The Herne ‘Polish Revolt’ of 1899: Social and National Consciousness among Polish Coal Miners in the Ruhr

Abstract

In any study of an alien minority in an industrial work force and of its relations with native workers, the strength of the minority's social and national consciousness is critical. Collective action seems to require a sense of a common identity.1 For industrial labourers, this common identity may spring from the very structure of work, which can unite individuals of diverse origins based on their common experiences, or from working-class organizations outside the work place, which can bring them together in defence of common interests.2 The assumption is that social consciousness, which recognizes the common lot in society of members of a class and the economic consequences of their lot, will facilitate the creation of a common identity among foreign and native workers, while national consciousness, which takes differences of culture and origin as its point of departure, will preclude such an identity. Thus, a recent history of the miners of the Ruhr before World War I, which emphasized the divisions among them stemming from differences of culture and origin, concluded that, Loyalties for many remained focused on particular groups, often defined in terms of ethnic origins or religious allegiance, and not on a broader concept of workers at large.3