Trump, Syriza and the Golden Dawn, to name but a few. How can we make sense of these developments? In response, this book approaches the idea of democracy from a socialist constitutionalist standpoint and explores institutional forms and principles that challenge and aim at the transformation of the extant social order. This process involves the challenging of well-established ideas of the liberal viewpoint, as well as an unwavering focus on the issue of class rule which enables the highlighting of limitations of -not only mainstream but also heterodox- contemporary approaches to constitutionalism and democracy. Ultimately, democracy is conceived as a process of struggle for creating the conditions, material as well as intellectual, for its actualisation. This significant work of legal and political theory will be of considerable interest to those working in these areas to make sense of contemporary developments, and to further the causes of social justice and social emancipation.

The third edition of this best-selling textbook has been carefully revised to provide an up-to-date, indispensable introduction to the sociology of work. It not only includes clear explanations of classic theories and evidence, but also covers the most cutting-edge research, data, and debates. In addition to being revised throughout, the book contains substantive new sections on globalisation, including global branding and slave labour, and a new chapter on the myths and realities of modern employment. Chapter-by-chapter, Keith Grint examines different sociological approaches to work, emphasising the links between social processes, the institutions of employment, and their social and domestic contexts. His use of an international range of empirical evidence helps to make his account especially accessible to undergraduate readers. The book has been specially designed to support students’ understanding, and to develop their critical responses to the literature. Written in a lively and accessible style, it provides student-friendly chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading, a glossary and practice essay questions. This third edition will be essential reading for students of the sociology of work, industrial sociology, organisational behaviour and industrial relations. Students studying business and management courses with a sociological component will also find the book invaluable.

This book centers on a relatively neglected theme in the scholarly literature on Hannah Arendt's political thought: her support for a new form of government in which citizen councils would replace contemporary representative democracy and allow citizens to participate directly in decision-making in the public sphere. The main argument of the book is that the council system, or more broadly the vision of participatory democracy was far more important to Arendt than is commonly understood. Seeking to demonstrate the close links between the council system Arendt advocated and other major themes in her work, the book focuses particularly on her critique of the nation-state and her call for a new international order in which human dignity and “the right to have rights” will be guaranteed; her conception of “the political” and the conditions that can make this experience possible; the relationship between philosophy and politics; and the challenge of political judgement in the modern world.