In the years preceding World War I, the international labor movement made considerable efforts to counteract armed conflict, while at the same time political violence was often seen as a necessary means of class struggle. This apparent contradiction was the starting point to discuss different aspects of violent leftist labor activism in the historical-political context of the 19th and 20th centuries, including theoretical and strategical assessments, practical uses, and subsequent narratives. The majority of the 19 presentations focused on European examples, some case studies included South America, Algeria, and China.
With the ongoing escalation of international political conflicts, the question of when and in what way violence is legitimate has become more relevant again (not only) within the Left. However, as FLORIAN WENNINGER (Vienna) explained in the welcoming address, the occasion for the conference was a historical anniversary: The Austrian Civil War of 1934, which resulted in the defeat of the leftist labor movement and the establishment of a fascist dictatorship. Based on this example, Wenninger raised some key questions for the conference: How realistic and expedient is the use of violence against state power? Under which circumstances are people willing to use violence for political goals? How is violence experienced and how do we deal with its legacy?
In the opening keynote, MARK JONES (Dublin) reflected on the role of political violence during the (unfinished) German Revolution of 1918/19. He focused on the rapid brutalization of German politics during the Spartacus uprising, where government troops, backed by the Social Democratic Party, repressed the radical leftist rebels. While both sides accused each other of committing atrocities, later narratives dissociated the founding of the Weimar Republic from violence. From this example, Jones extrapolated some more general aspects to consider: the interconnection between culture, words, and violent conduct; the relation of left-wing to right-wing and state violence; or the discrepancy between the traumatic nature of experiencing violence and the necessity to create a functioning narrative of remembrance.
The presentations in the following two days addressed these questions to varying degrees. A central theme was the relational character of left-wing violence, both in theory and practice, in connection to state repression and right-wing violence, social tensions and employer strategies, or war and the larger international context. Another recurring issue was the creation of narratives of violence and their political function.
The first panel focused on how concrete experiences of violence influenced political views and practices of leftist actors by examples from Yugoslavia, Estonia, and South America. MARIO KIKAŠ (Bodø) argued that post-World War II cultural policies in Socialist Yugoslavia were heavily influenced by debates among leftist cultural workers during the war. Subsequently, the new state drew legitimacy from the notion of a people’s war, commemorating the sacrifices of those killed. Kikaš critically reevaluated previous research which emphasizes the continuities to interwar debates and neglects wartime cultural production.
MARI-LEEN TAMMELA (Tallinn) compared three Estonian leftist newspapers in exile after the Russian Revolution of 1905: Õigus (Law) in Paris, Uus Ilm (New World) in New York, and Kiir (Ray) in Narva. Tammela showed how views on violence were influenced by the respective political context: While the first argued that violence was necessary to crush Zarist power, the other two were more concerned with daily problems and did not promote fighting. DAVID MAYER (Vienna) discussed debates on guerilla warfare in South America during the long 1960s. After failed attempts to emulate the Cuban Revolution of 1959, debates shifted. While some argued for an army-like professionalization, others warned that armed struggle without workers’ mobilization could have a depoliticizing effect. Mayer concluded that while attempts at militarization largely failed, these still served as a justification for state repression and the establishment of military dictatorships.
The theme of the second panel were practical uses of violence during the interwar period by examples from Romania and Portugal. Both presentations highlighted the Russian October Revolution as a key reference point and stressed the discrepancy between contemporary actors’ motives and subsequent (right-wing) narratives. CRISTINA DIAC (Bucharest) dealt with the bombing of the Romanian senate in December 1920 in the aftermath of violent strike repression. She investigated the motives of the attacker, Max Goldstein, who was influenced by anarchist and communist ideas and saw his actions as a legitimate response by the working class. Although the Socialist party condemned the bombing, the Romanian state connected this act of violence to the organized Left and stressed the ties of Goldstein to Bolshevik Russia.
ANDRÈ PINA (Porto) discussed radical-left terrorism in Portugal by the example of the Red Legion (Legião Vermelha). The organization carried out attacks against (perceived) enemies of the working class. Although some members had close ties to the Communist party, in public, the party opposed their actions. By 1925, most members of the Red Legion had been captured and the organization was disbanded. What remained was a powerful myth that was used as a tool for anticommunist propaganda and to legitimize the right-wing Estado Novo.
The next panel shifted the discussion to strategic and tactical assessments of violence. NICHOLAS BUJALSKI (Oberlin) connected to the prior panel, dealing with violence after the 1917 Russian Revolution. He shed light on the activities of Feliks Dzierżyński, better known as “Iron Feliks”, the architect of the Red Terror. While most of (Western) scholarship focused on the outcome of this violence, Bujalski stressed the interconnections between theory and practice. Dzierżyński’s activities were informed by the Bolshevik’s self-understanding of a transitional violence necessary to finally destroy the (capitalist) world of violence. Finally, he pointed out the difficulty of neatly separating revolutionary and counterrevolutionary violence.
SEAN SCALMER (Melbourne) discussed the connection between sabotage and political violence. Initially understood as a practice to slow down production, sabotage became a method of working-class struggles around the world. Soon, it included more deliberate actions, for example exchanging labels on first- and third-class salmon. In public, sabotage became associated with physical harm. Due to its bad reputation, the organized labor movement stopped promoting this practice after World War I. The debates around sabotage, Scalmer concluded, show how definitions of (non-)violence are part of unequal struggles over the legitimacy of political practices. ANTONIO J. PINTO (Malaga) compared three leftist, anticolonial liberation movements and their mutual influences during the 1960s: the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), the Basque liberation movement (ETA) in Spain, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland. To understand these movements and their decision to use violence, both internal and external circumstances have to be considered, such as ethnic and cultural identities, the context of state repression, and the international framework of decolonization struggles.
The fourth panel focused on perceptions of political violence within leftist parties, in public, and historiography. OTTAVIA DAL MASO (Genova) analyzed interpretations of the Turinese Bread Riots in August 1917, one of the most important political mobilizations dominated by working-class women in wartime Italy. The Communist Party argued that the lack of (party) organization was the main cause for the failure of the riots. Popular and historiographical narratives emphasized the spontaneous and emotional character of the protests. Dal Maso instead argued that the fight for bread was linked to anti-war resistance and reflected a rising political awareness among women.
KOSTAS PALOUKIS (Thessaloniki) discussed the stance of the interwar Greek Communist Party (KKE) towards violence. Officially, the KKE followed the Comintern’s strategy to overthrow the bourgeois state through armed struggle accompanied by mass mobilization. When two policemen were killed in Serres and Piraeus by party members in 1931, the reactions were ambivalent. The KKE positioned itself against individual acts of violence, but at the same time justified the killings as self-defense. This reflected a dynamic interplay of ideological principles and strategic considerations amid social and political tensions. JUDITH TAUBER (Ithaka) analyzed the stance of Gauche prolétarienne towards violence and consent. Founded in the aftermath of May 1968 in Paris, it became one of the most notorious armed organizations of this period, promoting sabotage, theft, or kidnapping. The organization shifted its outlook from being a student of the masses to becoming their instructor. The group self-dissolved in 1973, at which time the largest part of the French radical Left had abandoned the use of violence.
The second day of the conference started off with theoretical positions of two famous left-wing intellectuals. For Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta (1853–1932), the question of violence was central to his approach of establishing consistency between means and ends. DAVID BERNARDINI (Milan) introduced Malatesta’s position by the example of three turning points in Italian history: the assassination of the Italian King in 1900, the outbreak of World War I, and the rise of Italian Fascism. While Malatesta was no pacifist, he was critical of violence against individuals and warned against the exaltation of brutality.
A contemporary of Malatesta on the “other” side of the leftist labor movement was Clara Zetkin (1857–1933). BEN LEWIS (Leeds) reevaluated the dominant interpretation of Clara Zetkin’s trajectory from a moderate social-democratic activist to a radical supporter of the Bolshevik dictatorship. He instead emphasized the continuities of Zetkin’s position: Already in her early works, she had endorsed the idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat as a transitional step towards democracy. She maintained this position after the October Revolution, while also criticizing the use of violence and terror.
The sixth panel explored memories of violence across the globe. KYRA SCHMIED (Vienna) proposed a feminist reevaluation of the Paris Commune in 1871. She criticized two dominant opposing narratives. The Left interpreted the commune as an act of self-empowerment that failed because the use of violence remained too defensive. The active participation of women was largely ignored. The conservative side stressed the violence of the communards to justify the brutal repression. Women who had transgressed assigned gender roles were portrayed as dangerous and irrational. Both interpretations, Schmied concluded, function to perpetuate hierarchical gender relations up until today.
LINH VU (Tempe) examined two instances of labor protests and their violent repression by British authorities in Shanghai and Guangzhou in 1925. Based on medical and judicial reports, eyewitness testimonies, and leftist newspapers, she showed how these events helped unify the Chinese labor movement, while also leading to the reformulation of social demands within a nationalist framework and the glorification of violence. The memory of these events remained important in the official state narrative of 1950s China. KUMRU TOKTAMIS (Brooklyn) compared two organizations that combined armed struggle with community organizing during the 1970s: the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionara (MIR) in Chile and Devrimci Yol (DY) in Turkey. Toktamis proposed a relational perspective to analyze interconnections between violent and non-violent practices within the context of state repression. She criticized the liberal “holy grail” of non-violence as a normative position that cannot explain the context in which violence is used.
The last panel of the conference delved into the topic of organization of violence in France and Spain. PAUL DVOŘAK (Vienna) traced the shift within the heterogenous French Left from a pro- to an anti-war position during the long 19th century. Based on the experiences of the 1789 French Revolution, the Left supported armed struggle as a means to reach political goals. After the brutal repression of the Paris Commune in 1871, the army was reinterpreted as a predominantly repressive force. Nevertheless, notions emphasizing the importance of national defense and armed masses persisted within the Left.
CHRIS EALHAM (Madrid) reevaluated the history of organized violence in interwar Spain by the example of the Confederal Defense Committees, the paramilitary structure of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT. These were found to counteract employer’s “pistolerismo” and state repression, defend the unions and take over state power. By contemporary (anarchist) critics denounced as “Anarcho-Bolshevists” and in (conservative) historiography often dismissed as violent criminals, Ealham instead interpreted these groups as an expression of the anarcho-syndicalist movement’s heterogenous character and the rapprochement of Marxist and anarchist ideas.
In summary, the conference brought together new, refreshing perspectives on theories, practices, and memories of violent labor activism within changing socioeconomic and political contexts. In line with the global and transnational turns in (labor) historiography, the presentations introduced hitherto neglected regions and actors to the history of violent labor activism, while at the same time demonstrating the consistent international outlook of leftist activists, movements, and parties. A common theme in many presentations was the global outreach of well-known events such as the Russian October Revolution of 1917 or the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and how they were interpreted and adapted to other contexts.
Furthermore, the conference demonstrated the great diversity of forms and motives of political violence. What became apparent here was the frequent discrepancy to subsequent interpretations. Especially right-wing actors exaggerated political violence to delegitimize leftist actors and practices. In this context, gendered aspects and the notion of political violence being a predominantly male practice would deserve further discussion. The contributions on the Paris Commune and the Turinese Bread Riots convincingly demonstrated that women did engage in violent labor activism, only their participation was dismissed from historical memory.
Conference overview:
Florian Wenninger (Vienna): Welcoming Remarks
Keynote
Mark Jones (Dublin): Making the Atrocities Go Away: Reflections on Violence in the German Revolution of 1918–19
Panel 1: Between Experience and Reception of Violence
Chair: Florian Wenninger (Vienna)
Mario Kikaš (Bodø): Cultural Front on the Semi Periphery: Cultural Workers of Yugoslavia during the Second World War
Mari-Leen Tammela (Tallinn): The Presence of Violence in the Works of Estonian Left-Wing Newspaper Editors from 1906–1914
David Mayer (Vienna): Focus and Ambiguity – The South America Debates on Guerilla Warfare in the Long 1960s
Panel 2: The Left’s Use of Violence
Chair: Frank Jacob (Bodø)
Cristina Diac (Bucharest): Communism or Radical-Left Terrorism? The Bombing of the Romanian Senate in December 1920
André Pina (Porto): The Red Legion: Radical-Left Terrorism in the Portuguese First Republic (1919–1925)
Panel 3: Strategic and Tactical Assessments of Violence
Chair: Lucile Dreidemy (Vienna)
Nicholas Bujalski (Oberlin): ‘Knight of the Proletariat’: Feliks Dzierżyński and the Antinomies of Russian Revolutionary Violence
Sean Scalmer (Melbourne): Sabotage and Violence: Historical Transformations
Antonio J. Pinto (Malaga): Postcolonialism in Africa and … in Europe? The Algerian Experience and its Influence on ETA (Spain) and IRA (Ulster) in the 1960s
Panel 4: Perceptions of Violence
Chair: Jowan Mohammed (Bodø)
Ottavia dal Maso (Genova): Women Leading Turinese Bread Riots: Between Violence and Spontaneity, August 1917
Kostas Paloukis (Thessaloniki): The Views of the Interwar Communist Party of Greece (KKE) on Revolutionary and Labor Violence
Judith Tauber (Ithaka): The Cause of the People: Gauche prolétarienne on Violence and Consensus
Panel 5: Left Wing Intellectuals and the Question of Violence
Chair: Charlotte Rönchen (Vienna)
David Bernardini (Milan): ‘All the Violence Necessary to Win, but Nothing More’: Errico Malatesta and the Matter of Violence
Ben Lewis (Leeds): Dictatorship, Violence and Sacrifice in Clara Zetkin’s Thought
Panel 6: Memories of Violence
Chair: Linda Erker (Vienna)
Kyra Schmied (Vienna): Gewalt erinnern: Eine feministische Relektüre der Pariser Commune (1871)
Linh Vu (Tempe): Laboring and Sacrificing Life: Narratives of Brutality in Worker Movements in Early Twentieth-Century China
Kumru Toktamis (Brooklyn): Lessons from Historical Praxis of Violently Defeated Left Movements in Chile and Turkey
Panel 7: On Left Organization of Violence
Chair: Ben Lewis (Leeds)
Paul Dvořak (Vienna): Vom Bellizismus zum Pazifismus? Die französische Linke, der Krieg und die Armee im langen 19. Jahrhundert
Chris Ealham (Madrid): ‘All Power to the Unions’: The Genealogy of Spanish ‘Anarcho-Bolshevism’ and the Anarcho-Syndicalist Revolutionary Armed Struggle (1917–1936)
Frank Jacob (Bodø): Concluding Remarks