CHRISTIAN KOLLER Demonstrating in Zurich between 1830 and 1940: From Bourgeois Protest to Proletarian Street Politics in MATTHIAS REISS (ed.), The Street as Stage: Protest Marches and Public Rallies since the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) pp. 193–211 ISBN: 978 0 19 922678 8 The following PDF is published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND licence. Anyone may freely read, download, distribute, and make the work available to the public in printed or electronic form provided that appropriate credit is given. However, no commercial use is allowed and the work may not be altered or transformed, or serve as the basis for a derivative work. The publication rights for this volume have formally reverted from Oxford University Press to the German Historical Institute London. All reasonable effort has been made to contact any further copyright holders in this volume. Any objections to this material being published online under open access should be addressed to the German Historical Institute London. DOI: 11 Demonstrating in Zurich between 1830 and 1940: From Bourgeois Protest to Proletarian Street Politics CHRISTIAN KOLLER Since the late twentieth century, the city of Zurich has been a favourite destination for all sorts of demonstration tourism. The youth disturbances of the early 1980s attracted many teens and twenty-somethings from other parts of Switzerland and also from abroad. 1 Since the early 1990s, the so-called Nachdemonstration (post- demonstration) on May Day, which regularly climaxes in violent street battles between the 'autonomous' black bloc and police forces, 2 has attracted a growing number of self-appointed German revolutionaries. And the Street Parade, which began in 1992 with 1,000 participants as a demonstration for love, peace, freedom, and tolerance, is today attended by about a million ravers every year.3 I am very grateful to Ashkira Darman and Fabian Brandle for their valuable contributions. 1 See Hanspeter Kriesi, Die Zürcher Bewegung: Bilder, Interaktionen, Zusammenhänge (Frankfurt am Main, 1984); Heinz Nigg (ed.), Wir wollen alles, und zwar subito! Die Achtziger Jugendunruhen in der Schweiz und ihre Fo!gen (Zurich, 2001); Helmut Willems, Jugendunruhen und Protestbewegungen: Eine Studie zur Dynamik innergesellschafilicher Konjlikte in vier europaischen Ländern (Opladen, 1997); Werner Lindner, ]ugendprotest seit den fünfziger ]ahren: Dissens und kultureller Eigensinn (Opladen, 1996). 2 The post-demonstration originated in the early 1950s, when Spanish immigrants would march to their consulate protesting against the Franco regime. From 1968 on, these protests by immigrant workers against a number of dictatorial regimes were also joined by students and activists of the New Left. In the 1980s, and especially in the 1990s, the post-demonstration was radicalized and brutalized. Around 2000, it increasingly lost its political content and became an occasion for teenage hooliganism. See Reinhard Fatke and Barbara Fontanellaz, Nachdemonstration zum 1. Mai 2002 in Zürich: Wer sind die Akteure, und was wollen sie? Eine quantitative und qualitative Untersuchung zur Eifassung von politischen Merkmalen, Absichten und Motiven der beteiligten Demonstrantinnen und Demonstranten (Zurich, 2003). 3 See Christoph Soltmannowski, Street Parade-das Buch (Zurich, 2002). 194 CHRISTIAN KOLLER The international nature of demonstrations in Zurich is nothing new. Even before the First World War, May Day demon- strations in Zurich were attended by a large number of immigrant workers. The organizing committee usually tried to have one Italian speaker, such as Comrade Benito Mussolini, for instance, on I May 1913.4 However, the bourgeois belief that public protest is a foreign phenomenon-already to be found in the late nineteenth century5-is not true at all. Public protest has a long tradition in Zurich's political culture, not least in the history of several bour- geois movements, although its forms underwent major changes during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and peaceful organized protest marches emerged only in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This essay will analyse the origins of public protest and look at continuities and changes, explicit and hidden messages, the problem of violence, and the question of how successful these forms of protest were. Roots Organized protest marches, which became popular in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, have at least three roots.6 First, there are the more or less spontaneous protest marches that had been an important part of peasant and urban disturbances since the Middle Ages. Especially around 1800, in the era of the Helvetic revolution, the canton of Zurich witnessed many rural protest movements of this kind. 7 Secondly, we can identify the 4 Schweizerisches Sozialarchiv (hereafter SSA) 335/59 Z2 May pamphlets from 1911. 5 See e.g. Stadthote, 27 June 1886. 6 See also Ruecli Brassel-Moser, 'Demonstrationen', in Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (electronic publication), version of 19 Nov. 2001; Richard Weiss, 'Sozialistische Maifeier und Volksbrauch', ~Schweizerische Monatsschrifl, 3/5 (1943), 56-60. 7 Rolf Graber, .:{,eit des T eilens: Volksbewegungen und Volksunruhen aef der .:{,iircher Landschrift 1794-1804 (Zurich, 2003); Otto Hunziker (ed.), .:{,eitgenossische Darstellungen der Unruhen in der Landschrift Z,iirich, 1794-1798 (Basle, 1897); on early modern and 19th-century crowds in general, see Georges Lefebvre, La Grande Peur de 1789 (Paris, 1932); Eric J. Hobsbawm, Primiti:oe Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms ef Social Movement in the Nmeteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Manchester, 1959); Georges Rude, The Crowd in History: A Stut[y ef Popular Disturbances in France and England, 1730-1848 (New York, 1964); Charles Tilly andJames Rule, Measuring Political Uphe11JJal (Princeton, 1965); E. P. Thompson, 'The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century', Past and Present, 50 (1971), 76-136; Natalie Zemon Davis, 'The Rites of Violence', in ead., Sociery and Culture in Ear!J Modern France: Eight Essays Demonstrating in Zurich, 1830-1940 195 This image cannot be displayed for copyright reasons. Please note the source of the image in the caption below. MAP rr.r Canton of Zurich/City of Zurich origins of these marches in non-oppositional models. Processions and parades were long a central representative element of politi­ cal and clerical power. The most important of Zurich's parades, however, the march of the guilds during the spring festival of Sechselauten, emerged only in 1839, when the guilds had already lost their former constitutional power, and it has taken place regularly since about 1850. 8 But under the ancien regi,me,the guilds used to parade on the Schwifrtage, the days when the citizens had (Stanford, Calif, 1975), 152-87; Albert Soboul, Franzbsische Revolution und Volksbewegung: Die Sansculotten-die Sektionen von Paris im]ahre II, ed. Walter Markov (Frankfurt am Main, 1978); Robert]. Holton, 'The Crowd in History: Some Problems of Theory and Method', Social History, 3 (1978), 219-33; Mark Harrison, Crowdsand History: Mass Phenomena in English Towns, 1790-1835 (Cambridge, 1988); id., 'The Ordering of the Urban Environment: Time, Work and the Occurrence of Crowds 1790-1835', Past and Present, 110 (1986), 134-68; John Bohstedt, 'The Moral Economy of the Crowd and the Discipline of Historical Context', Joumal ofSocial History, 26 (1992/3), 265-84;John Stevenson, Popular Disturbances in England, 1700-1832 (London, 1992). 8 See S. F. Gyr, Das Zfircherische Sechselauten: Eine Studie iiber dessen Ursprung und Entwicklung (Zurich, 1912); Theo Gantner, Der Festumzug: Ein volkskundlicher Beitrag zum Festwesen des 19. Jahrhunderts in da Sclzweiz (Basle, 1970), 16; Homepage ofthe <,entralkomitee der <,ii,ifie <,iirichs <www.sechselaeuten.ch>, accessed 28 Aug. 2004. 196 CHRISTIAN KOLLER to swear their loyalty and obedience to the government. 9 As will be shown, the early May Day demonstrations copied several elements of these guild parades. The protests of the era of bourgeois revolutions up to 1869 are the third source. In this era, peaceful protest was not yet articulated in organized marches, but took the form of large rallies, mostly outside the capital. Era of Bourgeois and Peasant Protest (1830s-1870s) Public protest was an important and successful element of Zurich's nineteenth-century political culture. The liberal era of 'regeneration' (1830-48) started with a rally in Uster on 22 November 1830. 10 It was attended by 12,000 people and resolved to present the government with the Uster Petition (Uster Memorial). However, from the start, it was not certain that the rally would take a peaceful course. Two years later, Johann Caspar Ott, a participant at the meeting, wrote: 'Strongly affected by the unusual speeches and the whole proceedings, but without any excessive behaviour, the crowd dispersed again. The mood of those returning was cheerful again, and it was clear that most were glad that the whole event had passed without violence.' 11 After this rally, the aristocratic restoration government, having 9 See Gerald Domer, Kirche, Klerus und kirchliches Leben in Zurich von der Brunschen Revolution (r336) bis zur Reformation {r523) (Wiirzburg, 1996), 18; Bruno Koch, Neuburger in Zurich (Weimar, 2002), 58-9; Wilhelm Ebel, Der Burgereid als Geltungsgrund und Gestaltu111f,sprinzip des deutschen mittelalterlichen Stadtrechts (Weimar, 1958), 461 ; Rainer Jooss, 'Schworen und Schwortage in siiddeutschen Reichsstadten: