The aim of the conference was to investigate recent directions in the histories of work, labor movements, and social democracy, particularly as they relate to global studies since 2000. Participants examined the ways these histories interact with studies of class, race, and empire; possibilities of revolution and political emergencies; food and the body; the workplace, resistance, and state power; violence and emotions; religion and modernization. The presentations focused roughly on the lifespan of German socialist politician August Bebel, 1840–1913, and geographically on Central Europe and European empires.

The conference began with a welcome from conference organizers, James Retallack and Simone Lässig. The first session addressed global entanglements of work, class, and race. STEVEN PRESS (Stanford) explored the Social Democratic Party’s critique of German colonialism. As Press pointed out, socialist luminaries such as Wilhelm Liebknecht and Bebel were critical of Germany’s colonial enterprise, partly based on the actions of men like Adolf Lüderitz, whom they viewed as immoral and unscrupulous. Yet, as Press argued, there is more to this story. Bebel’s view was more nuanced, seeing colonialism as having the potential to culturally uplift colonized peoples. Furthermore, Bebel thought there were potential benefits to be gained by the German working class through colonialization, even if it originated from untrustworthy colonial treaties signed by Lüderitz and his ilk. MONA RUDOLPH (Kiel) presented a paper that interrogated the labor regime in the diamond mines of German South West Africa, placing it within a global context. Diamond extraction presented German colonial officials with several overlapping dilemmas: diamonds were spread across the entire colony and the only location where there was an available labor pool that could be exploited was in the Ovambo region, where colonial administration and infrastructure were sparse. The working conditions were “absolutely catastrophic.” Indigenous Ovambo workers were exploited in a brutal system that existed somewhere between the boundaries of free and unfree labor, conditions that were influenced by mining companies on the ground, the local colonial government, the Reich Colonial Office, and consumers abroad, namely in the United States. Both papers underscored the importance of recognizing the interlocking complexities of European history and colonial history, emphasizing how European actors operating beyond the borders of Europe reshaped the categories of work, race, and labor.

Session two dealt with the histories of labor movements during periods of emergency. AMERIGO CARUSO (Bonn) discussed the German General Staff’s plans, commissioned in the wake of the 1905 Russian Revolution, to contain potential mass unrest inside Germany. Caruso found that German officers looked to France and Italy to learn by example, including historical ones. He argued that the schemes drawn up by the German General Staff fit into a longer history of reactionary European forces to use states of siege not only to restore order but also to regenerate a moral order in response to democratization. By declaring states of emergency during periods of social upheaval, ever more extraordinary countermeasures were introduced in order to police urgent the security concerns. The product of this process was the gradual delegitimization of labor movement and the discrediting of liberal institutions. ANDREW BONNELL (Brisbane) presented a paper that asked why the large and widespread antiwar movement faltered in early August 1914. In part, Bonnell answered this question by noting that once war was declared, a “fatal dynamic of events” occurred which disarmed the antiwar movement. There were also political calculations involved, as reformist politicians sought a positive integration of the workers’ movement into Wilhelmine society, while the SPD leadership bought into the notion that the war was one of national defense, namely against Russia. Party leaders were wary of the repressive powers that could be enacted by the state. Still, Bonnell noted that the antiwar movement didn’t fully go away. It re-emerged late in the war with the creation of the oppositional USPD, in the strikes of 1918, and the November Revolution.

The first day’s round of panels concluded with a session on “Blood, Sweat, and Food”. CAROLYN TARATKO (Erfurt) explored the fraught relationship between the Social Democratic Party and the German peasantry. Taratko began by highlighting Bebel’s futuristic hope that advances in technology could one day liberate man from the soil and usher in an age of plenty. Bebel’s view, Taratko argued, arose not out of acquiescence to Marxist theory but because of shifting attitudes of German consumers. Placing the SPD’s “peasant problem” in the context of changing global food supply chains and eating habits, Taratko argued that the party became an advocate of consumer interests, advancing visions of food security. Similarly, PHILIPP URBAN (Bochum) explored the transition of German society from being a “production-centric to a consumption-oriented” one and how social democrats responded to such a transformation. Urban traced the attitudes of the SPD toward self-help organizations, particularly cooperatives. Initially rejected by Bebel and a majority of social democrats, by 1910 the party decided to support cooperatives at its congress in Magdeburg. Why the change? Urban pointed to several key developments, including rises in the cost of living, the fact that cooperatives had become a large movement nationally and internationally in their own right, and the theoretical and practical debates over revisionism in the preceding years. Urban argued that the SPD’s embrace of cooperatives was a signpost along its transition from being a party predicated on class struggle and revolution to one based on representing consumer interests and reform.

On Thursday evening, JOHN D. FRENCH (Durham) delivered the conference keynote address entitled “A Workers’ Emperor and a Workers’ President? Germany’s August Bebel and Brazil’s Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Comparative Perspective.” How was it that these two men built a mass following among workers and the poor? Focusing on their backgrounds, notably similarities in their educational, occupational, and political trajectories, French probed what he called their political cunning. Both Bebel and Lula managed to survive politically despite imprisonment, entrenched opposition, and authoritarianism not only due to their political skill but moreover because they seemed to embody the idea that the working class could emancipate itself.

Session four opened with JÜRGEN SCHMIDT (Trier) offering a paper that detailed the importance of work in the ways the labor movement perceived and conceptualized society. Work defined much of the working-class world: it delineated between “idlers” of the capitalist class and “workers.” Schmidt then shifted to explore the nature of political work. The rise of mass party politics meant that political work became more time consuming and more professionalized. Work provided a mental framework for understanding a class-structured society that, coupled with political work, led to a strong organization within the Social Democratic Party that produced success in elections. JOHANNA WOLF (Frankfurt am Main) examined the significance of work regulations enacted in factories. Through them, employers made behavioral demands on their employees, producing uneven power relationships that frequently led to labor conflict. While workers sought redress through collective bargaining, the strike, and self-organization, industrial relations also became subject to state control through the Imperial Industrial Code. In this way, modern industrial relations reflected experiences in the industrial workplace, which often codified normative orders and balanced economic interests.

Session five saw a slight deviation from the conference schedule. CHRISTINE KRÜGER (Bonn) was unable to attend the conference in person but submitted a paper that examined how labor history could be informed through new perspectives on security history. Krüger argued that security was a central goal of the labor movement itself. Drawing on examples from both Great Britain and Germany, namely strikes in London and Hamburg, Krüger showed how the labor movement could deploy the concept of security on behalf of workers, for example by advocating for better health and safety measures. The labor movement also used security as a threat, signaling that workers’ discontent might sooner or later lead to violence and revolution. Security, then, as a method and category of analysis, shows the agency of the labor movement and its importance in class formation. Standing in for Krüger, JAMES RETALLACK (Toronto) presented a paper that explored the various media incarnations of August Bebel. Depictions of Bebel varied widely depending on time and place, by tone and message. At one point Bebel could be presented as a violent revolutionary “pétroleuse,” an erupting Vesuvius, or as the Moses of the workers’ movement. Exploring these divergent iconographies, Retallack probed the boundaries between celebrity and personality cult. Retallack expressed skepticism that Bebel achieved a cult-like status: he lacked the charismatic authority as defined by Max Weber. Still, Bebel was an immensely popular speaker who became a global celebrity in the age of mass media. JENS-UWE GUETTEL (State College) looked to find continuities in mass urban street action, from the suffrage reform demonstrations in Saxony in 1905 to the strikes, riots, and protests of the early Weimar Republic. Guettel argued for social and political continuities, foremost among them the ways in which those on the street could balk at the political goals of would-be leaders or political ideologies, underscoring the contingency at play. Far from being choreographed, street protests often lacked coherence: they were vehicles for self-empowerment and became a space where participants negotiated class positions through performance.

The sixth session charted the themes of class, religion, and modernization. Taking a transatlantic perspective, JANINE MURPHY (St. John’s) considered gymnastic societies to explore the question of citizenship and belonging. When the German Gymnastics Federation banned members of the Workers’ Gymnastics Federation in 1894, it was making a clear statement that reflected middle-class concerns about whether workers could be fully integrated into society. The main gymnastic society founded in North America by revolutionaries of 1848 faced a similar dilemma when new immigrant workers tried to join their ranks. Despite different historical and political contexts, the integration of workers into gymnast societies on both sides of the Atlantic remained precarious. MATTHEW P. FITZPATRICK (Adelaide) explored Bebel’s writings and attitudes toward Islam. In Fitzpatrick’s reading, Bebel positioned Islam as a progressive antidote to chauvinistic Christianity that he believed was pervasive in Germany at the time. In what Fitzpatrick describes as affirmative Orientalism, Bebel offered an alternative history of Islam that gave to it Hegelian world historical significance as the bridge between Graeco-Roman antiquity and the modernity of the Renaissance. In so doing, Bebel saw Islam–-and not Christianity––as the direct forerunner of socialist modernity. Fitzpatrick added that Bebel’s Orientalism was also a response to the so-called Eastern Question: it was a pro-Ottoman defense against the predations of an aggressive, absolutist Russia he despised.

The conference concluded with a lively roundtable discussion between David Blackbourn, Jürgen Kocka, and James Retallack and moderated by Stefan Berger. The participants agreed that the three-day conference had illuminated several exciting new avenues for labor history, particularly as it intersected with other historiographies. The global turn, new histories of capitalism, the history of migration, and memory studies all offer promise to enhance our understanding of the complexities of the German and global labor movements moving forward.

Conference overview:

James Retallack (Toronto) / Simone Lässig (Washington DC): Welcome

I Work, Class, and Race

Moderator: Swen Steinberg (Washington DC)

Steven Press (Stanford): Work, Class, Race, and Violence in German Southwest Africa before 1914

Mona Rudolph (Kiel): Different Worlds of Work? Actors, Interests, and the Concepts of Work, Care and Violence Along the Global Commodity-chain of Diamonds from Colonial Namibia, 1908-1913

Comment: Matthew P. Fitzpatrick (Adelaide)

II Labour Movements and European Emergencies

Moderator: Janine Murphy (St. John’s)

Amerigo Caruso (Bonn): Emergency Politics and the Rise of the Labour Movement in France, Germany, and Italy (1848-1898)

Andrew Bonnell (Brisbane): German Social Democrats in July 1914: The Anti-war Protests Reconsidered

Comment: David Blackbourn (Nashville)

III Blood, Sweat, and Food

Moderator: Jens-Uwe Guettel (State College)

Carolyn Taratko (Erfurt): Liberated from Work or Deprived of a Livelihood? Food and the Future of the Peasantry in Social Democratic Thought

Philipp Urban (Bochum): Becoming the Third Pillar of Socialism: The Relationship of German Social Democracy to Consumer Cooperatives at the Turn of the 20th Century

Comment: Celia Applegate (Nashville)

Keynote Address

John D. French (Durham): A Workers’ Emperor and a Workers’ President? Germany’s August Bebel and Brazil’s Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Comparative Perspective

IV Resistance in the Workplace, Resistance to the State

Moderator: Philipp Urban (Bochum)

Johanna Wolf (Frankfurt am Main): Establishing Order in the Workplace: Legal Negotiations of Industrial Relations in Nineteenth-century Germany

Jürgen Schmidt (Trier ): Work and Work Ethics of a Craftsman, Businessman, and Socialist Politician: August Bebel’s Relationship to Work and Labour

Comment: Stefan Berger (Bochum)

V Labour, Class, State Security, and Violence

Moderator: Amerigo Caruso (Bonn)

Christine Krüger (Bonn): Joining the Histories of Labour and Security: Class Formation, Negative Integration, and State Security in Britain and Germany

Jens-Uwe Guettel (State College): ‘Now the only thing left for us to do is to take the path of violence’: Resistance and Rebellion in the German Empire from 1900 to 1914 and Beyond

Comment: Anja Kruke (Bonn)

VI Class, Religion, and Modernization

Moderator: Carolyn Taratko (Erfurt)

Janine Murphy (St. John’s): Precarious Integration: The Making and Unmaking of Working-Class Gymnasts in the Transatlantic German Gymnastics Movement, 1860-1900

Matthew P. Fitzpatrick (Adelaide): August Bebel, Islam, and the Pre-History of Socialist Modernity

Comment: Andrew Bonnell (Brisbane)

VII Closing Roundtable

Moderator : Stefan Berger (Bochum)

David Blackbourn (Nashville) / Jürgen Kocka (Berlin) / James Retallack (Toronto)