CONDITIONS IN
SOUTH EAST EUROPE IN THE TWILIGHT OF THE 19TH CENTURY
The conditions of workers in Eastern and Southern Europe
differed significantly from the conditions of their counterparts in the west,
in that the spate of industrialization in the west was far ahead of Eastern and
Southern Europe; coupled with the yawning gap in the standard of living. The
gap that spawned in the early and late 19th century is yet to be
bridged till date.
Indeed there were significant improvements in the welfare
and future of the middle class and upper class in these parts of Europe as
industrialization belatedly caught on. For instance, in Russia, women and men
were able to find opportunities that were fast becoming available in the
economic and educational sectors.
In the area of local arts and crafts as well as printing
and other related professions, the level of growth was just about the same as
in the rest of Europe. However, while agricultural mechanization was becoming
prevalent in the West with the subsequent emancipation of peasants in the East
and South, conditions in Eastern Europe remained just about the same. Peasants
and farm workers remained in the East and South in fairly squalid conditions.
Rapid population growth left many peasants and workers
with little to live on as pressure on land both for agricultural and industrial
purposes grew. The result was mass emigration of those classes of workers from Eastern
Europe, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Italy to the New World particularly the
United States and Canada.
This was also accompanied with serious issues of
political and economic unrests as strikes and demonstrations became rampant.
These challenges were felt more acutely in Russia where the defeat experienced
during the Crimea war in the hands of the Great Powers drove Russia into a
heightened pace of modernization and industrialization.
The Russian monarchy and government embarked on radical
reforms that included the abolition of the manorial system by Alexander II in 1861
whereby the Serfs were allowed to own the land on which they grew crops. This
was accomplished through the issuance of the Emancipation Act and Manifesto.
This Act sought to deregulate the labor market while
protecting the landed interests of the nobles. As a result, the nobility still
retained most of the best lands and were compensated for the loss of the
servile labor of the serfs. The serfs on the other hand, while technically
owners of the land still paid dues and levies to the State on the profit from
their labor.
This arrangement while strengthening the peasants and
increasing production in these lands also led to many of the peasants moving
into the cities and urban places in search of non-agricultural work in the
factories and shops available. The taxes and levies imposed on the peasants
continued to remain a source of unrests and concerns.
The Russian government in 1870s also started a program of
industrial growth and expansion. The height of it was the expansion of the
railway tracks to cover Siberia running across the entire country. Factories
were built and property ownership was encouraged even in foreign hands while a
few local industrialists also emerged.
The pace of industrialization however did not match the
pace of economic returns and this led to many violent protests as workers
detested their poor working conditions. The unrest strengthened a group of men
who were increasingly becoming vocal and forceful in the idea that the working
class should unite and endeavor to take over the reins of control of labor and
production.
The agitation for
a working class-ruled and dominated society increased tension and led to
violent agitations for the end of aristocratic and autocratic rule. These
tensions coupled with the rising spate of industrialization created an impetus
for reform and liberalization of the political process, which were not granted.
Czar Nicolas II
was not a man with vision and understanding. His half-hearted measures of
parliamentary and economic reforms coupled with his strong autocratic
tendencies did not go down well with the Russian people.
The measures he embarked upon instead helped to swell the
ranks of agitators for political and economic reform. Soon the rank of these
agitators was made up of the intelligentsia, lecturers, students, civil
society, members of the armed forces and politicians including some elements of
the aristocracy.
These agitations were led by a notable Marxist known as Vladimir
Tillich Lenin whose revolutionary tactics and strategies were built around the
need to overthrow the ruling class and entrench a political system where
workers controlled the government and the instruments of labor and production.
This novel direction reached its climax at the beginning
of the 20th century, with Russian industrialization on the one hand
moving side by side with political divisions and instability.
THE EMERGING
INDUSTRIAL STATE
During the second half of the 19th century,
the rising spate of industrialization coupled with increasing political awareness
began to change the way society operated and the expectations of the people
from the political process.
The trend towards participatory democracy and improvement
in the lifestyle of the working class began to make a major demand for change
on societies that had remained rigid, inflexible and stratified for centuries.
The emancipation of the peasant class through a process
of increased knowledge, acquisition of new skills, exposure to new industrial
ideas and practices led to a heightened demand and expectation for reform in
the political class and institutions that governed Europe.
The wind of change blowing across Europe in the second half
of the 19th century was met with stiff resistance on the part of the
political leaders and the Roman Catholic Church who fought to preserve the
status quo.
The emergence of a
conservative government in Prussia at this time coupled with the efforts of the
papacy to strengthen the existing governments against the palpable wind of change
were to end up in only strengthening the resolve of the people for a new
direction in European affairs.
The proclamation of papal infallibility in 1870 could not
stop the agitation for changes in the political and economic conditions of the
people, particularly the working class. The defeat of the revolutionary moves
in 1848 was seen by many as an opportunity to make changes without necessarily
changing the existing social order.
Among the statesmen then, was voiced the need to make
liberal reforms designed to strengthen the economic base of the workers without
liberalizing the process of governance.
Thus in Britain, the conservative Prime Minister,
Benjamin Disraeli, pushed in 1867 a bill through parliament that granted most
urban workers the right to vote in order to soften the pressure for more
drastic political reforms that included the agitations for universal suffrage.
His aim of course, was to expand the popular base of his
political party. In France, Napoleon III while starting on an autocratic note
began to yield to the pressure to liberalize the political system by granting
wider press freedom, increasing parliamentary power and increasing the freedom
of thought and speech.
In the Prussian government, attempts were made to mediate
with the leading nationalist movements by promoting a freer and more efficient
bureaucracy. In Austria, the creation of separate parliaments for the purposes
of sustaining the Dual monarchy temporarily eased tensions among the major nationalities
while putting the Slavs under greater pressure to press for reforms and
freedoms for the Slav-speaking peoples of Serbia Montenegro.
The pace of reform-minded conservative rule was
particularly noticeable in Italy and Germany. The Italian state of Piedmont in
early 1850 was led by an able Prime Minister Camillo de Cavour who promoted a
system of social reforms that included conciliatory liberals by sponsoring
economic development programs coupled with the granting of personal liberties.
His nationalist endeavors triumphed with the defeat of
Austria in 1858 where Piedmont allied with France, drove Austria from the
province of Lombardy. The resulting nationalist sentiments helped to unite the
Italian states under a new Italian nation under King Victor Emmanuel. The new
state had a parliament and was able to fend off the attacks of the Roman Catholic
authorities by uniting the nationalist agitation under new political groups
that emerged thereby.
The events in Italy partly motivated the young chief
minister in Prussia, Otto Von Bismarck who similarly began a campaign for
political reform and nationalist stirrings with a view to uniting the German
states into one German nation under Prussia. This was achieved in the 1860s
after the defeats of Austria in 1866 and France in 1870.
This had been
preceded by the defeat of Denmark in an earlier conflict that saw the
restoration of the German provinces of Holstein-Schlesinger previously under the
control of Denmark. The victories recorded led to the uniting of the German
states under the Prussian King Wilhelm I. A new parliament was instituted with
both lower houses with universal suffrage, and an upper house dominated by the
Prussian nobility.
Although the appointment of ministers was still vested in
the crown, freedom of speech and the press were expanded alongside religious
liberties which were also extended to the Jews, whilst government retained the
ultimate right to political freedom and direction.
These developments radically changed the political map of
Europe creating a new direction in state nationalism and an impetus for a
reform of the monarchical system. Power was gradually but finally flowing to
the people, the working class and the peasantry through a system of reforms of
parliamentary and voting rights.
The reforms were
also to lay a basis for a new definition of nationhood across Central Europe
and produce a passion for nationalist sentiments that would cut across to the
middle of the 20th century. The new passion for nationalist
sentiments over and above royal and monarchist sentiments would define the
future of Europe for decades to come.
It was becoming
quite clear that the evolving modern states were distilling a process whereby
political freedoms were being channeled into nationalist sentiments that still
stressed the divisions rather than the unity of the European polity laying a
foundation for a destructive nationalism that was soon to engulf the continent
in two major wars in the 20th century.
In France, defeat in the war of 1870 coupled with the
rise in nationalist sentiments led to the fall of the monarchy, the rebirth of
Republicanism, the emergence of a free parliament and the empowerment of the
working class. The collapse of the empire soon gave birth to new crises as the
pro- royalist forces were dispersed after the fall of the Paris commune system
in 1871.
The birth of the Third Republic in France helped to
change the constitutional structure in Europe as free parliaments, voting
rights, free speech, free press became the norm of the day.
The doctrine of separation of Church and State was also
vigorously enforced and the institutions with state power began to be more
controlled by secular forces particularly in the guise of political parties
that looked more to the people particularly to the ordinary people for
direction and support.
The rise of personal freedom set a new direction for
European politics as the powers of the state were increasing wrested from the
Crown and Church and placed squarely in the hands of the people in an
increasingly democratic fashion.
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