Fellow Travellers : : Communist Trade Unionism and Industrial Relations on the French Railways, 1914-1939.

• Superior document: Studies in Labour History Series ; v.13
• Author: Beaumont, Thomas.
• Place / Publishing House: Liverpool : : Liverpool University Press,, 2019.; ©2019.
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in Labour History Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (282 pages)

Fellow Travellers considers the origins and development of the Communist presence among French railway workers, how Communist activists adapted to the particular environment of railway industrial relations, and examines the foundations of what was to become one of the most powerful and enduring constituencies of Communist support in modern France.

Table of Contents

Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- The Professional World of the Railway Workers -- Railway Workers and the Interwar Labour Movement -- Structure of the Book -- 1. Railway Workers at War -- Mobilisation -- Class and Nation -- L'Impôt du Sang -- Working the Wartime Railways -- Contre les Compagnies, Pour la Nation: War Weariness and the Remobilisation of Opinion -- 1917: Popular Attitudes to War -- The Cost of Living Crisis -- The National Union and its Programme -- The 'Minoritaires': Against the Sacred Union -- Conclusion: The Armistice -- 2. Railway Workers and the 'Après Guerre' -- Railway Workers and the 'Spirit of 1919' -- Demobilisation and the Transport Crisis -- Bidegaray and the Majority Leadership -- May Day 1919 -- Reform and Revolution After 1 May -- Cheminots and the Metalworkers' Strike, June 1919 -- 1920 -- Precursors to May: The Strikes of January and February 1920 -- May 1920: The Great Strike -- Conclusion -- 3. Railway Workers and the Communist Choice -- Railway Schism -- Bolsheviks and Syndicalists: The RILU and Divisions within the CGTU -- The Founding of the CGTU -- The Syndicalists and Moscow -- Party and Union -- Conclusion -- 4. Stabilisation -- Cheminot Unionism after 1921 -- Stabilising the Railway Industry -- The Amnesty Campaign -- Red for Danger: Surveillance on the Railways -- The Railway Companies and the Professional World of the Cheminots -- Contesting Managerial Authority: Cheminots Rabkory -- Conclusion -- 5. International Connections -- Cheminot Internationalism -- Internationalism: The Soviet Union -- The Ruhr -- The Rif War -- Conclusion -- 'Hostile Participants': Communists and Railway Industrial Relations in the 'Class-against-Class' Era, 1928-1934 -- Workers and the Depression -- Responding to the Crisis: The SFIO and the CGT -- Responding to the Crisis: The Communists.

'Class-against-Class' -- The Path to Participation -- Beginning Participation -- Rationalisation and the Railways -- The Politics of Railway Safety -- Conclusion -- 7. Railway Workers and the Popular Front: From Victory to Defeat, 1934-1939 -- Towards the Popular Front -- 1936 -- Spain -- The Popular Front and the Railway Industry -- November 1938: Defeat of the Popular Front -- The Nazi-Soviet Pact -- Conclusion -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.