Development Of Class Consciousness Research Articles

Pre-Сonscription and Non-Military Training of Railway Soldiers in the 1920s (on the Example of the Beslan Training Center)

The article examines the activities of the Beslan training center for pre-conscription and non-military training of railway personnel on the North Caucasian Railway named after S.D. Markov in the 1920s. The basis of the research is the materials extracted from the Central State Archive of North Ossetia-Alania and introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The author analyzes the features of compulsory military service by pre-conscripts and non-conscripts of railway troops in the conditions of the territorial-militia system of recruitment of the armed forces of the Soviet Union in the interwar period. The article reveals the process of training railway soldiers: training programs and terms, forms and methods of working with personnel. The training programs for pre-conscripts and non-conscripts, which consisted of two main parts: combined arms, mandatory for of the Red Army servicemen and a special railway, are thoroughly investigated. Combined arms training was aimed at the successful acquisition of shooting skills, tactical and drill training, as well as the political education of a fighter, the development of class consciousness and Soviet patriotism. Special railway training included the following sections: track, traction, movement, communications, which corresponded to specific military accounting railway specialties. The author shows that the training of pre-conscripts and non-conscripts had significant differences due to different goals and objectives achieved during the training of these categories of military personnel. Based on the analysis of a large volume of archival material, the author concludes that the Beslan training center, along with personnel railway units, successfully performed the tasks assigned to it for the training of military personnel - pre-conscripts and non-military personnel of railway troops.

Working class identities in Italy and Germany from the 1880s to the First World War

ABSTRACT This article examines the formation of working class identities in Italy and Germany in the decades around 1900. The two ‘belated’ nation states varied considerably in their social, economic and political conditions. While Imperial Germany experienced rapid urbanization and large-scale industrialization, Italy, by contrast, saw the emergence of just a few highly industrialized regions by the end of the century. As a consequence, and despite close contacts between the two countries, the formation of a welfare-state, the rise of the labour movement, and the development of class-consciousness had different chronologies and intensity. This contribution will focus on the emergence of new affiliations in view of the surrounding bourgeois society, the role of women, the influences of agricultural traditions and the level of literacy. The article also highlights how the history of working-class identities was closely related to economic development on both sides of the Alps.

National Electronic Children’s Library: A Living History of Russian Children’s Literature

National Electronic Children’s Library: A Living History of Russian Children’s Literature Ilya Gavrishin (bio) Translated by Sofia Kazakova The civilian font introduced in Russia in 1708 by Peter the Great for printing secular publications opened the way for literature as a leisure activity. But the creation of literature specifically intended for children took almost another half century. By the end of the eighteenth century, the number of publications for children in Russia was estimated at three hundred. More than 75 percent were translations, mainly from French and German. The dominant genre was moralizing and took the form of a conversation between one of the elders and the children, which often turned into a sermon. The most important influence on Russian children’s literature was exerted by N. I. Novikov, when in 1779 he moved to Moscow and began to publish books for children, among other publications. Only under the influence of his work did the Russian book became not a luxury item but a necessity for every literate person. However, the main merit of the publisher regarding children’s literature was the publication in 1785 of the first children’s magazine, which had no foreign counterparts—Children's Reading for the Heart and Mind. After Novikov, the tone of children’s literature began to change. The desire to teach was gradually replaced by the desire to spread the ideas of enlightenment through fun. Fables were particularly developed in children’s education through such fabulists as I. A. Krylov and I. I. Chemnitzer. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the profession of writing for children appeared and the number of translated books decreased as works in Russian became more prominent. Children’s books and magazines became an indispensable educational tool, the literary qualities of works for children were improving significantly, and the design of children’s publications was developing rapidly. Black-and-white prints appeared in books and magazines, then color illustrations. Printing and publishing houses were formed, some of which survived the 1917 revolution. These were the publishers of Sytin, Stupin, Wolf, Devrien, and Sablin. All major publishers produced books that were available to buyers with all levels of income. Books with illustrations by famous Russian artists—Vasnetsov, Polenova, Bilibin, and others—are still being reprinted. [End Page 72] Literature for children of the post-revolutionary period acquired fundamentally different features, boldly experimenting with the language and design of books. Some authors and artists of the children’s books of that time went down in history—such as Marshak, Chukovsky, Mikhalkov, Harms, Mayakovsky, Barto, Bianchi, Gaidar, Lebedev, Konashevich, Dobuzhinsky, Petrov-Vodkin, Rotov, and Charushin—but most creators of books for children and teenagers of that time are forgotten. Soviet power quickly realized the importance of periodicals in the development of class consciousness. In 1925, the publication of the all-Union children’s newspaper Pionerskaya Pravda began. This was a weekly snapshot of world and Soviet history, which is especially interesting to study today. From 1924 to this day, the magazine Murzilka has been published; from 1930 to June 1941, the magazine ChIZh; and since 1936, the magazine Koster. An important role in improving the quality of children’s literature was played by the literary criticism journal Children’s Literature, published from 1936 to 2004, with a break from 1942 to 1965. During World War II, much children’s literature was published, including propaganda literature (for example, Blitz Fritz by Marshak with illustrations by Kukryniksy). Since the late 1930s, filmstrips have been incredibly popular in the USSR. The huge variety and quality of material performance are fascinating; filmstrips were drawn by famous illustrators such as Losin, Chizhikov, Arkhipov, Diodorov, Duvidov, and others. These include folk tales (more than twenty-five peoples of Russia, more than thirty peoples of the world) and author’s tales (Pushkin, Bazhov, Grimm, Perrault, Andersen, Gauf, etc.), filmstrips based on the stories and poems of favorite writers, filmstrips about the war, and filmstrips that were both cognitive and entertaining. This very brief excursion into the history of Russian children’s literature is not accidental. The National Electronic Children’s Library (NECL) provides access to publications of all the above eras and types. For...

Exploring Existentialist Democracy as Alternative Ethics for Human Sustainable Development in Africa

The challenge of reconciling private and public interests is a major concern for scholars, formulators and managers of development policies and implementations. This challenge has attracted a great deal of attention in classical philosophical and political discourses. Marxism presented the development of class-consciousness in terms of the relationship between the individual and his or her group. Classical liberalism represented the growing intellectual and political forces against all social and political systems that impeded the release of energies and passions of the individuals. However, this paper observes that these classical theories may be inadequate in their analyses and prescriptions as guides for the understanding of group-individual relationship. Therefore, the paper proposes existentialist democracy as an alternative theory leading to a new paradigm for development in Africa.

Residual Radicalism

The making of songs is an important, yet under-explored tradition amongst steel workers throughout North America. Steel making has been an essential part of Cape Breton Island’s economy and landscape since the mid-nineteenth century. The first steel mill was constructed in Sydney Mines in the 1870s; a larger mill was built in the newly emerging city of Sydney, the island’s largest centre, by 1901. Distinctive traditions of work and leisure began to emerge amidst the grid-patterned streets and company-owned homes of workers and managers. In the early years of the twentieth century, a close-knit working-class consciousness had taken root in the steel making centre of Sydney, Cape Breton Island. Songs explore topics such as the harsh conditions of work in the steel plant, personalities and places, tragedies, the industrial conflicts of the 1920s, and the attitudes of workers toward management. Many are often tinged with satire and witty analysis of working-class life. Sydney, as with many communities in North America, has profoundly experienced the process of deindustrialization in the latter part of the twentieth century. The last operating coal mines closed in Cape Breton the 1990s and the Sydney Steel plant shut its doors in 2000. This paper explores the questions: what role did songs about steel play in the development of class consciousness during the development of the steel industry in Sydney? Do songs play an equally significant role in the latter part of the twentieth century when the community was undergoing the process of deindustrialization? What types of songs about steel making and the steel mill are found in each of these significant periods in Sydney’s history? An exploration of some of these songs reveal much about how human beings respond to the processes of industrialization and deindustrialization.

Book review: The Early Sartre and Marxism, written by Sam Coombes

AbstractIt is a widely held view among scholars and commentators on the works of Jean-Paul Sartre that his corpus can be roughly divided into an early, largely a-political, non-Marxist period, and a later, more overtly political, post-liberation period. InThe Early Sartre and Marxism, Sam Coombes seeks to problematise this interpretation of Sartre’s corpus by undertaking a re-evaluation of a wide array of pre-liberation and early post-liberation writings in order to establish the extent to which views fully consistent with a certain brand of Marxism are already present therein. The later period, he argues, does not so much constitute a break from the early work as a more complete development of certain nascent themes and concerns. There are difficulties inherent in any claim that Sartre’s early work is consonant with Marxism, primarily due to the fundamental incompatibilities between Sartre’s ontological description of liberation as a project of individual freedom and the inherent hostility of interpersonal relations, and Marxism’s requirements of the development of class consciousness and social solidarity for revolutionary action. Nonetheless, the modest claim that through the 1930s and early ’40s themes and ideas are appearing in Sartre’s work that are indeed not abandoned but constitute the basis of Sartre’s later more directly Marxist writings is compelling and may serve to reopen fruitful speculative philosophical dialogue between Sartre’s early existentialism and Marxism.

Class Consciousness, Service Work: youth and class in Nanjing vocational secondary schools

This essay discusses an interesting paradox forming in urban China today. Using a Weberian framework, it argues that recent changes in state policy, educational structures, and forms of social status are producing new social classes. Yet at the same time, the very processes and policies that enable these new class formations also mitigate against the development of class consciousness. Based on a year of ethnographic research in two vocational secondary schools in Nanjing, this essay looks closely at the ways in which young people who are preparing to enter the lower echelons of the urban service economy are potentially part of a new social class, but one with very limited potential to develop class consciousness.

Bringing class back in: class consciousness and solidarity among Chinese migrant workers in Italy and the UK

The growing literature on international migration has a tendency to emphasize homogenous elements such as shared ethnic background, social network and cultural similarities in shaping immigrants' identity. We argue that this underestimates the differences (and sometimes conflicts) of interests between ethnic employers and migrant workers and that class needs to be brought back into the studies of ethnic relationship. Based upon findings from a series of fieldwork in Veneto, Italy and East Midlands, UK, this article contends that class consciousness has co-existed, sometimes uneasily, alongside co-ethnic and cultural relationships among Chinese migrant workers and has played an important part in the making of new Chinese communities. By analysing the perspectives of Chinese migrant workers and their relationship with co-ethnic entrepreneurs, this article illustrates complex factors behind the formation, diffusion and development of class consciousness among Chinese migrant workers.

In The Name of Harmony and Prosperity: Labor and Gender Politics in Taiwan's Economic Restructuring. By ANRU LEE. [New York: State University of New York Press 2004. xvi+196pp. $45.00. ISBN 0-7914-6033-9.

Anru Lee's In The Name of Harmony and Prosperity examines the labour and gender politics in the latest phase of Taiwan's economic restructuring. The author argues that the conventional wisdom that regards the interaction between culture and economy as a static relationship is problematic, and she sets out to develop a dialectic approach to culture and economy. Lee has collected a huge amount of data from fieldwork interviews and observational skills, and the research outcome further affirms the idea that the cultural dimension has to be taken into account in order to understand fully Taiwan's economic success. The book is divided into seven broad chapters: Taiwan's great transformation; From sunrise to sunset; The waning of a hard work ethic; The meaning of work; Between filial daughter and loyal sister; Guests from the tropics; and Bringing the global and the local.The author begins with a general description of Taiwan's economic transformation in recent decades, and then focuses on the latest changes in the textile industry in Homei, analysing how the local residents responded to and engaged in the changes. In chapter two, “From sunrise to sunset,” Lee highlights the significance of the cultural ideal in Taiwan's decentralized production system. She argues that the “black-hand becoming boss” (heishou bian toujia) cultural notion helps to thwart the development of class consciousness in Taiwan's society and adds legitimacy to the factory owner's complaint of labour shortages and society's declining work ethic. Chapter three, “The waning of a hard work ethic,” shows the paradoxical nature of the claims about the shortage of labour and explores the New Generation moral discourse, which involves a network value of hard work, equal opportunity and social mobility. Chapter four presents the life stories of three women from different generations and discusses the meaning of work to them. The author argues that not only gender but also other social institutions (such as the patrilineal kinship system, family and relations in production) have to be examined in order to fully comprehend the relationship between the economy and the formation of women's subjectivity.

Classless and Clueless in NWSA: A History of the Poor and Working Class Caucus

This article describes the creation, growth, and demise of the Poor and Working Class Caucus of NWSA (National Women's Studies Association), questions the invisibility of class issues in the organization and in Women's Studies, and argues that attention to class is essential. It details the historical context in which the caucus formed (feminist politics of the late 1970s and early 1980s), the challenges it faced, its accomplishments in educating NWSA membership, and its demise in the early 1990s when the organization floundered, following the Akron conference. The author weaves together personal anecdote and political theory to analyze both institutionalized structures and interpersonal versions of class hierarchy and power and utilizes examples from higher education and feminist scholarship. She addresses resistance to class analysis and calls for development of class-consciousness. The article concludes with teaching exercises and bibliographic and conference suggestions.

Does Class Consciousness Exist in Rural Communities? The Impact of Restructuring and Plant Shutdowns in Rural Canada1

Abstract This paper examines qualitative data on class consciousness derived from a study of corporate restructuring and the impacts of layoffs in rural Ontario communities. In particular, the study examines how the rural environment might impinge on the development of class consciousness among the workers there in the context of severe economic stress brought on by plant shutdowns. It is argued that an ideology specific to a farm and small town environment plays a significant role in shaping their response to crisis. The more standard predictors of class consciousness such as age, gender, past union membership, and employment status are also considered. The paper aims to deepen our understanding of the seemingly contradictory belief structures of working class people.

Forging Revolution: Metalworkers, Managers, and the State in St. Petersburg, 1890–1914 by Heather Hogan

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 701 struggle. The “backwardness” of the Choletais by the early 20th cen­ tury was therefore not determined by geography or other structural factors. It was instead primarily influenced by the actions of small producers who, in their efforts to preserve their importance within the local economy, also condemned themselves to a future of poverty, marginalization, and uncertainty. Small producers determined their own fate in the Choletais. But it is doubtful whether this fate was any better than if it had been imposed on them by entrepreneurs. Christopher E. Guthrie Dr. Guthrie is an associate professor of history at Tarleton State University. His current research centers on the reasons why socialism appealed to segments of the rural population in late-19th-century France. Forging Revolution: Metalworkers, Managers, and the State in St. Peters­ burg, 1890—1914. By Heather Hogan. Bloomington: Indiana Uni­ versity Press, 1993. Pp. xiv + 319; tables, notes, bibliography, index. $35.00. At the turn of this century, Russian society underwent fundamental economic and political change that was triggered by rapid industrial­ ization, student and labor unrest, and the intransigence of the tsarist regime to meet the needs of political reform. Heather Hogan’s study of the Petersburg metalworking industry sheds new light on the rela­ tionship between the tsarist state, factory owners, managers, engi­ neers, and workers in a crucial sector of the Russian economy during this period. Based on extensive archival research and a thorough reading of all the major contemporary journals and newspapers, Forging Revolution extends our understanding of the impact of the forces of modernization, political revolution, and radicalization of the workforce on large metalworking factories. Hogan focuses on the period 1892—1912 and the Petersburg metal­ working factories that were the center of the empire’s production. The chapter organization is largely chronological, rather than the­ matic. In successive chapters, Hogan discusses the status of the metal­ working industry and the importance of the state in promoting growth of the sector through contract orders; the growth of the in­ dustry in the 1890s, and the nature of worker-manager and workerintelligentsia relations; the impact of a subsequent economic down­ turn; the revolution of 1905 that nearly toppled the tsarist regime and resulted in a limited constitutional monarchy; and the increasing militance but waning power of metalworkers’ unions over the next seven years. Just as in Western industry, the conflict between skilled laborers and managers intensified when efforts to control the labor process through various attempts to deskill the worker were intro­ duced. These included the introduction of automatic machine tools, scientific management, and new accounting and bookkeeping 702 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE schemes. Hogan also briefly examines the relationship between the rank-and-file workers and the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Hogan is interested in explaining the radicalization of the workers and the development of class consciousness because of the politics of the relationship between factory and manager on the shop floor (at the point of production). It would have been better to describe the production process more vividly, since Hogan says that the disempowering of labor was a product of the structural changes in the metalworking industry. Interestingly, the most radical workers were those who were the most highly skilled and literate and who had worked in the factories for years. Hogan explains that these workers’ consciousness was framed by the constant failures of their strikes. Indeed, more so than in other industries, metalworkers had relatively higher numbers of literate workers of higher income and skill. They also were tied more to the city than workers in other industries, more of whom maintained ties with their peasant families and villages. Hogan’s study could have been improved by a more detailed and analytical account of the role of the tsarist state in worker-manager relations. In addition, she does not fully follow through on her prom­ ise to discuss the reception of scientific management (for example, Taylorist thought) of Russian engineers and managers. She rightly points out that conditions were propitious for these individuals to embrace progressivist doctrines of rational management. Polytech­ nical education was on the upswing. Conflict between owners, manag­ ers, and workers had readied epidemic...

Class analysis and the politics of new social movements

If progress is to be mode towards the more widespread development of class consciousness, socialist theory and practice needs to take account of class aspirations expressed through new social movements. In opposition to post Marxist’ perspectives, Wilde argues for the relevance of class analysis to an understanding of the emancipatory potential of the new social movements.

White-Collar Proletarians? The Structure of Clerical Work and Levels of Class Consciousness

Marxist theory has long argued that the development of capitalism tends to proletarianize office employees. This article addresses the validity of this claim. Using survey data drawn from a subsample of clerical workers employed in the communications industry, the article tests a series of hypotheses regarding the relation between computerization, clerical work, and levels of class consciousness. In line with predictions of deskilling, computerization seems to heighten managerial control over workers' jobs, and to lower the conceptual content of workers' tasks as well. Alienation from work also tends to increase apace with the computerization of clerical work. Variation in the structure of workers' jobs, however, displays little or no bearing upon office workers' levels of class consciousness. In short, although the restructuring of clerical work does affect workers' attitudes toward their jobs, it does little to foster an increasingly proletarian attitude toward management. The study suggests that the structure of workers' tasks may be less consequential for the development of class consciousness than has often been presumed.

On segmented and national labour markets

It is encouraging to see activist-scholars seriously addressing the problems of the structure and dynamics of the agricultural labour force in Sudan as Abbas Abdelkarim has done in ROAPE 34. In particular, he raised important questions concerning the development of class consciousness and collective organisation among Sudanese agricultural workers which have too long been neglected. I am also happy to see a debate emerge around the propositions I formulated concerning recent and ongoing changes in the Sudanese labour force (see ROAPE 26). These involve central issues of key importance in the popular struggle for democracy in Sudan. I fear, however, that Abdelkarim's critique of my analysis does not advance our understanding very much and that it contains basic misrepresentations of my arguments and unsound uses of 'data' that require sorting out if the issues to be debated are to remain clear.

The labor process as a source of class consciousness: A critical examination

Much of the recent literature on the labor process has assumed that work content plays a prominent role in the development of class consciousness. Little systematic attention has been given to this assumption, however. The present study examines the relation between aspects of workers' jobs and their levels of class consciousness, using data recently gathered from a survey of workers in the communications industry. Contrary to the prevailing view, the results indicate that extrinsic job characteristics—e.g., job security, patterns of supervision, and working conditions—have much stronger effects on class consciousness than do intrinsic job characteristics. The implication is that analyses of the labor process may have focused too narrowly upon the work itself, at the expense of other critical aspects of the wage-labor relation. Models of the determination of class consciousness will need to consider the expectations workers bring into their jobs. Managerial violation of the workers' expectations may have more to do with the development of class consciousness than does the content of work alone.

Corporatism, Association, and the Language of Labor in France, 1750-1850

In his book Work and Revolution in France, William SewellS Jr., endeavors to recast the history of the French working classes.1 He offers a new reading of the French of that emphasizes both the persistence of a corporate mentality and the development of class consciousness out of the dialectic of corporatism and revolution. This reading in turn calls attention to his ambition to reshape the methods and perspectives of labor history more generally. In this essay, we will examine the most important aspects of Sewell's reading and argue that the weaknesses of his methodological approach lead him to some misleading though until now largely uncontestedonclusions about working-class consciousness. At the same time, however, it will become clear that our analysis of these questions was stimulated in essential ways by the very richness of Sewell's work. No one in French history can ignore his contributions. We begin, therefore, with a brief appreciation of his methodological and substantive aims. The most obvious manifestation of Sewell' s methodological ambition is his chronological scope. While most historians of France work exclusively on one side or another of the great 1789 divide, Sewell sets out to analyze and synthesize developments spanning the Old Regime to 1848. The advantages of such an enterprise are apparent: the revolutionary tradition is put in context, and the startling development of nineteenth-century socialism gets, as it wereS its prehistory. Even more telling, however, is the author's attempt to overthrow our commonplace system of analytical priorities. The language of most French history

Agrarian class formation in India

In this paper we first discuss, both analytically and empirically, the components of agrarian class structure in India, particularly in terms of use of hired labour and the significant distinction of participation or non‐participation in manual work. We then assess the relationship between agricultural growth and rural proletarianization (with reference to both intertemporal and cross‐section variations), the role of labour market segmentation (when the markets for credit and social insurance are inadequately formed) and the development of class consciousness.

Democratic Myths in Victorian Medievalism

Critical attention to the dominant tradition of Victorian medievalism has stressed its essentially conservative tendencies. For representative proponents of this tradition – Carlyle, Ruskin, Young England – the imaginative value of the Middle Ages lay in their contrast with the political and social disorder of the present. The antidote to those modern poisons – laissez faire capitalism, Utilitarian ethics, Liberal individualism – lay in a resuscitation of medieval hierarchy, one which called on the Captains of Industry to form a new aristocracy, and the state to assume control over the economy and social welfare. For such thinkers, the spiritual health and organic order of medieval society depended upon its essentially undemocratic structure. The prominence of this analysis has unfortunately overshadowed the importance of two alternative treatments of Victorian medievalism, the Whig and the Socialist. While opposed in fundamental ways to one another, these interpretations are opposed in more significant ways to that dominant conservative tradition in that they created alternative myths of the Middle Ages to justify a more – not less – democratic society in the present and future. Such myths assisted the development of class consciousness by using the authority of history to sanction a social order which drew its moral and political strengths not from the ideals of the aristocracy, but from those of the middle and working classes, respectively. However, the following demonstration of the way similar historical points of departure can lead investigators to radically different conclusions ultimately reinforces the central characteristic of Victorian medievalism: that it represented less an attempt to recapture the past “as it really was” than a projection of current ideals back into time.

Théorie de la connaissance et théorie du parti chez Lénine

In the crisis that pervades Western Marxism, the question of the party and its relation to the masses occupies a central position. This article critically examines the Leninist conception of party, specifying those intrinsic limits which are linked to the theoretical and political context of the period in which it was elaborated. The authors raise the problem of the development of class consciousness and criticize the Leninist principle of the external character of class consciousness.This theory in which the party is conceived as the master-thinker and theoretical guide of a proletariat dominated by its material conditions of existence rests on an epistemological justification: the theory of reflection. The authors retrace in Lenin's theory of knowledge the philosophical foundations of this conception which makes the party the mediator\bearer of the historical truth of the proletariat. In fact, for Lenin, the lack of consciousness of the working class is explained by its inability to pass beyond its class determination and to rise to a comprehension of contradiction. It is precisely by reason of this deep-seated narrowness of the working class that the party is indispensable in bringing knowledge of society in its totality to the proletariat.A consequence of this theory of knowledge is to separate arbitrarily what is conceptualized and what exists, that is to say on one hand a knowledge produced and retained by intellectuals, and on the other a working class delivered over to a blind spontaneity, to ignorance. This position, taken to its extreme, can justify all forms of authoritarianism and elitism.