REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS

Paul Aubin et Paul-Andre Linteau, eds.. Bibliographie de I'histoire du Quebec et du Canada, 1966-1975 by G. Douglas Vaisey / 200 David H. Flaherty, ed., Essays in the History of Canadian Law, Volume One by William Wylie / 202 Susan Mann Trofimenlcoff, The Dream of Nation: A Social and Intellectual History of Quebec by J.I. Little/205 Colin Read, The Rising in Western Upper Canada, 1837-8: The Duncombe Revolt and After by Paul Romney / 207 Susan Jacket, ed., A Flannel Shirt and Liberty: British Emigrant Gentlewomen in the Canadian West, 1880-1914 by W.J.C. Cherwinski / 209 Grace Morris Craig, But This is Our War by Glenn T. Wright/211 Elaine Bernard. The Long Distance Feeling: A History of the Telecommunications Workers Union by Paul Phillips/212 Lewis H, Thomas, ed.. The Making of a Socialist: The Recollections ofT.C. Douglas by Grace Maclnnis / 214 Toby Gordon Ryan, Stage Left: Canadian Theatre in the Thirties. A Memoir by Terry Goldie / 217 Bernard Gauvin, Les communistes et la question nationale au Quebec. Sur le Parti communiste du Canada de 1921 a 1938 by F.J.K. Griezec / 218 Jacques Rouillard. Histoire de la CSN. 1921-1981 by Michael D. Behiels / 220 Benoit-Beaudry Gourd, Mines et syndicats en Abilibi-Temiscamingue 1910-1950 by Jacques Rouillard / 223 Jean Boivin et Jacques Guilbault. Les relations patronales-syndicales au Quebec by Pierre J.G. Vcnnat / 224 Francois Demers, Chroniques impertinentes (du 3eme Front commun syndicat) by Jean-Marc Piotte / 226 Femand Dumont. Jean Hamelin et Jean-Paul Montminy, dir.. Ideologies au Canada Francois 1940-1976. tome II, Les mouvements sociawc. Les syndicats by Paul Larocque / 228 Michelc Savard Baby, Le syndicalisme patronal dans la construction by Guy Belanger / 230 Donald V. Nightingale, Workplace Democracy: An Inquiry into Employee Participation in Canadian Work Organizations by James Rinehart / 232 W. Irwin Gillespie, The Redistribution of Income in Canada by Lars Osberg / 234 Lars Osberg, Economic Inequality in Canada by Steven Antler / 235 F.T. Denton, A.L. Robb, and B.C. Spencer, Unemployment and Labour Force Behaviour of Young People: Evidence from Canada and Ontario by James Struthers / 236 Nick Sal vat ore, Eugene Debs, Citizen and Socialist by J.H.M. Laslett/238 Leslie Fishbein. Rebels in Bohemia: The Radicals of the Masses, 1911-19/7 by Michael Fellman / 239 Kenneth Kann, ed., Joe Rapoport: The Life of a Jewish Radical by Irving Abella / 241 198 REVIEWS 199

Jurgen Kocka, White Collar Workers in America 1890-1940: A Social-Political History in International Perspective by Anthony Thomson / 243 George Lipsitz, Class and Culture in Cold War America: "A Rainbow at Midnight" by Richard Gruneau / 246 Susan Strasser, Never Done: A History of American Housework by Bettina Bradbury / 248 Ronnie Steinberg, Wages and Hours: Labor and Reform in Twentieth-Century America by Melvyn Dubofsky / 251 Glenn Porter, The Workers' World at Hagley by Dianne Newell / 252 Jennifer Ozga and Martin Lawn, Teachers, Professionalism and Class: A Study of Organized Teachers by Andrew Spaull / 253 J.E. King, Richard Marsden and the Preston Chartists 1837-1848 by Dorothy Thompson / 255 Donald C. Richter, Riotous Victorians by John Benson / 258 V.L. Allen, The Militancy of British Miners by Wallace Clement / 258 Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie, eds., The Diary of Beatrice Webb, Volume One, 1873-1892: "Glitter Around and Darkness Within" by Patricia E. Malcolmson / 260 John Hughes, Britain in Crisis: De-industrialization and how to fight it by Colin Leys / 262 William P.L. Thomson, The Little General and the Rousay Crofters: Crisis and Conflict on an Orkney Crofting Estate by Ian Ross Robertson / 264 Margaret Maruani, Les syndicats a I'epreuve de feminisme by Mary Lynn McDougall / 266 William Harvey Maehl, August Bebel. Shadow Emperor of the German Workers by Larry Peterson / 268 Gary P. Steenson, "Not One Man! Not One Penny!" German Social Democracy 1863-1914 by Larry Peterson / 269 Denis MacShane, Solidarity: Poland's Independent Trade Union by David Mandel / 271 Alain Besancon, The Rise of the Gulag: Intellectual Origins of Leninism by N.G.O. Pereira / 273 Anthony F. Upton, The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918 by Varpu Lindstrom-Best / 275 Bjorn Gustavsen and Gerry Hunnius, New Patterns of Work Reform: The Case of Norway by Daniel Glenday / 276 Jerome R. Mintz, The Anarchists of Casus Viejas by Adrian Shubert / 278 Jim Hagan, The History of the ACTU by Desmond Morton / 280 Stanley B. Greenberg, Race and Class in Capitalist Development by Mary Turner / 282 Maureen Hynes, Letters from China by Mary Sun / 283 Paul Connerton, The Tragedy of Enlightenment, and George Friedman, The Political Philosophy of the Frankfurt School by Ian H. Angus / 284 T.W. Hutchison, The Politics and Philosophy of Economics: Marxians, Keynesians, and A ustrians by Ian H. Drummond / 287 Robert Lekachman, Greed is not Enough: Reaganomics by Paul Phillips / 289 200 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

Paul Aubin et Paul-Andre Linteau, eds.. However, the work is not flawless and Bibliographie de I'histoire du Quebec el no one should consider it definitive. This du Canada. 1966-1975 (Quebec: Institut reviewer compared Aubin and Linteau quebccois de recherche sur la culture, 2 with two Canadian bibliographies dealing tomes, 1981). with labour history. Of 138 entries exam­ ined, the Bibliographie de I'Histoire . . . contained 91 (or 65.9*). In other words, THIS BIBLIOGRAPHY REPRESENTS a one in every three of the references mammoth effort to collate 22,114 refer­ checked did not appear in the Aubin- ences to books, book chapters, articles, Linteau compilation. Understandably, a and theses. It attempts to organize a work of this magnitude is bound to con­ decade of literature with three primary tain a few errors. Some indicate a failing points of access: a systematic classifica­ in scope on the part of the editors, others a tion of material by historical period (with lack of proofreading, and others still on an sub-classifications by broad subjects — absence of thoroughness. While the com­ culture, economic factors, the working pilers have carefully avoided newspaper class), an analytic section providing and magazine articles, their selection of access by geographic location and by journals could have been more eclectic. names of historical personages, and an While the historical societies of British author index. In Annex I, the compilers Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and supply an English-French glossary of ana­ Nova Scotia are represented, the New lytic descriptors: in Annex II. there is a Brunswick Historical Society's Collec­ list of periodicals surveyed. tions arc mysteriously omitted. Two key In preparing this bibliography, Aubin journals containing labour material have and Linteau. together with the biblio­ also been passed over. Relations graphic team from the Revue d'histoire de 1ndustrielles/Industrial Relations, despite I' AmerUjiw francaise, systematically its numbers of statistical and personnel- scanned four hundred journals. They also related articles, contains several sound took an inventory of publications released historical pieces and should have been between 1966 and 1975, paying close selectively indexed. Inexcusable is the attention to material appearing in omission of Histoire des Travaitleurs Canadiana and the Bibliographie du Qui'becois, which has made such a major Quebec. References to thesis material contribution to the Quebec literature. were requested from each degree-granting Similarly, 1 wondered at the selection institution in Canada, only one of which criteria used to pick articles from This did not reply. Much of this material — at Magazine and Our Generation. In par­ least the monographs and journal articles ticular, accounts of the Artistic Wood­ — had already appeared in the "Bibliog­ workers' Strike, the United Aircraft raphic de I'histoire de 1'Amenque Strike, and the CEGEP strike — all of francaise: publications recentes," which is which might be termed "history in the a regular feature of the RHAF. making" — were overlooked, while The result of these efforts is ponder­ issues of equally contemporary interest ous. Not since Thibault's Bibliographia (such as the new left in Quebec) were Canadiana has there been a work of such included. If there were conscious reasons ambition; historians and researchers for this policy, special commentary in the should whisper quiet thanks to the compil­ introduction would have been useful. ers for sparing them the mind-numbing Other inconsistencies made me tedium of sifting through a decade of equally uneasy. Note for example that, abstracts, indexes, bibliographies, and while there is a critical article discussing back-issues of journals. fcarl Birney's Down the Long Table (a REVIEWS 201 novel of the thirties), the reprint of this self in the author index. After a while, I work in 1975 is not included. Similar mis­ wondered whether the proofreading was adventure befalls Nellie McClung, about done by a Canadian historian and how whom there are several articles but not anyone not familiar with these mutant Mary Lile Benham's 1975 biography. spellings would find the authors' works. Small presses also fare poorly. Jean-Guy The presentation of bibliographic Loiselle's L'Enfer du Mont Wright, information gave rise to a few anomalies Catherine Vance's Not hy Gods but by as well. Women at Work: Ontario, People; the story of Bella Hall Gauld, and 1850-1950, which was edited by Janice Patricia Schulz's East York Workers' Acton {a note quite clearly made in the Association (published by Editions book), is listed in the author index under Quebec-Amerique, Progress Books and Linda Kealey, who wrote the introduc­ New Hogtown Press, respectively) find no tion. Similarly, although each essay in place in this magnum opus. Paul Knox's Essays in B.C. Political Despite the very promising opening Economy is given its own entry by author, remarks about how thoroughly all but one no credit or recognition is given to the Canadian university co-operated in send­ editor, under whose name not a few librar­ ing thesis information, the lapse in cover­ ians might check. These niggling points age of labour theses from Canadian extend to the Analytical Index, where institutions leaves us wondering precisely Gladys Suggitt's article should have found which university did not reply. T.E. Col­ a place under "Baddow, Ontario." lins' The Retail, Wholesale and Depart­ These are fine points, and it might be ment Store Union (M.A., Western unfair to the compilers to cite too many of Ontario, 1975), D.A. Fairbairn's The them. Criticisms so far may be taken as a British-American Refinery Strike, Moose counsel of perfection. Jaw... (M.A., Regina, 1975), and What will annoy many users of this Nancy Stunden's The Stratford Strikes of otherwise excellent bibliography is the 1933 (M.A., Carleton, 1975) should all arrangement of the work. It will confound appear in this work; they do not. There are students, perturb librarians, and perplex at least six other omissions, including the the casual user. The compilers use a "Sys­ important Steele thesis on the Nova Scotia tematic Classification" to organize the coal strike of 1909-10. One must bulk of the work. Information is divided speculate adversely that if this sample of into broad historical periods, which are citations yielded so many omissions, a then subdivided into subject sections closer examination might prove more (e.g., Societe-Travail, or Groupes embarrassing. Ethniques); each subdivision is further These are matters of inclusion, mat­ subdivided into special topics. Under the ters which cannot jeopardize the mag­ labour heading, users will find subdivi­ nitude of the Bibliographie but which can sions for general history, working and liv­ sow seeds of uneasiness in the user's ing conditions, strikes, workers' move­ mind. More annoying and definitely the ments, political action, and "'diverse compilers' fault are the inaccurate presen­ topics." Thus, for a period such as the tations of authors' names. Why, for 1930s, studies concerning a strike, the instance, do we see separate entries under union involved, the working conditions •Kealy, Greg," "Kealy, Gregory S.," and which gave it impetus, and its political "Kealey, Gregory S.," when they all refer and social consequences could appear in to the same Kealey? The learned Rawlyk separate sections. A study of the company from Queen's also finds himself presented against which the strike was aimed will as "Rawlick" and "'Rawlik," while appear in an altogether different place, as Gerald E. Panting has three spots to him­ will works on police or military interven- 202 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL tions. This spreading of resources might mark contribution to Canadian historical have been alleviated had the compilers put bibliography. more emphasis on the "Analytic Section" (which you may translate as the subject G. Douglas Vaisey i ndex). Saint Mary's University Equally challenging is the exercise of finding an author through the "Author David H. Flaherty, ed.. Essays in the His­ Index." Each entry in the bibliography is tory of Canadian Law, Volume One given a code number, at the point at which (Toronto: The Osgoode Society and the it first appears in the text. The number is University of Toronto Press 1981). never repeated when the citation reappears elsewhere in the bibliography. Therefore LEGAL HISTORY IN Canada has long to locate the works of an author of eclectic been dominated by antiquarians and con­ interests and publication, one must fish stitutionalists in whose hands it has from beginning to end, guessing where seemed largely irrelevant to the historical every number might fall within the 1430 experience of most Canadians. This book, pages. Exercise such as this we do not sponsored by the Osgoode Society, repre­ need, and I wondered out loud whether sents an ambitious attempt to place legal the computer system used to organize history in a broader social context. The these data might not have dictated the first of two volumes of essays intended to final form to the compilers, rather than a demonstrate the possibilities for research frank analysis of the search behaviours and writing in the field, it presents ten exhibited by most students, librarians, and essays on topics as diverse as the history researchers. Having shared these tomes of the courts, the law and the economy, with colleagues, asking for their com­ the genesis of the criminal code, and the ments, I regret to report more expletives about the arrangement than praises for the position of women and children in the his­ content. tory of Canadian law. While there is much of interest here, this is decidedly a state­ On balance, the Bibliographic de ment of research in progress, and one I'Histoire ilu Quebec ei du Canada repre­ which reveals several weaknesses about sents an awesome volume of labour. To the state of the discipline. have over 22,000 references gathered in In the first place, the writing of legal one place and arranged to provide subject history in Canada lacks a focus. Professor access places the Canadian historical Flaherty's lengthy introduction is particu­ community in the compilers' debt. The larly troubling in this regard. Flaherty errors, omissions, and other problems rightly argues for an expansive legal his­ suggest that a supplement, containing tory that will place the law firmly in the addenda and corrigenda, should be issued context of the society which influenced its free to all purchasers. The arrangement development. He supports an approach may deter rather than encourage use, as combining empiricism and theory and rec­ will the annoying habit of translating Eng­ ommends especially the work of J. Wil- lish place names and institutions into lard Hurst in the United States as embody­ French. The problem compounds when ing these principles. But he fails to iden­ Saint John (N.B.) and St. John's (Nfld.) tify Hurst's assumptions about law or are both translated into Saint-Jean. While about American development. According I differ with the enthusiastic introduction which suggests that we will want to keep to Hurst, American law was shaped by a this work near the tools we use every day, prevailing entrepreneurial spirit that there is no denying that Aubin and Lin- encouraged material development. His teau (and their team) have made a land­ work displays a consensual viewpoint about history and an instrumental intcrpre- REVIEWS 203

tation of the role of law. Instead of touch­ English-speaking peoples to civil liber­ ing on such basic issues, Flaherty prefers ties, equality before the law, due process, to range widely over a series of more par­ and protection of private property. These ticular questions about the law and about principles became rallying cries in the the relevant American and British his­ struggle to justify competing social phi­ toriography. The reader is left without a losophies. starting point for approaching the disci­ These themes can be discerned in pline. three essays in the volume, chosen mainly This essay will not analyze each con­ because they all deal with the same soci­ tribution to this volume. Rather, by refer­ ety at the same time: mid-nine­ ence to several representative essays, the teenth-century Ontario or Upper Canada. review will suggest an approach which Each essay throws a different light on the delineates the possible role of legal role of legal institutions and displays dif­ institutions within a coherent interpreta­ ferent strengths and weaknesses in its tion of Canadian history. This requires understanding of Upper Canadian society. working assumptions about Canadian In "The Law and the Economy in Mid- development generally and about the func­ Nineteenth-Century Ontario: A Perspec­ tions of legal institutions in particular. For tive," Professor R.C.B. Risk summarizes the former, the student can draw on the the insights of his detailed work on the substantive law of commerce, business tradition of Canadian writings in political organization, and property law, which economy. These writings emphasize the facilitated capitalist accumulation. This primacy of economic interests in shaping law, he argues, derived mainly from the experience, but also insist on the impor­ English common law, supplemented tance of human agency in determining towards mid-century by a spate of legisla­ events. Furthermore, the history of Cana­ tion intended to ease the province into the dian political economy, especially after industrial age. Risk emphasizes the lim­ the beginning of the nineteenth century, is ited amount of judicial innovation in largely the history of capitalist develop­ Upper Canada in contrast to the United ment. The Canadian experience involved States. Provincial judges preferred to rely conflict between the emerging class of on English cases rather than tailor deci­ proprietors controlling capital, with their sions to suit Upper Canadian conditions. helpers in law and government, and Innovation was reserved for the provincial opposing groups including small proprie­ legislature. Risk links the behaviour of the tors, and around 1850, the beginnings of a provincial lawmakers to the values cele­ wage-earning class. brating individual initiative and material For the role of legal institutions, we progress. He makes no attempt, however, can draw on the insights in the recent to link these ideas to the entrepreneurial- Marxist debates on the role of the state, lawyer political coalition which was and more explicitly on the writings in Brit­ dominant at the time, nor does he indicate ish legal history of E.P. Thompson, the existence of conflicting viewpoints. Douglas Hay, and their colleagues. These This leads to some interesting dilemmas. authors suggest a two-sided approach to For example, he cannot convey the clash the function of the law. On the one hand, of egalitarian and liberal capitalist view­ it served as an instrument in the struggle points on the question of the concentration for accumulation between competing eco­ of wealth. Instead, he postulates a nomic groups. But the law was also an paradoxical consensus situation in which important weapon in the battle for the there was considerable opposition to monopolies but few restrictions on their hearts and minds of men. The powerful development. mythology of the law asserted that the common law embodied the basic rights of 204 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

In his essay on William Hume Blake exchange to the social relations of produc­ and the judicial reforms of 1849, John D. tion. Craven sketches some of the major Blackwell explores the expansion of the features of the law of employment in centralized superior courts in Upper Can­ Ontario and traces them to the common ada. While Blackwell does note counter­ law and to British legislation, the main vailing opinions, he does nol trace them to features of which were confirmed by a the structure of political economy. He provincial statute of 1847. His study describes a legal profession interested in underlines the inequality of the employ­ expanding the machinery of justice to ment contract in a society dominated by reduce delays and increase the credibility employers. The situation was exemplified of the administration of justice. Set by the fate of the respective parties in the against the profession was the public, event of a breach of contract. While the whose views were obscured by political employer was liable for the customary civil penalty of monetary damages, the rhetoric, but who seemed suspicious of employee was treated as a criminal subject the apparatus of the courts. The lawyers to imprisonment. prevailed and Blackwell believes that the reforms expedited the administration of Craven's study is explicitly tentative, justice benefitting the public as a whole. raising as many questions as it answers. But the question of judicial reform was For instance, the provincial legislation of part of a larger debate about the concen­ 1847 was apparently made necessary by tration of power between the leading several judicial decisions which brought entrepreneurs and lawyers on the one into question the legality of the British hand, and the small farmers and artisans legislation in the colony. Did this mean of the province on the other. The courts that provincial judges were antagonistic to settled relatively few of the economic dis­ employers? While the author does not putes bearing on this issue. Their major speculate, his evidence suggests that the importance was symbolic rather than judicial decisions hinged on the interpre­ tation of a single English act: the Statute instrumental. Blake and his legal col­ of Apprentices of 1562. This act was leagues assumed that the superior courts thought inappropriate in Ontario chiefly comprised the heart of the system of jus­ because its restrictions on entry to the tice. Small proprietors tended to look skilled trades — especially that requiring instead to the local courts of limited juris­ seven years of apprenticeship — were diction for the protection of their deemed too rigorous given the shortage of interests. They regarded an expanded cen­ craftsmen in the province. It seems signif­ tralized system as one more step in the icant that the legislature also passed a pro­ concentration of power they deplored. In vincial statute of apprentices in 1851 with the dispute over judicial reform, both the expressed intention of shortening the sides appealed to the principles of equality time necessary for apprenticeship. before the law and due process in legal procedure, bui from viewpoints which But in spite of its insights, there is an reflected conflicting conceptions of social air of unreality about Craven's essay: it is improvement. almost an attempt to write working-class Professor Craven's article on "The history without the workers. This is a defi­ Law of Master and Servant in Mid- ciency which the author recognizes. Nineteenth-Century Ontario" introduces a Superior court decisions and the contents new actor to the provincial stage: the of statutes reveal little about the behaviour property less working class. With the and the experience of workers regarding appearance of numerous wage-earners, the law. For this it is necessary to study the magistrates' and police courts where the lines of conflict at mid-century were legal disputes concerning employment shifting from the social relations of REVIEWS 205 tended to be resolved, and this Craven Quebec now leads the rest of the country intends to do in a forthcoming essay. But in the field of socio-economic history. it is also necessary to look completely out­ The recent translation of the excellent side of the formal mechanisms of the law. Histoire du Quebec Contemporain by Since most disputes were settled infor­ Linteau, Durocher, and Robert has made mally, the employment relationship, and this much more stimulating and com­ hence the law in its broadest sense, was prehensive interpretation available to a defined in the day-to-day confrontations large audience in English Canada. It also between labour and capital. reveals the great extent to which Susan The major failing of this volume and Mann Trofimenkoffs The Dream of indeed of Canadian legal history so far is Nation is outdated even as it hits the probably its elitist bias. The law-making bookstore shelves. process seems to have involved an ongo­ The problem is not that this sorely- ing struggle between contending individu­ needed English language survey restricts als and groups over conflicting concep­ itself to "social" and "intellectual" his­ tions of justice, but the writings tend to tory, for these two themes can, and do in equate legal history with the actions of this case, become all-encompassing. In prominent jurists and politicians. Their fact, the book presents a good deal of behaviour is certainly revealing about the valuable information on Quebec society, strategies of those in power. As several and is particularly valuable in its depiction contributors point out, Canadian judges of women's experience. Unfortunately, it seem to have been reluctant to enunciate also attempts to pour this new wine into new principles, preferring to don the man­ the old bottles of narrative history. The tle of neutral arbiters articulating estab­ framework remains the chronological, lished doctrine. They have left the law­ political one, with many pages devoted to making to the parliamentarians who can tired old topics such as the struggle for claim, since they were elected, to repre­ responsible government, Confederation, sent the people. These can be persuasive the separate schools question, and the legitimizing concepts, but to what extent conscription crises. To the Quebec nation­ have they been accepted by persons and alist school of historians each of these groups outside the inner sanctums of issues represents a step toward further power? An answer requires more study of political and economic domination by the behaviour of small proprietors and English Canada, and social and cultural workers in the courts, especially those of domination by the Catholic church. But limited jurisdiction, and in society gener­ Trofimenkoff has little time for the ally. Only in this way can a comprehen­ nationalist interpretation. She presents the sive social history of the law be written. fall of New France as inevitable, down­ William Wylie plays the socio-economic impact of the Parks Canada Conquest (making a rather curious allu­ Susan Mann Trofimenkoff, The Dream of sion to rape), dismisses the Patriotes' Nation: A Social and Intellectual History dream of independence as misguided and of Quebec (Toronto: Macmillan 1982). irresponsible, and approves of the collab­ oration of LaFontaine and Cartier with MUCH OF THE RECORDED history of English Canada. Quebec is obsessed with the struggle for The economic superiority of English- "la survivance" in a strictly cultural speaking capitalists becomes an inevitable sense. Nationalist heroes, whether they process, having little to do with the social were priests, politicians, or writers, once and cultural values propagated by the received the lion's share of attention. But church. In fact the author even minimizes the focus began to shift in the 1960s, until the moral influence of the priests, claim- 206 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

ing that the people generally went about In succeeding chapters, the anti- their daily lives, and the government about materialist position of the nineteenth- its business, despite the jeremiads from century church is also highly exaggerated, the pulpit. The major exception seems to its political ambitions only slightly less have been the status of women. When so, and its useful functions are essentially compared with the rest of Canada, the limited to those performed by nuns. The female emancipation movement was transience of Quebec society during the weakened, in part at least, by the key role last century is blown out of proportion; which the traditional family played in the rural family migration to the frontier and minds of the clerico-nationalist elite. The mill towns caused an extension of tradi­ same sort of analysis could have been tional values and institutions, not their applied to the labour and farmers' move­ disruption. To describe farmers and work­ ments, as well as to the welfare and edu­ ers as helpless and uncomplaining pawns. cation systems, but the implication of drifting desperately from place to place, church domination in these fields is sel­ does little credit to their strength and dom pursued very far. The reverse pro­ resourcefulness. Nor did the nationalist cess, especially the impact of indus­ elite's "dream of a Gallic presence across trialization and urbanization upon the eor- the continent" die with the execution of poratist ideals of the early twentieth cen­ Louis Riel and the creation of a public tury. is well documented. But the point of school system in Manitoba. These events understanding ideology tends to be lost in fact helped to awaken indifferent when its importance to social evolution is Quebeckers to the existence of French- not demonstrated. speaking minorities in the rest of the coun­ try, culminating in the pan-Canadian Aside from its failure to synthesize the nationalism of Henri Bourassa. The book social and intellectual themes in a mean­ also makes the blunder of declaring that ingful fashion, The Dream of Nation's Protestant-owned corporations contrib­ interpretation of the past is frequently uted solely to Quebec's Protestant school debatable, to say the least. The short commissions, when in fact company taxes chapter on New France emphasizes the were divided according to population scarcity of labour as a basic socio­ numbers. Urban Protestant schools did economic weakness, when this has been receive more local funding than did those denied by both Moogk and Dechene. The of the Catholics because English Quebeck­ period from 1760 to 1850 is covered in a ers were more inclined to be property cohesive and well-integrated fashion, owners, but the vast majority of being essentially a summary of Femand anglophones in Quebec had no reason to Ouellet's work. However, more attention feel particularly privileged. They once to the publications of Montreal social his­ constituted a large proportion of the torians Tulchinsky, Linteau, and Young impoverished workers in Montreal, and of would have cast a more critical light on the struggling farmers in the isolated the image of the French-Canadian nation Gaspe and Eastern Townships regions. By fostered by the intellectual elite. Men like choosing to ignore this substantial minor­ Cartier may have paid lip-service to the ity group, the author is herself perpetuat­ stereotype that the "French Canadians had ing an old nationalist myth, the one that a cultural, emotional, artistic, sustaining associates English Quebeckers exclusively and civilizing function to play in a country with the Westmounts of the province. dominated by English Canadian commer­ cial, economic, national, and materialistic activities," (113) but that did not preyent As a survey of Quebec history, The them from grasping for their share of the Dream of Nation does have strengths. It spoils. incorporates a considerable amount of rel­ atively recent historical writing in a con- REVIEWS 207 cise and readable format, Unfortunately. times were sharpened by the belief that because of the tendency to dramatize the provincial government was illegitimate issues, and the cursory treatment of many and despotic. When William Lyon Mac­ important topics, the book does not pre­ kenzie marched on Toronto in December sent a well-balanced view of the province. 1837, this belief lent colour to the rumour that the authorities planned to arrest all of J.I. Little the colony's leading radicals, including Simon Fraser University Duncombe. and were unconstitutionally preventing the people from petitioning the Colin Read, The Rising in Western Upper monarch for redress of their grievances. Canada, 1837-8: The Duncombe Revolt The further rumour that Mackenzie had and After (Toronto: University of Toronto taken Toronto, or was about to do so, Press 1982). ignited the tinder of alienation. The rising was stillborn. The rebels READ SETS OUT to examine "in detail" learned of Mackenzie's flight while mus­ (10) the social context, political antece­ tering to march on Brantford and chose to dents, events, and consequences of the flee themselves. Afterwards the govern­ insurrection led by Dr. Charles Dun­ ment faced few obstacles in routing out combe in the London District in treason. Read contends that the central December 1837. After some contextual authorities acted leniently during this preliminaries, he sets the scene of the phase, especially in view of the raids rebellion: the 33 townships of the London launched from the U.S. throughout 1838. District and the two Gore District town­ I wonder how hard they tried to stop the ships that bordered it. A sketch of the set­ persecution of suspected rebels, and tlement process, the ethnic and sectarian reformers generally, by vindictive local distribution of population, and the local officials. Was there a "good cop-bad cop" economy leads to four chapters on the aspect to their tactics of conciliation? political discontents of the region, just Who were the rebels? Read tells us before the rising, and on the rising itself they were mostly mature men (average and its repression. Finally, Read tries to age 30.2). married (84 out of 128), fairly explain the insurrection, using numerical prosperous by local standards, and either and conventional data to build a social American-born or British North profile of the rebels and discussing their motives, chiefly on the basis of their con­ American-born of American antecedents fessions and petitions for clemency. (about 80 per cent). His profile uses con­ ventional as well as numerical data, how­ The narrative chapters are the most ever. since the latter are scanty: he has successful. Reviewing the antecedents of identified 197 rebels (out oi' perhaps 500, the revolt. Read notes two events that he suggests), but the data even on these shocked Upper Canada's reformers. The are far from complete. Thus Read's quan­ government's victory in the general elec­ titative analysis of sectarian affiliation is tion of 1836 was aided by Orange vio­ vitiated because he has data for only 44 lence at the polls and blatantly fraudulent rebels and 25 sympathizers and has cho­ manipulation of the electoral process. sen not to expand them by using the nomi­ Afterwards, the new legislature passed an nal census of 1842. since '"denomina­ act to prevent the dissolution that should tional and sectarian lines were crossed constitutionally have followed the King's with some frequency." (185) I think his impending death. When bad harvests and caution excessive and regret it the more the international depression of 1836-7 because I have found the census useful in brought unusual hardship to the district, analyzing the Toronto parliamentary poll the political discontents normal to bad book of 1836. As to socio-economic 208 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL status, Read's data on proprietorship are reflects his narrow frame of reference. too vague to reveal much. His occupa­ The literature on agrarian social structure, tional profile of 140 rebels is more mentalite, and insurrection is vast. Read interesting, since it shows that only 64 ignores it all, apart from two citations of were farmers, 27 were labourers, and thai Captain Swing. Had he known of it, he the other 49 were mainly engaged in pro­ could hardly have called his useful little fessional, commercial, or artisan pursuits. sketch of London District society an It would be useful if this were matched examination "in detail." Still less could with the occupational profile of the region he have dismissed the role of class conflict as a whole. in the rising in a single paragraph. "Those whose livelihood did not directly depend Given his limited data. Read is proba­ on agriculture," he writes, "none the less bly right to eschew systematic cross- understood that their prosperity depended tabulation. Still, his use of what he has is on the fortunes of the farmer, a realization sometimes questionable. To test the sensi­ which militated against the development ble theory that the sixteen townships that of classes and class-consciousness." (44) produced rebels were worse hit by the Later (72) he quotes a piece of class- Depression than their rebel-free conscious rhetoric from a newspaper with­ neighbours, he looks for variation out noticing that it contradicts his assump­ between the two sets of townships in their tion of a non-class society. rate of growth of population in 1836-7 compared with 1831-6. 1 wonder whether Read's account of the political context anything short of fire, sword, or famine is oddly old-fashioned. It takes little could have made a big difference in this notice of the important revisions advanced indicator in one year. Agrarian popula­ over the last twenty years by Graeme Pat­ tions are tenacious; they do not quit their terson and S.F. Wise, among others. land lightly. And Read does not say when Labels such as "Tory," "Moderate his data for 1837 were compiled: was it a Reformer," and "Radical Reformer" whole year after distress began? abound as if in an unsubtle version of Doubts also arise when Read discusses Aileen Dunham's sterling but dated monograph on Politicul Unrest in Upper the rebels' motives. It seems redundant to Canada. Read contradicts the idea that speculate on why many captive rebels, in Mackenzie was "the acknowledged leader petitioning for mercy, claimed to have of the Reformers," observing that been misled by "wicked and designing "steadier and more moderate men, indi­ men." (206) Surely it was an obvious plea viduals such as Marshall Spring Bidwell, to offer. Noting the hostility between Dr. William Warren Baldwin and his son, American and British settlers. Read plaus­ Robert, had better claim to that honour." ibly suggests that the "Yankee" rebels (7-8) Would it not be truer to say that there may have been inspired by anti-British were several reform "constituencies," and anti-colonialist sentiment; but he partly socially, partly regionally, partly ignores the importance of the fact that ethno-culturally defined, and that Mac­ most of the British immigration was kenzie was the chief spokesman of one of recent. How far was the rising a reaction them? The capsule definition of responsi­ to a sudden and apparently unending flood ble government offered on p. 8 is hardly of alien immigration, which threatened state-of-the-art. the old settlers with cultural engulfment? How far was it a response to hard times by This, then, is a useful narrative of the established settlers who were more western insurrection, but its analysis. involved in market relations than the new­ interpretation, and contexting of the event comers? are exiguous. The presentation is also Read's neglect of such questions deficient. Two or three errors of style REVIEWS 209

recur which competent copy-editing migrants after 1890, for the Canadian would have corrected; in the statistical west and, once established there, most of tables, main and subtotals are presented in them managed to succeed at whatever the same column; the nine appendices pre­ they chose to do. senting the material for Read's quantita­ Less fortunate were their genteel sis­ tive analysis would have been more useful ters. Yet their prospects were worse if presented in tabular form. because there was a surplus of women in nineteenth-century Britain due to wars, Paul Romney differing infant mortality rates, and exces­ Toronto sive male out-migration. Hence respecta­ ble marriages were increasingly scarce Susan Jackel, ed., A Flannel Shirt and and alternatives in the work force were Liberty: British Emigrant Gentlewomen in meagre because they were educated but the Canadian West, 1880-1914 (Vancou­ lacked the skill and disposition to meet the ver; University of British Columbia Press needs of industry. It is to this hitherto 1982). unpublicized problem group that Susan Jackel's A Flannel Shirt and Liberty: Brit­ HISTORICAL WRITING ON transatlantic ish Emigrant Gentlewomen in the Cana­ migration to Canada has traditionally dian West, 1880-1914 is dedicated. stressed the dispossessed, whose reasons Since migration seemed to be the only for leaving home were simple and imme­ reasonable solution for many women of diate. Deprivation and persecution caused genteel birth, a considerable literature an almost desperate search for alternatives appeared in the three decades before among Irish peasants in the mid- World War I designed to familiarize those nineteenth century and urban workers considering this option with what to squeezed by business cycles and the rav­ expect from and how to prepare for the ages of industrialization. Most recently empire across the sea. The high degree of the pauper immigrant child has received literacy which these women shared has considerable attention in such books as given Professor Jackel a wide and varied Joy Parr's Labouring Children and Ken­ written legacy upon which to draw. The neth Bagnell's The Little Immigrants. result is a good example of scholarly As recent attitudes take a brief but sig­ excerpting. Not only does Dr, Jackel nificant shift to the right the upper levels expose the variety of contemporary com­ of society have received attention as well. ment on the subject of well-bred British Not only are members of the social and spinsters and their efforts to adapt to. a economic elite portrayed less as exploiters new and often hostile environment, but and more as social and economic she also skillfully weaves their recollec­ motivators, but their predecessors have tions and commentaries with introductory also become the objects of considerable comments which demonstrate both careful historical curiosity, Patrick Dunae's Gen­ research on each contributor and an tlemen Emigrants being the best known intimate comprehension of pre-war Brit­ recent work of this genre. While the rea­ ish and western Canadian social history. sons for the well-heeled to leave the "Old The excerpts in the book are grouped Country" may not have been as pressing to conform to the three main periods of as for the needy, nevertheless the search western Canada's settlement and develop­ for social and economic improvement also ment before 1914. The earliest, which lay behind their departure from a society deals with settlement in Manitoba in the which found increasing numbers of the 1880s, is the shortest. Unfortunately, it is well-bred and well-educated to be redun­ also the slimmest in content. A descriptive dant. They aimed, like most other piece taken from Mary Georgina Hall's A 210 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

luidx's Life on a Farm in Manitoba con­ women could accomplish despite the veys vividly the impact the frontier had on Canadian prohibition against them acquir­ a sensitive woman, but is followed by a ing homesteads. A similar pride in accom­ tedious, repetitive CPR questionnaire tes­ plishment is repeated by Ella Sykes in a tifying to the opportunities for women that chapter from her book A Home-Help in existed in the Canadian northwest. While Canada, and by Marion Cran from A Jessie Saxby's convincing argument for Woman in Canada, among others. emigration as a potential benefit to both While the rural way of life is still con­ Britain and Canada ("Women Wanted") is sidered important in the third section, more interesting, it does not salvage the there is a decidedly urban orientation to section. the pieces selected. Now domestic service Part II. entitled "Doldrums: the to farmers was not the only alternative 1890's," consists largely of a negative because as prairie society matured it statement by one J.R.E.S. called "The offered limitless opportunities for women English Ranchwoman," and Agnes who were quick (British women were con­ Shire's rebuttal, "A Lady's Life on a sidered slow as a rule), sensible, skilled, Ranche." In essence these two women and ambitious to pursue careers as secre­ sum up the debate on the west at the time. taries, phone operators, nurses, teachers, The first writer measures the new world and milliners as well. Nevertheless, until by what it lacked, the second by what it the right situation presented itself they had to offer to those with initiative. had to be prepared to start modestly as resourcefulness, and imagination. By domestic servants or home-help if need comparison, the final offering, Elizabeth be. They also had to remain adaptable Lewthwaitc's "Women's Work in West­ and, like their rural counterparts, be will­ ern Canada," contains simple, pragmatic- ing to accept the levelling nature of Cana­ advice on what a woman could expect by dian society where there was little time for way of amenities when she arrived on the class-oriented conventions. prairies. Unfortunately, the observations of The last and the longest section, "The journalists-turned-workers often do not Wheat-Boom Years: 1905-1914" pro­ ring true because the reader is aware that vides the reader with the greatest variety these women indulged in work simply to of selections both in source and sub­ relate the highlights of their experiences. stance. The reason is that between 1905 Most telling in this regard is Ella Sykes' and World War I an emerging, insatiable complaint that her time spent as a clandes­ popular press took it upon itself to create a tine home-help had been extremely diffi­ myth of an imperial garden by cult since "I had to work from morning unabashedly focusing upon the prairie till night without any time to cultivate my west. Professor Jackel has selected some mind." of the better material directed at genteel As a consequence, the earlier selec­ women out of the voluminous body of tions from writers who for one reason or popular literature intended to entice another worked on farms appear to be almost the entire English population to more genuine. Here the reader feels the emigrate. grinding monotony of prairie life and Some of the pieces in this section are work as cooking, mending, cleaning, by women who experienced the farm laundering, gardening, and tending first-hand, like Georgina Binnie-Clark, poultry took their toll on women's spirits. who purchased land and made it produce Mary Hall, in "A Lady's Life on a Farm for several years. Her recollections, in Manitoba," for example, became drawn from her extensive journalistic obsessed with the need for clean linen as a endeavours, demonstrate what single sign of civility in the face of the primitive REVIEWS 211 conditions with which she had to contend. Mrs. Craig begins her story with the Nevertheless, there is also evident in almost standard description of life during many of them a growing admiration for the few months immediately preceding the region and its prospects. Not only was the war. Perhaps because the ensuing there opportunity for work and self- events were so dramatic and tragic for improvement but also a certain informal­ those who experienced them, those last ity, a freedom from restrictive conven­ few months before August 1914 always tions, and an enduring beauty in this harsh seem to be remembered for their peace environment for those with the imagina­ and serenity. For Grace Morris, this was tion to appreciate it. It is to these con­ certainly the case: life was idyllic — the verts, the ones who saw the merits in both summer was filled with socials, picnics, the flannel shirt and the liberty, rather tennis, and young love, "the sun was shin­ than to the hucksters, that the region owes ing and the world was at peace...." (24) its debt and to whom this book is devoted. When war was declared, Grace, her brothers, and friends reacted in a manner W.J.C. Cherwinski that was typical throughout most of Memorial University of Newfoundland English-speaking Canada — a sense of wonder at what was happening and Grace Morris Craig, But This is Our War impatience to get involved. At the time, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press Basil Morris was an undergraduate at the 1981). University of Toronto where he was study­ ing civil engineering. He immediately GRACE MORRIS WAS BORN in the early joined the First Canadian Tunnelling 1890s and raised in an upper-middle-class Company and was posted overseas by the family in Pembroke, Ontario. Her father end of January 1916. As his letters home was a successful civil engineer, and the reveal, Basil's perception of the war as a great adventure was quickly dashed. As Morris family was, without doubt, a part early as February 1916, he expresses the of Pembroke "society." Her two younger hope that "this old war will be over soon"; brothers, Ramsay (born in 1894) and he wants all the news from home, but tells Basil (born in 1896) were destined for his father, "please do not write anything professional careers; Grace herself had about the war... as I see enough of professional aspirations but in 1910, when she attempted to enter the University of it " (39, 47) The other Morris brother, Toronto's School of Architecture, she was Ramsay, joined the 38th Infantry Battal­ discouraged from doing so on account of ion and spent the first six months of the her sex. Unfortunately, Grace and her war in Bermuda, but in June 1916 he was brothers belonged to the generation of transferred overseas. As a lieutenant in the young Canadians that had to come to grips infantry his task was both difficult and with World War I and as so many others dangerous. Soon after arriving in France, did, they took up the challenge with gusto Ramsay suffered a severe case of shell in 1914, although subsequent events cast a shock and temporarily lost his sight. long shadow over their entire lives. Mrs. Life on the homefront for the people Craig's memoir reveals with poignancy of Pembroke was also filled with demands the tragic impact of the war on herself, her because of the town's proximity to the family, and her generation. She has skill­ Petawawa military camp. The social life fully woven her own reminiscences of the town was completely transformed; around and through a generous sampling the young men were gone but soldiers of letters sent home from the front by her flocked into Pembroke for entertainment brothers, relatives, friends, and loved at open houses offered by many towns­ ones. people on weekends, It was in this milieu 212 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

that Grace Morris did her bit too. From ation seen through the eyes of a perceptive the very beginning of the war, she threw and articulate woman. The war was the herself into volunteer work as did so many single most important event in Grace Mor­ other women. She organized teas, pre­ ris's life, just as it was for so many others. pared hospital supplies, worked at the In a sensitive and compelling manner, local canteen, and made up parcels of Grace and her correspondents speak for food and clothing for the men overseas. their generation. When Ramsay was hospitalized in fall This is a fine complementary book to 1916, Grace and her mother made the Barbara Wilson's Ontario and the First perilous journey across the Atlantic to be World War and to other first-hand with him. When he was released from hos­ accounts such as Daphne Read's The pital in December, Basil took leave from Great War and Canadian Society. It tells the Tunnellers and the four of them had a us about the homefront and life in the marvellous time for eight precious days. trenches and it is above all else a touching For Grace, the feverish activity in and commentary on the impact of World War I around London was exhilarating but after on the people and the society that experi­ a few months of being that close to the enced it. Viv Nelles provides a brief intro­ war, she became aware that the adventure duction and a list of suggested readings and glamour of it all were illusory, and and the book includes a number of photo­ that war meant horrors and discomforts graphs from Mrs. Craig's personal collec­ that seemed endlessly wretched. tion. Early in 1917, Basil resigned from the Glenn T. Wright Tunnellers for the more attractive life of a Public Archives of Canada member of the Royal Flying Corps. In spite of misgivings from his family he Blaine Bernard, The Long Distance Feel­ joined the 6th Squadron, RFC, full of ing: A History of the Telecommunications enthusiasm and glad to be rid of the mud Workers Union (Vancouver: New Star and trenches. But Basil's airborne career Books 1982). came to an abrupt end in March 1917: his BRYAN PALMER. IN HIS well-known. plane was shot down and he was killed. somewhat contentious article reviewing The Morris family was stunned, the war Canadian labour historians, distinguished had come to Pembroke, and especially for between the first generation of union his­ Grace, it was a rude reminder that the war torians who were primarily interested in was a terrible waste of young lives. Grace the history of labour organizations, and had also corresponded during the war with the second generation of social historians an officer in Basil's company, a Major whose preoccupation was not with unions Stuart Thome. He survived the war. and their leaders but with the workers, the returned to Canada and he and Grace plan­ workplace, and working-class culture. ned to marry. But suddenly, just prior to Though Palmer may have drawn the lines the wedding, Thome died from complica­ of demarcation too sharply while imply­ tions arising from an earlier bout of trench fever. Grace was shattered again; first the ing an intellectual superiority to the work war took her brother, and now it took her of the second generation, there is merit in future. making this distinction between organiza­ tional and social history. It is also impor­ But This is Our War is more than a tant to recognize, however, that they are collection of letters from the front. First, both aspects of labour's response to the it is the story of the Morris family and evolving face of industrial capitalism — how the Great War affected them, how it different but related. The most intriguing altered their lives. Second, it is a com­ question, of course, is what those rela­ ment on the experience of an entire gener­ tions are. REVIEWS 213

Until recently, little attention has been much more than that. (The TWU was only paid in labour studies to technology, not officially founded in 1977, whereas its as it has affected the growth and decline predecessor, the Federation of Telephone of certain occupations and industries with Workers dates from 1944 and the history the consequent cataclysmic effects on cer­ of B.C. Telephone goes back to 1878, tain groups of workers and their organiza­ with periodic union organization to 1901.) tions — both types of labour historians Bernard begins with the early origins have readily dealt with this — but rather at of telegraphy and the coming of the tele­ the more subtle level of how technology phone, its very rapid evolution, and the affected the workplace and, consequently, emergence of local, then regional, tele­ the relations among workers within indi­ phone systems. In B.C. the telephone vidual places of employment. Further, in appeared in the 1870s and by 1880 the assessing the impact of technology, the first local company was established in tendency has been to treat it as exogenous Victoria. Within a decade companies to labour-management relations, some­ were springing up on the mainland, but it thing that arrives from without, and not an was not long before the capital require­ integral element or management-con­ ments and the technical characteristics of trolled weapon in the struggle for the telephone systems resulted in the growth workplace. of monopoly capital organization. By This has, of course, changed markedly 1901, B.C. Telephone had been estab­ in recent years, in part the heritage lished and had gained control of telephone of Braverman's classic, Labor and companies on Vancouver Island, the Monopoly Capital. Increasing attention mainland, and in the interior of the prov­ has been directed at the skilled worker and ince. The transition to corporate the craft union in the early phases of capitalism was completed within two dec­ industrialization when artisans fought, on ades of the birth of the industry. balance unsuccessfully, the attempts by The transformation of the labour pro­ management to wrest control of the work­ cess was no less rapid. As in many of the place from labour through the introduc­ new industries, child labour (young boys tion of new technology and new forms of in this case) was initially used extensively work organization. Braverman did not because it was cheap. But very quickly the deal with the workers' collective cost of the constant supervision necessary response, for which he has been quite to maintain discipline induced manage­ unjustly criticized since it was not his ment to switch to young, inexperienced, intent. Nevertheless, a whole new litera­ women operators who were more docile ture has appeared on the organizational and willing to work harder though they response of labour to this form of techno­ received no more pay. From the 1890s, logical warfare. telephone operators became one of the In this context, there have been few major female job ghettos that resulted monograph-length studies in Canadian from the new technology. labour history. This makes the publication The labour force that erected and of The Long Distance Feeling, an histori­ repaired the lines and installed and main­ cal study that attempts to integrate the his­ tained the equipment, however, was of a tory of technology, the workplace, and very different nature. Even here, though, workers' struggles with the organizational there was a major market segregation. history of the telephone workers The linemen's work was heavy and dan­ employed by British Columbia Telephone, gerous but also irregular and it would a welcome addition. Though the subtitle appear that it was done, at least initially, says it is a history of the Telecommunica­ by semi-skilled men often recruited from tions Workers Union (TWU) it is, in fact, the telegraph industry. At the same time, 214 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

there were smaller numbers of permanent and clerical — is indicative of the continu­ craft workers who installed and main­ ing success of management's strategy. tained the equipment or acted as cable However, once again technological splicers. Only somewhat later, as the change, automation of the exchanges, and demand for service increased and with it speed-ups brought a new harmony of the size of the company, did a fourth worker interests in the late 1950s and the labour group emerge, the clerical staff. In 1960s as it had a half century earlier. The 1904 there were only two female office issue was layoffs and the intensification of workers. By the late 1920s this number work. In 1969 the workers struck B.C. Tel had grown to several dozen. for the first time in half a century. Eleven Unionization among the craft workers years later the workers combined spon­ and linesmen came early in the form of the taneously to occupy B.C. Tel and take International Brotherhood of Electrical over management, albeit temporarily: Workers (IBBW). Founded in 1901-2, the After a confrontation lasting 536 days, includ­ IBKW was based, like many similar craft ing a four-month selective strike, a seven-day unions, on a combination of interest in occupation in Nanaimo, a five-day province- mutual craft education, providing an wide occupation of telephone exchanges, a employment agency, and mutual insur­ one-day general strike in Nanaimo, and the ance in an unstable labour market. More intervention of the federal labour minister, the surprising, in 1902, the women operators provincial leader of the opposition and half a in Vancouver formed a sub-local of the dozen mediators, the telephone workers had IBKW. concluded another collective agreement. (222) The formation of a union and the Bernard's book also, of course, con­ growth of large-scale capital set the stage tains the usual chronicle of internal rifts for a battle for control similar to that and internecine union politics that is which swept North America with the standard in labour histories, though she advance of the second stage of the indus­ perhaps makes too little of the importance trial revolution. While the telephone of male chauvinism and lack of concern workers won the first skirmish in 1902, by male trade unionists with women they were increasingly less successful, workers and women's issues, at least until their demise culminating in the destruc­ quite recently. There is also very little tion of the unity of the work force after the attempt to relate the struggles of telephone general sympathy strike of 1919. Most workers with the wider issues of the work­ important, evolving technology and man­ ing class and trade unions. Still, these are agement strategy split the craftsmen from not serious criticisms within the context of the operators and clerical workers in what the study's intent. As a study of the had become a familiar pattern of "divide interaction of technology, conflict at the and conquer." Indeed one of the most point of production, the labour process, interesting facets of Bernard's account is and the organized response of workers, it the many ways in which management seg­ is remarkably successful. mented the workers, rendering impotent or preventing organization among the Paul Phillips operators, sugaring the pill with a coat of University of Manitoba corporate paternalism. Lewis H. Thomas, ed.. The Making of a Effective unionization did not return Socialist: The Recollections of T.C. until World War II and the formation of Douglas (Edmonton: University of the Federation of Telephone Workers in Alberta Press 1982). 1944. Even here, the segmentation of the union into three virtually independent THIS IS THE STORY of a man who has units — traffic (operators), plant (craft). used his life to work with others toward REVIEWS 215 the creation of a better world for them­ to keep public opinion on his side. selves and the future. In the process During his second term of office he astonishing things have happened, par­ initiated the creation of a broader eco­ ticularly in Ihe province of Saskatchewan nomic base through the development of where T.C. Douglas was Premier for sev­ industries such as oil and potash, meas­ enteen years. ures which helped to turn Saskatchewan Based on a series of interviews in from the drought-stricken province he 1958 with political journalist Chris Hig- found into one of the "have" provinces of ginbotham, the book is Tommy Douglas today. talking informally of events and impres­ The magnitude of Douglas's achieve­ sions from his childhood (he was born in ment in Saskatchewan is amazing. 1904) until three years before he left Sas­ Researchers in many fields will find this katchewan, undefeated, to become the book a valuable source of reference, not first leader of the New Democratic Party. only for this period but also for his earlier The editor, Dr. Lewis H. Thomas, briefly years in Ottawa as the member of parlia­ fills in the gap since then, for Tommy ment for Weyburn. From 1935 to 1944 — Douglas, now retired from elective office, tumultuous years — he battled, first is still active in the Douglas-Coldwell against depression conditions, then Foundation and the New Democratic against the insidious drift to war, and Party. finally against the shipment from Canada Most of the book is given over to the of scrap metal to the allies of Hitler. He fascinating account of Douglas's major remembers these years in vivid detail. achievement — leadership in laying the Many who have followed his public foundations for a democratic socialist career closely will find their greatest society in a Canadian province deep in the interest in the earlier part of this book, his heart of capitalist America, thereby pro­ origins and youth. They will find some viding a pilot project from which the fed­ answers about the sources of his strength eral government has drawn concrete and of how he was able to inspire hope examples for social security and other and confidence in the people of Sas­ Canada-wide legislation. katchewan to the point where they forgot Space will not permit even the com­ their fears and worked with him con­ plete listing of these accomplishments sciously to create new thinking and new among which were hospital insurance, institutions. They will catch glimpses of medicare, protection for farmers against the formation of his remarkable mixture mortgage foreclosure, rural electrifica­ of the visionary and the practical, his love tion, car insurance, wider educational of people, his boundless flow of energy, opportunities for children in scattered his irresistible sense of humour and, communities, legislation to guarantee the above ali, his unswerving dedication to rights of trade unions, and a host of other the ideals of Christianity and democratic measures to improve the well-being of socialism which for him were as one. people. Tommy Douglas came from Scottish It is significant that although Tommy ancestry which included on both sides of Douglas realized from the outset the the family those devoted not only to their importance of developing new resources own breadwinning. but also to community to supplement a wheat economy, he began leadership. His father was an iron- with legislation to safeguard the health moulder. Tommy speaks of his uncom­ and security of the citizens of Saskatche­ promising integrity and his hatred of class wan . In the process he incurred the enmity distinction. He recalls his mother's love of of many powerful financial, commercial, good literature and her dramatic abilities. and professional groups. But he managed Of course the poetry and philosophy of 216 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

Robbie Burns were with him from his where Tommy was the pastor. childhood. Constant reading and vigorous From the beginning the Great Depres­ discussion augmented by a number of sion hung like a pall over everything. uncles sharpened his wit and knowledge. Weyburn was in one of the hardest-hit The family emigrated to Canada areas. From 1929 to 1938 the province twice, the first time just before World War faced a situation in which, as Tommy puts I, the second just after it. In both cases it, there was "no rain and no crop." The they settled in North Winnipeg where. effect on families and individuals was Tommy recalls. "I was tossed into the devastating. The young folk could get no middle of what was a tower of Babel," the jobs and there was no money for educa­ great mass of immigrants from Europe. tion beyond high school. Suffering from He went regularly to All Peoples' Mission their misery the pastor began to question: where J.S. Woodsworth directed many "Why did this society break down? What was wrong with it?" Yet he remembers: activities for the newcomers, young and "At no time did I make a definite decision old. and helped them become a part of the to go into politics." Canadian fabric. Tommy experienced the essential oneness of human beings and That decision was precipitated by their needs. He also learned much about events. In fall 1931 he organized the the makeup of western Canada. unemployed. Farm organizations began to In the period of unrest and readjust­ involve him in their efforts to get govern­ ment at the end of the war which cul­ ment action. Finally he wrote to J.S. minated in the Winnipeg General Strike. Woodsworth. who had been his pastor in fourteen-year-old Tommy and several Winnipeg and was then a member of par­ companions watched the parade on liament. The result was that he was put in Bloody Saturday, saw the police charging touch with Alderman M.J. Coldwell of the crowd, and witnessed the fatal shoot­ Regina and that both men later addressed ing of one man. Says Tommy: 'Certainly. meetings in Weyburn. One thing led to as the years went by, the Winnipeg Gen­ another but Tommy says he "didn't think of politics at all" until 1934 when the eral Strike left a very lasting impression Farmer-Labor Party was looking for a on me.'" candidate for the provincial election. After a few temporary jobs Tommy Nobody wanted to run. Tommy was per­ became an apprentice printer and at six­ suaded. He ran and was defeated but came teen was the youngest linotype operator in a good second. Canada. He had other interests, notably in boys' work and in the Baptist Church of Then came the search for a federal which he was a member. Gradually he candidate to run in the election of 1935. came to the decision that he wanted to Tommy was approached again. While he become a Baptist minister. That led to six hesitated he was visited by the western arduous years of training at Brandon Col­ superintendent of the Baptist Church who lege during which he supported himself told him bluntly that if he ran again he precariously, partly by preaching assign­ would be struck off the church rolls and ments as a supply for the regular pastor. never get another pastorate. Tommy's From this period dates his close friendship hesitation was over. He replied: "You've just given the CCF a candidate." And with with Stanley Knowles. a fellow-student. that challenge Tommy Douglas made the Following his ordination in 1930 decision to use politics as his means of Tommy married Irma Dcmpsey. a young working toward a more just and more woman from a nearby town who was humane society. interested in youth work. The couple became deeply involved in the many Grace Maclnnis activities of Weyburn Baptist Church Vancouver REVIEWS 217

Toby Gordon Ryan. Stage Left: Canadian examinations of Canadian theatre history. Theatre in the Thirties. A Memoir But it is not political in the sense of (Toronto: CTR Publications 1981). being overtly socialist or even radical. The introduction notes that the book began THfc PUBLICATION DATA for this volume when Rubin was making a series of inter­ reveal many things. To begin, there is that views with Canadian theatrical pioneers. triple-barrelled title. Stage Left is perhaps Of the names he notes, only three are an overly cute phrase which combines a exponents of this type of political theatre. theatrical stage direction and a comment One of these is George Luscombe, of on the politics of the groups which Ryan Toronto Workshop Productions. The other describes. two are Oscar and Toby Ryan. The next part of the title denotes the I made reference above to "anecdot- nationality and the period of theatre to be age." This word most certainly does not examined. One might argue, however. apply to Toby Ryan. But it fails to apply that the phrasing here promises much for both positive and negative reasons. more than it gives, for the vast majority of The positive is in Ryan's great personal productions in the 1930s are not men­ skill as a researcher. She does not rely on tioned in this book. These were essen­ vague memories which have sifted tially bourgeois escapist pieces, most through the years. To her own recollec­ done by the burgeoning Little Theatres. tions as an actress in the Theatre of On the other hand, earlier histories of Action, she adds a great number of docu­ Canadian theatre in the 1930s, such as mented references, often to newspaper Betty Lee's Love and Whisky, the history reviews and articles from the period. of the Dominion Drama Festival, went too Still better, she shows great skill as an far the other way. From them, one would oral historian. With the aid of a Canada get the impression that Canadian theatre Council grant, Ryan interviewed a large wasn't so much love and whisky as it was number of people who had participated in milk and cookies. And certainly never the radical theatre in the 1930s. Ryan herself placards and banners which Ryan notes. had been involved in only Winnipeg and The third aspect is "a memoir." In Toronto but she recognized the need to most cases this would suggest very per­ describe a larger picture and so also inter­ sonal recollections by a famous partici­ viewed members of groups from Vancou­ pant in the activity being examined. This ver and Montreal. is usually done when trie author has Which perhaps begins to suggest the reached what might be called his or her negative. Ryan is obviously concerned "anecdotage," and usually requires resur­ that this not become autobiography. In the rection by an able ghost-writer. few moments when her personal experi­ The introduction, by the publisher ence comes to the fore, as when she Don Rubin, gives the impression that at describes how she was given the lead in a least the "famous participant" applies. Theatre of Action presentation, she seems CTR stands for Canadian Theatre Review, apologetic. She wishes to avoid blowing the journal of professional theatre in Can­ her own hom, which is very strange for a ada. CTR Publications was created to pro­ memoir. duce books on Canadian theatre which As is the absence of anecdotes. I don't would not be published by a mainstream know whether this reflects a conscious publisher. The whole operation is political choice by Ryan or simply her lack of abil­ in one sense, in that it is avowedly nation­ ity as a raconteur but there is none of alist and its bias is towards the fringe or those sprightly vignettes which fill up the avant-garde, both in its publication of most examples of the genre. Admittedly, works on contemporary theatre and its such portraits often approach egomania 218 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

but they can also be very entertaining. 1 their devotion to the working class. Then am reminded of Lilli Palmer's encounter there are a few like Johnny Wayne and with the Duchess of Windsor in Change Frank Shuster. It's amazing to see it but Lobsters and Dance. they seemed to have almost no concern for Not that anecdotes must be limited to the politics of the Theatre of Action: humour. The repression of Eight Men "You see, all we wanted to know was Speak when its first production was about acting. We wouldn't give you a banned in Toronto in 1933 should be one nickel for class-consciousness, social of the more compelling episodes in Cana­ things, alternative theatres." dian theatre. My doctoral dissertation was Toby Ryan has given much more than an examination of Canadian drama from a nickel for these things. She has given her 1919 to 1939 and Eight Men Speak was life to them. But I don't think this book easily the most interesting piece I read. evokes that experience as well as it might. Hven if one were not attracted to its left- What it does do is a more than reasonable wing message, about the imprisonment of job of describing what happened in the the Canadian Communist leader, Tim radical theatre of the 1930s. When I was Buck, its use of Brcchtian and collective working on my dissertation 1 found this theatrical devices was incredibly innova­ aspect of research the most difficult. tive for its period. Such things would not Archival resources tended to be limited to become common in Canada for more than perhaps a few issues of Masses, the radi­ 30 years. And yet Ryan's account lacks cal arts magazine. A work like Stage Left, the edge which it should have. She with its newspaper references and many includes interviews with various partici­ interviews, would have made my job pants as well as reactions in the contem­ much easier. Everyone who is interested porary press but things never come alive. in radicalism in the 1930s or in the devel­ This is especially surprising given that her opment of Canadian theatre should read husband, Oscar, was one of the authors of this book. But there is a livelier version of the play. the story that remains to be told. The absence of vitality seems related to the absence of Toby Ryan's personality in Terry Goldie the book, something which is quite possi­ Memorial University of Newfoundland bly a political decision. The theatrical groups which she examines were ardently Bernard Gauvin, Les communistes et la egalitarian in that 1930s way which question nationale au Quebec. Sur le always seems so naive today. People often Parti communiste du Canada de 1921 a talk of the simplicity of the campus radi­ 1938 (Montreal: Les Presses de I'unite, cals of the 1960s but there was a wide- 1981). eyed innocence in the North American reaction to Spain in the 1930s which far CEL1VRH, REDIGE A partir d'un memoire exceeded that to Vietnam in the 1960s. de maitrise, etudie la politique du Parti Ryan's book often reflects this. She communiste du Canada concernant la doesn't bring her own personality alive, question nationale canadienne-francaise nor those of her comrades, but there is pendant les dix-sept premieres annees de always a hint of the glow they felt in their son existence. L'ouvragc, illustre de quel- poverty, working collectively to bring out ques photographies et d'un tableau, est the art of the workers. A number of the href. La these de 1'auteur est que le PCC a interviews suggest the youthful vigour of adhere au nationalisme bourgeois, et qu'il the participants, as well as their political n'a pris conscience, par aillcurs, ni de quandaries, such as the uneasiness some I'existence de la nation canadienne- of the more bourgeois elements had in francaise, ni de son droit a l'autodetermi- REVIEWS 219

nation. En fait, meme si le PCC proclame a rautodetermination. Pire encore, les qu'il appuyait ces notions, il faisait tout dirigeants du PCC repetaient les mythes pour les nier. Voila comment il se trompe traditionnels sur les Canadiens frangais; sur sa propre histoire. De plus, Gauvin sug- regressifs, analphabetes et dans le giron gere que le PCC etait par dessus tout inca­ de TEglise. Pour le parti, les exploiteurs pable de comprendre les Canadiens fran­ anglais n'existaient pas. Avec justesse, cais, leur culture, leur moeurs ou leur his­ Gauvin les critique pour leur myopie. La toire. derniere partie est consacree a la fac,on Les parametres de 1'ouvrage sont dont le PCC, en pleine guerre contres les bases sur une division chronologique: fascistes et le gouvernement Duplessis, 1921 a 1931, 1931 a 1934, 1934 a 1938. desavouait I'existence de la nation canadi­ Avant de commencer, Gauvin discute, enne. Les communistes canadiens ne pou- sans trop de vigueur, les theories de vaient accepter 1' idee d' une nation Lenine et de Staline sur la nation et le canadienne-franc,aise, et, a plus forte rai- droit a rautodetermination. Les theories son, son droit a rautodetermination. Ils de ce dernier s'appliquent au Quebec, car ne se sont done pas rendu compte qu'en ils admettent le droit d'un peuple a sa lan- prenant cette position, ils evitaient "la gue maternelle dans une nation "centree question nationale ... le demier chateau- mais pas federee" dont ils peuvent se reti- fort du nationalisme bourgeois." Voila ce rer pour etablir leur propre nation. Les qui a rendu les Canadiens francais refrac- communistes canadiens suivaient-ils cette taires au PCC. ligne? Pas du tout. Pendant la decennie En depit de cette interpretation qui a suivi la fondation du PCC, et des interessante, 1'etude presente encore quel- 1'instant ou ils ont aborde la question ques problemes. Le plus important est nationale, ils se sont preoccupes de la celui remarque par Robert Comeau dans le grande nation canadienne et de son inde- preface: 1'ouvrage neglige "1'analyse des pendance de 1'Empire britannique. Ils positions de Staline et des directives de la n'ont aborde la question que de cette fa- 3'' Internationale." Les auteurs ne les §on et ils ont mal compris la situation ayant pas consultees, il leur est difficile canadienne ou ils croyaient que la bour­ de savoir si le PCC a pris telle ou telle geoisie canadienne serait le fer de lance position seul ou s'il a suivi aveuglement contre les Brittaniques. En outre, le PCC a les directives sovietiques? C'est possible, connu des problemes internes qui ont meme probable, que 1'URSS ait oriente debouche sur une scission et un change- ces politiques. La question aurait pu etre mem de chef. Apres quoi, le PCC a com­ solutionnee en consultant les documents mence une valse hesitation qui a dure des de Jane Degras, ed.. The Communist debuts de la grande crise economique jus- International 1919-1943, Vol. Ill, ou les qu'en 1934, en tentant d'attirer au parti biographies de Staline qui sont les Canadiens frangais qui n'etaient pas nombreuses. En outre, pourquoi Gauvin nombreux dans ses rangs. Dans ce but, ils n'a-t-il pas tente de recueillir les temoig- publierent le journal VOuvrier Canadien nages de militants vivant au Quebec ou qui, pour plusieurs raisons, n'eut pas de ailleurs? !1 y a aussi le probleme que com- succes. Toutefois, la reussite ou 1'echec porte 1'analyse des seules declarations de ce journal n'aurait rien change, car le publiques? Refletent-elles la verite ou PCC ne pouvait pas dialoguer avec les sont-elles de la propagande? II faut savoir Canadiens francais. Quand il leur parlait, distinguer entre les deux. L'auteur qui c'etait toujours en reference a la grande aurait pu appuyer sa these sur les ouvrages nation canadienne, sauf une fois ou le PCC mentionnes plus haut, a egalement oublie suggera que les Canadiens francais for- de consulter d'autres livres importants tels ment une nation sans leur accorder le droit que W. Rodney, Soldiers of the Interna- 220 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

tional, A History of the Communist Party dicats Nationaux du Quebec to be a bal­ of Canada, 1919-/929 et M. Fournier, anced and accurate assessment of the ori­ Communistes et A nticommunisme au gins and development of the Catholic Quebec (1920-1950). A une autre niveau, labour movement in Quebec. They liked Gauvin n'est pas juste envers le PCC; U his contention that the CTCC was not l'accuse d"*opportunisme" et il a sans merely "T instrument docile de la hierar- doute raison, sauf que tous les partis chie catholique pour ensurer les luttes politiques font de meme; pourquoi exiger ouvrieres et instaurer un ideologic de col­ davantage du parti communiste? laboration entre la classe patronale et la Neanmoins, le livre nous renseigne sur le classe ouvriere," (2) but that the CTCC PCC et il corrige les assertions du parti had roots also in the non -confessional lors ou elles contredisent sa propre his- national unions, an influence which led toire. some of its locals and federations to adopt collective bargaining strategy and tactics F.J.K. Griezec remarkably similar to those of the interna­ tional unions. Rodrigue perceives Rouil- Carleton University lard's interpretation to be a scientific con­ firmation of what had always been an inte­ Jacques Rouillard, Histoire de ta CSN, gral element of the CSN's oral historical 1921-1981 (Montreal; Confederation des tradition. The only constraint laid down Syndicate Nationaux et Editions du Boreal by the CSN committee, it appears, was Express 1981). that Rouillard be as comprehensive as pos­ sible since the text was intended primarily AT LONG LAST Canadian labour histo­ for CSN members as an educational tool. rians and students of French-Canadian In short, all the various components of the history have at their disposal a general CSN had to be acknowledged. As a result survey of the origins and evolution of the there is considerable descriptive and non- Confederation des travailleurscalholiques analytical coverage of the CSN's numer­ du Canada. When, in I960, the CTCC was ous professional federations and central renamed the Confederation des Syndicats councils. Unfortunately there has been Nationaux (CSN) this was merely a belated insufficient research in these areas to affirmation of a process which had started allow the author to draw any enlightening in 1943. Jacques Rouillard, labour histo­ conclusions as to their importance to the rian at rUniversite de Montreal and overall development of the CSN. The author of the award-winning Les Syn­ space could have been used more profit­ dicats Nationaux du Quebec de 1900 a ably to provide a broader socio-economic 1930 (1979), accepted the challenge pre­ context in which to place the CSN, espe­ sented to him by the CSN executive to cially the more important strikes. complete, in a relatively short time frame, a survey history of the CSN to com­ This survey is organized into five memorate the movement's 60th anniver­ chronological chapters with ample illus­ sary. While the text was reviewed by a trations and a small selection of docu­ CSN committee the final product cannot, ments to highlight the central arguments in any sense of the term, be construed as in each section. Chapter one on the ori­ an official history. Even a superficial gins of Catholic unionism, 1900-1920, reading of the text reveals that the author draws heavily upon Rouillard's early was allowed full interpretive freedom. As work thereby laying the groundwork for CSN president Norbert Rodrigue indicates his revisionist interpretation of the CTCC in his preface, he and his colleagues in the 1920s and 1930s. Rouillard demon­ turned to Rouillard because they found the strates quite convincingly that the Catholic union movement only became revisionist thesis presented in his Les Syn­ REVIEWS 221 viable after World War I when it joined Rouillard argues that the CTCC owed its forces with the remnants of the non- growing success to three factors. confessional national unions. In doing so The movement had a fairly flexible the Catholic unions moved away from infrastructure especially at the federation their exclusive concentration on the ideol­ level. As a result the CTCC was able and ogy of social Catholicism and began to willing to incorporate the rapidly expand­ perceive of themselves first and foremost ing industrial unions, especially in the as defenders and promoters of the profes­ clothing/textile, pulp and paper, and sional and socio-economic interests of metallurgy industries. The CTCC, unlike their members. The national unions, con­ the internationals, was well established tends Rouillard, "ont apporte a la CTCC outside of the metropolitan Montreal leur forte conscience syndicale et leur tra­ region, and was able to capitalize on this dition de combativite." (48) factor since much of the industrial expan­ sion took place in Quebec's smaller urban Chapter two, entitled "La CTCC en centres and resource communities. difficult (1921-1934)" deals with the Finally, although there exists little evi­ trials and tribulations of the movement dence to support his claim, Rouillard struggling to compete with the powerful maintains that the 1934 "loi d'extension internationals, especially difficult during juridique des conventions collective," the recession of 1921-23 and then the which allowed the provincial government Depression of the 1930s. The CTCC to apply a collective agreement arrived at responded to the situation, contends by one local in an industry to the entire Rouillard, by stressing its pan-Canadian industry, encouraged many employees to nationalism and by adopting the same join a union so that they could participate organizational structures and bargaining in the negotiation process. strategies and tactics, including recourse In fact, as Rouillard mentions some­ to the closed shops and strikes, as the what later, Duplessis amended the 1934 internationals. In the 1920s Catholic law in 1937 to allow the provincial gov­ unions organized 32 strikes, including the ernment "d'abroger ou de modifier un Quebec City shoe workers strike of 1926 decret sans consulter les parties a la con­ which was the most important labour con­ vention." (134) From then on the CTCC's flict in the province up to that point in relations with Duplessis and the Union time. As a result, concludes Rouillard, "il Nationale were all downhill. This would s'est ainsi etabli un disaccord entre les account, in part, for the growing mili­ pratiques syndlcales de la centrale et le tancy of the Catholic labour movement. discours qui restait entache de I'idealisme The gap between ideology and practice de la doctrine sociale de 1'Egiise." (102) accentuated during this decade as the Nevertheless, the CTCC could not wander CTCC gave its official sanction to the too far from its stated commitment to ideology of social corporatism being social Catholicism because the Catholic articulated by the Jesuits and lay Catholics Church provided the movement with in the Ecole Sociale Populaire. The approximately $20,000 annually in direct ideology's fascist overtones and the grow­ aid, not counting considerable amounts of ing secularization of Quebec society indirect support. would eventually bring the CTCC to aban­ don its commitment to social corporatism The decade extending from 1934 to and advocate a more secular and liberal 1945 was an era of expansion for the ideology, namely that of industrial democ­ CTCC under the leadership of Alfred racy. Charpentier. The CTCC grew from 121 locals with 15,587 members in 1931 to Consistent with his thesis Rouillard 338 locals with 62,960 members in 1946. argues in chapter four that the most signif- 222 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

icant development in the CTCC during the challenge to industrial capitalism. Sec­ decade and a half after World War II was ond, the strike had a political dimension not in the area of practice but rather in the aimed at undermining the reactionary movement's ideological outlook. Concur­ anti-union proposed labour code of the rent with its decision to abandon social Duplessis government. The Church's corporatism, the CTCC's new leaders, decision to back the strikers created a seri­ Gerard Picard as president and Jean Mar- ous rift between the Church and the state chand as secretary-general, stressed the and changed forever the dynamic of reform of the workplace through such labour management relations in Quebec. measures as co-management, co- Henceforth the government would or ownership, profit-sharing and improved could no longer rely upon the Church tn industrial hygiene. In short, all workers exert a moderating/mediating influence on regardless of their race, colour or creed organized labour. This became quite evi­ were to have a greater input into all the dent in Louiseville (1952). Dupuis Freres decisions affecting their lives and this (1952), Arvida (1957), and Radio- input was to begin on the shop floor. Canada (1959) strikes. Only a close scrutiny of Church-state correspondence This commitment to liberal democracy in the 1940s and 1950s will reveal the true accentuated the secularization process of import of the Asbestos strike. the CTCC which had begun in 1943 when non-Catholics were admitted as full mem­ The book's final chapter, "Vers un bers with all the rights and privileges of nouveau projet de societe (1961-1981)" is Catholics. In 1960. the movement perhaps the most disappointing. The renamed itself the Confederation des Syn- author simply has too much to cover in too dicats Nationaux (CSN) and dropped all little space. The CSN had. in 1981, nearly references to the social doctrine of the 1,500 locals and approximately 225,000 Church. The CTCC also undertook affilia­ members, with the public and para-public tion talks with the newly-formed Cana­ unions constituting 56.3 per cent of the dian Labour Congress but these foundered membership while blue-collar trade and not because of the divergence in union industry workers made up the rest. Under ideology but for nationalist reasons. Pan- the leadership of Marcel Pepin, president Canadian nationalists in the CLC wanted from 1965 to 1976, the CSN "definit, en to integrate and eventually assimilate the effet, son nouveau projet de societe par le CTCC union central and its locals. Grow­ socialisme; elle caracterise son action ing numbers of Quebecois neonationalists dans les entreprises comme un syn- in the CTCC saw their organization as a dicalisme de combat, et elle s'est their organization as a powerful institu­ reprochee du nationalisme quebecois." tion in the struggle to preserve and (227) Given the CSN's strong commitment develop a modern secular French- to a radical change of the existing political Canadian majority society in Quebec. and economic system it was little wonder that the movement, with the support of the Again, being consistent with his militant teachers' union and the FTQ, thesis, Rouillard does not see the Asbes­ planned and carried out the 1972 Common tos strike of 1949 as a major watershed in Front strike, a form of direct action to the history of contemporary Quebec. He obtain job security and a minimum weekly does nevertheless admit that the strike did salary of $100 for public employees. As is have certain unique features which made normally the case in such circumstances it an important conflict in the CTCC's his­ the results were both positive and nega­ tory. Its demand for a degree of co- tive. Once forced to return to the negotiat­ management, whether voluntary or com­ ing table many of the unions involved pulsory, was certainly a radical departure obtained solid financial settlements and from its past and constituted a serious REVIEWS 223 improvements to job security clauses. The dans notre histoire." (307) This text does CSN's decision to defy the government's full justice to that contribution. emergency legislation suspending the worker's right to strike brought to light Michael D. Behiels serious ideological divisions within the Acadia University movement. Three members of the execu­ tive refused to defy Bill 19 and resigned, Benoit-Beaudry Gourd, Mines et syndi­ taking with them nearly 70,000 members. cats en Abitibi-Temiscamingue 1910- About half of these members formed a 1950. Cahiers du Departement d'Histoire new central, the Centrale des syndicats et de Geographic travaux de recherches, democratiques (CSD). The vast majority no. 2, (Rouyn: College du Nord-Ouest of CSD members were from private sector 1981). industry and trade unions. "Les dissi­ dents," according to Rouillard, "ont LA CREATION DES CEGEP et des campus reproche a la CSN de ne pas refleter de TUniversite du Quebec ont susciti un I'opinion de ses membres, d'etre con- interet nouveau pour Thistoire regionale. trolee par un groupe d'intellectuels Des equipes de recherche ont ete mises sur activistes, de se livrer a Taction politique pied dans la plupart des regions de la pro­ parti sane au detriment de Taction syn­ vince. Elle commencent aproduire des tra­ dicate et de proposer une ideologic marx- vaux de qualite, tel ce cahier de Benoit- iste ou 'le moteur de son action est la Beaudry Gourd sur les mines et les syndi­ lutte des classes.' " (239) In short, the cats en Abitibi-Temiscamingue. L'auteur CSN's Utopian Marxist vision and its est un enseignant au College du Nord- active support for the separatist-oriented Ouest a Rouyn et sa recherche est publiee Parti Quebecois had driven the liberal ele­ par le departement d'histoire et de geogra­ ments from the movement and provided a phic du college. Ce departement qui mon- further manifestation of the growing tre beaucoup de dynamisme possede deja a polarization of Quebec society. Given the son actif la parution de plusieurs travaux crucial role of neo-nationalism in contem­ d'histoire regionale. porary Quebec it is surprising that Rouil­ Ce cahier consacre au developpement lard devotes only three paragraphs to the minier et a la syndicalisation des mineurs question of the CSN's perception of the est tres bien fait: le texte s'avere bien char- national question and its role in the PQ's pente et la presentation claire. Meme s'il achievement of power in 1976 and sub­ s'agit d'un survol rapide de 40 ans d'his­ sequent re-election in 1981. The nature of toire, le lecteur possede les elements essen- the PQ and its power base is presently a tiels a la comprehension du developpement hotly debated topic and the reader is left minier et syndical de la region. L'auteur se with the feeling that the full story of the penche d'abord sur le contexte economique CSN's recent past has been left untold. entourant I'activite miniere, puis il Rouillard's Histoire de lu CSN. sattarde aux travailleurs en decrivant leurs 1921-1981 is thus a highly readable and efforts de syndicalisation. informative survey of one of Quebec's Le developpement minier de l'Abitibi- important socio-economic institutions. Temiscamingue s'est fait dans le prolonge- The CSN has contributed immensely to ment de celui du Nord ontarien de sorte que making the transition from a rural/clerical pendant la periode etudiee la region a to an urban/industrial society less trauma­ davantage de liens avec Sudbury et Toronto tic and more humane for hundreds of qu'avec Mont-Laurier et Montreal. Ce sont thousands of French-Canadians, In so des compagnies ontariennes qui mettent en doing, to use the words of Rouillard, "les exploitation les gisements miniers de la travailleurs ont acquis un certain poids region et les communications s'averent 224 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL pendant longtemps meilleures vers l'Onta- Temiscamingue et sur le syndicalisme rio que vers Montreal. Ainsi, la route qui minier doivent neanmoins s'estimer chan- relie Val d'Or a Mont-Laurier n'est para- ceux de pouvoir compter sur un travail de chevee qu'en 1939. base aussi serieux. Au debut, la main-d'oeuvre qui pro- vieni largement du Nord de 1'Ontario se Jacques Rouillard compose surtout d'anglophones et d'immi­ Universite de Montreal grants europeens. Leur presence demeurera tres forte parmi les travailleurs jusqu'aux Jean Boivin et Jacques Guilbault, Les annees cinquante. lis introduisent le syndi- relations patronales-syndicales au calisme dans la region et maintiennent des Quebec {Chicoutimi: Gaetan Morin, liens etroits avec les syndicats de mineurs editeur, 1982). du Nord de rOntario. Trois vagues de syndicalisation tou- C'EST PEUT-ETRE un hasard mais au chent le Nord-Ouest quebecois: les syndi­ moment meme ou je m'appretais a rediger cats communistes dans les annees trente les premieres lignes de cette recension, qui disparaissent pendant la guerre; les mon fils m'aprit qu'il comptait prendre un "Mine-Mill" en 1944 qui sont victimes de cours en relations de travail dans le cadre 1'anti syndicalistic et de la chasse aux com­ de sa derniere session de CEGEP avant de munistes des compagnies et du gouveme- s'inscrire a 1*universite en sciences politi- ment; et les Metallos qui prennent leur ques. place en 1951. Contrairement a d'autres Instinctivement, je lui ai recommande regions du Canada, il n'y a pas eu au Que­ de lire Les relations patronales-syndica­ bec de conflits entre les "Mine-Mill" et les les au Quebec, que viennent de publier Metallos car les "Mine-Mill" avaient deja conjointement Jean Boivin et Jacques quitte le Nord-Ouest quebecois en 1950 Guilbault. pour se replier sur Sudbury. Dans un sens, e'est une preuve que L'etude met en relief certains faits inte- j'accorde une valeur certaine a cet ressants qui conduiront a nuancer ou a con- ouvrage. Mais de I'autre cote, cela traduit firmer certaines affirmations sur le syndica- egalement le malaise que j'ai eu a tenter lisme quebecois. Comme a plusieurs de le lire en entier. Les relations endroits de la province, les militants com­ patronales-syndicales au Quebec, en munistes ont joue un role actif dans les effet, constituent davantage un ouvrage de campagnes de syndicalisation des annees reference, un ouvrage de vulgarisation trente et quarante; I'intervention du gouver- pourquelqu'un desireux d'apprendre rapi- nement federal dans les relations de travail dement, sans suivre un cours specialise en pendant la guerre incite les compagnies a relations industrielles, qu'un ouvrage litte- reconnaitre les syndicats; et la compagnie raire ou socio-politique. Noranda Mines qui oppose une farouche Bref, il s'agit davantage d'un ouvrage resistance au principe de la retenue syndi- qu'on lit parce qu'il peut nous etre utile, cale en 1945 et lors de la greve de 1947 que parce qu'il est interessant. C'est sans amorce une longue histoire d'antisyndica- doute pourquoi, pour dire vrai, que j'ai lisme. passe par-dessus des pages entieres qui, Le lecteur aimerait parfois que certains en autant que j'etais conceme, tenaient themes du cahier soient developpees plus davantage des "notes de cours" que d'une abondamment. Mais il faut comprendre these a defendre ou d'une opinion expri- que Petude n'est qu'un survol rapide et mee. qu'il appartient a d'autres de poursuivre la Je ne serais toutefois pas surpris que recherche sur des questions particuli- tel soit justement le but recherche par eres. Les chercheurs sur I' Abitibi- 1'editeur Gaetan Morin, de Chicoutimi, REVIEWS 225

lequel, parait-il, se specialise dans l'edi- leur experience pour rediger conjointe- tion d'ouvrages de reference du genre, ment un livre. J'ignore si l'idee est de Tun qu'on me dit tres bien faits. d'eux, des deux, ou de l'editeur. It faut dire cependant que le manage Quoiqu'il en soil, cela donne un entre Jean Boivin et Jacques Guilbault ouvrage davantage utile qu'interessant. m'a paru curieux. Pour attenuer mes propos, je serais Je connais bien Jean Boivin. C'est un peut-etre pret a dire non seulement utile universitaire, professeur de relations mais necessaire, du moins a tous ceux qui industrielles a I'Universite Laval depuis n'ont pas le temps d'aller poursuivre des dix ans, ancien directeur du departement etudes universitaires en relations de travail du meme nom, auteur de nombreux arti­ mais qui, soit pour leur formation person­ cles sur la negociation du secteur public et nels, soit dans le cadre de leur travail, qui s'interesse beaucoup a 1'histoire et aux soit encore dans le cadre d'un cours structures syndicales, a la negociation col­ optionnel au CEGEP, ont besoin, rapide- lective et aux systemes de relations indus- ment, de faire le tour de la question. trielles. Dans le duo, c'est evidemment le En effet, a ma connaissance, il theoricien. n'existe rien de tet, du moins rien de tel Jacques Guilbault, lui, est le practicien. aussi bien fait, au Quebec. II s'agit done Je ne le connais guere, sauf de reputation. d'un ouvrage de vulgarisation tres bien II fut pendant quinze ans (1966 a 1981), redige. directeur des relations industrielles a la Mais un ouvrage peut etre utile, peut Commission de transport de la commu- etre essentiel, sans etre pour autant un naute urbaine de Montreal (CTCUM). ouvrage litteraire. Qu'on pense aux Je n'ai nullement l'intention de lui en manuels utilises en genie, par exemple, ou faire le reproche, mais le moins que Ton en comptabilite. L'ouvrage de MM. Boi­ puisse dire, c'est que son regne fut fort vin et Guilbault est un peu de ce type. Je mouvemente, que son approche fut tres dirais meme qu'il fait manuel scolaire, un contestee. Encore qu'il est bien possible manuel scolaire pour gens de niveau colle­ qu'elle lui ait ete imposee par les diri- gia! a tout le moins, cependant. geants politiques de la Communaute Seuls les chapitres trois et quatre, trai- urbaine de Montreal qui controlent la tant le premier des grandes etapes de CTCUM. 1'evolution du mouvement syndical que­ De toute facon, le transport en com- becois et le deuxieme des structures et mun a Montreal, pendant ces quinze ans, ideologic des organisations syndicales et fut perturbe par des arrets de travail plus patronales sont de l'ordre de ceux genera- souvent qu'a son tour. En consequence, la lement recenses dans une revue comme CTCUM peut difficilement etre citee celle-ci. comme un exemple de relations de travail Probablement rediges par Boivin, ils harmonieuses. Ceci dit, j'avoue que per- sont fort interessants, bien faits, et resu- sonne d'autre, face aux memes syndicats, ment mieux que les ouvrages recents de n'aurait peut-etre fait mieux, comme le sociologues, historiens ou politicologues signale le rapport de l'enqueteur Bastien que j'ai lus, ces deux themes. nomme, en 1982, par le gouvemement du J'aime bien par exemple cette remar- Quebec pour faire la lumiere sur les rai- que oil Ton dit que meme si la FTQ, pen­ sons du pourissement des relations de tra­ vail a la CTCUM depuis environ vingt ans. dant un certain temps, avait epouse parti- ellement le langage ideologique de la CSN M. Guilbault et M. Boivin font done et de la CEQ, "l'election du gouvemement un curieux manage. Je dis curieux car je du Parti quebecois demontra hors de tout n'aurais pas imagine deux hommes exte- doute que la FTQ etait loin d'avoir des rieurement si differents mettre ensemble visees radicales sur le plan socio- 226 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

politique. Le discours actuel de la FTQ se mouvement syndical. Puis il conclut son situe dans la meme perspective que la expose par un appel a la recherche d'un social-democratie vers laquelle tend le modele alternatif. PQ, meme si formellement aucun lien Qu'un renouvellement de la strategic d'affiliation ne re unit ces deux organisa­ et de la problematique syndicates soil tions." indispensable, que cette renaissance exige On peut y lire aussi au sujet des initia­ un regard froid, lucide et distancie sur le tives interessantes que lance la Centrale syndicalisme que nous avons vecu depuis des syndicats democratiques (CSD) depuis la crise d'octobre, voila une approche a quelque temps que cette position est laquelle je souscris entierement et dont la peut-etre commandee par la stricte neces- necessite, demontree encore par 1'expe­ site de survie, qui sail? Mais que peut-etre rience du dernier Front commun, devrait egalement l'avenir nous revelera-t-il que s'imposeratout syndicaliste. Malgre cette la CSD, en agissant ainsi et en se demar- concordance avec les positions de Fran­ quant du syndicalisme plus traditionnel cois Demers, la lecture de son livre m'a des autres centrales, aura fait preuve, en plonge dans un profond malaise. Une mettant l'accent davantage que ses rivales seconde lecture, aussi attentive mais sans sur la qualite de vie au travail, d'une doute plus analytique, m'a permis de sor- grande clairvoyance. tir de cet embarras en me revelant ce qui I'avait suscite. Ceci etant dit, les chapitres en ques­ tion n'occupent que 85 pages dans un Francois Demers est, dit-il, "desa- ouvrage qui en compte 300. buse" et "cynique:" les actions humaines Lequel, j'ai bien 1'impression, sera ne seraient mues que par "des interets davantage utile a mon fits qu'a moi. etroits et des calculs mesquins" alors qu'il aspire incurablement a une societe egali- Pierre J.G. Vennat taire, a salaire unique, qui serait le fruit Chroniqueur politique a La Presse "d'une qualite morale et d'une lucidite politique exceptionnelle des acteurs." Cette vision a la coherence du mani- Francois Demers, Chroniques imperii- cheisme: face a 1'espoir celeste et beat de nentes (du 3eme Front commun syndtcal) l'auteur, toute realite humaine nepeutetre (Montreal: Nouvelle Optique 1982). que basse, vile, bestiale.

BIEN ECRIT ET TRES informe (Francois Je ne mentionnerais pas la morale de Demers ctait le journaliste attitre du l'auteur, aussi naive soit-elle, "vestige," comite de negociation de la CSN lors du comme il le dit, de son education "d'avant 3eme Front commun) les Chroniques 1960," si elle n'avait des effets non inno­ impertinentes' constitue un important cents sur ses analyses. Car que reproche ouvrage de consultation pour quiconque Demers aux revendications egalitaristes veut reflechir sur le syndicalisme des tra- des Fronts communs? D'etre le fruit de vailleurs de l'fetat durant la derniere compromis entre differents groupes de decennie. syndiques, de correspondre a leurs inte­ L'auteur, avec honnetete et modestie, rets, de s'inscrire dans une vision strategi- definit dans sa preface la portee et les que ou 1'appui de 1'opinion publique est limites de son point de vue descriptif et sollicite,... comme si les luttes pour la critique. Dans le corps de l'ouvrage, il reduction des ecarts de salaire, les hausses devoile avec une impudeur moqueuse el de salaire minimum et 1'egalite entre les provocante les manques, les travers, les hommes et les femmes ne devraient pas ambivalences et les contradictions du correspondre aux interets des travailleurs en lutte et s'inscrire au sein d'un rapport 1 Nouvelle Optique, 1982, 170 p. de forces tres concret. REVIEWS 227

Evidemment, les gains syndicaux sont Que la politique salariale ait été éta­ fort éloignés du salaire unique prôné par blie en dépassant dans une unité supé­ Deniers, objectif que n'a d'ailleurs jamais rieure les intérêts corporatistes de chaque partagé le mouvement syndical. Mais il secteur et de chaque profession, que cette faut se souvenir de l'immense travail politique corresponde aux intérêts des tra­ accompli au début des années '70 pour vailleurs impliqués, tout cela m'apparaît amener les syndiqués des trois Centrales, normal et sain. Pourtant François Demers habitués jusque là à militer dans une pers­ s'en désole au nom d'une éthique du sacri­ pective strictement locale, non seulement fice datant d'avant la révolution tran­ à penser leurs propres intérêts à travers quille. On ne peut comprendre les gens de ceux de l'ensemble des syndiqués de ma génération si on méconnaît la morale l'État, mais aussi à les intégrer à une masochiste dont on nous a abreuvée politique salariale progressiste pour com­ durant notre enfance comme on ne peut prendre que s'est joué là un changement comprendre un québécois si on ignore majeur, une transformation qualitative de l'hiver. Mais j'aurais espéré que Demers la pratique syndicale. La scission de la dépasse cette morale d'antan. Car si on CSD — et non son expulsion, comme le doit aimer les autres comme soi-même, il dit erronément l'auteur — n'est que le faut, au préalable, pour que ce précepte symptôme de ce bouleversement: des syn­ puisse fonctionner, s'aimer soi-même. Le diqués du secteur privé, surtout parmi les don, la générosité, sauf s'ils s'inscrivent plus démunis, résignés à leur exploitation, au sein d'une martyrologie, impliquent soumis au capitalisme et à ses maux, et toujours un certain calcul où le soi se habitués à déléguer leurs pouvoirs à retrouve dans l'autre. l'appareil syndical suivirent leurs perma­ nents et dirigeants qui, au nom de la tradi­ François Demers juge très sévèrement tion, se dissocièrent du discours progres­ les résultats des Fronts communs à la siste et de la pratique contestatrice des lumière du projet social qui les animait. Je nouveaux militants. ne questionne pas l'utilité d'une telle approche, mais sa partialité. Car ce projet Avant les années '70, l'objectif de et son actualisation doivent être inscrits réduction des écarts salariaux était prati­ dans le temps et comparés à la réalité qui quement absent des préoccupations syndi­ les précédait si on veut les évaluer histori­ cales, y compris parmi ceux qui fonderont quement, ce que néglige notre téléologi- la CSD. Et ce n'est évidemment pas le que auteur. patronat toujours partisan du "au plus fort Ainsi Demers a raison d'affirmer que, la poche," ni les gouvernements, ni les dans certains syndicats, les conseils syn­ partis politique, ni les fabricants d'opi­ dicaux se sont coupés de leur base par un nion qui ont imposé comme débat public radicalisme tout azimut. Mais même dans une politique salariale progressiste. Si ces syndicats subsistait toujours au sein nous pouvons aujourd'hui nous disputer des conseils une tendance minoritaire qui sur les retombées de la politique salariale pouvait s'opposer au groupe dominant et du mouvement syndical, discuter de la espérer la renverser grâce à l'Assemblée plus ou moins grande réduction des discri­ générale: ce qu'elle a d'ailleurs fréquem­ minations et des écarts salariaux et ques­ ment réussi. Le conseil syndical, en élar­ tionner les effets des gains des syndiqués gissant la participation des membres, en de l'État sur ceux du secteur privé c'est, favorisant un plus grand accès à l'infor­ qu'au préalable, les syndiqués des Fronts mation et en diffusant le pouvoir, a accru communs ont pris l'initiative et ont eu la la démocratie syndicale. Or l'auteur, qui capacité de poser comme enjeu social une prévilégie la structure syndicale tradition­ politique de réduction des disparités de nelle, oublie qu'elle était formée d'un revenus. exécutif étroit, dépositaire du savoir-faire 228 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

et le plus souvent homogène, exécutif qui Les mouvements sociaux. Les syndicats recevait ses mandats d'une Assemblée (Québec: Les Presses de l'Université générale qu'il arrivait à peine à réunir. Uval 1981). Cette structure n'est sûrement pas plus démocratique que la structure syndicale à POUR ABORDER L'ÉTUDE des idéologies double paliers où l'exécutif, entre les de la période 1940-1976, les responsables assemblées générales, est contrôlé par les de la collection Histoire et sociologie de délégués des divers départements ou disci­ la culture ont choisi de partager en trois plines: le conseil syndical. tomes l'abondant matériel que pouvaient Ainsi, Demers — qui était conseiller à mettre à leur disposition un nombre l'information de Marcel Gilbert, négocia­ impressionnant de collaborateurs. Le pre­ teur en chef de la CSN lors du 3ème Front mier a été consacré à la presse et à la commun — oppose le "Ça" revendicatif littérature; le troisième aux partis politi­ et débridé des militants au "'Surmoi" ques et à l'Église catholique. Le second, répressif et rationnel des négociateurs. Ce dont il sera question ici, traite des mouve­ conflit réel, symptôme d'un discours qui ments sociaux et du syndicalisme. Il est n'arrive plus à unifier ces deux moments déjà loin le temps où les responsables de l'action syndicale, s'il est bien perçu d'un séminaire de second cycle confiaient par l'auteur, même si c'est en valorisant le à leurs étudiants, la tâche de dépouiller "surmoi" au détriment du "ça," diverses publications et de rédiger, à partir l'empêche de voir et de reconnaître les d'une grille assez homogène, une série de changements bénéfiques qu'ont apporté textes qui couronnaient souvent une pre­ les Fronts communs par rapport à la prati­ mière initiation à la recherche fondamen­ que syndicale antérieure. Car la différence tale. Le tome que nous avons sous les entre mobilisation et négociation traverse, yeux procède non pas d'un rite initiatique sous des noms différents, l'ensemble de plus ou moins collectif, mais de démar­ l'histoire syndicale: elle est indépassable ches individuelles menées à terme par des comme celle qui lie et oppose projet et universitaires de carrière opérant sur un réalisation. Et le syndicalisme de combat terrain déjà familier. La plupart ont étudié a démocratisé ces deux moments et leur à l'Université Laval. À l'exception d'une interaction en exerçant une surveillance historienne, tous ont reçu une formation plus serrée et continue sur les négocia­ en sciences sociales. On ne s'en étonne teurs et les responsables à l'action qui, pas: la période couverte est très contempo­ auparavant, n'avaient de compte à rendre raine et les thématiques retenues ont été à aucun militant et à personne, sauf aux jusqu'ici privilégiées par des sociologues. assemblées convoquées irrégulièrement. Le recueil comporte onze articles au total. Six ont été consacrés aux "mouve­ Malgré son moralisme et son finalisme ments sociaux": condition féminine qui pervertissent ses analyses historiques {Micheline Dumont-Johnson), profes­ et politiques, le pamphlet de Demers a sions libérales (Gilles Dussault), coopéra­ l'indéniable mérite de secouer les parti­ tion agricole (Claude Beauchamp), idéo­ sans du syndicalisme de combat dans logies étudiantes (Gilles Pronovost), idéo­ leurs dernières certitudes et de les rappe­ logies du loisir (Roger Levasseur), et de la ler à une nécessaire réflexion. contre-culture (Jules Duchastel). Cinq textes tentent de circonscrire la question Jean-Marc Piotte syndicale: Bernard Solasse en a rédigé pas Université du Québec à Montréal moins de quatre (Fédération des travail­ leurs du Québec-Confédération des syndi­ cats nationaux; Fédération des profession­ Fernand Dumont, Jean Hamelin et Jean- nels salariés et cadres du Québec; Cen- Paul Montminy, dir., Idéologies au Canada Français 1940-1976, tome II, REVIEWS 229 traie des enseignants du Québec; Centrale de cette décennie, par un éclatement à des syndicats démocratiques) tandis divers niveaux. qu'André Turmel (pratiques universitai­ 3) Cette troisième phase, moins connue et res) signe l'autre. plus controversée que les précédentes, Soulignons d'abord la solidité et le traversée par un fort courant nationa­ caractère original de toutes ces contribu­ liste, sera ainsi marquée par un "plura­ tions. Elles ont le rare mérite de bien cou­ lisme" sans précédent. La CSN et la vrir la période étudiée et d'aborder ainsi CEQ opposeront par exemple un syndi­ franchement une transition majeure, celle calisme de combat et une volonté de qui marque l'effritement de la "pensée rupture au syndicalisme d'affaire et au traditionnelle," opposée ici à l'ère de réformisme de la FTQ. La nouvelle "modernisation" et de "pluralisme" qui division du travail et l'intervention de l'a suivie. Nonobstant quelques variantes l'État entameront les prérogatives des temporelles, la juxtaposition des textes professionnels (y compris les universi­ permet d'identifier trois phases plus ou taires), partagés dorénavant entre leurs moins successives. corporations et d'autres formes asso­ 1) Au cours des années quarante, les trans­ ciatives, y compris le syndicalisme. Le formations sociales et idéologiques ne monde étudiant, foyer des groupuscu­ sont pas encore substantielles. Les pra­ les et de la contre-culture, se fraction­ tiques syndicales, d'envergure limitée, nera lui aussi à un point tel que Gilles ont encore une saveur corporatiste, Pronovost a remis en cause l'existence notamment chez les syndicats qu'on même d'une idéologie étudiante. peut qualifier de nationaux; les profes­ L'univers du loisir, point de mire de sions libérales et leur clientèle étu­ l'État, accaparé pour le reste par une diante défendent sans trop de peine leur privatisation qui laisse loin derrière le fonction sociale et leur territoire; la loisir-oeuvre, sera le terrain d'un coopération agricole est encore perçue affrontement entre les nationalistes et comme une école de vie sociale et une leurs opposants. Des groupes radicaux troisième voie viable; la privatisation dénonceront l'attentisme ou le réfor­ des oeuvres de loisir est encore absolue misme des politiques relatives à la con­ et solidement encadrée au plan moral; dition féminine. les publications de regroupements s'adressant aux femmes de milieu rural Voilà pour les généralités. Soulignons constituent encore les principaux par contre — et comme il faut s'y attendre foyers de solidarité féminine. — l'absence d'unanimité sur quelques 2) Puis, en gros à compter des années cin­ points. Comment définir l'idéologie? En quante, s'ouvre une phase ponctuée de s'inspirant de Fernand Dumont (Gilles changements. Une nouvelle polarisa­ Dussault), de Touraine (Roger Levasseur, tion idéologique se dessine désormais Bernard Solasse), de Marx, d'Althusser avec plus de netteté, préconisant un ou de Poulantzas (Jules Duchastel)? Et à "rattrapage," une meilleure adéquation partir de là, comment caractériser la des comportements — on souhaite ici société québécoise: en soulignant le pri­ la symbiose harmonieuse des idées mat culturel ou en renvoyant aux formes libérales et technocratiques — et des de la production? D'un point de vue épis- transformations infrastructurelles par­ témologique, on trouve dans ce volume tout visibles, propres a 1' "affluent tous les éléments d'un débat qui persistera society." Les tenants du changement longtemps encore, ce qui n'est pas la n'ont toutefois jamais fait l'unanimité. moindre de ses qualités. L'opposition souvent feutrée du début Autre débat en gestation: l'évolution des années soixante se traduira à la fin récente de la société québécoise. Certains, 230 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL dont Bernard Solasse et Roger Levasseur, bec, de 1968 à 1975. Au cours de cette fournissent les éléments d'une intéres­ période, la construction est le théâtre de sante comparaison entre le Québec actuel, violents conflits inter-syndicaux, qui pro­ où prolifèrent les discours soulignant le voquent notamment la création de la Com­ besoin d'une forte identification tant mission Cliche. sociale que culturelle, et le Québec des Selon l'auteure, la Commission Cliche années quarante, dont le message moins a confiné son analyse aux luttes inter­ laïc aurait été jusqu'à un certain point ana­ syndicales, sans tenir compte de l'état des logue. Il faut toutefois se garder de con­ relations de travail dans la construction. clusions trop hâtives. Ainsi les seules Or, le patronat n'est pas à l'abri des con­ publications officielles de la CSN et de la flits d'intérêts qui divisent le mouvement CEQ ne permettent pas de traduire fidèle­ syndical. Cet ouvrage tente de pallier à ment les aspirations des membres de ces l'absence d'études sur les conflits inter­ centrales. Elles constituent plutôt une patronaux, afin de dévoiler l'envers de la courroie de transmission plus ou moins médaille. fidèle à la réalité. Il y a là un important Aux fins de sa recherche, l'auteure problème de méthode. À nos yeux, l'utili­ adopte une grille d'analyse marxiste, qui sation d'une source unique de renseigne­ s'appuie sur l'étude théorique des contra­ ments réduit un peu la crédibilité des dictions du mode de production capitaliste efforts de généralisations de certains (MPC). À ce cadre théorique, se greffe une auteurs. Il n'est pas certain que la revue analyse empirique des contradictions du Mainmise, le journal Le Carabin, la MPC dans la construction. Cette démarche revue Forum Universitaire ou les encarts permet à l'auteure de formuler quatre de la Coopérative fédérée dans le journal hypothèses de recherche reliées aux con­ ucéciste La Terre de Chez Nous aient flits interpatronaux. rendu adéquatement compte de la démar­ che suivie par l'ensemble des tenants de la Une première hypothèse constate contre-culture, du mouvement étudiant, l'inégal développement du capitalisme des universitaires ainsi que des coopéra- dans la construction, selon les entreprises teurs agricoles. Bref, les démarches qui et les régions. Deux principaux facteurs ont conduit à la production de cet ouvrage expliqueraient cet inégal développement: demeurent parfois limitées, même si plu­ l'intensité des luttes ouvrières dans la sieurs collaborateurs ont bien mis en rap­ région de Montréal et la pénétration mas­ port une solide connaissance de l'époque sive de capitaux en provenance de secteurs et les mouvements d'opinion qu'ils ont monopolistes. étudiés. La Révolution tranquille entraîne un accroissement remarquable des dépenses Paul Larocque gouvernementales de construction, ce qui Université du Québec à Rimouski crée un contexte favorable aux revendica­ tions des travailleurs. Les luttes ouvrières Michèle Savard Baby, Le syndicalisme sont particulièrement intenses dans la patronal dans la construction (Montréal: région de Montréal, où la construction a Éditions coopératives Albert Saint-Martin connu sa plus forte expansion. Ce militan­ 1980). tisme pourrait s'expliquer par les rivalités in ter-syndicales ou la prédominance de la CET OUVRAGE EST ta version remaniée FTQ. Mais, l'auteure ne peut trancher d'une thèse de maîtrise en sociologie, entre les deux hypothèses, car elle man­ déposée à l'Université Laval en 1978. que de données. De cette combativité Michèle Savard Baby consacre sa recher­ accrue, découle en écart salarial entre la région de Montréal et les autres régions du che à l'analyse des luttes interpatronales Québec. dans l'industrie de la construction au Qué­ REVIEWS 231

Par ailleurs, le développement écono­ tiques entre les différentes fractions de la mique acéléré des années 60 accentue la classe dirigeante au Québec, de 1960 à division du marché de la construction 1975. L'auteure rappelle que le rôle de entre les grandes firmes, concentrées à l'État est de résoudre les contradictions du Montréal, et les petites et moyennes entrep­ MPC, afin d'assurer sa reproduction élar­ rises, situées en province. Parallèlement, gie. on note la pénétration massive de capitaux D'une part, l'État se charge de l'orga­ en provenance de secteurs plus dévelop­ nisation réprimande de la classe domi­ pés. Il s'ensuit une concentration horizon­ nante. Pour ce faire, il adopte une série de tale et verticale des grandes entreprises de mesures dans le but de rétablir l'harmonie construction. patronale sous la direction d'une fraction La seconde hypothèse de l'auteure monopoliste. Ces mesures conduisent à la soutient que la loi 290 a catalysé les con­ loi 47, qui crée une association patronale flits intra-classes, en amorçant un proces­ unique: l'Association des entrepreneurs sus de dérégionalisation des conventions en construction du Québec (AECQ). Grâce collectives. Avant 1966, la concurrence à l'AECQ, l'unité patronale est en voie de entre capitalistes et entre travailleurs était réalisation. réduite au minimum. La construction était D'autre part, l'État tente d'affaiblir les régie par des conventions régionales, con­ forces syndicales en assurant la clues en vertu de la loi d'extension juridi­ désorganisation/protection de la force de que de 1934. Cette loi avait favorisé les travail. Ainsi, la loi 290 abolit les mono­ monopoles de chantier et de région, de poles de chantier et de région, ce qui pave telle sorte que la FTQ, s'était surtout la voie aux conflits inter-syndicaux. implantée à Montréal, alors que la CSN, Certes, la loi 9 (1973) accorde le mono­ s'était installée en province. Comme pole des négociations à la FTQ. Mais, l'extension ne s'étendait pas à l'ensemble l'État adopte aussitôt une série de mesures de la convention collective, les conditions pour affaiblir cette centrale, dont la Com­ de travail différaient d'une région à mission Cliche (1974) et l'Office de cons­ l'autre. truction du Québec (1975). Néanmoins, Mais, à partir de 1966, la construction l'Étal doit préserver la force de travail accuse un ralentissement marqué qui tou­ d'une trop grande exploitation. C'est ainsi che surtout la région de Montréal. Comme que la loi 290 rend l'adhésion syndicale la loi de 1934 freine la mobilité inter­ obligatoire. régionale, le gouvernement québécois doit intervenir dès 1968. En vertu de la loi Enfin, l'auteure relève des incohéren­ 290, l'État reconnaît officiellement cinq ces et des contradictions dans les politi­ associations patronales aptes à négocier ques de l'État visant à restaurer une frac­ les conventions collectives. En outre, la tion patronale hégémonique. Les ater­ loi promouvoit la pluralisme syndical, ce moiements de l'État sont reliés aux luttes qui entraîne l'abolition des monopoles de politiques qui opposent diverses fractions chantier et de région. de la classe dirigeante au Québec, suite à La troisième hypothèse de l'auteure la montée d'une fraction nationaliste. fait état de l'incapacité des patrons à Michèle Savard Baby fait oeuvre utile s'entendre sur une convention collective, en étudiant un sujet aussi négligé que les de 1970 à 1976. Il y a "crise d'hégémo­ luttes inter-patronales. Ainsi, elle par­ nie" dans le bloc patronal, en ce sens vient à établir un lien organique entre les qu'aucune fraction ne parvient à imposer conflits inter-patronaux et inter­ sa direction. Enfin, la quatrième hypo­ syndicaux. L'existence de ce Hen démon­ thèse relie l'absence de fraction hégémo­ tre que les divisions internes ne sont pas le nique dans le bloc patronal aux luttes poli­ lot exclusif des syndicats et que le cohé- 232 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL sion parfaite du groupe patronal est un accumulate capital. Genuine reforms are mythe. simply a matter of human preferences and Cet ouvrage stimulant débouche sur values. plusieurs voies de recherche. Il faudrait The core of this book presents the étudier à fond les structures de la CSN et results of a comparative study of 1.000 de la FTQ, afin de mieux saisir la nature upper management, middle management, des luttes inter-syndicales. En outre, and subordinate employees in ten "demo­ l'intervention de l'État dans les conflits cratic" enterprises and ten hierarchical inter-syndicaux revêt des formes diverses, organizations (matched for technology, qu'il convient de définir. J'ajouterai que size, location, unionization, etc.). The l'hypothèse qui relie la situation dans la findings purportedly support the author's construction à la crise politique de l'État preference for workplace democracy. québécois mériterait d'être vérifiée en Employees in "democratic" firms were rapport avec d'autres secteurs névralgi­ more likely than their counterparts in con­ ques de l'économie. Enfin, il est souhaita­ ventional firms to be satisfied with the ble qu'un nombre croissant de chercheurs terms and conditions of work; to feel free s'intéresse à l'histoire du patronat. Toutes from managerial surveillance; to exercise ces questions n'infirment en rien la qualité personal initiative; to report more cohe­ de l'ouvrage de Michèle Savard Baby. sive interpersonal relations at the work­ Elles renforcent, au contraire, son intérêt place; and to perceive that they partici­ en soulevant de nouvelles perspectives de pated in important decisions relating to recherche. work. These differences, while often statistically significant, were minute. For Guy Bélanger example, on a seven-point scale measur­ Montréal ing perceived management surveillance, workers in "democratic" firms scored Donald V. Nightingale. Workplace 3.69 and those in hierarchical firms 4.22. Democracy ; Art Inquiry into Employee This difference was statistically signifi­ Participation in Canadian Work Organi­ cant but hardly meaningful. Since most of zations (Toronto: University of Toronto the attitudinal variation reported was of Press 1982). this magnitude, advocates of workplace reform will not be heartened by the "IN THE MODHRN work organization the results. employee's freedom is suspended in many Critics of corporate despotism can important respects, justice is limited, take solace from the fact that the ten obedience to superiors is demanded, and enterprises defined as "democratic" rep­ the workplace is permeated with symbols resented such a hodgepodge of partici­ of authority, deference, and subordina­ patory forms and in some cases were so tion." Democratization is proposed to questionably democratic that it is surpris­ remedy these oppressive conditions and ing that even small attitudinal differences the resultant demoralization and discon­ were detected. (Although an analysis of tent of workers. Strong stuff from a mem­ variance was not performed, 1 suspect that ber of a business school, but. true to [he attitude differences within each general human relations tradition in which Night­ type of organization were as large as those ingale was trained, the reforms he which prevailed between employees of the advocates pose no real threat to the two types of firms.) The non-conventional authority structure or purposes of the companies represented five types of capitalist firm. The author insists there is "democracy": 1) board-level representa­ no contradiction between workplace tion (Tembec Forest Products); 2) Scanlon democracy and the firm's need to Plan (Hayes-Dana); 3) works council REVIEWS 233

(Canadian Tire, Club House Foods, Lin­ ple, but Nightingale sees little future for coln Electric, Supreme Aluminum); them, and he provides no information at 4) producer co-operatives (Les Industries all on the two Canadian co-ops of his sam­ du Saguenay, Harvey Transport); ple. Finally, the author opposes board 5) autonomous work groups (Laidlaw level representation. It does not reduce Lumber). The tenth firm. The Group at adversarial orientations (an important Cox, featured a combination of several of desideratum for him), and it allows these institutions plus its own special par­ worker representatives to get their hands ticipatory structures. (The ten hierarchical on confidential information that might be enterprises were not identified.) useful in wage negotiations. The limits of To characterize all of these partici­ Nightingale's reformism also are betrayed patory forms as democratic is to render by his discussion of an Opel plant in West the term meaningless. Only three of these Germany where militant workers replaced companies had unions. Four of them had a timid ones on the board of directors and works council, the functions of which no longer routinely approved decisions. appear identical to the employees repre­ This, Nightingale laments, "reduced the sentation plans or company unions of the effectiveness of the board." era of corporate welfare capitalism. Like Nightingale, capitalists and their The author's position on organized apologists of the earlier period heralded labour is reminiscent of Mackenzie company unions as legitimate organs of King's distinction between good and bad democracy. although they were unions. He recognizes the inevitability of implemented to forestall the formation of workplace conflict but believes labour genuine unions. The anti-union character unions needlessly adopt an adversarial of works councils is of no concern to the stance. Unions tend to discourage "the author, who views them as "an effective pursuit of common objectives," and they means of enhancing employee partici­ operate with a "win-lose mentality" and pation in decision-making." Autonomous "low-trust dynamic." Strikes are an irra­ groups are promoted because they fit with tional and increasingly inappropriate Canadian values and practices and do not means of settling disputes. This orienta­ contest management's right to manage tion impedes the development of the par­ ("ownership rights and the control of ticipatory forms proposed in the book. organizational policy are not questioned However, unions which are prepared to by the concept"). Profit-sharing and the focus on matters of mutual concern and to Scanlon Plan are recommended because collaborate with employers and their they facilitate harmonious relations agents can facilitate the creation of between labour and capital and harness "democratic" milieux. Nightingale employees' efforts to the attainment of claims to understand the antipathy of corporate ends. All three of these partici­ many unionists to participatory schemes, patory mechanisms are dubiously demo­ but he believes there is little substance to cratic. Autonomous groups restrict work­ their fears. In taking this position, he ers' decisions to matters pertaining to denies the rational foundation of class their jobs and immediate work areas — struggle at the point of production. He is and then only as long as the decisions are also oblivious to historical evidence which the "right" ones. The Scanlon Plan and supports the reluctance of unions to profit-sharing are more appropriately engage in class collaboration. Union- regarded as group incentives for boosting management co-operative agreements productivity than as forms of democracy. often led union officials to reinforce man­ Producer co-ops do differ in fundamental agement controls, relax their defence of respects from all other firms of the sam­ workers' rights, and endorse work 234 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

methods and technology which threatened work since although it may be clear what the security of the rank and file. cash transfers families receive from gov­ Despite these caveats, there are worth­ ernment, it may not be so clear how much while features of this book. The vigorous each family benefits from government condemnation of workplace autocracy is expenditure. Not everyone, for example, laudable. (A friend of mine uses the book has a car, so we do not all benefit to the as an undergraduate text because the same degree from expenditures on high­ author's business school credentials ways, yet the net benefit we receive from legitimize the critical approach he takes in government expenditure is composed of the classroom.) The discussion of the rela­ both cash transfers and government- tionship between unionism and partici­ provided services. In addition, not all gov­ pation is insightful. The description of the ernment expenditures have specific bene­ "democratic" firms provides useful infor­ ficiaries. Some, like defence or pure mation on a phenomenon which has research, are "public goods" whose bene­ received little attention in the Canadian fits, such as they are, cannot be withheld industrial relations literature. from any member of the community. To assign to families a value for the govern­ ment services they receive, one must James Rinehart examine in detail the elements of govern­ University of Western Ontario ment spending and assign each of them to each income category. W. Irwin Gillespie. The Redistribution of Income in Canada (Toronto: Gage 1980). Many assumptions are required in assigning expenditures to income groups IRWIN GILLESPIE'S BOOK. The Redis­ (e.g., who benefited, in practice, from tribution of Income in Canada, appeared DREE?), but Gillespie demonstrates that, in 1980. but was based on research largely in practice, many of these alternative completed by 1974 using data drawn from assumptions do not make much differ­ 1961 and 1969 (with revisions in 1977 to ence. Many assumptions are also required estimate redistribution over the period in assessing the burden of taxation since 1971-1976). Whether the Canadian state. many taxes are in fact shifted from those on balance, transfers economic resources who initially pay them — e.g., part of the from rich to poor, or vice versa, is always corporate income tax is shifted onto con­ a topical issue, but economic policies. sumers in the form of higher prices, and economic theories, and economic events payroll taxes paid by the employer, such as U!C contributions, are typically shifted have all changed since. It is fair to ask onto workers, in the form of lower wages. now whether Gillespie's book stands the After making all these adjustments, the test of time. Have new data or new "net fiscal incidence" of government on theories emerged which would contradict each income group is calculated as Trans­ his conclusions for the periods under fers plus Benefits minus Taxes. study? Have new events or new policies since that time reversed the basic trends he There have always been problems with discerned? I think not. and for that reason this method of analysis, notably in the I think that Gillespie's work will remain assumption that factor incomes from an invaluable reference for some time to labour and capital do not themselves come. depend on government expenditure. In Gillespie's work examines the net addition, in recent years many new issues impact of the tax. transfer, and expend­ have been raised and many old issues re- iture activities of government on Canadian emphasized. Who actually bears the bur­ families in different income brackets. den of the property tax? Should govern­ This requires a great deal of painstaking ment expenditure be valued at its cost or at REVIEWS 235

the value of ils benefit to the recipient? poor and considerably more beneficial to What allowance should one make for fam­ the rich, mostly at the expense of upper ily size? Shouldn't we try to measure middle income family units. . . . Between impacts on the distribution of well-being, 1969 and 1977, the quintile distribution of or utility, rather than money income? Isn't family money income became less favour­ it preferable to examine inequality among able for the poorest fifth of Canadians. people over their lifetimes, rather than just Given the changes in taxes and govern­ a single year? Aren't many redistributive ment expenditures during the 1970s, it is activities of government (e.g. the Canada extremely unlikely that there was any Pension Plan) redistribution between peo­ improvement in fiscal incidence for the ple of different ages or between different poor relative to the rich from these ages of the same person's life rather than sources." (171) redistribution between rich and poor? Unfortunately, the myth is still alive How much has government affected and well. As recent budgets have indi­ inequality of opportunity and the inter- cated upper income groups continue to generational transmission of economic benefit from the perception that our eco­ status? nomic ills can at least partially be blamed But one can also ask, is it likely that on governments which, in the past, these factors, or others, would overturn "favoured redistribution rather than Gillespie's basic conclusions? I think not, growth." Gillespie's work retains its although any such opinion must remain a value. judgement call in the absence of an even more comprehensive study. Gillespie con­ Lars Osberg cludes that the lowest income categories Dalhousie University benefit substantially from government expenditure while benefits from expend­ itures are proportional to income over Lars Osberg, Economic Inequality in most other income categories. With Canada (Toronto: Butterworths 1981). regressive taxes such as sales taxes bal­ anced by a progressive income tax, the FOR ECONOMISTS, equality is a special total tax structure is proportional over word with a volatile meaning. In the con­ much of the income distribution. The net text of equations on the blackboard, the effect is a fiscal system which unambigu­ word relates to the cold universe of ously redistributes purchasing power from proofs, measurement, and correct vs. higher income to lower income groups. incorrect statements. In a somewhat dif­ Of course whether such redistribution ferent context — that of the simple is due to the beneficent workings of the phrase, economic equality — the word liberal democratic state or due to the conjures up far different images. Eco­ necessity of capitalism to buy off potential nomic inequality is the focal point of the proletarian discontent is another issue. most fundamental disputes (of this as well Indeed, the major focus of Gillespie's as the last century) within the entire eco­ work is on the trend in government redis­ nomics discipline. Is there some eco­ tribution of resources. He begins and ends nomic function performed by economic his book with the comment that the myth inequality? Is increased inequality — or has become entrenched in the body politic its opposite, increased equality — some that governments have increasingly redis­ sort of "natural," "long-range" trend of tributed resources from rich to poor in the market economies? Does the existence of post-war period. His conclusion is that inequality prove the market system is "during the 1960's the total fiscal system non-viable — or does the market mecha­ became somewhat more beneficial to the nism rely upon inequality? These are only 236 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

a few of the questions raised by the mere One is tempted to answer the last question mention of the phrase. cynically: "no — not if these groups don't These are also questions raised by know they are net losers." But of course Lars Osberg's impressive book which that is just the point; it is what makes might be described as a 236-page encyclo­ Osberg's book more than a very impres­ paedic treatment of Canadian economic sive annotated bibliography and survey of equality and inequality. this very important field. Presumably, the Starting from the simple premise that very dissemination of knowledge of this an "up-to-date description of the extent of sort is in and of itself an important factor economic inequality in Canada" is a use­ leading to pressure for social change. ful tool, Osberg presents an extremely The book is not without its short­ weII-documented survey of the following comings. Some sociologists and political literature: analytical tools for the meas­ scientists may find the economic theory urement of equality/inequality of wealth, — especially the treatment of the neo­ income, and opportunity (chapters 2-4); classical approach — overbearing and social and economic models of inequality needlessly detailed. (And economists, of as varying with class (chapter 5); models course, will sneer at the sociology.) The of inequality as varying with elements occasional well-laid typographical error such as sex, ability, or simple chance can be a source of serious confusion (e.g., (chapter 6); the fundamental economic on page 205 we learn: "Where available, models of inequality (e.g., neo-classical, however, [such measures] show a higher institutional, and radical — chapters 7,8); degree of inequality than inequality in as well as a proposed model of the deter­ annual incomes. . . ." mination of Canadian economic inequal­ Perhaps most serious to Canadian ity (chapters 9-11) and the role of govern­ ment (chapter 12). Immediately before the scholars, however, is the book's reluc­ book's 21-page bibliography, Osberg tance to address the regional dimension of allows himself a "personal conclusion": economic inequality in Canada. Wealth owners and income earners are dealt with as individuals of gender, class, educa­ Inequality may not be necessary for the produc­ tional achievement, urban/rural dweller, tion of economic growth but is growth neces­ but never as citizens of any geographical sary for the toleration of economic inequality? region other than Canada. To some, this Marxists and conservatives alike have empha­ begs some of the most important ques­ sized that capitalism's historic justification has tions regarding economic inequality in been the increase in material wealth it has pro­ duced. But, in 1980/81. after half a decade of Canada. "stagflation" and with almost universal pes­ simism for the immediate future, it appears that Steven Antler the prospects for ever-rising average standards Memorial University of Newfoundland of living under capitalism have become rather remote. And when the engine of growth falters and individuals can no longer expect to become F.T. Denton, A.L. Robb, and B.G. better off in absolute terms year by year with a Spencer, Unemployment and Labour constant share of a larger pie, will there not be Force Behaviour of Young People: Evi­ increasing pressure for larger shares of a con­ dence from Canada and Ontario stant pie? And if existing economic institutions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press cannot satisfy the economic aspirations of much of the populace, if indeed some groups 1980). are net losers in the increasing struggle over distributive shares, will there not be increasing IN THE 1960s, education was widely pressure for changes in existing economic touted as the best guarantee of a steady institutions? job. Today the most educated generation REVIEWS 237

i n our history is sufferi ng fro m a ble for structurally higher youth unem­ catastrophic youth unemployment rate of ployment rates. almost 25 per cent. This book provides a Education, according to this study, is sophisticated demographic analysis of the no passport to job security. Despite the phenomenon of youth unemployment in optimistic predictions of human capital the 1970s. Using statistical data obtained theorists in the 1960s, the propensity to be from the 1976 census and labour force unemployed, at least among the young, survey microdata released for the first seems to bear little relationship to years of time, the authors describe the character­ schooling. "The returns to education in istics of the jobless under twenty-five. terms of reduced unemployment prob­ Some interesting conclusions emerge abilities are very small," the authors con­ from their study. Most significant is their clude. (159) discovery that unemployment among A final point of interest is this study's young people is intensifying as a propor­ estimate of the macroeconomic cost of tion of the overall unemployment rate. youth unemployment. Although their cal­ Compared to the 1950s, almost one- culations are admittedly rough, Denton, quarter more males under 25 and two- Robb, and Spencer argue that if the num­ thirds more women are jobless than would ber of those jobless under 25 in 1977 could be expected from the rise in the total have been cut in half, Canada's GNP could unemployment rate alone. Why this is so have been boosted by almost 4 per cent or the authors are unable to explain. by $8 billion in 1977 prices. A corre­ Although the under-25 proportion of Can­ sponding figure in 1983 prices would be ada's labour force grew by 86 per cent staggering. between 1954-77, there is no convincing Since the book offers no firm explana­ explanation why this baby boom genera­ tions of why youth unemployment is tion necessarily implied higher youth intensifying as a proportion of the overall unemployment. Britain and Italy also unemployment rate, it has little to offer in experienced similar youth jobless rates in the way of policy prescriptions. In the the 1970s even though the proportion of absence of an overall macroeconomic their young workers was declining. attack on unemployment, the authors Attempts to explain youth unemployment argue, existing youth programmes which from changes in unemployment insurance offer employers subsidies for hiring those or minimum wage legislation are also under 25 may well result simply in "a inconclusive, the authors argue. reduction of employment in other The feminization of the labour force groups." (202) As demographers, does provide some hints, however. The Denton, Robb, and Spencer can offer participation rate of women under 25 today's young unemployed only one cold jumped from 40 per cent to 69 per cent comfort. "[Blarring unforeseen major over the past two decades. According to shocks to the economy," they conclude, labour force survey data, moreover, "they will likely be absorbed into the young women are more prone than men to labour force ... as have other generations leave rather than lose their jobs. In 1976 before them. It seems entirely probable 61 per cent of unemployed men between that the relatively high unemployment 20-24 lost their jobs, compared to only rates of this group will come to an end as 21.5 per cent who left voluntarily. For the group ages." (203) From the grim per­ women in the same age group the corre­ spective of the early 1980s, it's an ironic sponding figures were 34 per cent and 31 statement. per cent respectively. The implication is that the changing sexual composition of James Struthers the youth labour force is partly responsi­ Trent University 238 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

Nick Salvatore, Eugene Debs, Citizen tively widespread degree of acceptance and Socialist (Urbana: University of that it later enjoyed. Illinois Press 1982). At first a socially conservative official in the Brotherhood of Locomotive THIS IS IN almost all respects an excellent Engineers and Firemen, it was the Bur­ biography, one that is fully deserving of lington railroad strike of 1888-9 that acted the accolades that it has already received, as the catalyst for Debs' later views. including the 1983 Bancroft Prize. In it, Angered by the employers" response to Nick Salvatore eschews both the senti­ the Burlington strike, as well as by the use mental hagiography that has characterized of state power to repress the Great the biographies of a number of important Upheaval of 1886, Debs saw the need for American radical leaders, while providing greater working-class unity than either the us with considerably more insight into the separate Knights of Labor assemblies or private life of his subject than Bernard the Railroad Brotherhoods could afford. Johnpoll's life of Norman Thomas, or Thereafter, Debs slowly proceeded down Melvyn Dubofsky's and Warren Van the path towards industrial unionism and Tine's John L. Lewis. Instead, Salvatore democratic socialism, influenced in turn has given us a probingly analytical, as by the Pullman strike, Woodstock gaol, well as a thoroughly personal biography the People's Party, and disgust at the that goes well beyond the " life and times" intransigent craft unionism of the AFL. By genre. Arguing that Debs can only be about 1900, he had become the political understood by comprehending the small champion of a brand of socialism that was town business milieu from which he as American in character as Ferdinand came, the author devotes considerable Lassalle's statist Marxism was German, space to describing the social structure of or Keir Hardie's ethical socialism was Terre Haute, where Debs made his home. English. Debs and Hardie, indeed, shared This enables Salvatore to anchor Debs much in a common Anglo-American tradi­ more securely in his social context than tion, including both Christian socialism any previous biographer. It also permits and a certain moral ambiguity in their per­ him to articulate the origins of Debs' sonal lives. In Debs' case, Salvatore peculiarly American brand of socialism, makes this comprehensible by his sym­ an enterprise which constitutes the core of pathetic account of Gene's sterile mar­ the book. In the 1860s and 1870s the riage to Kate, which led him into an illicit small railroad town of Terre Haute was love affair with Mabel Curry towards the redolent with the cultural values of a end of his life. republican, pre-corporate America where democracy, equality of opportunity, Beyond this, the author reveals little evangelical Christianity, and an assump­ that is new about Debs' political career as tion of perpetuity in Ihe shared rewards of four-times presidential candidate of the economic enterprise were accepted by all Socialist Party of America, or about his social classes. This harmonious vision subject's relations with the IWW, the AFL, was shattered by the brutal suppression of or America's involvement in World War I. railroad and other strikes in the 1870s and A possible exception is his compelling 1880s. Salvatore argues that it was the account of the pathos of Debs' last years threat posed to these values by the in 1919-26, as the movement lo which he emergence of corporate capitalism that had liierally devoted his life crumbled both turned Debs into a socialist, and around him. The core of the book, and its enabled his critique of American society most controversial element, lies in its — to a greater degree than that of any "social biographical" character, and in other U.S. radical — to secure the rela­ the definition of Debs' socialism outlined above. One reviewer considers the REVIEWS 239

"social" approach to biography to be a Intellectual Origins of American contradiction in terms, arguing that it is Radicalism, has not been wholly able to inherently unsuited to recreating the life resist. This is the temptation to forget that of a unique individual. ' Given Salvatore's because the roots of Debs' radicalism are purpose, I do not find that this is so. It is to be found in the American revolutionary true that the author devotes excessive tradition of Paine, Adams, and Washing­ attention to the overall development of the ton, this tradition is at bottom a laissez American labour movement. In chapter faire-liberal one, not a Jacobin- three, to quote only one example, he tells revolutionary one which can readily be us more than we need to know about the adapted to the overthrow of modern origins of the AFL. This makes the book capitalism. It is, of course, true that the longer than it need be, and at times hard English revolutionary tradition (or the going. He also dwells more than his pre­ Canadian one, for that matter), is also a decessors have done on the frailty of liberal one, and that the intellectual transi­ Debs' ego, on his occasional self- tion from left-wing liberalism to some deception, and on his unwillingness to form of right-wing social democracy is by engage in the bureaucratic infighting that no means impossible. But to argue this characterized much of his relationship alone is to forget the presence of those with the SPA. But as I have argued else­ stubborn, clichéd structural features of where,2 it was probably a net advantage to American society — the elastic party sys­ the SPA to have as its presidential tem, social fluidity, the ethnic and racial standard-bearer a man who, in typical fragmentation of the labour force — that American fashion, stood above the party have always made the translation of battle instead of taking sides in ways socialist beliefs into political action so which Norman Thomas was later to do. difficult, and which also profoundly Forme, also, Debs' personal weaknesses, affected Debs' career as a Socialist presi­ like Jefferson's love affair with the slave dential candidate. Sally Hennings, render him more human, rather than less. They do not detract from It is not, of course, the task of a biog­ his courage during and after World War I, rapher to re-analyze these structural fea­ when he went to gaol for his beliefs, or tures in detail. As a subtle re-creation of from the true nobility of soul which he the life and beliefs of the man who has revealed in his celebrated speech to the always, deservedly, been the most beloved court at the time of his conviction for exponent of the indigenous American rad­ anti-draft activities in September, 1918. ical tradition, Salvatore's book can be praised unstintingly. But when this Nick Salvatore's analysis of the con­ reviewer, at least, put down Eugene tent of Debs' socialism is more problema­ Debs, Citizen and Socialist, he found that indigenous tradition to be where it has tic, not because of any inaccuracy in always been — uneasily poised between describing its wellsprings, or because of acceptable reform, and root-and-branch any distortion in Debs' own efforts to social transformation. promulgate it. The difficulty arises, rather, from a temptation which Salva- tore, somewhat like Staughton Lynd in his J.H.M. Laslett University of California/Los Angeles 1 L. Glen Seretan, "Biography and Autobiog­ raphy, in Reviews in American History, 11 (September 1983), 394-8. Leslie Fishbein, Rebels in Bohemia: The M.H.M. Laslett, Reluctant Proletarians: A Radicals of The Masses, 1911-19/7 Comparative History of American Socialism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina (Westport 1984), 94. Press 1982). 240 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

HOLLYWOOD'S POWER HAS implanted simplification." They thus explored forever in our brains, as America's cutest psychoanalysis more often "with the zeal radicals, the cuddly Warren Beatty and the of converts than with any attempt at objec­ darling Diane Keaton as John Reed and tivity. The reason for their blindness was Louise Bryant. Reds was but a recent simple: they were more interested in per­ mass-media depiction of the pre-World sonal salvation than in ascertaining truth." War I Greenwich Village left which had Consequently they remained in the "van­ already been turned into a sort of Ameri­ guard of middle-class reform," failed to can Bloomsbury set by many literary his­ make "a socialist critique of everyday torians, beginning with Henry F. May in life," and "permitted the fatal distinction The End of American Innocence: A Study between the personal and the political to of the First Years of Our Own Time, arise once more." (111-12) After the war 1912-19/7 (1959). Since May, much has most of them became mere private bohe- been written on such topics as birth con­ mians, many of their programmes trol, marital experimentation, feminism, absorbed by that bourgeoisie from which jazz, and all that among the likes of John they had merely been deviants after all. Sloan, Max Eastman, Mabel Dodge, Ran­ Unfortunately, the sectarian Fishbein dolph Bourne, Floyd Dell, Hutchins Hap- keeps reappearing in the text to remind us good, Reed, and Bryant. of the many failures of The Masses' writ­ Leslie Fishbein focuses on these and ers to create a coherent and therefore pre­ other topics and personalities mainly sumably triumphant socialist ideology. through close readings of the chief publi­ Fortunately, there is another part of Fish­ cation of the bohemian left. The Masses. bein, far more subtle and dialectical, that In her preface she writes that "despite the may be found in her approach to the ideals naïveté — and neuroses" of the group she and roles of these intellectuals. She does finally became devoted to them because of emphasize that these were revolutionaries their "utter sincerity." (xiii) Fishbein's lucky enough to live before the revolution best and most original chapters grow out and that they therefore could engage in a of her sense of the personal and cultural free exchange of ideas that became diffi­ tensions in which the group worked: her cult in leftist circles after World War I and less attractive passages come from her ten­ the Russian Revolution. (64) When she dency to preach socialist discipline to writes in this context, Fishbein is able to these dead bohemian radicals. Fishbein's deal in a more sophisticated manner with hidden agenda includes an unstated the inner and cultural tensions of these critique of later generations of American writers. In a splendid chapter, "The Road radicals, although the New Left of the to Religion," Fishbein shows the writers 1960s is nowhere mentioned openly. revising Christ into that "workman- agitator" who was such a central figure to Let me give but the most egregious, if Eugene V. Debs at the same time. (126) typical, example of the soap box of disci­ Debs and the New Masses' writers may pline. Writers in The Masses were among not have understood Das Kapital, but the first to advocate free love, Freud, and they all sought to make the best revolu­ birth control. Fishbein points out that tionary case with the available cultural "The sexual revolution did not bring in its material, meanwhile re-working their own wake the social revolution." She then religious backgrounds in a sincere fash­ blames The Masses' writers for failing to ion. In another fine chapter, "Art in the discern that the latter would not come Class Struggle," Fishbein analyzes the form the former. The group "lacked intel­ tensions these writers expressed between lectual discipline. Most of them had read aesthetics and politics, disdain and sym­ little of the works of Marx and Engels and pathy for the masses, fear of popular so were easy victims of distortion and REVIEWS 241

superstition and attraction to "proletarian ment — had been set aside by the Tzarist vigor," (192) a desire for literary realism, governments as a territory in which Jews and a drive to make art serve explicit polit­ could live, if they could survive. The rest ical ends. of Russia was barred to them. But, even in In these parts of Rebels in Bohemia the Pale, Jews were not left alone. the sometimes didactic and judgemental Though by 1900 four million Jews lived Fishbein does enter the world of choices there, they made up only 10 per cent of available to her characters. When she the population. The remaining 90 per explores their inner tensions within the cent, were, according to Rapoport, all difficult environment of their times, she anti-semites. lends dignity to their struggles. This much Pogroms became the order of the day. esteem, if / may preach, should be By law, Jews were forbidden from owning granted to any progressive intellectual liv­ or even renting land, and thus had to eke ing in twentieth-century America. out a marginal living at petty commerce, artisanry, and service occupations. As Michael Fell man middlemen, storekeepers, millers, and Simon Fraser University money-lenders they were easily identified as the exploiter and enemy of the farmer. Kenneth Kann, éd., Joe Rapoport: The Thus, when domestic policy dictated, it Life of a Jewish Radical (Philadelphia: was a relatively simple matter for the Temple University Press 1981). Tzarist regime to turn these peasants loose against the Jews to massacre, rape, and pil­ WHY SHOULD THE autobiography of a lage. All of this took place with the sup­ Jewish chicken-farmer from Petaluma, port of a Church which portrayed the Jews California, be of interest to a Canadian as killers of God, as poisoners of wells, social historian, I wondered when I was and as people who used Christian blood invited to review this book. Within the for their Passover rites. first few pages, however, it became clear Thus Rapoport's early years were that Joe Rapoport was no ordinary farmer spent in almost constant terror as the and that his life story had much to tell us "Black Hundreds," The Cossacks, and about the origins and nature of ethnic other pogromists cold-bloodedly attacked radicalism in North America. His is the Jewish towns and villages, leaving death fascinating, often moving, always com­ and destruction in their wake. Only the pelling story of a Jewish revolutionary arrival of the Bolsheviks saved Rapoport who first came to political consciousness and thousands of other Jews from the mur­ defending his little village from maraud­ derous hands of the Ukrainian nation­ ing Ukrainian anti-semites during the alists: between 1918 and 1920 over years of World War I and the Russian Rev­ 100,000 Jews were butchered by these olution, and who, for the rest of his life, gangs. It was in these years that Rapoport remained preoccupied with the fate of his began his life-long love affair with the people in the Soviet Union, America, and Soviets. The Red Army was his liberator, the Middle East. his salvation. For him, as for many other Joe Rapoport was born in 1900 in the Jews of the time, the Communists could tiny "shtetl" of Stanislavchik in the do no wrong. Ukrainian portion of the notorious Pale. An enthusiastic Rapoport became From Vilna on the Baltic to Odessa on the actively involved with the new Soviet Black Sea, running through parts of authorities in his home town, helping Lithuania, Poland, Byelorussia, and the them introduce their new revolutionary Ukraine, a relatively narrow, but lengthy policies. He was no longer only a Jew; he belt of land — the so-called Pale of Settle­ was now a Soviet citizen, part of the new 242 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL order. Only reluctantly, therefore, was he They were beaten, harassed, arrested, and convinced by his family to join his jailed. But they never gave up. brothers in America; the alternative, they Rapoport became an organizer for the warned, was compulsory service in the Trade Union Educational League, and Red Army. helped found the National Textile Workers In 1921 the young Jewish radical Association, which later merged into the landed in New York, and like so many Needle Trades Workers'Industrial Union. others before him, began work in the gar­ While busy fighting the bosses, Rapoport ment industry. His shop now became his soon found that he was even busier fight­ new home; his fellow-workers, his fam­ ing his union colleagues — the ily. They eased his integration into an Trotskyists, Lovestonites, Bundists, to alien world, protected him while he was say nothing of the conservatives who were learning the rudiments of his trade, and in leading positions in various garment most importantly, introduced him to the unions. Rapoport writes from the dual trade-union movement. Rapoport now had perspective of someone who is familiar an outlet for his newly-found radicalism. with left-wing organizations and Within weeks he was involved in his first ideologies, but who remained throughout strike. For the young immigrant, it was an his union career with the rank and file. exciting, wonderful experience. He was The unique value of his perspective. once again fighting for the oppressed. writes the editor of this memoir, Kenneth Rapoport had found his métier. A natural Kann, "grows out of Rapoport's lifelong leader, indefatigable and eloquent, he was attempts to translate ideas into action with appointed as union picket captain even all the joys and frustrations of the strug­ though he spoke no English. Soon — with gle, with all the contradictions of theory an interpreter who translated his earthy and practice, and with all the demands to Yiddish into English — he was visiting formulate new understanding oui of past shops on the Lower East Side organizing a events." general strike in the knitting industry. Unfortunately, but predictably, his first In the 1930s, with the onset of the union experience ended in failure; the United Front, Rapoport loyally joined his strike was lost and the union destroyed. erstwhile anti-communist enemies in the dominant International Ladies Garment But for Rapoport this was only the Workers Union. There, while doing beginning. To him as to thousands of yeoman service for the workers, he other immigrant Jews, socialism was the became a thorn in the side of the union only hope. Their corner of American leadership. Like other left-wing activists radicalism was shaped by the communal of the period Rapaport played a central life of "shtetl" and the ghetto of the old role in organizing an industrial union world. Their radicalism was born in burn­ movement. With the rise of Hitler he ing resentment against anti-semitic perse­ became involved in the efforts to save European Jewry. He describes how his cution and petty capitalistic exploitation, attitude towards Zionism changed as it in revolt against religion and tradition, in became apparent that without a Jewish fervent idealism to create a just new homeland to provide a haven, the Jews of world. Their ties were cemented through Europe were trapped. Jewish radicals in working together in shops, living together this period opposed Zionism as a nation­ in Jewish neighbourhoods, fighting to alist movement that served the interests of build a trade-union movement, and shar­ the bourgeoisie and western imperialism. ing a vibrant Yiddish culture. They met But many changed their position as a constantly, sponsored lectures, organized result of the holocaust, and Rapoport 1 ite rary and drama groups, founded takes pride in pointing out that the state of summer camps, agitated, and organized, REVIEWS 243

Israel came into existence largely because His preoccupation with his Jewishness, of the support, political and military — it with the holocaust and with Israel, was Czech guns and planes that helped the becomes the epic of Jewish destiny in the Israelis beat back five invading Arab twentieth-century world. He reminds us armies — of the Soviet Union and its of the invaluable contribution of Jewish allies. Though Rapoport is critical of radicals to the American left, and he some policies of the Israeli government, fleshes out better than anything else I have he is still a strong supporter of the Jewish read the story of a rank-and-file soldier in state. In the same way, though he still sees the ranks of the Communist party. Finally, himself as "a friend of the Soviet Union" his exodus from New York to rural he is disturbed by many of its policies, California in the 1940s was part of the particularly those directed against its important back-to-the-land movement that Jews. swept through sections of the radical com­ Following the war, Rapoport was vic­ munities in these years, as thousands timized by the anti-red purges in the moved to the American south and west, or labour movement and found himself with­ took up new lives on left-wing kibbutzim out a job. Deciding to build a new life in Israel. with other radical Jews, he settled in Kenneth Kann has done an important northern California and set up as a service to the historical community in pre­ chicken rancher. Petaluma became his serving and presenting Rapoport's story. new lower east side. The cultural vitality For several years he had Rapoport sit in of the Jewish left with its books, lectures, front of a tape recorder telling his tale. theatres, and newspapers rapidly took root From these hours of tape Kann has carved in the lush soil of California. The old an eminently readable, evocative book. debates over Zionism and Marxism con­ As much as possible he has kept himself tinued, but now these old-time radicals out of the story, adding only his own nota­ became active in the struggles for native tions at the end of the book which put rights, agricultural unions, and the envi­ Rapoport's story into an historiographical ronment. In his seventies, Rapoport par­ ticipated in rallies against the Vietnam perspective. This is one oral history which War, stood with Cesar Chavez against the works. It is a model that Canadian histo­ agro-industrialists of the Imperial Valley, rians might usefully adopt — quickly — and joined in various civil rights demon­ before our own Joe Rapoports disappear. strations throughout the south and west. Irving Abella This is a captivating account of one York University man's life. But it is much more. Rapoport succeeds in setting his life story against Jurgen Kocka, White Collar Workers in the great forces and events of this century. America 1890-1940; A Social-Political His recollections of his early life in the History in International Perspective, "shtetl" become the story of Jewish life translated by M. Kealey (London: Sage under the Tzars, in war and revolution, 1980). and then under the Soviets. His escape to America becomes the saga of countless IT IS AN OLD and elegant argument that immigrants arriving lonely and desperate associates the rise of fascism in Germany in an alien culture, and an exploration of and Italy with the response of distressed old world continuities in the new world. middle classes faced with a loss of their His description of his years in the garment relative privileges. Fascism, in this view, industry burgeons into the moving drama is essentially a reactionary petty- of left-wing attempts to build industrial bourgeois response to capitalist crisis, trade unionism and socialism in America. which unites ideologically the old proper- 244 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL tied middle class with the new salariat. countries is attributed to disparities in This bold assertion, which has become a their respective social development: to standard argument in orthodox Marxism, "diverse pre-industrial, pre-capitalist, and has been vigorously debated. The work pre-bourgeois traditions." A brief review under review is a significant contribution of the response of white-collar workers in to this controversy as well as an important Britain and France corroborates this argu­ substantive text in the study of the Ameri­ ment. can middle classes. To test his general hypotheses, Kocka Jurgen Kocka's White Collar Workers concentrates his analyses on sales employ­ in America is a powerful demonstration of ees in retail and wholesale trade and on the fruitful relationship between social commercial and technical clerks in private theory and historical scholarship. Compa­ sector firms. (23) He argues that their rative history is used to test the utility of a experience should be seen as separate "received thesis" which emerges from a from that of the propertied petty- general body of theory. The experience bourgeoisie. which has been linked most and response of white-collar workers in closely with right-wing collective pro­ the United States between 1890 and 1940 tests, and also separate from state employ­ is addressed in the context of a compari­ ees who may be the most susceptible to son with American blue-collar workers pro-statist politics. and with white-collar employees in Ger­ Kocka's critique of the "received many, thesis" linking fascism universally with Kocka argues that the development of the "status panic" of the middle classes industrial capitalism in the U.S. and Ger­ begins with an appreciation of the differ­ many was "remarkably similar" with ent national meanings which are associ­ respect to their chronologies and general ated with similar stratification arrange­ characteristics. Not only did the transfor­ ments. The meaning attributed to the mation of class relations proceed in paral­ collar-line is powerfully shaped by social lel directions in the two countries, result­ and political factors and the existence of ing particularly in the emergence of a alternate lines of social differentiation white-collar salariat, but during the 1930s may form more salient reference groups the two countries experienced "similar for individuals. In Germany, pre- economic challenges." Given these condi­ industrial traditions created a number of tions, economic determinism would lead differences in the experience of social one to expect both countries to exhibit stratification. Corporatist traditions gen­ similar social, psychological, and politi­ erated a bifurcated labour movement cal developments. This was not the case. sharply divided between the working class In Germany politics was "perverted to and the new middle class. The job and fascism" (iv) while in the U.S. there was educational structures reinforced this dis­ very little potential for right-wing tinction by limiting opportunities for extremism. Consequently, Kocka argues, social mobility. The ideology of corpora­ these disparate responses raise fundamen­ tism shaped legislative policies which tal questions about two "general social- entrenched disparities. All these factors historical" hypotheses: the class basis and differed considerably from the American origin of fascism as a protest of new and case where employee organizations old middle classes seen as the primary vic­ tended lo be along occupational or indus­ tims of twentieth-century capitalist devel­ trial lines, where mobility chances were opment, and the general connection greater and were incorporated into an between capitalism in crisis and the politi­ ideology of individualism, where the fluid cal ascendency of right-wing movements. image of the class structure led to the for­ The different responses in the two mation of a less crystallized class struc- REVIEWS 245 ture, (121) and where state policies differ­ curred. In Germany, economic crisis was entiated on bases other than the collar- accompanied by a breakdown in political line. These economic differences were authority. Although Germany had a exacerbated by the heterogeneity of the "liberal-democratic system" in the inter- American work force which was divided war years, (16) the political system was along racial and ethnic lines, divisions not stable. Economic failures were more which were solidified by discriminatory readily attributed to the existing political laws. (265) form and contrasted with the pre- The distinction between economic and industriat, authoritarian, bureaucratic social factors which Kocka draws is use­ state. (21) In the United States, it was ful in historical explanation, yet the pre- assumed that economic problems were bourgeois traditions he cites as fundamen­ solvable and that there were still "unused tal in shaping fascism in Germany were remedies for economic change in the linked in numerous and subtle ways with political system." (242) the economic structure of the society. Tra­ Kocka's argument accepts elements of ditions arose within specific economic cir­ the received thesis in the German case, cumstances and within political expres­ such as the distinction between class and sions which were largely complementary status consciousness, the middle classes' with them, and they survived in tandem fear of proletarianization, and their use of with the vestiges of these structures. the working class as a reference group. He While their German counterparts argued accepts that there was an important differ­ from a tradition of guilds and corpora­ ence in voting patterns, with the middle tism, small businesspeople in the United class supporting the NSDAP while the States responded within the framework of working class voted socialist or commu­ a tradition of liberal capitalism. nist. (30) For Kocka, although fascism To some extent the economic condi­ had "many roots," the "susceptibility of tions were not similar in Germany and the the new middle class to right-wing United States. (19) Germany in the 1930s extremism... facilitated the triumph of experienced the "culmination of a lengthy Nazism in Germany." (282-3) Research period of misery and insecurity particu­ such as that by Hamilton and Childers, larly for the lower middle class." (253) however, has questioned the accuracy of The real earnings of white-collar workers the "received thesis" with respect to vot­ were beneath their pre-war level in 1929; ing patterns in the German case. The sym­ in the United States the employers' offen­ metrical equation linking economic sive of the 1920s had restored much of the interests, political representation, and income differential. (176-7) Between social behaviour is generally problematic. 1913 and 1929, Kocka notes, real income Fear of proletarianization is different increased much more in Germany than the from fear of the proletariat. The former is United States. So even if the dislocation specifically economic; the latter is power­ was equally great in terms of the loss of fully political. Kocka suggest that the purchasing power and rate of unemploy­ American working class was basically ment. (193) each society began the des­ non-radical and fragmented, (282) and cent from a distinct base. had a business union orientation that made Kocka's basic point, however, is that for overt militancy but confined protest to the differences in the economic context economic conditions. In Germany, a "tra­ are insufficient to explain the rise of fas­ ditional elite" resisted even economic cism in Germany and its virtual absence in reforms and in addition there existed a the U.S. (194-7) More fundamental than "radical egalitarian socialist protest." The the fact of economic dislocation was the polarization of the labour force in Ger­ political context in which the crisis oc­ many, which had economic, political, and 246 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

social determinants, mutually reinforced deal of contemporary American life has class divisions. The definition of the been significantly influenced by the interests of the middle class developed events in American industrial communi­ within the context of a threatening social ties during and after World War II, Lipsitz movement. The question is not only why attempts to "uncover the relevant legacy the American middle class was not of that period." His starting point is a attracted to fascism, but why the Socialist description and explanation of the unpre­ Party in the U.S. failed to consolidate its cedented rank-and-file militance charac­ early political gains. teristic of early post-war American The general picture Kocka presents of labour. the American middle classes between the Lipsitz notes how major job disrup­ war is a familiar one. The collar-line is tions and strike actions (often initiated by seen as becoming an increasingly impor­ seemingly trivial events) during this time tant social division as white-collar work­ were manifestations both of fundamental ers in the U.S. suffered some degree of social cleavages between capital and relative proletarianization, but responded labour and a long-standing desire by economically in terms of the traditions of American workers to control their own American unionism, and politically by destinies. Yet, the war emergency and its supporting the reformist "New Deal." Yet aftermath created a unique set of condi­ how accurate is this image of the pro­ tions which made these cleavages even letarianization of the American middle more apparent and stimulated working- class in the inter-war years? How impor­ class desires for independence. Particu­ tant was the feminization of the office in larly relevant was the highly ambiguous creating a segmented labour force and atmosphere of hope and fear character­ enhancing the mobility chances of white- izing American cultural life immediately collar men? These questions remain con­ after the war. There was a widespread troversial and the answer to them would hope that the years of death and sacrifice likely modify the interpretation of the would not be in vain and that a new era of white-collar experience offered by Kocka. peace, security, and freedom might emerge. But there was also great fear that For all the respect that is due Kocka's the despair of the Depression years might comprehensive and theoretically informed return, and that wartime gains made by analysis, the final point is that much labour (as a result of government pres­ remains to be done to explain the experi­ sures on employers to ensure full produc­ ence of the American middle classes in tion for the war effort) might be lost in the twentieth century. The comparative post-war reconstruction. In addition to focus is a powerful tool, but it must be these cultural factors, post-war working- incorporated in more rigorous analyses of class life was also influenced by major the experiences and responses of new structural social changes. Wartime mili­ middle-class groups in national societies. tary spending, taxation policies* and research and development funding all Anthony Thomson helped to concentrate economic power, Acadia University and created conditions for the ideological ascension of corporate liberalism. George Lipsitz, Class and Culture in Expanded bureaucratic powers in the Cold War America: "A Rainbow at Mid­ state, government support of monopolistic night" (New York: Praeger Publishers enterprise, and increased regimentation of 1981). the workplace, had so well served the war effort that they became the corporate lib­ THIS IS AN immensely suggestive book. eral model for the post-war industrial Beginning with the argument that a great REVIEWS 247 future. In the face of this, competitive sec­ The Marshall Plan sought to use govern­ tor capitalists, the small company owners, ment loans abroad to create a favourable pushed for a withdrawal of government economic and political climate for Ameri­ from the economy and a return to pre-war can business. The expansion of American standards of labour relations. capital abroad came to be seen as a neces­ Having set this stage, Lipsitz devotes sity for post-war affluence and full a considerable part of the book's early employment, and this provided a compel­ chapters to descriptions and explanations ling rationale for an aggressively expan­ of various working-class strategies of sionist economic policy. By equating independence. He adopts a case study freedom and democracy with the interna­ approach to labour unrest, focusing in tional success of American business, each instance upon the complexity of the competition from Soviet communism dispute and the successes and failures of came to be seen as the greatest threat to various strategies of action (some of the American "way of life" in the post­ which were quite racist and sexist) in war era. The red-baiting that flourished in securing workers' demands. These case the early 1950s had its roots in this ration­ histories, however, merely provide the ale and was not initially generated out of background for the book's central focus opposition to American labour. However, — the response made by capital and the red-baiting and the incorporation of anti- state to the wave of post-war labour mili- communist clauses in the Taft-Hartley tance. legislation proved to be effective in elimi­ What made the strikes and other work nating militants from the American labour disruptions of the late 1940s so dangerous movement and in exacerbating divisions to capital was their spontaneous and often within the working class itself. illegal character. In their resort to mass Lipsitz goes on to show how the action, workers were able to rely both on results of all this could be measured in the micro-social forms like neighbourhood or 1950s by a growing separation of unions shopfloor groups too small to be effec­ from the construction of working-class tively controlled by management, and on identity. Denied political and cultural mass demonstrations too large and expression in organized labour, working- unstructured to be easily policed by the class aspirations for independence sur­ state. In some instances such actions faced in the "politics of everyday life, on occurred without consent of the local the shop floor, in the community and in union and often had widespread commu­ the home." Furthermore, working-class nity support. Fearing the rank and file cultural forms in film, language, sports, were actually becoming "more radical and music moved into the spheres of mass than their leaders," and faced with the dif­ culture and came to symbolize the search ficult challenge of maintaining high levels for freedom, independence, and commu­ of production and employment in the nity in American society. As examples, post-war years, corporate liberals in the Lipsitz focuses upon film noir, bop lan­ state structure responded with two signifi­ guage, roller derby, car customizing, and cant policies: the Taft-Hartley Act and the rock and roll, commenting on the con­ Marshall Plan. Taft-Hartley sought to tradictory features of these cultural prod­ "stabilize" collective bargaining not by ucts as commodities implicated in the weakening unions but by strengthening reproduction of capitalist social relations, them. Collective bargaining became in­ yet holding out the possibility for stitutionalized, but in a way that overtly articulating oppositional conceptions of bureaucratized unions and made them social life. His conclusion is that today's complicit in policing rank-and-file mili­ movements of popular protest (for exam­ tancy in exchange for modest reforms. ple, the women's movement, student 248 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

movements, and struggles waged by Susan Strasser, Never Done: A History of blacks) owe a great deal to the resonances American Housework (New York: Panth­ of earlier forms of protest that still surface eon 1982). in mass cultural products and offer us glimpses of a better future. HOUSEWORK WAS "NEVER DONE" for Not everyone will buy these argu­ the nineteenth-century housewife. Its his­ ments completely and it seems fair to say tory had never been done until feminist that Lipsitz's ambitious and provocative historians and sociologists began to turn synthesis of political economy, social his­ their attention away from women in the tory, and cultural analysis does not always public spheres of political struggle, work, hang together. The cultural material in and social movements to the more private particular is somewhat detached from the sphere of the home. In the 1970s discus­ rest of the book and there are times when sion about domestic labour was domi­ one suspects Lipsitz overstates the extent nated by the highly theoretical "domestic to which post-war mass cultural forms labour debate," centering around the kind rooted in working-class experience have of value produced by women's work in expressed an oppositional character. It the home and its function in a capitalist may be too much, for example, to argue society. While scintillating at times, such that "what the mass demonstration and debate did not advance our knowledge of wildcat strike provided in political life, what women were actually doing in the rock and roll music realized in culture." home and how it changed over time. In Neither led to a revolution, Lipsitz 1974 Ann Oakley's Woman's Work: The reminds us. but "both embedded them­ Housewife Past and Present began the selves between the power of the system definition and description of the house­ and popular resistance." Perhaps so, but wife's role, focusing largely on England wildcat strikes are not produced by record and predominantly on the present. In Can­ companies and obviously have much dif­ ada, Meg Luxton's More than a Labour ferent oppositional features than those of Love: Three Generations of Women's found in rock music. The issues surround­ Work in the Home used the experience of ing the differences between such overt women in Flin Flon, Manitoba, to struggles and the politics of mass cultural describe changes in housework there. forms require a fuller treatment than they Susan Strasser's Never Done: A History receive in this book. Nonetheless, by sim­ of American Housework goes further than ply raising such issues Lipsitz has opened these works. She carefully documents the door to analyses seeking to explore changes in household technology, and its more closely the relationships between production, promotion, and use. In so contemporary class and popular struggles, doing she not only writes the history of and mass and working-class culture. Such most women's work in America, indeed an opening is a valuable corrective to the in advanced capitalist societies, but also mass culture theories of the 1950s and brilliantly documents fundamental 1960s which overly emphasized cultural changes in the basis of society, the family, incorporation and ignored the possibilities and daily life over the last two centuries. of continuing working-class resistance. Strasser highlights three major phases By looking into these possibilities, Lipsitz of women's work in the home, phases that implies that the revival of the American appear to coincide broadly with the domi­ labour movement in the future may well nance of commercial, industrial, and be first and foremost a cultural project. monopoly capitalism. In the colonial era the household fulfilled the functions of Richard Gruneau home, factory, school, and welfare University of British Columbia institution. Women produced goods both REVIEWS 249 for use and exchange on farms and in sumption continued, production at home cities. During the nineteenth century the diminished. At the same time waste of transition to industrial capitalism meant resources replaced conservation. that more and more production took place outside the home, leaving the housewife The growing isolation of women in the as the reproducer of labour-power. In home that accompanied the expansion of these two phases housework was a hercu­ wage-labour and the production of com­ lean, backbreaking, never-ending chore, modities for use in the home fueled the one which Strasser chronicles in the first idea of the home being a separate and seven chapters. These examine in detail female sphere. Throughout the book the changes in the production and use of Strasser criticizes the notion that the food, methods of cooking, lighting, heat­ spheres were ever truly separate by show­ ing, water services, washing, and serving. ing the connections between the home and By the early twentieth century, women's the economy. In chapters ten and eleven work in all these areas had been lightened she examines the proponents and the as mass production of commodities along paradoxes of the theory, turning away with the distribution of utilities by private from the technology and work of the and municipal companies reshaped house­ housewife to the ideologies surrounding work. Cast iron stoves eliminated the va­ them. Here she relies heavily on an exami­ garies and dangers of cooking on open nation of the ideas of such writers and hearths. Refrigeration meant a wider vari­ reformers as Catharine Beecher, Melusina ety of foods were available throughout the Fay Pierce, and Charlotte Perkins Gil- year. Electric stoves and furnaces elimi­ man. The idea of the home as woman's nated the never-ending cutting and haul­ sphere, as a separate haven, had always ing of fuel. Vacuum cleaners ended the been paradoxical, she argues: men had to horrific frenzy of spring cleaning that had be accommodated there; the qualities of upset so many a nineteenth- and early the ideal wife were not those of the ideal twentieth-century household. mother; its very rhythms were determined Such changes, argues Strasser, by the demands of the man's work world. "clearly improved the quality of life in the As reformers pushed domestic education home, eliminating backbreaking labor, alongside social reform, Americanization, raising the standards of health and nutri­ and school reform, the apparent separate- tion and freeing people from virtual slav­ ness of the spheres decreased. Ideas ery to natural cycles." (31) However, she developed in the workplace, including sci­ refuses to romanticize either the past or entific management, were proposed for "progress," always viewing change as a the home as well. In the 1890s Charlotte complex historical phenomenon entailing Perkins Gilman, perceiving the problem costs as well as benefits. Thus electrical of housework as based in the "very nature and water services ended the heavy haul­ of work privately done in separate house­ ing of fuel and water but brought depend­ holds," (306) called for the indus­ ence on private companies operating for trialization of housework itself. profit. Use of commodities run on Yet housework was never indus­ electricity also involved dependence on trialized, although many products indus­ repair people. Furthermore the opportu­ trially transformed it. Profit-making nities for contact with other women potential determined that washing diminished as a tap replaced the commu­ machines, which women worked alone at nity well, frozen foods replaced the door- home, became the dominant form, instead to-door hawkers, and eventually dryers of the laundry to which they could take inside the home replaced the washing line their washing. Products were promoted in public view. In all areas while con­ that offered the most profit to industry, 250 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

rather than the best solution or even the Never Done is a history of American least work for women. housework, it is much more than that. It is The final five chapters detail the grow­ a history of the changing daily life of ing intrusion of corporate strategies and women, an important contribution to the products into the home and the whittling history of the changing methods of com­ away of most of the former roles of the modity production and distribution. housewife. The optimism of the former Throughout Strasser is very careful to link chapters is gone. Here Strasser paints a changes in household technology and gloomy and pessimistic picture of changes work to the methods of production, distri­ in methods of promotion and retailing that bution, and promotion, and to the owner­ not only made consumption the major ship of capital. Women and the household remaining role of the housewife, but that are examined squarely as part of the mode also penetrated the rhythms and content of of production, never separately. Her mealtimes and altered personal relations critique of the separate spheres concept until commodities "promise to fulfil the informs the whole book, not simply the functions of the old private sphere — now chapters on the ideology. Furthermore she including those of food, childcare and consistently makes clear who is buying emotional life." (306) commodities, so that the experience of Once capital's market had expanded to middle-class and working-class women is include most working-class homes, always contrasted. The book serves as a expansion and profit were based on timely reminder of the recentness of most aggressive advertising and production of changes in housework, especially in rural new commodities that claimed to render and working-class households. Not until older models obsolete. Old ways were well into the twentieth century was the debunked. From a stress on economy, work of most of these housewives light­ advertising shifted to focus on prestige ened by electrical services, ovens and fur­ and time-saving. That families could pur­ naces, indoor plumbing, washing chase any of the new and non-essential machines, and cheap ready-made items was made possible, as Business clothing. Week recognized, by wives working. The weakest chapters are those on Their wages not only enabled some boarders and on children. The raising of families to subsist and others to purchase children especially receives much less appliances [hat were claimed to save attention than its importance as a compo­ labour, TV dinners and fast-food meals, nent of women's work merits. Until the but more importantly were crucial in twelfth chapter, women appear to be car­ keeping "the economy going" (301) by rying out their daily tasks uninterrupted, allowing capital to continue to expand. unencumbered by the children that we To attempt to summarize Susan Slras- know they had. Even then the topic is ser's content and arguments is to do her treated briefly, perhaps because techno­ work an injustice. Rich details and broad logical changes were negligible. Yet arguments go together to create a book clearly clothing, diapers, bottles, food, that I found difficult to put down and was toys, prams, and other baby hardware sorry to finish. It is a cleverly constructed have changed over time and increasingly book that is at once thematic and became a source of profit for large corpo­ chronological, moving from the earliest rations. While mothers certainly paid less areas of change in the home to the most attention to children in the years before recent; shifting too from the benefits of the child-rearing advice of the progressive development to the total loss of control period that Strasser does document, they and autonomy that Strasser convincingly did constitute a constant part of their daily argues exists today. While at one level activity and thus warrant more attention. REVIEWS 251

Never Done will not appeal to conser­ focuses entirely on what she labels early vatives or the New Right who still cling to and modern labour standards legislation. the idea of the home as a separate sphere. Early labour legislation (enacted largely It should, however, be compulsory read­ between 1900 and 1920) encompasses ing for all fathers, mothers, sisters, and wage pay ment/ wage collection laws, brothers. For, as Strasser concludes, if the maximum hours laws, and night work corporate intrusion into our daily lives and restrictions, all of which were enacted at psyche is to be halted, people will have to the state level. Modem labour legislation fight. That struggle, she suggests, must be (dating from the 1930s) includes the 1938 based on a recognition of the inextricabil- Fair Labor Standards Act (setting ity of public and private, and on a "cele­ minimum wages and establishing pre­ bration of the human values of love and mium payment for overtime) and several community that lost their status, con­ equal pay laws, which were primarily fed­ nected so long to women's arduous and eral but had state counterparts. Ms. Stein­ unstinting unpaid labour in a sphere only berg is at her best in showing precisely apparently separate and private." (312) how many and which workers were cov­ ered by the various early and modern Bettina Bradbury laws. She makes evident that the state Concordia University laws covered relatively few workers, pro­ vided minimal "real" benefits, and bene­ Ronnie Steinberg, Wages and Hours: fited male workers more than the women Labor and Reform in Twentieth-Century and children for whose protection they America (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers were intended. By contrast, modern fed­ University Press 1982). eral legislation applied to many more workers, offered real benefits, and aided AS AN HISTORIAN, I feel partly bemused women, especially in its provisions for and partly mystified in trying to review a minimum wages and equal pay. book such as this. Clearly Ms. Steinberg In explaining how and why this legis­ is far more interested in using and testing lation was adopted, Ms. Steinberg is less social science theories and models of pub­ helpful to historians. Rather than explor­ lic policy-making than she is in uncover­ ing in detail how any of the laws whose ing the reality of the past. She also uses provisions and impacts she analyzes were forms of statistical analysis far too actually adopted, she relies on a few pub­ esoteric for this non-numerate historian to lished histories to make her points. Her understand perfectly or even partially. conclusions and interpretations are made Consequently, I prefer not to analyze or on the basis of statistical and logical infer­ criticize Ms. Steinberg's more complex ence rather than the sort of evidence histo­ forms of model-building and her sophis­ rians prefer. Still, I must admit that Ms. ticated statistical manipulations. Instead, Steinberg's interpretations fit my pre­ I will restrict my comments only to what judices perfectly. I find it hard to disagree is of interest and value in the book to his­ with the assertion that most employers torians and historical social scientists. opposed labour standards laws and only Models and statistics aside, Ms. Stein­ supported their enactment, if at all, after berg seeks to explore two issues of central they had lost the early battles; or that importance to historians of the modern social reforms were "forced on capitalism United Stales: 1) the role of the state in from below" and that businessmen joined fashioning a modern partial welfare state in the process only "to shape and control in which all citizens have minimal social the process of change." For these claims, and economic rights; and 2) the sources or Steinberg borrows directly from Fred origins of state welfare policies. She Block's work on the role of the state in 252 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

contemporary capitalist nation. And who THE ELEUTHERIAN MILLS-HAGLEY can disagree with the argument that Foundation has a fine reputation as a "reform is an outgrowth of crisis in the research and interpretation centre for legitimacy of... [the] political econ­ early American industry, and this recent omy." Ms. Steinberg does prove that the publication is an excellent example of Great Depression of the 1930s occasioned their work. Numerous early centres of the the greatest single breakthrough in the industrial revolution were located in the passage of social welfare legislation and historic Delaware River Valley and read­ that World War II did almost as much. ers no doubt will recall the ones immor­ Then the American domestic crisis of the talized in A.F.C. Wallace's Rockdale. 1960s set the stage for the enactment of The focus of this present study is another the strongest provisions in modem labour industrial village, Hagley, the Brandy- standards laws. Finally, it is pleasant to wine Creek black powder-making com­ learn that social reforms result from munity founded by Eleuthère Irenée Du organized political pressure by subor­ Pont in 1802. The Du Ponts and their dinate social groups (especially trade powder works have appeared in many unionists), not from the giving hands of studies, but usually ones which focus on superordinate ruling classes. Even if she entrepreneurial aspects or on technologi­ lacks the full historical evidence to prove cal change. her case, Ms. Steinberg does offer a needed corrective to the "corporate lib­ Workers' World treats the powder- eral" interpretation of modern American making enterprise differently in two history associated with the work of James important respects. First, the emphasis Weinstein, Ronald Radosh, and Gabriel here is on the insights of the working Kotko among others. families who lived around the type of dan­ gerous industry we usually associate only The book might have been of even with coal mining. Second, the study is more interest and benefit to historians if it based on the sorts of sources closest to had been written in language more enjoy­ those lives: old photographs and living able to read. There is a place and time for memories. esoteric technical language and even jar­ The commitment to local history gon in scholarly publications but not when based on sources which have been gener­ the author seeks to make her/his contribu­ ated by local people themselves is no­ tions available to a wider audience. where more thoughtfully argued than in Finally, the book's first chapter includes a Raphael Samuel's essay, "Local History typographical error which I simply could and Oral History," which appeared in the not let pass. On page 5 Ms. Steinberg first issue of History Workshop. While writes about the "corporate liberal" inter­ Samuel has overstated the case for oral pretation, that "these reforms are seen by evidence (and understated the value of analysts as innovations that help to ration­ other sources — especially of demo­ alize and sustain a social order organized graphics and material culture), neverthe­ in the employees' interests." She obvi­ less his insights are clear and important, ously means "employers* interests." especially for labour historians. He argues that with the aid of "new," more authentic Melvyn Dubofsky sources such as living memories, "the his­ State University of New York torian can draw up fresh maps, in which at Binghamton people are as prominent as places, and the two more closely entwined." Glenn Porter, The Workers' World at Hagley (Greenville-Wilmington, Del.: People and places are ultimately Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation entwined in Workers' World, though I 1981). should point out that this publication was REVIEWS 253 not intended as an oral history. It emerged The Palmer Press 1981); and Wayne as an aspect of the recent Hagley museum Urban, Why Teachers Organized (Detroit: exhibit, "The Workers' World: The Indus­ Wayne State University Press 1981). trial Village and Company Town." Like the exhibit itself it represents the joint THE WRITING OF TEACHER union his­ labours of the staff of the museum and of tories has been prompted by a variety of the Regional Economic History Research sources; one important influence was the Center at Hagley. Following Glen Porter's rise of teacher militancy during the mid- rich extended essay on the community and 1960s. Histories written in this period its context are 40 pages of historical pho­ were first-run scholarly studies cast tographs. Many of them were the work of beyond the celebratory "pot boilers" a French immigrant, Pierre Gentieu compiled by the unions. (My favourite ( 1842-1930), worker-turned-manager in title in ihis genre is The Long March: The the powder yards. These are accompanied History of the Ontario Primary Men by what amount to fragments of a much Teachers' Federation.) This spate of larger record of oral interviews with research waned during the 1970s, and former workers and their families. only recently has there been a revival of The remembrances offered by the interest and new vigour in the writing, interviewees are those mostly of people This has occurred because of the who were children at the time: what inadequacies of earlier studies and the re­ interested and impressed them, filtered discovery and application of Marxian con­ through subsequent adult experience and cepts of the labour process, the state and finetuned by the oral tradition of others. its control over teachers, and the ongoing Perhaps it is for this reason that they offer debate on the class location of white- to us little sense of the workplace and the collar workers. workday at Hagley, both of which surely These two books represent the most are critical aspects of the "workers' recent published attempts to redirect dis­ world." The illustrations are unsentimen­ cussion on teacher union history. Ozga tal and for the most part they are filled and Lawn's study is the more ambitious. with people and action set against the It draws directly from the theoretical backdrop of the scenic Brandywine, on debates in the British "new" sociology on the one hand, and life-threatening black white-collar trade unionism, aiming to powder, on the other. generate discussion on questions of While it would be impossible to cap­ teachers* work and class, and the ambigu­ ture between the covers of a book the ous nature of their trade unionism. The same "sparks" that museum curators hope book's outstanding merit is that for the to pass on to the public through multi­ first time it brings together the new prob­ media displays, The Workers' World at lematics on white-collar workers and Hagley is an important example of the use applies them to empirical research on the of living memories and the photographic growth of the National Union of Teachers record in providing fresh maps to illustrate of England and Wales (NUT). It starts with the lives and communities of most people. an excellent critical review of earlier approaches to the study of teachers' Dianne Newell unions, outlining deficiencies in method­ University of British Columbia ologies, focus and explanations in the institutional histories, sociology of pro- fessionalization and political science of Jennifer Ozga and Martin Lawn, interest group behaviour. The review, Teachers. Professionalism and Class: A although confined to British studies, is Study of Organized Teachers (London: applicable to other countries. Historians 254 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

of Canadian teachers' unions will benefit have insisted on a teachers' victory in this from this discussion. Often working in episode, but Ozga and Lawn see the state graduate schools of educational adminis- mediating initiatives to weaken mobiliza- tration and heavily reliant upon Ftzinni's tion and divert teachers from a natural organizational or Dahl's political alliance with the working class. Their theories, they often see union growth as a argument is attractive, yet the perceived dichotomous struggle between profes- threat to the state from teachers, as dis- sionalism and unionism, with the ultimate tinct from political rhetoric, is not firmly triumph of professionalism. established, at least in this book. The We have to wait until nearly half-way argument rings of manipulation, and also through the book before the history of the suggests that teacher militancy was NUT is reached. Our patience is both equated with working-class sympathies. rewarded and aggravated. Ozga and Lawn Nevertheless, this particular aspect of the argue that at the local level during the book has already assisted other scholars in 1910s the NUT was moving towards a the study of Canada's teacher profession strong identification with working-class acts, which established compulsory organizations Yet it is not until 1971 that unionism, and Australia's system of com- the NUT affiliated with the Trade Union pulsory arbitration, which encouraged Congress. The emphasis on local studies strong, unified teacher unionism. of the NUT is fascinating for its insights Wayne Urban's book, as the title into teachers' changing relations with suggests, is an attempt to explain what has working-class organizations. In some either been assumed or superficially con- ways, however, it was to be expected that sidered: the emergence of U.S. teacher East London or Rhondda teachers would unions between 1896 and 1922. The book be crucibles for a NUT transformation, is the product of local research in But two or three swallows do not make an Chicago. New York, and Atlanta and is a English or Welsh summer. I was anxious lively re-examination of the formation of to know more of NUT activity in the "less the American Federation of Teachers. The obvious" localities, where teachers study, a structured, highly informative appeared fixed to, and guardians of, narrative, is devoid of explicit social or middle-class "virtues." Also I remain labour theory. However, it builds on the unconvinced by the authors' explanation "revisionist" history of education by con- of the NUT's "retreat after 1920. Surely it centrating on the organized response of was not a case of the exodus of militants classroom teachers to the systematization and radicals, but that they were swamped of their work and the centralization of by more conservative teachers. Moreover control in large urban school systems. It is historical questions on the motives for a from these ranks, predominantly of white-collar union's identification with a women teachers, that Margaret Haley of labour movement should be treated cauti- the Chicago Teachers' Federation, and ously in the light of Anthony Thomson's others, emerge as the pioneers and van- study in this journal (2, 1977) of the guard of America's teacher unionism. Canadian Civil Service Association. They are the sung and unsung heroes of The NUT's increasing resistance to Urban's chapters: they advanced the cause local employers and its closer ties with the of unionism (at the expense, Urban labour movement were decisive. By the argues, of school reform), fought for end of World War I teachers came to be equal pay and tenure for women teachers seen as a "social danger" by the govern- and, in cases like Margaret Haley, influ- ing class; consequently they were brought enced feminist political movements. The under indirect state control by the licens- initiative and presence of women teachers ing of their craft. Earlier NUT histories is a significant feature of U.S. teacher REVIEWS 255 union formation (as it was in Toronto and trade unionism. This criticism, however, Montreal). And this, combined with the should not detract from the direction of American teacher unions' involvement this study, nor its scholarship and presen­ with organized labour, makes an absorb­ tation. Urban completes his study with a ing study; moreso when read in conjunc­ reflective "past and present" chapter to tion with Ozga and Lawn. Of course what provide an elegant summary of recent was true for Chicago or New York developments in labour relations of teachers may not be true for other cities. schooling. He claims that collective bar­ Urban's chapter on the Atlanta teachers' gaining has significantly changed the gov­ unions, which eschewed militancy and ernment and leadership style of American labour affiliation, offers a different view teachers' unions. The primacy of indus­ of teachers' perceptions of collectivity. It trial negotiations has curbed the reformist is unfortunate that Urban's sights were not political instincts of modern-day Margaret extended westwards to say, St. Louis and Haleys. "The evolution of Albert Shanker San Francisco, to give the reader a sharper of New York City from a social democrat composition of early teacher unionism. and graduate student in philosophy, to a tough minded, powerful pragmatic union­ Urban argues that the reasons for ist serves as a case in point." (176) teacher union formation are found in the teachers' real need for material improve­ Thus from different approaches and ment and their desire to protect their ser­ from the study of two distinctive forms of vice through seniority. These conclusions teacher organization, the authors of these are not simplistic, but bland, being influ­ books have raised and partially answered enced by the evidence available from new questions on the history and develop­ union records. The disappointment is that ment of modern teacher unionism. It is for Urban does not analyze the teachers' work others to now join them in this worth­ situation. In particular he skates across while, necessary venture. their increasing subordination to manager­ ial control in the school and schools sys­ Andrew Spaull tem. This process was challenged by some Monash University teachers in the felt need for collectivity: either in the incipient informal groups or women teachers' social clubs (also found J.E. King, Richard Marsden and the in Toronto and Sydney, Australia), or the early teachers' unions. For other teachers Preston Chartists 1837-1848 (Lancaster: their subordination produced a sense of Centre for North-West Regional Studies futility and withdrawal, which helps 1981). explain the low level of unionization in these cities. THE HISTORY OF CHARTISM occupies a particular place in British labour history. Also absent from Urban's explanation Its earliest historians, after those writers is the socio-legal milieu in the growth of who had been participants in the move­ public employee unionism. It is probably ment, were activists in the early years of unfair to ask of Urban why teachers' the modern labour movement, seeking unions in North American cities with roots and a national identity in earlier elaborate, "advanced" school systems British struggles for working-class rights emerge at a later period than Britain, Aus­ and political democracy. The nature of the tralasia, or France. The answer lies not in preoccupations of these early Fabians and Urban's strategic variables of growth — Marxists inevitably dictated the kind of they also are readily found elsewhere — questions they asked about Chartism and but in such factors as the overall organiza­ the aspects of the movement that they tional strength and social acceptability of recorded. In a sense, indeed, the his- 256 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

tonography of Chartism is itself a branch rather represented tendencies to be found of labour history. It is in no way to denig­ in the movement. Many subsequent writ­ rate their important pioneering work lo ers have used these trends to analyze the point out that writers like the Webbs, the movement, and have thereby imposed Hammonds, G.D.H. Cole, Julius West, divergences and schisms which did not and Theodore Rothstein inevitably exist. Most actual Chartists seem either to imposed many distortions on the history have accepted a radical cosmology which of popular politics. Their work remains included a whole number of attitudes, important, but it has to be built on by the some apparently inconsistent with each abandonment of many of the persistent other, or to have passed through different clichés which bedevil the story, and then tendencies at different points in their by the close examination of the many rich political lives. Chartism was not made up and diverse sources that are now available of "O'Brienite," "Lovettite," or "O'Con- for the construction of a more faithful pic­ norite" factions struggling for the mind of ture of early popular movements. the movement, but of men and women J.E. King's short study of Richard united by the demands of the Charter, Marsden is an excellent example of the loyal to their local, and to their national kind of Chartist history which now needs leaders, gaining their information mainly to be written. In many ways it is a model from the Northern Star, but also attending for a new approach to Chartist studies and lectures, meetings, and rallies at which must rank — in spite of a few short­ local and national leaders addressed them. comings — as one of the best pieces of The members of the localities were not, Chartist historiography that has yet however, simply sociologically deter­ appeared. mined by their trade or occupation, pas­ Like lorwerth Prothero's valuable sive recipients of attempts to impose a study of John Gast and London artisan national pattern on a series of local griev­ politics, this work combines the examina­ ances. tion of a particular locality and its occu­ This study of Richard Marsden breaks pants with a biographical account of an through the limitations imposed by either important radical leader. The leader's biographical or regional studies by them­ importance arises partly from his involve­ selves. In telling the story of a local leader ment with the main industry of the dis­ who was also well-known throughout the trict, and to an extent he embodies the country, who lectured, wrote letters to the experience and the politics of his constitu­ Northern Star, and spoke at the conven­ ents and followers. Two of the out­ tions, the study moves away from the standing earlier works on Chartism, squabbles of the journalists and pamphlet­ Cole's Chartist Portraits and the volume eers into the lives of the members of the of Chartist Studies edited by Asa Briggs movement. The locality in which Marsden emphasized, in one case the influence of established his credentials to become a leading personalities on the directions taken by the Chartist movement, and in Chartist delegate is examined, and the the other the importance of local charac­ pre-Chartist and non-Chartist activity by teristics and local industrial variations on which he was already established as a forms of Chartist activity. Both emphases leader in his community in 1839. By fol­ have their validity, but both impose distor­ lowing him to the convention and to his tions which have affected subsequent arrest and imprisonment outside his own work on the subject. Cole chose twelve district, the purely parochial elements in men whom he considered to represent his leadership are added to by an under­ essential aspects of Chartism. Most of standing of the way in which the experi­ these were in fact not Chartists at all, but ence of one trade or district could evoke responses in very different areas. Support REVIEWS 257 for Marsden and his family came in from of the Chartists, remained a loyal admirer sympathizers in many parts of the coun­ and follower of O'Connor, but without try. necessarily agreeing with his chief on everything. He had severe doubts about Richard Marsden was in many ways a the Land Plan, which he did not accept or more "typical" Chartist leader than many join until 1847, and he remained suspi­ of the better-known names that appear in cious of the Irish repeal leaders, even when the textbooks. Many of these latter flirted they finally, in 1848, accepted an alliance only briefly with possibilities of ultra­ with the Chartists, rightly suspecting that radical leadership before withdrawing into most of them, including John Mitchel other movements or other occupations. himself, did not believe in manhood Marsden, however, remained a leader suffrage which, to Marsden, was as neces­ throughout the active life of the Chartist sary for the Irish as for the English. The movement. He was a founding member of picture that emerges here is a valuable the Preston Radical Association six counter to the textbook cliché of a months before the publication of the Peo­ dichotomy between the "educated art­ ple's Charter, a supporter of the factory isans" of the south and the animated short time movement, and a passionate stomachs which made up the Chartist opponent of Irish coercion. He was a dele­ crowd of weavers and other outworkers in gate to the first Chartist convention in the north. Marsden advocated arming, 1839, sent there by the weavers and their and was a strong supporter of the "sacred families whose case he had already argued month" in 1839. He was also a temper­ before the handloom weavers' commis­ ance supporter, a committed if undogmatic sion. He was one of the very small number Christian, believed that education was one of delegates who were also present at the of the movement's chief aims, and was convention of 1848. He was arrested, as clearly a capable and articulate speaker, were very many of the local leadership, in organizer, and writer, who retained the 1840, and imprisoned, although he was confidence of his fellow-radicals in Pres­ ton throughout the period. His politics released without having been brought to had their starting point in the agony of the trial. He served a short stint as a full-time handloom weavers, but they were very Chartist lecturer, but through most of the much more than a simple howl of protest. years of activity he was working daily at The pamphlet is excellently produced his loom. and reasonably priced. Inevitably one has Edouard Dolléans selected Marsden, minor quibbles. The author makes very along with Richard Pilling of Ashton, to little use of the Chartist press other than represent the innocent, spontaneous voice the Northern Star, and the Preston Char­ of the oppressed and uneducated weavers. tists of the title get very little treatment — In fact, as the present work shows, perhaps an investigation using the land Marsden was, like Pilling, a sophis­ company lists and the census ticated, deliberate, thoughtful, and very enumerators' books would thicken up the political character. He wrestled with the picture. Shots were fired in 1842 in questions of free trade, the land, the role Halifax, where one man was killed and a of trade unions, and other theoretical number wounded. And Lawrence Pit- questions which were at the heart of the kethly spelt his name without the intrusive alternative programmes of middle- and extra "i." But these are small points in a working-class radicals in those years. He booklet that should be part of any booklist by no means accepted uncritically the of nineteenth-century social history. word or the analysis of the Chartist lead­ ers. One of the most valuable things which this study demonstrates is the way Dorothy Thompson in which Marsden, like the great majority University of Birmingham 258 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

Donald C. Richter, Riotous Victorians record of the Victorian Home Office was (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press not a good one." (168) 1981). Although clear and well written, this is a disappointing book. For one thing, the DONALD RICHTER HAS SET himself two title is misleading; as Richter himself important and interesting tasks: to explore admits, the "major focus" is "not the riot­ "the alleged public orderliness of late ers, but the forces of riot control." (167) Victorian society" (1) and to examine the The book is marred too by its superficial­ forces of riot control which were at the ity. Indeed superficiality is probably disposal of the authorities. Relying princi­ unavoidable when many of the chapters pally upon parliamentary papers, the are so short. Fenian terrorism is consid­ Home Office papers in the Public Record ered in just 14 pages (including footnotes Office, and the private papers of indi­ and two full page illustrations); the Mur­ vidual Home Secretaries, Richter phy riots in 16; and the role of crowds in approaches these questions by means of a the five general elections between 1865 series of case studies: Fenianism; the and 1885 in less than nine pages. anti-Catholic Murphy Riots and the strug­ More serious still is the writer's appar­ gle for Hyde Park in the 1860s; the gen­ ent ignorance of so much recent research eral elections of 1865, 1874, 1880 and (the latest work listed in the Bibliography 1885; reactions to the growth of the Salva­ was published as long ago as 1973). Thus tion Army during the early 1880s; the Pall he feels able to discuss the Murphy riots Mall affair of 1886; and finally the 1887 without acknowledging W.L. Arnstein's confrontation in Trafalgar Square — or article in Victorian Studies (1975) and the "Bloody Sunday" as it become known. Salvation Army riots without reference to From these accounts Richter con­ Victor Bailey's essay in A.P. cludes that "the widely-held belief in the Donajgrodzki's Social Control in public orderliness of Victorian society, at Nineteenth Century Britain (1977). Most least in eighteen-sixties, seventies, and telling of all, Richter shows little com­ eighties, is a gross misconception." (163) punction in continually describing the Yet the disorders, he maintains, posed crowds he examines as "mobs." Thus it is neither revolutionary threat nor champi­ particularly galling to be chided at the end oned any serious social or political cause. of the book that: "The research techniques His explanation is far more simple: employed by Lefebvre, Soboul, Rude, "Although perhaps not currently a very Chevalier, Pinkney and others in deter­ fashionable suggestion, 'simple love of mining the composition of French revolu­ disorder' may have played a far larger role tionary crowds have proved quite worth­ than has been accorded to it. There is while and should suggest further under­ much Victorian evidence to support standings of the British crowd." (167) Robert Ardrey's 'violence is fun' Unfortunately, then, the merits of the thesis. . . . The sound of shattered glass. book — the interest of the subject and the the spectacle of police on the run, may quality of the writing — cannot compen­ have been intoxicating enough to explain sate for its several and serious weak­ the root cause of many Victorian civil dis­ nesses. orders." (165-6) Richter goes on to argue John Benson that because the repressive forces at the The Polytechnic, Wolverhampton disposal of Victorian society existed only in embryonic form, the good order which did prevail was due as much to crowd V.L. Allen, The Militancy of British restraint as to police effectiveness. "All Miners (Shipley: The Moor Press 1981). things considered," he concludes, "the BRITISH COAL MINERS have become REVIEWS 259 renowned for their militancy. V.L. Allen, Miners acquiesced to these develop­ professor of sociology at the University of ments, Allen argues, because of the pow­ Leeds, has written a political history of erful dominant ideology of justification: their struggles which focuses on ideologi­ "the need to provide cheap power to cal conflict and class consciousness. industry, to expand exports, to compete Allen's book is well worth reading to with oil, to overcome the fuel crisis. The learn about the British coal industry, the NCB and the Government were never lost National Union of Miners and how union for crises." (58) Added to this was the politics operate, about relations between weight of the dominant press, particularly unions and the state, life for the working reinforced by the ideological sway of the class in British coal communities, the Labour government's appeal to "the effects of mechanization, and lessons national interest." There was, according from the experience of nationalization. to Allen, "almost complete collabora­ tion" between the union and the NCB gov­ The book does assume, however, consid­ ernment. Moreover, "collaboration did erable familiarity with local British cul­ not stop with the demise of the Labour ture and national politics. Government in 1951, nor when the experi­ Miners' unions had advocated nation­ ence of nationalization turned sour after alization of the coal industry since 1892 1956." (62-3) There was rank-and-file but when it finally occurred in 1947 the resistance against specific closures but blessings were mixed. There followed a mainly the response was an exodus of rapid intensification of "rationalization" miners from the industry. Remaining within the coal industry as the forces of miners experienced a real decline of earn­ concentration and mechanization took ing power by more than 30 per cent during hold. During the twenty years following the 1960s; their wages fell from 7.4 per nationalization the number of mines cent above the manufacturing average in shrank from 980 to 317, displacing large 1960 to 3.1 per cent below in 1970. Con­ numbers of miners in the process. Made ditions were set for a show-down with the politically desirable by production condi­ employer and confrontation with acquies­ tions during World War II, nationalization cent union leadership. was preceded in 1944 by the formation of the National Union of Miners out of 36 The core of Allen's book is an inten­ county unions. sive study of factors leading to and A key appeal of nationalization for the involved in the seven-week national strike miners had been that it would reduce of 1972, the first official national strike uncertainty; it became evident, however, by miners since 1926. Included is an that it was not miners' uncertainty but that examination of the leadership, strategy, of coal-using industries which was tactics, issues, and events which ended reduced. By the 1960s coal was being dis­ the union's policy of collaboration and placed by oil as an energy source so to placed it squarely in confrontation with remain competitive the National Coal the government's incomes policy. In deal­ Board (NCB) stepped up mechanization to ing with the politics of class, Allen con­ reduce its costs. Production was concen­ centrates on leaders but rank-and-file trated in thick-seamed coal fields and miners are not totally ignored (nor are power-loaded continuous cutting and con­ their families). veying techniques were introduced The remainder of the book follows a (accounting for 10 per cent of production series of struggles between the miners and in 1955, mechanized pits increased to 38 the state. Allen observes that "despite percent in 1960, 87 percent in 1965, and themselves the miners were using indus­ 92 per cent by 1970). trial action for political ends." (230) 260 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

Encouraged by the "energy crisis" as a such variation and diversity, both within period of renewed demand for coal, union leadership and membership. Events miners were determined to win redress for are described in detail but the author fails past losses. While attempting lo win a to account for why people act as they do. contract beyond the Conservative govern­ Overall Allen does portray the uncertainty ment's wage guidelines, the union banned of life in mining communities and pro­ overtime and the government responded vides a great deal of insight into the poli­ with a State of Emergency. Miners bal­ tics of class struggle. loted on whether to call another national strike, essentially given a choice between Wallace Clement the government and union positions; 81 Carleton University per cent favoured the union. An election was called as the strike was imminent and it became a major electoral issue. The Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie, eds., Conservatives lost power and the miners The Diary of Beatrice Webb. Volume won their demands following a month- One, 1873-1892: "Glitter Around and long strike. Darkness Within" (Cambridge, MA: Har­ vard University Press 1982). The minority Labour victory marked a return to collaboration by the union execu­ With labour and pain I master some poor fact, I tive, a move resisted with significant inter­ clutch it. look at it over and over again like a nal opposition by militants. Tripartite miser with his coin of gold. At times I pour talks were entered into as the government before me my little hoard of facts — a tiny little sought higher production levels to meet heap it is — some of it base coin too. I pass the energy shortage, but internal union them through and through my brain, like the miser passes the gold through his hands trying unity was fractured. Here Allen intro­ to imagine that before me lies the wealth of the duces his main thesis that "the Union does world wherewith I may untie the knots of not operate in a vacuum. It is a crucial human destiny. political weapon in the class struggle." (283) This struggle is complicated by a THESE WORDS, AN ALL too telling depic­ variety of tendencies within the union in tion of the labours and delusions of many terms of the ideological, political, and historians, social scientists, and students class consciousness characteristic of both of public administration, were penned in officials and membership. While the 1884 by Beatrice Potter, who later struggle is on-going, Allen concludes that became part of a working partnership miners "have learned that there is an alter­ which was to dominate the intellectual left native to every decision, to every course in England for years and whose literary, of action, to every situation even includ­ political, and educational legacies have ing the capitalist system itself." (323) provided the stepping stones for genera­ This astuteness has become the basis of tions who seek to understand the nature of their militancy and the foundation which has politicized the union. social reality. The partnership of Beatrice Potter and Sidney Webb is justly famous For a study of The Militancy of British and was productive enough to justify Sid­ Miners, however, this book is weak in ney's reflection that "One and one. placed explaining the great variation in the mili­ in a sufficiently integrated relationship, tancy of various pits and regions (such as make not two, but eleven." Within seven the militant Doncaster area versus the years of their marriage in 1892 the Webbs moderate Yorkshire district). The reader had produced three works on industrial is left seeking an understanding of the problems, among them the still useful social, economic, and cultural basis for History of Trade Unionism; founded the REVIEWS 261

London School of Economics, their major thy was the self-discipline which she institutional contribution to the social sci­ applied to her work — a self-discipline ences; became the leaders, with Bernard more outstanding for being found in Shaw, of the Fabian society; acquired someone who did not have to use what she impressive expertise in municipal and edu­ learned to support herself. Beatrice cational reform; and committed them­ devoted assiduous effort to schooling her­ selves to the extraordinary series of self in the techniques of empirical study monographs on English local government (which found their first fruits in her work which were to take them 30 years to com­ as a social researcher for Charles Booth), plete. But such solid accomplishments to painstaking research and background were, judging from the evidence of her reading, and to teaching herself how to diary, far from the imaginings of the write. A distinguishing characteristic of 26-year-old upper-middle-class woman the woman revealed in the diaries is a whose words are quoted above. strong obligation to commit her life to In 1884 Beatrice Potter was suffering public service. At nineteen, Beatrice from poor health, from depression which wrote: "One hardly feels that one has the frequently manifested itself in suicidal right to live if one is not fulfilling some thoughts, from the after-effects of a dis­ duty towards humanity." In Beatrice this astrous relationship with the politician youthful idealism was reinforced when Joseph Chamberlain (which was to remain romantic disappointment pushed her to an obsession for years after it ended), and think further of the contribution to public from an underestimation of her own tal­ work which could be made by intelligent ents. Though she deprecated her own tal­ single women. "Altruism is after all," she ents as "minute" and "beggarly," she reflected, "the creed of those who are suf­ sought to sublimate her emotional fering personal misery and yet do not reverses through work: the study of eco­ intend to sink into abject wretchedness. nomics and philosophy as well as practi­ It used to be devotion to God,. . . now cal labour as a rent-collector in the this God is dead it must be devotion to Katherine Buildings in London's East other human beings." Perseverance, intel­ End. By 1886 she had found her vocation ligence, dedication, and a great deal of in the study of poverty and its causes; that hard work combined to form the critical vocation had been confirmed by the foundation for the apprenticeship of a acceptance for publication of her first great pioneering social scientist. short article, "A Lady's View of the These were Beatrice Potter Webb's Unemployed" (1886) by the Pall Malt strengths, but she was forthright about her Gazette, an occurrence which she termed weaknesses and chastised herself "a turning point in my life." Beatrice's repeatedly for her self-indulgence and "turning point" was also in many ways vanity, as well as occasionally for her ina­ that for a generation. Her diary records bility to appreciate the arts or make much the remarkable conversion to socialism of of literature not firmly rooted in empirical a wealthy, well-read, bourgeois young reality. When she rejected marriage to lady who had been socially active in the Chamberlain, she did not pretend that upper echelons of British society and public service was nobler: in fact, the strongly influenced by Herbert Spencer. diaries of these years are an honest, tren­ She became not simply an armchair chant record of the tension between the socialist but one who was prepared to attractions of comfortable, if stultifying, dedicate her life and work to the cause. domesticity and lonely independence. As an individual record, her diary doc­ Later, when her choice of independent uments the early life and intellectual mat­ work began to produce renown and yield uration of a remarkable woman. Notewor­ publications, Beatrice bemoaned her ina- 262 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL bility to work for the love of 'he work John Hughes, Britain in Crisis: De- alone without the stimulus of "vulgar industrialization and how to fight it (Not­ ambition." Among the things for which tingham: Spokesman 1981). Beatrice Webb has been most berated (at least in the period before her marriage in JOHN HUGHES, PRINCIPAL of Ruskin 1892) was her anti-feminism. Here, too, College, Oxford, wrote this clear and she was capable of self-criticism: she later densely packed little book early in 1981, acknowledged that the signing of an anti- charting and analyzing the collapse of feminist manifesto had been a mistake and British manufacturing industry and out­ explained that at the root of her conserva­ lining an alternative social-democratic tism was "the fact that I had never myself strategy for recovery. The two years that suffered the disabilities assumed to arise have elapsed have strikingly confirmed from my sex;" moreover, had she been a most of his analytic judgements. They man, she thought, she would have been have not, however, done much to make pushed into a money-making profession his alternative strategy seem more plausi­ and not allowed the luxury of "a career of ble. The strengths and weaknesses of his disinterested research." Educated, weal­ book exemplify those of an important part thy, raised in a family which valued of the "old" Labour left in Britain. female intelligence, childless, socially The strengths are extremely impor­ skilled, and politically astute, she cer­ tant. Hughes cuts through the mystifica­ tainly suffered few of the disadvantages tion of most business journalism to show which weighed heavily on others of her that the post-1960 decline in British man­ sex. ufacturing is nothing less than The diary is more than an introspective catastrophic. This is true by every indi­ document: il records life in the slums as cator. During the 1970s productivity fell seen through the evidence gathered by a to less than half the North American rate, disciplined social investigator as well as and less than a third that of France, Ger­ through firsthand insights provided by a many, and Japan; net manufacturing stint as a "plain hand" in a sweated tailor­ investment declined from 2.5 per cent of ing shop; it includes astute observations of Net Domestic Product to 1.2 per cent dur­ political events and personalities; and it ing the same period. Employment fell by reveals the fascination and the tedium of 30 per cent. Manufactured exports fell "the season" alongside the sometimes while imports increased: in the case of violent desperation of dockland unem­ finished manufactured goods, exports fell ployment. This volume of Beatrice from twice the value of imports in 1970, Webb's diaries extends from its beginning to parity in 1979. And whole industrial when the author was fifteen to the time of sectors contracted to the point of virtual her marriage at 34 to Sidney Webb. collapse, wiping out capacity the lack of Where the evidence of the diary is thin, as which increases the vulnerability of the during the period of the Webbs' unusual economy to further import penetration and courtship, the editors have drawn on their balance of payments problems at the next detailed knowledge of the Webb papers to upturn. supplement the text with quotations from Since Hughes wrote in early 1981 their correspondence or other writings. nearly all these indicators have become This is an historical document of note, worse. Manufacturing output has fallen and one which, thanks in large measure to slightly further; manufacturing employ­ the Mackenzies' skillful editing and intro­ ment has fallen almost another million. ductions, reads like a well-crafted novel. Manufactured imports now exceed exports. Net manufacturing investment Patricia E. Malcolmson has fallen to around zero, which suggests Ontario Ministry of Health REVIEWS 263

that the one indicator which has moved tage to enlarge their share of export mar­ positively since early 1981 — productiv­ kets). ity per person-hour, which rose at a rate of If anyone still doubts that the British about 10 per cent a year between the end economic problem bids to be as serious, if of 1980 and the middle of 1982 - was not more serious, than Germany's in the due primarily to the closure of less effi­ 1920s, they should read Hughes' book. cient plants, and more intensive labour, What he describes is, in the simplest and hardly at all to technological innova­ terms, a small island which must sustain tion. And the contraction of entire indus­ 55 million people by international trade, trial sectors continues, most dramatically which can no longer solve problems by in the case of steel, but also in textiles, mass emigration or protectionism, and and with ominous declines in some areas which is none the less rapidly losing the of engineering (the West Midlands now ability to engage in trade in competition has higher unemployment than tradi­ with other manufacturing economies. As a tionally depressed Scotland). result capital (of which multinational companies are only a highly rationalized According to the market doctrine of form) is less and less likely to remain Sir Geoffrey Howe and Mr. Leon Brittan, there, let alone flow in (in 1981 the net the economy has become "leaner and fit­ outflow of private capital was over £7 bil­ ter," shorn of the "supply side" encum­ lion, when net manufacturing investment brances of obsolete units, trade union in Britain was around zero). Today's restrictive practices, and parasitic state unemployment in Britain (conservatively spending. Hughes argues that, on the con­ indicated by the 16.5 per cent registered trary, the Thatcher deflation has acceler­ male unemployment rate in September ated obsolescence in virtually all sectors, 1982) is probably only a foretaste of one which certainly accords more with both form of the impoverishment that must everyday observation and the statistics. sooner or later be shared by all sectors of And the state's share of the GDP has risen, the population (except, of course, capital not fallen, as GDP has shrunk and the and its functionaries) unless something social security bill increased, very radical happens. Hughes' diagnosis turns on four main But Hughes' solution is less persua­ factors; the central role of multi-national sive than his analysis. He advocates a corporations in Britain (in 1978, 50 com­ "new style mixed economy of a more panies, with nearly 50 per cent of the democratic and creative kind." The essen­ country's industrial and commercial tial thing, he rightly insists, is the rapid assets, concentrated 42 per cent of their construction of an efficient national man­ production abroad — and both of the last ufacturing industry (the idea that Britain two figures have been growing); the dras­ can "live with" de-industrialization, as tic shift of trade from the Commonwealth, journalists glibly imply, is a cruel illu­ where Britain had historic advantages, to sion). This means, Hughes argues, reso­ the EEC, where she has historic disadvan­ tages; inept state economic policies; and lute state involvement in both public and the struggle between capital and labour private sector investment and in R and D; over the dwindling surplus, a struggle radical education and training initiatives; resolved in practice by successive devalua­ state purchasing policies; etc. lnvestible tions of sterling, which ultimately resources exist in the shape of North Sea aggravated inflation and declining interna­ oil revenues (for a generation, more or tional competitiveness (as exporters less), and in the workers' pension funds responded by raising sterling prices, (together with insurance funds these now rather than by using foreign price advan­ own over 40 per cent of all UK equity shares, but they are presently being 264 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

invested in Japan, in spite of their not to be closely identified with its con­ privileged tax status). It also means indus­ tents. He hopes that "every Socialist in trial democracy. Trade unions will have to the country will study it with care and sacrifice pay increases and accept work- sympathy." In relation to the main Labour sharing, half-time work, and earlier retire­ leadership, in other words, Hughes is an ment, in favour of technological advance, extreme radical: even now, few of them a higher social wage, and new jobs for the have really grasped that the foundations of unemployed; and they can only be the old world of British social democracy expected to agree if they have a major have collapsed. And the crux of the politi­ share in enterprise planning and manage­ cal situation is that the Thatcherite Con­ ment as well as in national policy-making. servatives do understand this, whatever The trouble is that Hughes' analysis is illusions they may cherish about the eco­ purely economic and ignores the only nomic alternatives. political conditions under which such an Colin Leys approach is really thinkable in Britain, Queen's University that is, a mobilization of popular opinion and feeling, and of party and union William P.L. Thomson. The Little Gen­ cadres, strong enough to impose them­ era! and the Roitsav Crofters: Crisis and selves over a prolonged period in face of Conflict on an Orkney Crofting Estate the hostility of both capital, the state (Edinburgh: John Donald 1981). apparatus, and the media. The vision he puts forward — supported by some THIS RLMARKABLY THOROUGH book important practical proposals for its details the background, course, and con­ implementation — is one that can be envisaged either as an end in itself, or as a sequences of conflict on one Orkney transitional step towards socialism. But in estate in the late nineteenth century. Gen­ either case it is hard to imagine that the eral Frederick William Traill-Burroughs sort of class and popular mobilization ( 183 1 -1 ^05) was a native of northern India, needed to make it possible could be bom into a military family of Irish accomplished and still find international ancestry, and in 1847. while at school in capital ready to play its part, as something Switzerland, he inherited his guardian's like an equal partner with organized estate on Rousay, one of the North Isles of labour, in the modernization of British Orkney. He only saw the estate once as an industry. Would capital not be more likely adult before 1870, when, toward the end of to settle for South Africa or Brazil? And his military career, and following many on the other hand, the sort of popular years abroad, he returned to Britain per­ mobilization required will have to go far manently. Yet during his absence he had beyond organized labour (the "voluntary" taken care to enlarge his estate through component of which is probably now a purchase, and by 1853 he owned virtually minority of the labour force: Hughes' the entire island, a position of monopoly view of the unions' strength and "matur­ enjoyed by no previous proprietor. ity" is to say the least debatable). It will Burroughs took up full-time residence have at least to rely on the full support of on Rousay in 1873 upon retiring from the an expanded women's movement, on the army. It is clear that the island had experi­ anti-nuclear movement, the green move­ enced rapid and profound changes since ment, and more — on all of which there the acquisition of the estate by Bur­ is a symptomatic silence in Hughes' book. roughs' guardian in 1840. These included And then there is the most sobering two significant clearances, the consolida­ fact of all — Michael Foot's foreword to tion of almost all the island into one the book, audibly trembling with anxiety estate, the dramatic expansion of arable land through reclamation, and the rise of REVIEWS 265 the crofting class to become numerically (remaining) crofters security of tenure, predominant. (A crofter is a farmer who the right to compensation for improve­ pays rent directly to a landlord for an indi­ ments when vacating a holding, and the vidual holding.) In the post-1840 period right to a "fair rent," to be determined by crofters' rents on Rousay rose steadily, a land court. Infuriated, Burroughs used and at the same time they were losing every possible weakness, anomaly, or their traditional grazing rights — the other ambiguity he could detect in the new sys­ side of the increase in arable land. Yet tem in an effort to evict his crofters; relations between landlord and tenant indeed, a special Act of Parliament was remained good, at least superficially, for rushed through in 1887 to thwart one of agricultural prices were rising, and the his manoeuvres. In the end, he was nota­ crofters, although pressed, were able to bly unsuccessful. For their part, the meet their obligations. "Crofters Party," as the opponents of Bur­ Rack-renting by Burroughs, an roughs became known, fought back amateur at estate management, after the through such channels as were open to retirement of his highly professional them. In particular, the author documents long-time factor in 1873, and the onset of the non-educational use to which the elec­ agricultural depression in the early 1880s, tive School Board, formerly controlled by made a significant number of Rousay Burroughs and the "Respectables," was crofters fall into arrears for the first time. put in the latter 1880s: firing teachers This altered local situation combined with associated with the laird's party. By the events outside Orkney to shatter the calm end of the decade Burroughs' economic of Burroughs' estate. The Irish Land Act and social domination of Rousay life had of 1881 gave small tenants in Ireland been severely shaken by the Crofters Act security of tenure, the legal power to sell and the activity of the local "Crofters their interest in their holdings, and a right Party." The tense confrontation only to judicial determination of rent. These ended with the unravelling of the career of developments were watched closely in the one of the two leaders of the latter group, crofting areas of Scotland, and the wide­ the local Free Church minister, who was spread distress in the crofting parts of the exposed as an alcoholic and forced to Highlands resulted in growing agitation leave Rousay in disgrace in 1889. A and actual outbreaks of disorder on Skye. bachelor, he seems also to have been The Gladstone government responded by something of a womanizer, In fact, he had appointing the Napier Commission to made the daughter of Leonard, the other investigate the condition of crofters and leader of the crofters, pregnant; and for cottars (agricultural labourers) in the his daughter's sake, Leonard left Orkney Highlands and Islands. The bitter denun­ with his family, never to return. After ciation of Burroughs, whom the crofters these staggering blows to the leadership evidently held responsible for their deter­ ranks of the "Crofters Party," the move­ iorating position, before the commission ment entered a rapid decline in Rousay. in 1883 shocked the laird, and he William P.L. Thomson, the author of retaliated by evicting two crofters' dele­ this splendid book, makes no pretence gates who had testified against him. As that the story in Rousay was typical of well as provoking minor local distur­ crofting areas in the north of Scotland. bances, this re venge-taking received Indeed, Burroughs, a war hero of the national publicity, and an evicted dele­ 1850s, acquired a national reputation for gate, James Leonard, was hired as one of vindictiveness — the "Rousay Pharaoh" only two full-time employees of the High­ — for his treatment of his crofters in the land Land Law Reform Association. 1880s and 1890s. Thomson delves into The 1886 Crofters Act gave all the general's military career to uncover 266 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

the traits which made him so unsuitable charts to illustrate the evidence and create for dealing with resentful crofters in 1883: a tightly woven fabric. There is even a inflexibility, sensitivity to slight (probably detailed chapter on Burroughs' part in related to his being barely five feet in suppressing the Indian Mutiny, with a height), a concern to punish offenders weighing of evidence on his controversial against his sense of the Tightness of role in the relief of Lucknow which is a things, and an unpredictable temper. Even model of its kind. And for the Canadian his attractive traits helped to create prob­ historian interested in parallels with the lems with his tenants. His generosity in Prince Edward Island land question, the taking over the debts of his financially debates over the merits of the 1886 Crof­ irresponsible father — who seemed incap­ ters Act bring home just how drastically able even of cashing cheques payable to interventionist, in British terms, were the himself — added to his own debts, a bur­ proposed solutions put forward by Island den ultimately passed on to those respon­ reformers and radicals in the 1850s and sible for the major source of his income, 1860s. and how dangerous — as possible precedents — they must have seemed to namely his tenants. Thomson also makes the landed classes of Great Britain. it clear that Rousay was in no sense a microcosm of the Highlands. Indeed Orkney is not part of the Highlands, has a !an Ross Robertson milder climate, and is more fertile. In the University of Toronto period under study, Orkney was more prosperous than the Highland crofting areas, and featured more economic differ­ Margaret Maruani. Les syndicats à entiation. Rather than the mass of com­ l'épreuve du féminisme (Paris: Éditions moners forming a community of Syros 1979). impoverished equals, there was a sort of farming "ladder," to use the author's MARGARET MARUANI BEGAN a sociol­ phrase. Furthermore, Orkney probably ogy thesis on relations between the French had the highest literacy rate of any area of feminist movement and unions but Scotland. Orcadians themselves did not changed her focus to explore the impact of speak Gaelic and did not have a history of feminism on unions, revising her study for clanship. Finally, Thomson points out that a more general audience. Unable to the Free Church minister played an delimit the amorphous Mouvement de absolutely crucial role in the crofters' Libération des Femmes, she compared a movement in Rousay. whereas, according sample of the women's groups that sprang to James Hunter, The Making of the Croft- up in the mid-1970s to the firm-specific ing Community (1976), the Free Church women's committees affiliated to unions clergy usually contributed little in the that formed about the same time. She dis­ Highlands. covered a surprising overlap in personnel Hence the value of this book for the in spite of a structural separation, with the historian interested in more than Rousay groups remaining fiercely independent comes down to its impressively judicious and the committees choosing to operate use of a wide variety of sources to produce within the larger arena of the unions. With a microscopically detailed local history. these findings, she challenges what she The author has used folklore, oral history, considers to be historically-based assump­ government records, estate accounts, and tions about the bourgeois character of personal papers, and, one feels, has feminism (and since the publication of her squeezed out of them all that can be hon­ book, historical research has questioned estly extracted. He has effectively used the exclusively bourgeois character of maps, tables, plates, and genealogical early French feminism). These findings, REVIEWS 267 presented in part three of Les syndicats à no one had the time to be a full-time l'épreuve du féminisme, also help account leader (especially after school hours) for the adoption of feminist positions by meant a non-hierarchical form of direct the two major French labour federations democracy based on general assemblies. {the CFTC and the CGT) in the 1970s. When Maruani asked why press accounts These positions include the acceptance of did not mention the "feminine dimen­ the social nature of private problems, sion" in women's strikes, her subject beginning with abortion, which, she answered that the reporters only wanted to argues in part one, enlarges the labour know about problems, so the women did movement's field of action. This com­ not respond, By asking about positive as plaisant analysis is given nuance by a well as negative effects of striking, comparison of the CFTC's early endorse­ Maruani elicited precious information ment of complete equality and its refusal where others met silence. One wonders to isolate or prioritize women's struggles, how often the "feminine dimension" of with the CGT's slow movement toward strikes has gone unrecorded for similar complete equality, separatist tradition, reasons. Elsewhere her openly- and emphasis on the struggle against proclaimed feminist and union sympathies capitalism. may limit her scope. When she refers to husbands opposing their wives striking, The second section of the book, enti­ she does not indicate the husbands' class tled "Women's Strikes, Women on position, how they opposed, or how long Strike," is the most substantial and their opposition lasted. When she notes suggestive. This section is at once schol­ that we hear nothing about husbands' sup­ arly and engagé in the best sense of the port actions, the implication is that hus­ word. Making no claims about "typical­ bands were indifferent. Yet she cites sup­ ity," Maruani does monographic studies port demonstrations without analyzing of four strike movements ranging from a their composition. Did none of these women-led occupation and operation of a strong women draw their husbands into factory, through an equally feminine the struggle? Finally, she lists among one series of actions on many fronts, a mixed communist local's explanations for not strike, and the resistance to Rhone- resisting the firing of married women the Poulenc-Textile's efforts to lay off mar­ men's hostility to some of the women as ried women. In addition to using docu­ wives of managers, and their disapproval mentary sources, she interviewed many of two-income households, but she does strikers, and her respectful approach pro­ not explore "the men's" attitudes herself. duced remarkable results. For instance, While the explanations sound suspiciously she documents how striking highlights like excuses, they touch on class con­ women's familial constraints in so far as sciousness, which deserves more attention house and child-care responsibilities con­ here and throughout the book. tinue and must be accommodated to the strike, or vice versa. In the mixed strike, where women were marginalized, the These reservations aside, Maruani's union's insensitivity to women's other pioneering studies and provocative reflec­ obligations led to a feminist group and tions open new vistas on women's work consciousness-raising, then to a mixed and strike experiences for other scholars commission which obtained some conces­ and offer new opportunities to unions sions, notably child care for strikers, and, organizing women. In contradiction to at the women's instigation, to a "broaden­ received wisdom, she argues that wage ing" of discussions to include the whole work, not domestic roles or expectations, problem of piece rates and union democ­ shape women's identities at work and at racy. In the women's strikes, the fact that home. More originally, she proposes that mobilizing for strikes engenders in 268 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

women a "double consciousness" of chronicle of Bebel's political life and capitalist exploitation and patriarchal activities, reconstructed in almost day- oppression. especially if mixed unions to-day detail. It should therefore be a use- ignore women's familial constraints. She ful reference work for historians of the posits, tentatively, that women who have German Social Democratic Party. to wage a "two-front war" may become However, as a biography it is disap- more combative than men. Finally, she pointing. Maehl so emphasizes Bebel's suggests that women, who form the political activities that the reader gets little majority of low-paid piece-rate workers, or no feeling for the person. What will, if unionized, force unions to address motivated this worker from a poverty- the problems of all overexploited workers, stricken background to devote his entire Her conclusions may seem optimistic, but being unswervingly to the cause of his fel- they merit serious study and consider- low workers? Bebel himself shielded his ation. family and private life from public view, and he often sacrificed both to his public Mary Lynn McDougall responsibilities. Nonetheless, his private Simon Fraser University life certainly impinged upon his politics, even if there was not necessarily a simple, William Harvey Maehl, August Bebel. direct link between the two. It should be Shadow Emperor of the German Workers the task of the biographer to present a (Philadelphia: The American Philosoph- more rounded view of such a key histori- ical Society 1980). cal figure, to bring out the humanity that was an integral part of Bebel's appeal to AUGUST BEBEL WAS ONE of the greatest workers. leaders in the history of the international More seriously, this biography does workers' movement. From his first activ- not place Bebel into the overall context of ity in the workers' educational societies in German society and politics. Maehl's Leipzig in the early 1860s to his death in extensive research rarely goes beyond a August 1913, Bebel devoted his entire life simple chronological presentation of his to organizing his fellow workers and to political life. Missing is the historical guiding them in their struggle for a better analysis that one finds in studies of other world. His career spanned the era of Marx outstanding leaders of this period, such as and Engels to that of Luxemburg and in Goldberg's biography of Jean Jaurès Lenin, from the Franco-Prussian War to and Nettl's biography of Rosa Luxem- thc eve of World War I. He was the out- burg. Without a thorough grounding in standing practitioner of socialism in the the complexities of German history, the period when the German Social Democra- general reader will quickly become lost in tic Party adopted a Marxist revolutionary the mass of detail, and the specialist will programme. Trained in the aftermath of likely find the narrow approach tedious the 1848 revolution and in the shadow of and unenlightening. Finally. Maehl has a the Paris Commune. Bebel lived to wres- tendency to superimpose his ideological tie with the problems of militarism and viewpoint onto his material. His thesis, to imperialism, the growth of labour unions, the extent that he has one, boils down to and the re-evaluation of revolutionary the assertion that Bebel was a precursor of politics after 1900. Willy Brandt and that Bebel's SPD laid the

William Harvey Maehl has written the foundation for the German Social Democ- first detailed political biography of Bebel ratic Party of the 1960s and 1970s. This in English, and his original research is a simplistic analysis, which the historian contribution to the available literature in can hardly take seriously, fails to do jus- German as well. This is essentially a tice to Bebel's achievements and limita- REVIEWS 269

lions, his contribution to the German the German Reich (the electoral system, workers' movement, or the complexity of parliament, and foreign policy); the rela­ German history and the role of workers in tions between the party and the trade it from the 1860s to 1914. In any case, unions; the development of the party's since this biography is little more than a organization (including the party press political chronicle, Maehl's tendentious and auxiliary organizations); regional dif­ interpretation is more an irrelevant irrita­ ferences in Social Democratic politics tion than an integral part of the text. (especially the different paths of the Prus­ In sum, Maehl's biography of Bebel sian and Bavarian parties); and the role of will interest specialists who want to know theory and intellectuals (analyses of exactly what Bebel was doing politically Kautsky, Bernstein, and Luxemburg, as at any specific moment, but it falls short well as of the SPD's role in the Second of the mark both as a biography of the International). person and as an analysis of Bebel's place Particularly strong are Steenson's in and contribution to the German work­ analyses of the SPD's place in the German ers' movement. Reich and its relations with the trade unions. He brings out all the complexities Larry Peterson of the SPD's participation in electoral poli­ Institute for Research in History, tics and parliament, recognizing that the New York pursuit of reforms was not inherently reformist but that the SPD never clarified the relationship of tactical reforms to rev­ Gary P. Steenson, "Not One Man! Not olutionary strategy, largely to maintain One Penny!" German Social Democracy the unity of all factions in the party. His 1863-1914 (Pittsburgh: University of analysis of the discriminatory German Pittsburgh Press 1981). electoral system is excellent, and he makes the crucial distinction between the GARY P. STEENSON'S HISTORY of Ger­ SPD's success in winning votes and its man Social Democracy is a useful, well- vulnerability in winning mandates which written introduction to a complex, much so affected the party's perception of the disputed subject. Published in paperback success of its political strategy. Steenson form, it makes the SPD's history particu­ also points out that the SPD tended to con­ larly accessible to non-specialists, and it centrate on domestic issues and never is highly suited for use in European his­ developed a fully coherent position on for­ tory courses, for courses on comparative eign policy; this greatly conditioned the workers' history, and for labour historians SPD's response to the outbreak of war in in other fields who would like to know 1914. Steenson's chapter on party-union something about the German workers' relations is an excellent treatment of a movement. Steenson uses a traditional, complex subject and can serve as an intro­ national and political approach that de- duction to one of the key problems of emphasizes social and local history, but socialism at the time of the Second Inter­ he successfully highlights the main prob­ national. Steenson emphasizes the devel­ lems of the SPD's history from the found­ opment and growth of union organizations ing of Lassalle's Allgemeiner Deutscher and their impact on Social Democratic Arbeiterverband in 1863 to the outbreak politics. Although he does not discuss of World War I. strikes and industrial unrest, relations After a chronological analysis of the between the union leadership and rank development of Social Democracy from and file, and union-state relations, he 1863 to 1890, Steenson concentrates on highlights the craft structure of German five main topics: the position of the SPD in unions (even nominally industrial ones), 270 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

the growth of union bureaucracy and ers' subculture — rather than in relation to autonomy from the SPD, and the different the complex political and social structures conceptions of party and union leaders of Wilhelmine Germany. His chapter on over the economic and political role of regional differences oversimplifies divi­ unions in the transition to socialism. sions in the party and overemphasizes Steenson also points out that at the same political institutions by contrasting the time the SPD capitulated to the unions "radicalism" of Social Democrats under over the mass strike, anti-militarist agita­ Prussia's authoritarian and discriminatory tion, the youth movement, and the cele­ political system and the "reformism" of bration of May Day (between 1905 and the SPD in more liberal Bavaria. This 1910), the absolute and relative number of uncritical acceptance of the conventional Social Democratic members in the unions view that divides the SPD politically actually increased. Why the SPD did not between North and South Germany fails take advantage of this mass following to take into account the radicalism of inside the unions to apply pressure on workers in Saxony, Thuringia, the Bava­ union leaders from below and what politi­ rian Palatinate, and parts of Hessia. cal alternatives were open to the SPD if it Baden, and Wiirttcmberg (all in the had done so are major political questions "reformist" south), as well as the that historians should investigate further. reformism of many Social Democrats in Finally, in his chapter on party organiza­ "radical" Prussia, A social historical tion Steenson provides a useful discussion approach, which would have taken of the internal bias within the SPD toward account of social and economic as well as small party locals. Both the over- political structures, would have been bet­ representation of small locals in national ter suited to explain the complexities of party organs and the decentralization of the SPD's social base and political divi­ the party according to electoral districts sions. Finally, Steenson's chapter on discriminated against the great mass of theory and intellectuals personalizes their Social Democratic workers concentrated role in the SPD too much by concentrating in urban, industrial regions. This is a sub­ on three exemplary figures. Although ject that needs to be analyzed more Steenson provides useful summaries of closely in social terms, particularly as it the work of Kautsky, Bernstein, and relates to later divisions in the German Luxemburg, he fails to address the workers' movement. broader questions of where theory fits into the party's political practice, what role The second half of Steenson's book is intellectuals played in the party, and how more problematic. Although he poses the the creation of an ideology provided the key political problems of the SPD's his­ SPD as a whole and factions in the party tory, he does not come to grips with the with a language and concepts to define dialectic of reform and revolution in the their politics. His conclusion that the SPD German workers' movement. He uncriti­ devoted a lot of time to the development cally accepts Robert Michels' organiza­ of theory but never used it practically fails tional determinism and does not take ade­ to come to grips with the party's creation quate account of the many examples in the of an ideological framework as an integral SPD where the creation of mass, even part of its appeal to workers. In the end, bureaucratic, organization reinforced and Steenson concludes that the SPD's Marx­ stimulated workers' radicalism. He tends ism was little more than window-dressing, to analyze the party's organization and that German workers would have eagerly politics in terms of stark dichotomies — let themselves be integrated into capitalist between revolutionary opposition to or society if only the state and its Junker and negative integration in capitalist society, capitalist supporters had been willing to between socialist counter-culture or work­ REVIEWS 271

make a few political concessions and Poland, there was an outpouring of vol­ social reforms. Like most historians of the umes ranging from stiff sociological SPD, Steenson falls into the trap of trying treatises all the way to photo collections to fit the party's development from 1863 glorifying Lech Walesa. The market was to 1914 in a single mold, in this case by indeed broad. For Solidarity appealed to trying to reduce it to the prehistory of almost the entire political spectrum, from Willy Brandt's and Helmut Schmidt's those on the left who saw in it, and jus­ SPD. In so doing, he glosses over or tifiably so, the promise of a genuine rationalizes many contradictory aspects of democratic socialism, to the right, which the party's history. The SPD followed no perceived in Solidarity an anti-socialist linear path of development, before or after movement that would restore capitalism 1914. Its history cannot be fully under­ and deal a blow to the political and mili­ stood without recognizing the multi- tary might of the Soviet Union. (This lat­ faceted sources of the workers' movement ter view was also shared by certain left within the complex structures and rela­ elements, notably those close to the com­ tions of German society. munist parties.) Despite these criticisms, Steenson's To the casual observer Solidarity was, history of the SPD is nevertheless a solid and remains, an enigma. Here, it seemed, introduction to both the SPD and its place was the working class of an important in German politics before 1914. His chap­ industrial society at last assuming the his­ ter on the place of the SPD in the German toric role Marx had attributed to it as the political system and on party-union rela­ hegemonic force, the leader of the nation tions are among the best general treat­ in a highly egalitarian {and clearly anti- ments of these subjects in English and are capitalist) movement for democracy and reason alone to welcome his study. Many social justice. But here too was a working will disagree with his conclusions about class that chose not to celebrate May Day, the development of party organization, the international workers* holiday, prefer­ regional differences, and the role of ring 3 May, a national holiday com­ theory and intellectuals, but Steenson suc­ memorating the liberal constitution of ceeds in posing many of the key political 1791; a working class that made use of its problems that the SPD faced. His book newly-won autonomy to turn the official fills a major gap in English-language liter­ miners' holiday of 4 December into a reli­ ature on the German workers' movement gious festival of St. Barbara, patron saint and should be particularly useful as a of the miners, whose statue, duly blessed, pedagogical tool. was placed in every pit. It is this complex reality of Solidarity Larry Peterson as a workers' movement, but one with its Institute for Research in History, own historical and cultural roots, that New York Denis MacShane sets out to explain in this slim but surprisingly comprehensive and Denis MacShane, Solidarity: Poland's well-informed volume written in summer Independent Trade Union (Nottingham: 1981 with rank-and-file trade unionists in Spokesman 1981). mind. MacShane is a former president of the British and Irish National Union of SOLIDARITY'S SUDDEN APPEARANCE Journalists and is presently an official of on the Polish and world scenes gave rise the International Metalworkers* Federa­ to a virtual mini-industry in western pub­ tion. He visited Poland in 1981 and was lishing. During that brief period from the able to speak at length with both leaders summer of 1980 to the summer of 1982, and rank-and-file members of Solidarity. when world attention was riveted on He thus brings a great deal of empathy, 272 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

western trade-union experience and ordi­ The premise was illusory on two inter­ nary common sense to the topic, and it is related counts. On the one hand, the state these traits that recommend this book showed from the start that it was unwilling amidst the dozens of volumes that have to tolerate Solidarity, no matter how the appeared on the topic. latter defined itself. The history of Sol­ At the same time, the book is marked idarity's existence is a chain of govern­ by an ambivalence (one cannot help but ment provocations and probing actions. feel that it too is related to MacShane's As MacShane observes. Solidarity put background as a British trade-union offi­ forth no new demands after August 1980: cial) which the author never really faces all conflicts were over forcing the govern­ up to and which makes this a much less ment to carry out the accords it had illuminating work than it might otherwise signed. The turning point came in March have been. MacShane, following Walesa 1981 with the police attack, ordered from and the moderate majority of Solidarity's on high, on local Solidarity leaders at top leadership {the author does not hide Bydgoszcz. Solidarity's National Co­ his preference for "cautious centrists in ordinating Commission called for a gen­ whom trust can be placed" over "radical eral strike unless those responsible were demagogues"), emphasizes that Solidar­ punished, but Walesa, in a widely criti­ ity is a trade union, that it does not seek cized move, called the strike off without political power. This is the vision of the having received any real concessions. "self-limiting revolution" in which the Where MacShane sees a victory for bureaucratic state is left in place as soci­ "responsible leadership" and "realism," ety gradually wrests from its control the government saw a sign of weakness: increasingly large chunks of social and the union refused confrontation over the economic life, which it proceeds to most fundamental of issues, the physical organize autonomously. To pose the ques­ security of its members and leaders. Sol­ tion of power, to directly challenge the idarity to this day has been unable to state, would be suicidal — this would pro­ regain the lost initiative. voke an armed Soviet intervention and reduce to naught all that had been won. On the other hand, regardless of what The logic of this strategy, as Jacek Kuron, it said about itself, Solidarity never ceased one of its main proponents, readily to be an eminently political movement and admitted, was that Solidarity must, in could not help being that in a society fact, prop up the failing state as the only where the state controls the entire econ­ bulwark standing between itself and the omy. The very structure of Solidarity — "ultimate disaster." built on a regional rather than industrial basis — not only expressed its profoundly egalitarian ethos but was designed "to The premise upon which this strategy mirror the actual power structure that rested — the long-term possibility of co­ exists in Poland." (68) Among the 21 existence between the bureaucratic state points of the Gdansk accord are the and an independent workers' movement demands for a major reform of economic — proved illusory. It is a tribute to Mac- planning and management, freedom of Shane's journalistic skills that this is expression, and an end to political already quite evident from the story he appointments — all political demands, to tells, even though he himself seems only be sure, but all economic demands too, in confusedly aware of this and refuses to the Polish context. Among the many draw any conclusions. (The closest he workers MacShane spoke with, no one comes is the following statement: "The mentioned a wage increase as one of Sol­ existence of Solidarity raised political idarity's main achievements. "It is diffi­ questions that at the time seemed almost cult to sum up exactly what difference better left unanswered."! 132]) REVIEWS 273

Solidarity has made for me," replied a Alain Besançon, The Rise of the Gulag: woman electrician, "but now I feel free." Intellectual Origins of Leninism, trans., (85) Sarah Matthews (New York 1981). The entire situation posed the question of power. To be sure, this was a very STARTING WITH THE TITLE ITSELF, this unpleasant question, given the threat of is meant to be a provocative book. The Soviet intervention over a challenge to the tone is polemical and didactic throughout, "party's leading role," i.e., the bureau­ perhaps consciously mirroring the subject cracy's monopoly of power. Hence the matter. At times the result is a tour de tendency to simply avoid the issue and the force of the historians' craft — notably as attractiveness of the idea of a self-limiting an intellectual analysis of what makes revolution. But the defeat of December Leninism (if not its architect himself) 1982 showed that the question could not tick — but it is also too often one-sided be ignored and that this seemingly realis­ and unduly pessimistic. This work is not, tic strategy was neither realistic nor a therefore, the place for an introduction to strategy. Perhaps then, as Plekhanov com­ Marxism-Leninism, or for a balanced pic­ mented on the Revolution of 1905, "one ture of its positive and negative aspects. should never have begun?" It would be Besançon's thesis is not really very well to recall Kuron's own statement that new: since the Russian Revolution of it was fortunate that he had been in jail in 1917, its opponents have stressed its August 1980: "If I had gone there [to illegitimacy and perverseness; the author Gdansk] I would have told them that sharpens the focus of these categories, expecting to get free trade unions was too arguing that the thought of Lenin is a base much. I really believed it was impossible. confusion of quasi-religion and quasi- In fact, I knew it was impossible." (134) science. This horrible mutation — or Those in Poland who opposed the pre­ beast, to use the precise term he vailing orientation of Solidarity's leader­ chooses — sweeps everything before it in ship (MacShane's "radical demagogues") the name of ideology. Following the lead do not, of course, call for an immediate of Solzhenitsyn, Besançon produces a insurrection. They call rather to pose the very compelling vision which can only be issue of power openly before the workers described as apocalyptic and (again to and to work out a long-term strategy with borrow his own word) Manichean. That this final goal always in view, so that all is, the modern period of history is seen as the partial struggles and tactical retreats increasingly divided between the evil that are necessary will contribute to forces of (Leninist) ideology and all that is strengthening the workers' organization good in Weslem liberal civilization; and and self-confidence rather than demobiliz­ the former are gaining. This is the con­ ing them and frittering away their energy. tinuity thesis with a vengeance, drawing an inexorable progression (decline?) from It is clear that the Soviet bureaucracy Hegel to Marx to Engels to Plekhanov to will not tolerate the independent organiza­ Kautsky to Lenin to Stalin. The linkage is tion of the working class in its "camp." there, undeniably, but (as Medvedev and But it is equally clear that the more for­ Cohen among others have noted) that does midable the enemy it wants to crush, the not prove that there is no significant dif­ more it will hesitate before such a risky ference between Lenin and Stalin, or that action and the more attractive the move­ Stalinism was inevitable as well as ment will appear as a model for emulation irremediable. by the workers of the other countries. Besançon's argument is at its most David Mandel instructive when tracing the intellectual Université de Québec à Montréal antecedents of Leninism. His view of it as 274 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

a kind of Manichean gnosis is quite con­ practice — kept him and his successors. vincing, down to such striking details as Still and all, the essence of Lenin him­ the notion of two camps, two regions, and self escapes Besançon, and not because three times. It is, of course, the substan­ the author does not give the devil (or more tive Manicheism of Leninism's monopoly precisely the anti-christ) his due. On the on true knowledge and total explanation contrary, Lenin emerges from the pages of which constitute the more important paral­ this book as truly a gigantic presence, lels. The author describes the process of uncompromising in his terrible sincerity. gnosis becoming ideology via modem sci­ His is the quality, however, not so much ence in several historical stages, and can­ of the fanatic as the fundamentalist, ever not resist the comparison with stages in motivated by the moral imperative to fit all the lives of parasites. We are shown the things into the Marxist mold, supported chief political precursors of Lenin in what by the correct citation from "scripture." he calls the French and German cycles: To be sure, what offends Besançon most these are Robespierre, Frederick II, Napo­ is Lenin's unlimited hostility towards leon, and Bismarck (as well as their com­ those people he perceives to be his mon ancestor Machiavelli). But as the ideological enemies. There was some­ author grudgingly concedes, Lenin was thing profoundly illiberal about the way more than the sum of his parts. "How Lenin treated his political opponents, but could one be both Marat and Bismarck? he did so precisely because for him — by This is the mystery of Lenin." (191) contrast to the parliamentarians he so scorned — politics was everything and The key to understanding Lenin, in all-important. Thus, as in war, no holds any case, is not to be found in the many were barred and it only made sense to foreign influences (however more original exterminate, not merely to overcome, the they may have been intrinsically), but ideological enemies. Lenin, it might be rather in the intellectually minor notes of said, was the first full-time, professional native Russian radicalism, and especially politician (modeled on Chernyshevsky's in the persons of Chernyshevsky and Rakmetev) whose job it was to make revo­ Tkachev. Thus, important as were Jacobin lution, and he did not try to hide his mis­ politics {closely blending consciousness sion. with opportunism) and Hegelian dialectics (with the scary capacity to explain away Lenin's greatness, however, went all inconvenient contradictions), Cher- beyond his dedication and profes­ nyshevsky's anti-liberalism and Tka- sionalism. It was, as Besançon argues, chev's sense of timing were still more fun­ part and parcel of his invincible ideology. damental. Leninism, we must infer, might "The Marxist doctrine," he noted, "is not have happened anywhere but in omnipotent because it is true." (209) Russia — and here Besançon parts com­ Obviously it would not have been enough pany with Solzhenitsyn, arguing that the for just one man, however inspired, to entire intellectual tradition in Russia was believe that. There had to be much more really a self-serving facade for xeno­ of a basis in reality for his notion that the phobia which violently opposed any wes­ struggle for scientific truth (as he saw it) ternization. This attitude towards the was one and the same thing with the class west in conjunction with the weakness of struggle, that history was on the side of civil society is what made Russia so vul­ the Marxist dynamic, and that the party nerable to Lenin's demiurgic combination was history's chosen vehicle for the strug­ of hard-as-nails means and millenarian gle. Lenin could only be so aggressive in ends; and that was enough to bring him to promoting his ideology because it was power, where the party — his unique con­ clear even to his enemies that he was not tribution to political theory and doing it for himself. And once again, REVIEWS 275 what might have been criminal on the part quickly plunged into a vicious fratricidal of the individual could become dialecti- conflict. Before the agonies of the Civil cally the moral imperative in the name of War were over and the White Army had the party (which, by definition, acts on emerged victorious, thousands had died in behalf of the working people). For "there battle. In addition, an estimated 70,000 are no other rules in the matter than the Red soldiers suffered the horrors of con­ interests of the revolution and of the sei­ centration camps: many were executed or zure of power." (237) died of hunger and disease. Fortunately, The tragedy, of course, was that while some managed to escape to Russia or the party could and did substitute itself for North America where they had a signifi­ civil society, it was an incomplete sub­ cant impact on workers' movements. stitution, and the Russian people were Among Finnish scholars there was for once again shortchanged. That was inevit­ many years a marked tendency to bury able, according to Besançon, since "the this bloody episode under white blankets substance of [Leninist] ideology, when it of snow until all those bearing first-hand is in power, is that power itself." (287) In scars were dead. Until the 1960s the other words, ideology — as well as the accepted interpretation of the events was dialectic — ends with the acquisition of that the Whites had fought a war of power; it has no positive dimension, as national liberation against Red insurgents Marx's old antagonist Bakunin predicted. who were inspired by the revolution in The "liberal" Soviet rejoinder would be Russia and encouraged by its leaders. that it is still too soon to tell; "pure" During the last two decades however, Fin­ nish scholars have shown renewed interest Leninists argue that the aberrations of Sta­ in this controversial topic. Upton's new lin are remediable; latter-day Mensheviks study is a masterful synthesis of the recent continue to blame Bolshevik heterodoxy; work by Finnish scholars, deepened by and academic revisionists in the west find his own considerable knowledge of Fin­ fault in their own camp. nish history. Moreover, he daringly chal­ Especially if all the evil Besançon, lenges many of the traditional interpreta­ Solzhenitsyn, and others see in Marxism- tions. Leninism really is as bad as they describe it, how is one to account (without resort to This is not the first time that Upton has the deus ex machina) for the ideology's surprised Finnish historians. His previous continuing, indeed growing strength? controversial studies of Finland include Surely that must have something to do Finland in Crisis, 1940-1941 (1964), and with the paradox that in a world full of he entered deeper into "the sacred horrors, the Soviet experiment still offers woods" of Finnish history with his The a measure of hope. Winter War (1974). This won him the respect, if not always the approval, of Fin­ N.G.O. Pereira nish scholars and established him as the Dalhousie University leading authority on the subject among English-speaking historians. To these impressive contributions can also be Anthony F. Upton, The Finnish Revolu­ added his editorship of The Communist tion, 1917-1918 (Minneapolis: University Parties in Scandinavia and Finland of Minnesota Press 1981). (1973). Upton is, therefore, better able to deal with what he chooses to call the Fin­ NO PERIOD IN MODERN Finnish history nish revolution than any other scholar in has left such bitter wounds as the years the English-speaking world. 1917 and 1918, during which the people of the Grand Duchy of Finland declared Even the title of Upton's book is pro­ independence from Russia and then vocative. Since the 1960s, Finnish schol- 276 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

ars have preferred lo describe the tragic little known episode in modern European events as a "Civil War," this being an history" has been clearly fulfilled in this acceptable compromise between "Class massive volume of 608 pages. This War" on the one hand and "War of interesting analysis of the tragic but National Liberation" or "War of Indepen­ important period in the history of Finland dence" on the other hand. According to is highly recommended to any student of Upton, the revolution, rather than being European history. masterminded by Russia, was essentially caused and fought by Finns who were Varpu Lindstrom-Best moved by domestic issues. The Whites York University won because of their superior organiza­ tion, straightforward objectives, and capa­ ble leadership. Prior to 1918 the only workers1 party Bjorn Gustavsen and Gerry Hunnius, New in Finland was the Social Democratic Patterns of Work Reform: The Case of Party (SDP), founded in 1899. By 1903 Norway (Universitetsforlaget 1981). the SDP had become explicitly Marxist and had won considerable public support IN THE WRITING OF THIS volume both in both rural and urban areas. In the authors bring with them almost a decade nation's first general elections held in of "engagement" in social research on 1907, the SDP captured one-third of the industrial democracy. Gerry Hunnius is votes and by 1916 was the largest party best known for work on the Yugoslav sys­ with a clear majority of 103 in a Parlia­ tem of workers' self-manage ment and his ment of 200. The failure of the left to collaborative efforts with G. David Gar- consolidate this groundswell of popular son and John Case in their edited volume, support was, according to Upton, caused Workers' Control (1973). Bjorn Gustav­ largely by a waffling and disorganized sen, a lawyer by training, is director of the leadership. Oskari Tokoi, the first prime Institute for Work Psychology at the Work minister of Finland and a Social Democrat Research Institutes, Oslo, Norway. (who later Sought refuge with 46 other Red Guard leaders in an Ontario lumber- Unfortunately, we are treated to an camp) is described by Upton as "a excursus on work organization and board­ windbag and a weathercock." room participation in Norway rather than an analytical treatment of these social Although the Red Finns occupy most phenomena. The materials and the per­ pages of this book, no party escapes sonal contribution of Gustavsen in fram­ Upton's scrutiny. He demonstrates a deep ing the Work Environment Act (1977), for psychological understanding of the example, are catalogued in a chronologi­ motives and the hesitancy as well as the cal manner. The absence of a conceptual militancy of the various leaders whom he rationale other than asserting the impor­ describes with sharp criticism but not tance of examining the specific evolution without sympathy. In the end, the author of industrial democracy in Norway leaves refuses to take any side. the reader with the conviction that the The story of the revolution is told only work reforms surveyed are inapplicable to in the words of the leaders, although any other than Norwegian society. And, enough glimpses of the people and their that may well be the case. But, an impor­ conditions are given to lead me to suspect tant tenet of social research is its replica- that in his promised second volume Upton bility to other comparable social circum­ will allow the people to have their say. stances. This task is accomplished by Upton's objective: "to give anon-Finnish employing a specific method. The readership access to this significant and absence of an explicit methodology pre- REVIEWS 277 eludes any such efforts by others The second chapter examines the his­ interested in the topic. This lacuna is torical development of the uniquely indeed the major drawback of this vol­ Norwegian industrial democracy pro­ ume. One is tempted to add that such are gramme. Chapters 3 and 4 continue the the foibles which must be endured when saga by discussing the implementation of reading essentially descriptive accounts in the ID Programmes and the participation the human sciences. The result is a vol­ of employees on decision-making boards ume containing an interesting, exotic case of Norwegian companies. For the non- study with little heuristic merit. It is sal­ Norwegian expert, one could fairly say vaged from being a completely bad book these constitute reasonable introductions when the authors describe the Norwegian to these issues. But, there are instances experience with occupational health and when the authors could have broadened their horizons. A case in point is safety legislation. suggested from the centrality placed on In addition, there are two annoying industrial democracy as a theme in legisla­ editorial flaws. The numerous typographi­ tive strategy in the area of work reform. cal errors should have been corrected. The authors make but one reference (49) Secondly, the book is written in a curious to how the ID Programme benefitted from mixture of Norwegian and English. This the ideas which emerged from the Tavis­ style becomes an additional burden for the tock experiments in Great Britain and the reader to bear. Although these are edito­ initiatives taken in recent Australian rial difficulties, they only contribute to agricultural reforms. This gap is all the the more important problems of the book. more surprising since the authors make The book contains nine chapters repeated exhortations on the positive role which can be contextually dichotomized of ideas in bringing about social into a descriptive analysis of the Industrial change .. ."the unique contributions of Democracy Programme (abbreviated as the ID Programme are to be sought in the ID Programme in the text) and a sec­ ideas about social change. We believe it ond section outlining the rationale and the is possible to argue that even though ideas reforms carried out under the Work Envi­ about change and the use of research in ronment Act. action were not new, the Industrial The first chapter is somewhat of an Democracy Programme represented an anomaly. We are offered an overview of important new effort for the purpose of Norwegian labour relations history and a achieving changes in society." (45. description of recent incomes policy and Emphasis in the original) If such was their tripartite bargaining in Norway. This intent, why is there little in the way of chapter would have benefitted immeasura­ theoretical and methodological guidelines bly from an exposure to Geoffrey that could be applied to a society such as Ingham's important book on how Canada? These are the consequences of infrastructure variation between industrial the quandary the authors have placed themselves in — they encourage us to take societies affects systems of industrial rela­ action but provide only a descriptive account tions. It might have become the theoreti­ of one society's experience. cal and methodological basis upon which the data catalogued in this volume could have been selected and organized. The remaining seven chapters, the The second section is by far the more bulk of the book, are informed by an alter­ important of the two. These chapters nate concern — the description of the his­ should be read by trade unionists, manag­ tory and a selective appraisal of legislation ers, government officials, and academics in the area of work organization in Nor­ whose interests lie in occupational health way. and safety issues. First, the authors pro- 278 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

vide the history behind the passing of the are awarded the means to mobilize the 1977 Work Environment Act. The 1973 necessary resources to solve them. One Norwegian election whose fortuitous would be hard pressed indeed not to see results led to a socialist majority in Parlia­ the exciting prospects such legislation ment is awarded the most significant event contains for expanding the horizons of the which led to the drafting of the unique traditional medical model approach to combination of industrial democracy as health and safety issues to include the practised in Norway with the medical con­ social sciences. By reading their descrip­ cerns associated with occupational health tion of the significance of a socialist and safety issues. The authors point out majority in Parliament in pioneering this that it has become increasingly accepted approach, we are led to conclude that the by academics and dec is ion-makers that feasibility of any similar development occurring in Canada, for example, is as certain psychological and physiological likely as the NDP acquiring political disorders are correlated with occupational power at the federal level. status. For example, they present statisti­ cal evidence on the mortality rate among In summary, if the authors are correct Norwegian men aged 40-49 years in dif­ in their assertion about the positive role ferent occupational categories. The men ideas linked to research can achieve in are divided into four separate groups — bringing about changes in society, then academics and functionaries, skilled this second section of the book should workers and unskilled workers. The occu­ receive a general readership. Even if they pational categories can be lumped are incorrect, as wide an audience as pos­ together into a mental/manual labour dis­ sible should at least be made aware of this tinction. Academics and functionaries innovative Norwegian approach to occu­ (that is, mental labour) exhibit the least pational health and safety issues. deaths per 1,000 workers with 16.0 and Daniel Glenday 15.0 respectively, while the skilled and Brock University unskilled (that is manual labour) showed a dramatic increase to 24.2 and 55.1 respec­ tively. The authors agree that "the organi­ zation of work becomes of the most extreme importance to the total health pol­ Jerome R, Mintz, The Anarchists of icy in society." (182) This is not an unus­ Casas Viejas (Chicago: University of ual conclusion to draw given the evidence Chicago Press 1982). they bring to bear on the subject. They point out that the traditional NO OTHER ASPECT of modem Spanish means of intervention has been a rule- history has attracted English-speaking his- based approach to work environment panists as has anarchism, and this extraor­ issues. They proceed to suggest that these dinary interest shows no sign of abating. rules become narrowly defined bureau­ New books appear regularly and for­ cratic criteria and go on to argue that the tunately they are getting better and better. procedural context by which these rules In the last three years we have had Temma are administered very often exacerbate the Kaplan's Anarchists of Andalucia, an preventative measure ensconced in them. analysis of the spread of anarchism among In lieu of abolishing them, the innovative- the workers of Jerez de la Frontera, and ness of the Norwegian solution lay in their Lily Litvak's Musa Liberiaria, a fascinat­ "integration " into a "participative struc­ ing study of anarchist culture which has ture" where workers would be encour­ not, unfortunately, been published in Eng­ aged to become involved in not only lish. defining the health and safety issues but Jerome Mintz's excellent new book is REVIEWS 279 the latest addition to this series. He bills it executive were committed anarchists. The a study in "ethnohistory," but this label secretary was a 20-year-old peasant who serves little purpose other than to call had no previous union experience and attention to the fact that the author is an who, in his own words, "didn't know any­ anthropologist and not an historian. In thing." (159) both approach and technique it is little dif­ The insurrection that made Casas ferent from Ronald Fraser's three oral his­ Viejas a household word in Spain was pan tories of modem Spain. Professor Mintz of a nationwide rising planned by the uses the interviews he collected during anarchist extremists of the FAI to coincide three years' residence in the village of with an expected railroad strike. But the Casas Viejas as well as written sources, railroad strike did not materialize and the including the handwritten historical rising was quickly suppressed in Bar­ record compiled by one of the residents, celona on 9 January. The next day vio­ to show how anarchism arrived there. lence broke out in Cadiz province and on Casas Viejas was not chosen at random the 11th Casas Viejas rose even though but because on 11 January 1933 it was the the prearranged signal from Medina scene of an anarchist rising against the Sidonia had not been received. Many of Second Republic which ended in a mass­ the villagers had no idea of what the insur­ acre carried out by the police. rection was about and both the president Yet Casas Viejas was by no stretch of and secretary of the sindkato were the imagination a hotbed of anarchism, or against participating in it. The secretary of labour militancy of any sort. It formed even went to tell the Guardia Civil that part of the township of Medina Sidonia trouble was brewing. (198) which had had an anarchist presence since The rising in Casas Viejas was blood­ 1872, but Casas Viejas itself did not get ily repressed by the Assault Guards, the its first workers' centre until 1914 and newly created Republican police force, on even then it was organized by someone the 12th, but not before villagers had from outside the village. Despite a prom­ killed two of the four Guardia Civil posted ising beginning, with 170 paid members there. Eight people were burned alive after six months, the centra was closed when the hut in which they were hiding down in 1915 when the authorities took was set on fire by the police and the next advantage of the suicide of its president to morning twelve prisoners taken at random claim that a wave of terrorism was being were shot in cold blood. The truth of these planned. There was no new anarchist events was slow in coming out, in both organization in Casas Viejas until Febru­ parliament and the press, and although ary 1932 and this new sindkato was also there was no deliberate coverup by the the product of the efforts of outside authorities Prime Minister Manuel organizers. Azaha's defence of the severity with Some villagers understood anarchist which his government had reacted to the doctrines and even practised anarchism as revolutionary outbreak proved politically a way of life — vegetarianism, absti­ costly, contributing to the breakup of the nence, and free union — but they were a centre-left coalition that had governed definite minority. Not everyone who Spain since 1931 and tarnishing Azana's joined the union was a militant or even own reputation. had much of an idea of what anarchism Although this book tells the story of was about. There were many more men anarchism in one village, and particularly who joined "as a social necessity" than one incident, Mintz does devote some there were those who "had ideas" or attention to more general consideration. devoted their free time to reading and His chosen target is the "religious inter­ study. Not even all the members of the pretation" of Andalusian anarchism, best 280 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

known to English-speaking readers from Even "free love" had been anticipated in Eric Hobsbawm's Primitive Rebels. His the villagers' casual approach to legalisms six strongly written pages (271-6) should such as marriage. One-third of the marri­ put that hypothesis away forever. The ris­ ages which did take place featured a bride ing at Casas Viejas was not a millenarian who was pregnant or who had already had revolt but a response to a call for a nation­ a child, sometimes years before. wide revolutionary strike. The village "Already anarchist in spirit," it was natu­ itself was no! at all militant and few local ral that the villagers should embrace anarchists were committed revolution­ anarchism as an ideology. (83) aries; there was no charismatic leader and On its own this innate predilection for kinship was not important among the lead­ anarchism is not an adequate explanation. ership. As the book clearly shows, the appeal of The author is more concerned with anarchism for individual villagers was burying Hobsbawm's explanation of thoroughly filtered through class rela­ anarchism than with proposing a new one tions, and particularly the nature of their of his own. The harshness and misery of relationship to the large landowners. peasant life which Mintz so movingly por­ However, this cannot be a major criticism trays were the basis of class tensions, but of Mintz's book, where such overall even in a rural economy dominated by explanations clearly take a back seat to the latifundia, society was not divided into narrative. His purpose is to tell a tragic just two groups, landowners and labour­ story and he tells it well, providing avivid ers. In between there were other groups picture of life in rural Andalucia in the whose relations with them and with first third of this century. By dividing anarchism were ambiguous. Small land­ each chapter into a number of short sec­ owners and renters who both hired work­ tions, many of which are devoted to a par­ ers and hired themselves out were the first ticular person or aspect of life, he creates to be hurt by increases in agricultural a colourful patchwork effect. The hatred wages. The fijos, the workers who had of the labourers for the estate owners is year-round jobs on the big estates, had evoked by the account of the exceptional even lower daily wages than the day work­ rapacity of José Vela and the daily arro­ ers but they were guaranteed work every gance of his father, Don Antonio, in one day compared to the 170-180 days the of the village bars. On the other hand, the eventuates could hope for. Their life was legendary anticlericalism of the Andalu- every bit as hard as that of the day workers cian bracero was moderated by the con­ but they were totally dependent on the genial parish priest Don Diego. landowners for the minimal security they had and were the staunchest opponents of The whole book is characterized by an any organization of the agricultural work­ overwhelming sense of humanity, a con­ ers. cern for individuals and their fate, and this is its greatest virtue. For, after all, all his­ Within the narrow limits of labour tory — and even such grand themes as organization in Casas Viejas, anarchism anarchism and the Spanish Civil War — is was more successful than socialism, with made up of the lives, and all too often the some 300 members compared to 30. tragedies, of men and women like the vil­ Mintz appears to credit this to the congru­ lagers of Casas Viejas. ence between anarchist practices and "vil­ Adrian Shubert lage mores." (94) Communal land- University of Calgary holdings had been traditional until they were wiped out by the disentailments of the mid-nineteenth century and co­ Jim Hagan, The History of the ACTU operation between families was common. (Melbourne: Longmans 1981). REVIEWS 281

ON THE WHOLE, Canadians are unfamil­ bargaining responsibilities that Ron Lang iar with the specifics of Australian labour and others hoped to win for the Canadian and industrial relations history. Although Labour Congress in the ill-fated Man­ Australian precedents played a powerful ifesto of 1976. role in establishing provincial arbitration Although he is painstaking in report­ acts at the turn of the century and in Mac­ ing the ebb and flow of left, right, and kenzie King's Industrial Disputes Investi­ Communist forces in the ACTU, Hagan's gation Act of 1907, Australian workers conclusion is inevitable. Whatever its ini­ and employers have been left to pursue tial radical and even revolutionary their respective struggles in antipodean impulses, fifty years of history have led to isolation. Only the cyclical crises befal­ "the almost complete triumph of the ling world capitalism have affected Aus­ Labourist tradition." tralia — though with the aggravated Whatever myths of Australian mili­ impact associated with resource-based tancy persist, they conceal a familiar economies. pragmatic reality. The "left" coalition that swept to power in the ACTU in 1969 As in Canada, Australia's federal sys­ rapidly watered the strong wine of opposi­ tem has distributed responsibility for tion to uranium mining and export. In labour relations between state and com­ 1979, when a new "left" coalition won monwealth governments. The early domi­ support for a total ban on uranium produc­ nance of a "labourist ideology," based on social equality, high wages, protec­ tion, Hagan notes, some of the most voc­ tionism, and the "White Australia" pol­ iferous unions still had members in the icy, led to the establishment of a Com­ industry a year later. When the right-wing monwealth Court of Conciliation and governments that toppled labour in 1975 Arbitration in 1903. proceeded to abolish Medibank, the Aus­ tralian version of Medicare, the ACTU The easy self-confidence of tried its first-ever national work stoppage. "labourism" dissolved in World War I's The dismal result persuaded the Council's conscription crises and the post-war leaders that any future policies would employer counter-attack as Australia's depend on consensus, economy lost its early glamour. The Aus­ One surprising outcome of that con­ tralian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) sensus was a coalition between the ACTU was an outgrowth in 1927 of One Big and the Australian Confederation of Union radicalism and the struggle of Industries against the far-right policies of industrial and craft unions. However, as the Fraser government. By attacking both Hagan's history painfully underlines, unions and Australia's protected indus­ development of the ACTU has been shaped tries, Fraser forged the uncomfortable by half a century of relations with the alliance that produced Labour's victory in Commonwealth Court and its successor. 1983. At the head of the new government Industrial relations systems are not is ACTU former president, Bob Hawke. easily exported but Canadians interested Jim Hagan's book is no easy primer in the might-have-beens of history may for an outsider to the complexities of Aus­ ponder what could have happened if our tralian labour. The title itself is fair warn­ labour movement had developed on its ing of the alphabet soup inside. This is own without American influences or if the perfectly reasonable. A comparable book Mackenzie King version of tripartism had for Canadian specialists would presume been carried to its logical conclusion. some familiarity with CUPE, the PSSRA, Australian unions did develop on their or the Freedman Report. Those who are own and the ACTU, for all its radical willing to plod through a dusty and impulses, soon acquired the centralized unfamiliar landscape will be rewarded by 282 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

occasional flashing insights into our own Ireland, and Israel. The result is a series predicaments. of vignettes of the author's chosen class actors. The South African study high­ Desmond Morton lights the role of the agricultural sector University of Toronto and the mine owners in the creation of apartheid and the use that was made of it by both the artisan and the industrial Stanley B. Greenberg, Race and Class in unions. It was left to the manufacturing Capitalist Development, (New Haven: and commercial sectors, under pressure Yale University Press 1980). from "subordinate groups" to question "the quality of African lives and the role THE RACIAL DIMENSION, like the gender of discrimination." The pattern is dimension of class division under repeated with variations in the other studies; the author contends that, in each monopoly capitalism, continues to excite case, once the subordinate population has both discussion and investigation by raised the cost of continuing repression social scientists of every theoretical per­ businessmen had "come to understand suasion. Structuralists, who emphasize Gramsci's notion of hegemony: force the role of the state, "primordialists" must be tempered by consent." who point to the family as establishing an ineluctable sense of identification in each Viewing the evidence on the terms in individual, and Marxists have all contrib­ which it is presented, this conclusion is uted to the debate. inescapable and the investigations provide Professor Greenberg's analysis interesting new insights, for example, into attempts, in the liberal tradition, to fash­ the role of the agrarian interests in South ion within these parameters a distinctive, Africa. At the same time, however, the analytical method intended to re-affirm terms on which the investigations take the validity of positivist social science as place are themselves questionable. The the method which can contribute most to concept of class actors arguably obscures "an understanding of individual action more than it reveals, particularly since the and social relationships." With this goal choice of class actors seems arbitrary; the in view he has "disaccentuated" assumptions which inform the relation­ capitalism as a conceptualization of whole ship of the chosen class actors with the societies embodying rules of conflict and state are questionable and create signifi­ historical development in order to focus cant distortions. The current conflict in on dominant class actors, that is particular Northern Ireland for example is thereby segments of the bourgeoisie and the pro­ detached from its historical context. The letariat — commercial farmers, business­ origins of Ulster (like the origins of Israel) men, and organized labour. are a crucial dimension of the present These groups, he argues, in the period political scene and cannot be encom­ of capital intensification, impose on the passed by the sentence: "In the end the state racial differentiation to suit their dif­ Union Jack flew proudly over the Harland ferent interests. Once the racial divisions and Wolff shipyards." One distortion are drawn, the continued survival of the leads to another: the current conflict pre­ racist state depends on the strength of the sented as a civil rights issue while the ' 'subordinate challenge' ' and the per­ national question and the Westminster- ceived interest of the businessmen in the Belfast-Dublin dimension are left aside. commercial and industrial sectors. The cast of class actors, moreover, This thesis is explored most thor­ includes no representatives of the "subor­ oughly in relation to South Africa with dinate classes" whom the author recog­ ancillary studies of Alabama, Northern nizes as the most important force for REVIEWS 283 change. They are relegated firmly off­ was first secretary for cultural and scien­ stage, and their omission renders much of tific affairs at the Canadian Embassy in the discussion esoteric. The book as a Peking during Miss Hynes' stay in China, result is not dominated by the conflicts so is familiar with many of the events and embodied in the societies under discus­ incidents mentioned in the book. sion, but by the positivists' conflict with The "foreign expert," of which Hynes Marxism; this battle leaves its mark on was one, enjoys a unique position in the most pages to the point where the book Chinese educational world. Foreign could be subtitled Marxism dismembered. experts have specialized skills which are Its concepts are utilized, repudiated, mis­ deemed important to help speed China stated, turned into rules, simplified along the path of the "Four Moderniza­ (Gramsci's concept of hegemony, for tions" currently underway. They are usu­ example, becomes the politics of consent) ally hired directly by the Chinese govern­ until the study of the societies themselves ment and sent to teach in a variety of seem to serve primarily as an opportunity schools and institutions. Language train­ to exorcize Marxist ideology — a process ing is obviously crucial to the task of facilitated by the off-stage treatment of absorbing foreign expertise, and language the subordinate classes. teachers far outnumber those in any other Marxism, nevertheless, proves its subject. As such, foreign experts are sup­ resilience. In the last analysis Professor posed to be integrated into the general Greenberg concludes that the forces of Chinese educational system, being as it capitalism may prove endlessly capable of were an extra level of instruction to polish evolving "racist and coercive mecha­ or upgrade whatever the Chinese are able nisms," a conclusion which echoes to do themselves. Yet because they are Oliver C. Cox: "The interest behind "foreign," with no Chinese language racial antagonism is an exploitative capability, these experts find themselves interest, the peculiar type of economic isolated from the mainstream of Chinese exploitation characteristic of capitalist academic life, cut-off from real contacts society." with fellow teachers or students, living in Mary Turner separate housing, eating in separate din­ Dalhousie University ing rooms, and everywhere escorted by an interpreter. The notion of going to China Maureen Hynes, Letters from China and"getting to know the Chinese" is fal­ (Toronto: Women's Educational Press lacious. The resulting sense of frustration, 1981). helplessness, and sometimes downright anger, comes across in Letters from MAUREEN HYNES, a teacher of English China, although Hynes manages often to as a second language at George Brown derail such feelings with rare humour and College in Toronto, was one of the two patience. teachers sent by the Department of Exter­ Hynes is an avowed socialist feminist, nal Affairs to teach for five months in long interested in going to China, and had China, as part of the annual Canada- applied twice previously for the External People's Republic of China cultural Affairs exchange teacher slot. When exchange. Letters from China is a collec­ finally chosen in March of 1980, to go to tion of her letters home to family and Sichuan University in Chengdu, the capi­ friends during her stay in China, as well tal city of Sichuan province (south-west as selected diary entries. It is an informal China), she went to study developments in and delightful way of chronicling the post-cultural revolution China, the role of impressions, sights, and sounds which hit women, Chinese educational practices, a first-time visitor to China. This reviewer and of course Chinese socialism in action. 284 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

Her observations reflect both the naïveté making do, foreign experts still experi­ of many western socialists in grappling ence longings for things taken for granted with the Chinese experiment, as well as at home in the west: in a moment of weak­ the difficulties posed by a country under­ ness Hynes admits to missing "sort of going rapid and major changes of direc­ abstract things like privacy, self- tion. She laments the passing of the "iron sufficiency, free time." And Maureen rice bowl" system, by which workers can­ Hynes, of the thirty-odd Canadian experts not be fired from their jobs (which is now this reviewer personally knew during two universally seen as a serious deterrent to years in China, is clearly among the few increased productivity); she does not who tried the hardest, with more self- believe that mail is officially and gener­ awareness and honesty, to adjust to her ally censored (Chinese officials admit to environment. Her Letters from China this as a necessary precaution against offers an interesting Canadian perspective espionage); Chinese women to her sur­ on China today. prise are not as liberated as generally Mary Sun believed in the west; she even regrets the St. Mary's University abolition of the free admission of worker, peasant, and soldier into classrooms (now seen as a major cause of educational dis­ ruption during the cultural Revolution), Paul Connerton, The Tragedy of and the restitution of entrance exams. The Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge section of this book where Hynes attempts University Press 1980), and George Fried­ to offer background analysis of the current man, The Political Philosophy of the political and social scene in China are in Frankfurt School (Ithaca: Cornell Univer­ fact the weakest. Her explanation of the sity Press 1981). labyrinth "danwei" (unit) system, for example, is somewhat misleading. THE UPHEAVALS OF THE 1960s catapulted Herbert Marcuse into promi­ But read simply as a personal account nence and initiated the translation and of an unusual and challenging experience, assimilation of the works of the Frankfurt Letters from China has much to recom­ School. This process must be virtually mend it. There are useful accounts of the complete, since everyone nowadays vast chasm between Chinese and western knows "what is wrong with Critical concepts of language teaching; touching Theory" and we are deluged with books stories of being daily, hourly stared at, of by lesser lights dispensing A's, B's, and making do without the most basic neces­ F's to original thinkers. In any case, it is sities, of the mounds of food offered at much easier to comment on the previous banquets; insights into how to deal with products of critical thinking than to do it obstinate bureaucracy (the dancing party oneself. In the two books under review, that never did, and the friend's visit that we have probably the best and worst of never took place); and the delightful life this genre. stories: Hynes caused consternation The Frankfurt Institute was formed in because she unwittingly bought a bicycle the 1920s in order to continue Marxist styled for peasant use, therefore totally research and criticism from an indepen­ unsuitable to her status as a "foreign dent (non-state and non-party) position. expert;" nor did she redeem herself by Given the impotence of the Second Inter­ learning to get on and off her bicycle "the national in the face of World War I, the Chinese way," but continued to do so by degeneration of Bolshevism and the rise the alternate the "stupid" "ridiculous" of Fascism, an early theme was the per­ way. China is tough on foreigners! petuation of psychological domination Ultimately, despite brave efforts at within the proletariat. This did not replace REVIEWS 285 the criticism of capitalist society, but whole "school" as a collective project; rather amplified it by tracing the stalling consequently, he is blind to even the most of revolutionary consciousness to the obvious differences. As anyone who has reproduction of social domination within engaged in collective work knows, coop­ individuals. Consequently, Critical eration does not necessarily mean the Theory defined itself not as the "proleta­ imposition of a single "position" under rian standpoint" (Lukâcs) but as the "crit­ which individual perspectives are crushed. ical consciousness of the proletariat" After the glut of wholesale "critiques," (Horkheimer). In America during World what is needed now is an evaluation of War II, Horkheimer and Adorno began Critical Theory that gives centre stage pre­ their most characteristic work — an cisely to these differences. attempt to decipher the reasons why mod- Sections two and three, on the prob­ era society, despite extensive development lem and solution of modernity are merely of the means of production, was con­ limpid paraphrases. Friedman's central solidating the psychological and technical thesis is that the Frankfurt School accepts domination of the population, rather than the modem attempt to fulfill human needs entering a new era of freedom. Previously through the domination of nature but they "still trusted too much in the modem rejects the obvious conclusion that this consciousness" (Dialectic of Enlighten­ leads to the self-satisfaction of Nietzche's ment). They synthesized psychological "last man" rather than a community of domination with the domination of nature creative socialized individuals. This by science and technology into the con­ appears to be because they, like all mod­ cept of "instrumental reason." Thus, they erns, repress the tragedy of death and con­ brought into question the modern sequently obscure the fundamental non- enlightenment belief that the domination satisfaction in human existence. (I say of nature, the increase in scientific- "appears to be" because these random sal­ technical control, would lead to a free and lies never achieve coherent argumenta­ equal society. In other words, instrumen­ tion.) At this point Friedman's basic tal reason necessarily has the consequence antipathy toward the project of Critical in the social realm of reinforcing domina­ Theory becomes manifest — any attempt tion. With this step Critical Theory had, it to relieve human toil and suffering and to seems, parted company with Marx — who found a social order of satisfaction, happi­ expected growth of the forces of produc­ ness, and well-being is, for Friedman, tion to shatter capitalist relations of pro­ simply a mask for the fear of one's death. duction. Socialists may well be uneasy about the Friedman purports to give an account consequences of the unbridled pursuit of of the origin, problem, and solution of the happiness, and can indeed learn from analysis of modernity. The section of Nietzsche here, but they are rightly sus­ "philosophical roots" reads like a cook's picious of apolegetics and justifications tour of nineteenth-century thought. Any­ for suffering and exploitation. one who can devote whole chapters to the Friedman goes on endlessly about influence of Spengler and Heidegger on death, as if it guarantees his profundity, Critical Theory simply doesn't know what without succeeding in saying anything of he is talking about! However, it should be consequence. Nevertheless, without sup­ noted that Marc use is an exception in this porting his thesis, there is something to be respect. The early influence of Heidegger noticed here. Marx, in the 1844 Manu­ and phenomenology accounts, at least in scripts, noted that "the particular indi­ part, for the difference between his work vidual is only a determinate species being and that of Horkheimer and Adorno. and as such he is mortal" in order to turn Friedman's strategy is to consider the his attention to "species being." In this 286 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

respect, Critical Theory is in accord with historical epochs. Consequently, the spe­ Marx and almost all socialist theory that cific character of these historical modes of individual death is not an issue — for intersubjectivity must be related to the surely it would bring an element of prevailing labour process. This is over­ tragedy into one's thinking. However, I looked by Horkheimer and Adorno, who am not sure that this adequately represents focus on the dialectic of myth (domina­ the experience of active socialists, who tion) and enlightenment (freedom) as the have always had to confront individual basis of the historical process. In short, ostracism, pain, and death as a conse­ Connerton points out, correctly, that the quence of their actions. Indeed, this has analysis has revised the fundamental often led to an integrity of character which Marxist conceptions. It is not as con­ does not follow from the slogan "satisfac­ cerned with the critique of capitalism as tion of human needs." with the possibility of enlightenment Connertcn's book is an extended essay itself. that is short, to the point, and intelligently Connerton's second criticism pulls in written. After a satisfactory account of the the other direction entirely. He cites the early work, he notes the significant fact that Critical Theory, from the begin­ change of direction with the publication of ning, attempted to understand society Dialectic of Enlightenment. There, Hork­ through the single category of "work" as heimer and Adorno traced the implica­ the basis of the "failure" of the Dialectic tions of a central insight: that the domina­ of Enlightenment. (63, 75, 79) Conse­ tion of nature cannot be insulated from quently, he treats sympathetically Haber- society. Connerton points out that "no mas' distinction of communication and distinction is clearly made in principle intersubjectivity from the labour process between control over nature and control and the argument that they are equally over social relationships," and remarks primordial in historical development. As a that "failure" has "serious conse­ result, the blocking of social change by quences." (63) Now, whatever one thinks scientific-technological development is of it, this is not a "failure" — it is a rejec­ defined as a problem of ideology. In other tion of the modem Nature/society distinc­ words, the domination of nature does not tion that is most characteristically necessarily lead to social domination (as expressed by Kant. The dialectic of Horkheimer and Adorno argued), rather enlightenment conceptually clarifies the this only appears to be the case due to the historical process whereby institutionali­ suppression of communicative interaction zation of scientific-technical and psycho­ by technocratic ideology. In this return to logical control has come to destroy all a dualistic basis of historical develop­ social goals beyond "control;" thus, ment, Habermas returns to the Kantian instead of extending human happiness and distinction between nature and society. autonomy as expected, enlightenment has Connerton does not entirely accept this become a new myth in which the pro­ argument. He questions its reliance on a letariat is as likely to be trapped as anyone psychoanalytic model of social change else. and regards the distinction between work and communication as leading to a With this shift in Critical Theory, the depoliticization of Critical Theory. project of enlightenment becomes prob­ (106-8) However, its clear advantage is lematic, though it does not follow, as the possibility of constructing a theory of Connerton suggests, that it becomes the public sphere which is crucial in the impossible. (71) His main point is that, in contemporary situation and which Marx's Marx, the human/nature relationship is notion of ideology-critique assumed as organized within various modes of inter- unproblematic. (59) subjectivity which characterize different REVIEWS 287

Both of these criticisms centre on the Theory that they have brought these ques­ relationship between labour and intersub- tions into focus. jectivity: human/nature versus human/ Ian H. Angus human relations. Horkheimer and Adorno Simon Fraser University came to question the modem project as a whole — that a free and equal society can T.W. Hutchison, The Politics and Philos­ be constructed on the foundation of the domination of nature. Habermas retreats ophy of Economics: Marxians, Keynes- from this position and resurrects a com­ ians, and Austrians (Oxford: Basil Black- municative ethics alongside labour that is well 1981). expected to redeem the promise of mod­ T.W. HUTCHISON is Emeritus Professor ernity. Connerton's two criticisms are of Economics at the University of entirely at odds. In the first place, he Birmingham. Since 1938 he has written argues that intersubjective relations derive extensively about the history of economic from the labour process, as did Marx. In thought, the methodology of economics, the second, he champions the nature/ and the foolishnesses that economists society distinction. The interpretation of often commit when addressing matters of Marx is fundamental for this issue: Does policy. The present volume, a collection Marx's account of the labour process of inter-related essays, draws upon all assume the nature/society distinction or three aspects of his life work. Three of the does it surmount it? (And, if the latter, essays are new; six are revisions of mate­ does it differ from Hegel's account of the rials that have appeared elsewhere. passage from nature to society, in the Phenomenology of Mind?) The first essay deals with Engels and Marxian political economy, and the sec­ ond treats the connections between the With these questions, we are in deep extension of the franchise in nineteenth- waters indeed. However, aside from the century Britain, the changing agenda of interpretive problems, the basic issue has politics, and the obsolescence and redun­ been encountered by most contemporary dancy of Marx's political economy. It is socialists in their practice: Is socialism these two papers which readers of this primarily in continuity with the tendencies journal will most readily be able to under­ of modem society, or, does it require a stand, and they should certainly read radical break? Is it possible to reconcile them, if only to discover with what scorn the communalistic ethic of socialism with and contempt a serious and thoughtful the inst rumen tali zing tendencies of mod­ scholar regards "the Engelsian-Marxian ern industry? Can the productivity of dynamic theory of capitalist economic modern capitalism be simply appropriated development and political revolu­ by the whole of society, or, does the mode tion ."(18) For Hutchison argues that if of industrial organization require a degree this theory made sense anywhere or at all, of unfree social deployment? Is it possible it did so only in an advanced industrial to increase the realm of freedom outside society where, at the same time, workers work (which requires efficient produc­ had neither votes nor any other sort of tion) and also democratize the labour pro­ economic or political power. That is to cess itself? There will be no easy answers say, it made some sense in Manchester to these questions, either now or in the during the 1840s, but with respect to pre­ foreseeable future. However, a certain clar­ dictive or explanatory power it has long ity can be derived from recognizing that, had nothing to offer. It cannot even claim with these practical questions, we are fac­ standing as a general theory of the move­ ing the basic assumptions that define the ment of the economy in that its forecasts modem world. It is to the merit of Critical have been systematically and regularly 288 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

falsified by events. Further, Hutchison edge about both present and future. He notes, as a direct result of their "philo­ devotes two essays to the preparation of sophical, or epistemological preconcep­ this bill of attainder, which I am inclined tions," Marxians "have claimed an infalli­ to think entirely justified. Hutchison also ble correctness which has justified their skewers the productive and influential intolerant, one party totalitarian- Cambridge Marxist, Maurice Dobb, ism."(18-9) whom he quite rightly finds as an Although the other seven papers return observer, naive and gullible — or perhaps to Marxism from time to time, they con­ political and dishonest — and as a pre­ cern themselves chiefly with matters that dictor, absurdly inaccurate. To some have long been discussed among readers this demolition will seem unfair in academic economists in English-speaking that Dobb wrote more, and on more and German-speaking lands. That is, they topics, than Hutchison mentions. But are about ontology and epistemology, the Dobb is in the essay partly so that his importance of trying to keep one's desires Stalinist enthusiasms in the 1920s and out of one's analysis, and the tracking 1930s can provide counterpoint for the down of professional errors, absurdities, Maoist enthusiasms of Joan Robinson, a contradictions, and dishonesties. To read­ much influential and significant ers who are not professional economists Cambridge economist, in the 1960s and these seven papers, concerning them­ 1970s. selves so largely with names, controver­ One short paper is devoted to the sies, and concepts that are unfamiliar out­ "social market economics" of Walter Eue - side "the trade," will be somewhat ken and the Freiburg School. Hutchison perplexing, although there are points of observes that this approach to eco­ contact for the general reader, who will nomic policy making, so very different soon discover that with respect to policy both from traditional laissez faire and making in the 1970s Hutchison has reser­ from the Keynesianism that followed vations regarding the power of the unions Keynes, was misunderstood by Anglo- and the unhealthy interaction between Saxon economists but largely adopted in vote-seeking government and favour- the Federal Republic, whose economic seeking electorate. Admittedly, too, there success in relation to the lands of Key­ are some familiar names — something on nesianism and monetarism has long been Friedman, plenty on Keynes, but almost so very remarkable. Here as elsewhere nothing on Galbraith. Doubtless Hutchi­ Hutchison is careful to exculpate Keynes son would regard the eminent over- from the errors of the Keynesians, while simplifier and vulgarizer as a foe offering yet more examples of the unwis­ unworthy of his steel. There are few ten­ dom of Lord Balogh, energetic Anglo- dencies in twentieth-century economics Hungarian economist and advisor to Sir which escape Hutchison's rapier. He is Harold Wilson. Here as always it is silli­ not an easy man to please, and it is not ness rather than politics to which Hutchi­ only Marxians who distress him. son objects. Hutchison thinks that much of British Two long and important papers treat economics since Keynes has been flawed Carl Menger and the "Austrian" by dogmatism, oversimplification, ignor­ approaches to economic theorizing. Here ing of changing circumstances, lack of the non-specialist will encounter many respect for evidence, excessive politicisa- unfamiliar names and two very familiar tion, crude worship first of Stalinism and ones — Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich then of Maoism, and a lack of concern von Hayek. Hutchison is very critical of about difficulties of theorizing when eco­ the early Hayek and of Mises, because nomic actors do not have perfect knowl­ both men adopted an approach to eco- REVIEWS 289 nomic theorizing which was unscientific 'open society' where there are no in that it began with unverifiable and privileged or protected positions."(298) untestable "self-evident truth." Hutchison Although Hutchison is critical of observes that Mises stayed with this mainstream economics, the nonprofes­ approach to the end, that Hayek, influen­ sional reader should recognize that he is ced by Popper, abandoned it in 1937, and not anxious to throw out the baby with the that latter-day Marxists often adopt a bathwater; he would certainly maintain methodological position that is indistin­ that orthodox economics, though some­ guishable from it, becoming methodologi­ times flawed, is redeemable and useful, cally Misesians in thin disguise. while on methodological grounds Marx­ In the last two papers of the volume ian economics is utterly irredeemable. Hutchison discusses the character, pos­ Mainstream economists can learn a great sibilities, and limitations of what econ­ deal from Hutchison; Marxists, especially omists call "theory." He argues that the more absentminded or unreflective because microeconomics has traditionally ones, have, even more cause to ponder his had to assume not only competition but message. also perfect knowledge and accurate fore­ Ian M. Drummond sight its utility has been somewhat lim­ University of Toronto ited, while the assumptions of mac­ roeconomics are necessarily chosen in Robert Lekachman, Greed is not Enough; such a way as to make its theorems imper­ Reaganomics (New York: Pantheon manent or less than general. He therefore 1982). asks for much more attention to the par­ BY SEPTEMBER 1982, unemployment in ticular, and to economic history, while Canada had risen to more than one and a deploring the politic ization of econ­ half million, over 12 per cent of the labour omists' discussions about macroeconomic force. If one adds to this the number of matters and the game-playing that has discouraged workers, those that did not come to predominate in much economic bother looking for work because of the theorizing. Economists, he thinks, would desperate unemployed situation, and those do better to devote themselves to "the that were working part time because full growth of knowledge in accordance with time work was not available, the number the criteria and disciplines of a 'scientific' of unemployed exceeds two million. In subject."(271 ) This approach would Britain the September figures were even involve a clear distinction between posi­ more depressing, over three million unem­ tive and normative and between defini­ ployed or more than 14 per cent, higher tional and empirical, an attempt to than was recorded in the great depression improve the predictive power of the disci­ of the 1930s. Following three decades pline (something in which neither main­ when residents of the western capitalist stream nor Marxian economists can take economies were assured that a major much pride), a forthright adoption of depression was no longer possible Popperian norms regarding "testability," because of the adoption of a set of policies and a self-denying ordinance with respect that have come to be known, somewhat to "a-priorism and infallibilism," whether erroneously, as "Keynesian" — after all Austrian or Marxian. The results, he even Nixon declared himself a "Key­ believes, would be wholly healthy. Econ­ nesian" — such real economic distress omists would become more willing to say comes as a major cultural shock. But the they do not know, and less willing to rise of unemployment, far from being sound off to the Great Public, thus "rais­ seen as a manifestation of systemic failure ing standards of rational discussion and by the governments of the United States, debate in a pluralist democracy... or Britain, even of Canada, is seen a happy 290 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL

wayslalion on the path to economic theory, and where appropriate, a healthy health. Such figures are viewed by the dose of sarcasm. Greed is not Enough is conservative right not only with equanim­ no academic treatise. It is much closer to a ity, but with satisfaction. diatribe, a denunciation of the whole basis In the United States, unions and of Reaganomics, not on the basis of ideol­ national parks are destroyed with equal ogy or abstract theory but on simple argu­ disregard while social security for the ment that anyone, whether trained in eco­ lowest echelons is undermined with nomics or not, can appreciate. It is both scarcely a backward glance. Over the devastating and colourful. By way of devastation beams Ronald Reagan whom example, his comments on the banking Robert Lekachman describes as the industry: "nicest president who ever destroyed a Commercial bankers are the monetarists* only union, tried to cut school lunch milk substantial constituency. For them high interest rations from six to four ounces, [shades of rates swell their earnings. For practically all "Thatcher the milk snatcher"] and com­ other businesses, they are a calamity.. . . Doc­ pelled families in need of public help to tors who sicken at the sight of blood make poor first dispose of household goods in excess surgeons. Central Bankers who weep over the of $1,000."(3) fate of home buyers, builders, and crumbling cities will never convince the world that they Lekachman's book is not a sober. can stop inflation. (131) academic appraisal of Reaganomics as it is operating in the United States today. It John Kenneth Galbraith many years is full of moral outrage which must strike ago gave up writing for fellow academics. a sympathetic chord with anyone who His reason was quite simple. Academic views the current economic crisis as economists were so wedded to the something imbedded in the economic sys­ received wisdom of conventional econom­ tem, and the conservative reaction to the ics that ideas that went against the grain of crisis as an attempt to make the victims orthodoxy, however plausible or well pay for the failure. What makes argued, would receive scant attention. His Lekachman's argument credible, quite answer to this problem was to write for apart from the wealth of anecdotal evi­ the general audience, a strategy that has dence (hat he provides, is his own, consid­ given him a formidable influence beyond erable, reputation as a scholar, as a signif­ the halls of academe. Consciously or not, icant contributor to the field of aggregate Lekachman has gone the same route. The economic theory and to the history of eco­ book is easily understandable by the non- nomic thought. Central to his argument is economist for whom it is obviously a rejection of monetarism, the monetary intended. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to doctrine associated with Milton Fried­ receive the currency it deserves given its man, the high priest of economic conser­ price. Such well conceived and executed vatism. polemics call out for broad distribution in cheap paperback format. Criticism of monetarism, the eco­ nomic taproot of Reaganomics, as well as Despite its strengths, Greed is not the policies of Gerald Bouey, Governor of Enough is not without its faults. It is a the Bank of Canada, has been somewhat cogent criticism of Reaganomics and its rare among academics worried about effects on American society, particularly acceptability, punishability, and tenure. those at the lowest end of the social Fortunately the disease has not afflicted stratum. It does not go beyond this critic­ all and some like Lekachman in the ism, however, to provide an alternative United States and recognized scholars in critique of the contemporary western Canada such as Clarence Barber, have political economy. Perhaps this is asking fought back with various mixtures of fact, too much for a book of this nature but it REVIEWS 291 does leave us with the question, if not critique of the conservative alternative is Reaganomics, then what? More of the both stimulating and devastating and, same welfarism mixed with fine tuning of therefore, well worth reading. the economy that has seldom played any­ where near in tune? Lekachman does not Paul Phillips provide an alternative. Nevertheless his University of Manitoba