Protest movement destroyers of cars. Luddites vs machines

The Luddites considered their leader to be one Ned Ludd, also known as "King Ludd" or "General Ludd", who was credited with destroying two stocking machines that made cheap stockings and undermined skilled knitters, and whose signature is on the Workers' Manifesto of the time. It is not historically confirmed whether Ned Ludd existed or not.

The movement quickly spread throughout England in 1811, causing the destruction of wool and cotton mills until the English government cracked it down. The Luddites would gather at night on the moors surrounding the industrialized cities, doing much of their drill and maneuvering.

The main centers of the uprisings were the county of Nottinghamshire in November 1811, followed by uprisings in the West Riding (an administrative unit) of Yorkshire in early 1812 and in Lancashire in March. Intense fighting between the Luddites and the troops took place at the Burton's Mill factory in Middleton and the Westouton factory (Westhoughton) - both were located in Lancashire. It was rumored that members of the city magistrates hired spies whose task was to create confusion during attacks. Members of the magistrates and food vendors were often the victims of assassination attempts and attacks by the anonymous General Ludd and his supporters.

The destruction of machines (industrial sabotage) was made a capital crime, and 17 people were executed in 1813. Many people were sent to Australia. For a time, the troops were more concerned with suppressing the Luddite revolts than with resisting Napoleon in the Iberian Peninsula.

Recently, the terms "Luddism", "Luddite", as well as "neo-Luddism" and "neo-Luddite" have been applied to people who are struggling with the achievements of innovative technologies.

The famous English writer Charlotte Brontë wrote the novel Shirley about the Luddite movement.

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Notes

Literature

Bailey, Brian J. The Luddite Rebellion(1998), New York: New York University Press, ISBN 0-8147-1335-1 .
Binfield, Kevin. Writings of the Luddites, (2004), Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 0-8018-7612-5
Fox, Nicols. Against the Machine: The Hidden Luddite History in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives, (2003), Island Press ISBN 1-55963-860-5
Hunt, Lynn, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, R. Pochia Hsia, and Bonnie G. Smith. The Making of the West. 3rd ed. Edited by Mary Dougherty. Vol. C of Since 1740. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.
Jones, Steven E. Against Technology: From Luddites to Neo-Luddism, (2006) Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-97868-2
Fredy Perlman|Perlman, Fredy. Against His-tory, Against Leviathan, (1983) Black and Red, ISBN 0-934868-25-5
Kirkpatrick Sale|Sale, Kirkpatrick. Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution, (1996) ISBN 0-201-40718-3
Watson, David. Against the Megamachine: Essays on Empire and its Enemies, (1998) Autonomedia, ISBN 1-57027-087-2.

An excerpt characterizing the Luddites

“Chere Anna Mikhailovna,” he said with his usual familiarity and boredom in his voice, “it is almost impossible for me to do what you want; but in order to prove to you how much I love you and honor the memory of your late father, I will do the impossible: your son will be transferred to the guards, here is my hand to you. Are you satisfied?
- My dear, you are a benefactor! I did not expect anything else from you; I knew how kind you are.
He wanted to leave.
- Wait, two words. Une fois passe aux gardes ... [Once he goes to the guards ...] - She hesitated: - You are good with Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov, recommend Boris to him as adjutant. Then I would be calm, and then I would...
Prince Vasily smiled.
- I don't promise that. You do not know how Kutuzov has been besieged since he was appointed commander in chief. He himself told me that all the Moscow ladies conspired to give him all their children as adjutants.
“No, promise me, I won’t let you in, dear, my benefactor…
- Dad! - the beauty repeated again in the same tone, - we will be late.
- Well, au revoir, [goodbye,] goodbye. See?
- So tomorrow you will report to the sovereign?
- Certainly, but I do not promise Kutuzov.
“No, promise, promise, Basile, [Vasily],” Anna Mikhailovna said after him, with a smile of a young coquette, which once must have been characteristic of her, but now did not suit her emaciated face.
She apparently forgot her years and used, out of habit, all the old women's means. But as soon as he left, her face again assumed the same cold, feigned expression that had been on it before. She returned to the circle, in which the viscount continued to talk, and again pretended to be listening, waiting for the time to leave, since her business was done.
“But how do you find all this latest comedy du sacre de Milan?” [Milanese anointing?] – said Anna Pavlovna. Et la nouvelle comedie des peuples de Genes et de Lucques, qui viennent presenter leurs voeux a M. Buonaparte assis sur un trone, et exaucant les voeux des nations! Adorable! Non, mais c "est a en devenir folle! On dirait, que le monde entier a perdu la tete. [And here is a new comedy: the peoples of Genoa and Lucca express their desires to Mr. Bonaparte. And Mr. Bonaparte sits on the throne and fulfills the wishes of the peoples. 0! It's amazing! No, it's crazy. You'll think the whole world has lost its head.]
Prince Andrei grinned, looking directly into the face of Anna Pavlovna.
- “Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touche,” he said (the words of Bonaparte, spoken at the laying of the crown). - On dit qu "il a ete tres beau en prononcant ces paroles, [God gave me the crown. Trouble for the one who touches it. - They say he was very good pronouncing these words,] - he added and repeated these words again in Italian: "Dio mi la dona, guai a chi la tocca".
- J "espere enfin," continued Anna Pavlovna, "que ca a ete la goutte d" eau qui fera deborder le verre. Les souverains ne peuvent plus supporter cet homme, qui menace tout. [I hope that it was finally the drop that would overflow the glass. Sovereigns can no longer tolerate this man who threatens everything.]
– Les souverains? Je ne parle pas de la Russie,” said the viscount politely and hopelessly: “Les souverains, madame!” Qu "ont ils fait pour Louis XVII, pour la reine, pour madame Elisabeth? Rien," he continued animatedly. - Et croyez moi, ils subissent la punition pour leur trahison de la cause des Bourbons. Les souverains? Ils envoient des ambassadeurs complimenter l "usurpateur. [Sovereigns! I'm not talking about Russia. Sovereigns! But what did they do for Louis XVII, for the Queen, for Elisabeth? Nothing. And believe me, they are punished for their betrayal of the Bourbon cause. Sovereigns! They send envoys to greet the stealer of the throne.]

As a result of the further deterioration of the position of the working class, the struggle of the latter against capitalist exploitation intensified, but this struggle again took on the form of Luddism. The movement of machine destroyers gained a particularly wide scope in 1811-1812.

Mass Luddism began in Nottingham. On March 11, 1811, knitting workers gathered in one of the squares of the city and vowed to destroy the machines of those manufacturers who pay workers low wages.

Already in March, machines were broken at some enterprises in Nottingham. The movement continued throughout the summer and autumn of 1811. A contemporary of these events writes: “Knitters gathered in various places near Nottingham in large numbers and from there went to the owners of the machines; disguised people broke into houses by force, demanded to stop work and increase wages.” The Luddites used to break the iron parts of the machines and burn the wood ones. The matter sometimes came to armed clashes between the protection of factories and the Luddites.

From Nottingham the movement of machine destroyers spread to Leicestershire and Derbyshire.

At the insistence of the bourgeoisie, local authorities mobilized troops and detachments of local militia against the Luddites. But the latter did not stop their activities, they only changed tactics. A contemporary writes: “They waited until the guards accidentally left, then entered the workshops, destroyed all the machines and, before the alarm could be raised, at the signal of their commander, disappeared into the darkness.” Luddite riots in Nottingham, Leicestershire, and Derbyshire continued into January-February 1812.

Only after the employers promised to meet all the demands of the workers, the movement of car destroyers in Nottingham began to decline.

The movement of machine destroyers also swept through Yorkshire and Lancashire. In Yorkshire clothiers, chiefly shearers, rose up to fight the machines. Due to the fact that in 1811 - 1812. new pile machines began to be used, the exploitation of workers - shearers intensified. Entrepreneurs used the new machines to cut workers' wages. The workers responded by creating their militant organization. Everyone who joined the Luddite organization had to take a special oath. Its text read: “I, of my own free will, declare and solemnly swear that I will never reveal to any person or persons under the vault of heaven the names of those who participate in this secret committee, their actions, meetings, secret places ... otherwise let my very name be blotted out of life and never be remembered otherwise than with contempt and disgust.

The Yorkshire shearers movement was more militant than the knitters movement. In a number of places in the county, the Luddites met regularly, held a review of their forces, and even practiced shooting. They were divided into detachments, headed by elected commanders. The latter during the reviews did a roll call. Among the Luddites of Yorkshire, the song of the shearers was popular:

Go all sheared boldly and firmly, Let your faith grow stronger; Oh, boys - shearing in York County Car wrecked at Foster's factory. The wind blows, sparks fly

The whole city will soon fill with anxiety.

During the attack on the factories, the Luddites first set up posts at the entrances and exits, and then broke the cars and set fire to the factory buildings.

The Luddites sacked Foster's factories at Horbury, William Cartwright's at Raufolds, and many others. During the attack on the Cartwright factory and other enterprises, the Luddites also used firearms. Sometimes attacks on factories were accompanied by the murder of their owners.

Almost simultaneously with the movement in Yorkshire, the Luddite movement also developed in Lancashire. Here, most of the machine destroyers were weavers, who suffered from unemployment resulting from the widespread use of machine tools and lower wages. The workers of Stockport were the first to rise, and then the movement spread to Bolton and Manchester. The struggle against machines was led here by committees elected by the workers. The committees organized not only attacks on factories, but also a whole series of rallies and meetings. It is interesting to note that at some of these meetings in Manchester there were calls for electoral reform.

At the request of the entrepreneurs, the Tory government passed a bill through parliament punishing the destruction of machines with death, and then began to defeat the Luddites. Additional military units were sent to Nottingham, Yorkshire and Lancashire to suppress the Luddites. Numerous processes were arranged over active participants in the movement. In Nottingham, many active Luddites were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, in Yorkshire 50 people were tried, 14 of them were sentenced to death. In Lancashire, in the first trial at Chester, out of 28 defendants, 16 were sentenced to death, and the rest to imprisonment and exile; eight people were sentenced to death in the second trial at Lancaster.

Thus, the ruling classes of England savagely dealt with the participants in the movement of destroyers of machines in 1811-1812. Since the sympathies of the masses were on the side of the persecuted and oppressed Luddites, the bourgeois-aristocratic press launched their persecution in the press and in parliament. They were portrayed as robbers and robbers in order to justify in the eyes of the people the terrorist measures taken against the workers, driven to despair by hunger and poverty. Even some Whigs were forced to admit that the bourgeoisie was taking revenge on the workers for the fear that Luddism instilled in them. Lord Broom, for example, said of court verdicts: "This is revenge in bulk."

Outside Parliament, some radical leftists, led by William Cobbett, spoke out against government persecution, and in Parliament the famous English poet Byron was the only one who sincerely protested against the persecution of workers and against the death penalty bill. After his trip to Nottingham County, he gave his first speech in the upper house, in which he vividly described the suffering of workers and passionately protested against the death sentences handed down by the courts on many Luddites. Speaking of the condition of the British workers, Byron declared:

“I passed through the Iberian Peninsula in the days when war was raging there, I visited some of the most oppressed Turkish provinces, but even there, under the rule of a despotic unchristian government, I did not observe such unspeakable poverty as I have seen since my return here to in the very heart of the Christian country. And what are your remedies for it? After months of inactivity, after months of activity even worse than inactivity, finally appears ... the unmistakable means by which all state healers have acted from the time of the Dragon to the present day - the death penalty!

Byron's speech was an indictment of the English bourgeoisie and landed aristocracy. Byron's sympathy for the workers is also evidenced by his wonderful "Song of the Luddites".

Machine Destroyer Movement 1811 - 1812 almost indistinguishable from Luddism of the late eighteenth century. This is still the same early form of the class struggle of the still immature proletariat.

The Luddites themselves saw their movement as a struggle to restore pre-capitalist forms of production. But in essence, the movement of the destroyers of machines was a spontaneous mass protest against capitalist exploitation. Their mood is well conveyed by the “Song of King Pair”, which began with these words:

There is a king in the world, a merciless tyrant, Not a terrible, forgotten nightmare, A cruel tormentor of countless countries... That king is called Par. His hand is menacingly stretched into the distance, He has only one hand, But he squeezes the slave earth like steel, And it destroys thousands.

Marx stressed that a certain amount of time and experience is required for the worker to learn to speak directly against capitalist exploitation.

With the development of the class struggle of the proletariat, the growth of its class self-consciousness, there was no ground left for mass Luddism. Workers' trade unions became increasingly important, although they were banned.

The article tells about what a Luddist is, what the followers of such a social movement were doing and whether they exist in our time.

Technique

The 20th century is also interesting because during it the development of scientific and technological progress proceeded at an unprecedented, gigantic pace. If you look into the depths of history, then nothing like this has ever happened. observed in recent years. According to some scholars, the day when the real

We are all used to using the achievements of science and technology, but this was not always the case, and at some times people openly opposed new inventions that made their life easier, or were afraid of them, considering them objectionable. Something like this happened in the first quarter of the 19th century in England, when the movement of followers of Ned Ludd was born there, they themselves called themselves Luddists, or Luddites. What is it, we will analyze.

Definition

Luddist is a person who opposed the development of scientific and technological progress. They existed in the first half of the 19th century in England and several other countries. True, they protested not because of ideological or religious motives, everything was simpler: new weaving and spinning machines replaced hundreds of workers, which, of course, did not please the workers. So a luddist is a person who has been left without a job as a result of being replaced by a machine tool or other technological device.

It all started with Ned Ludd, who was credited with the destruction. True, it is not known for certain whether such a person actually existed. But that didn't stop his followers. They were engaged in the fact that they broke various machine tools, machines and other units, which gradually forced out low-skilled workers at various enterprises.

Spreading

In 1811, this movement spread throughout England, the Luddists broke woolen and cotton factories. But the government quickly and harshly suppressed them.

Later, a law was introduced according to which the destruction or damage to machines, like any other industrial sabotage, was punishable by death, and adherence to the ideas of Luddism became deadly. True, the workers still had no choice, and they protested further. Which, however, is logical, because a Luddist is, as a rule, a low-skilled worker, and it was difficult for him to find a job.

Many of the protesters were sent to Australia, while others were executed altogether. And for some time, the English troops were more active in suppressing the Luddist uprisings than they were resisting Napoleon.

In our time, a Luddist is a person who opposes the achievements of science and progress. True, now they are often called "neo-Luddites" or "neo-Luddists." By the way, both varieties of this word are found in official use.

A form of workers' struggle in the early nineteenth century. there was often the destruction of machines and factory buildings. The participants in this movement called themselves Luddites, after the legendary worker Ludd, who allegedly first broke the machine. Some workers, seeing that the introduction of machinery led to unemployment and starvation, considered the machine to be the cause of their misfortunes. Illiterate and backward, they did not understand that the source of their troubles lay not in the machine itself, but in the capitalist system, and that it was necessary to fight against the capitalist use of machines, and not against themselves.

Part of the Luddites did not hate machines. Destroying them, they simply dealt a blow to the property of the capitalists, hoping to force them to make concessions. The Luddite movement acquired a particularly wide scope in 1811-1812.

Frightened entrepreneurs demanded protection from the government. Parliament passed a law on the death penalty for damage to cars. The Luddite movement was mercilessly suppressed by the troops.

Outraged by this, the famous English poet George Byron wrote:

Isn't it strange that if he comes to visit

There is hunger for us and the cry of the poor is heard, -

Breaking a car breaks bones

And lives are valued cheaper than a stocking?

And if so, then many will ask:

First, do not turn the neck of the madmen,

Which people who ask for help,

Are they in a hurry to tighten the noose around the neck?

Productive forces and production relations

Capitalists are able to appropriate the results of the labor of workers (exploit them) because the workers do not own the tools and objects of labor. Tools of labor and objects of labor are called means of production. The means of production also include land, mineral deposits, forests, etc., since they are the object of labor. Under capitalism, only the bourgeoisie is the owner of the means of production, and the workers have only labor power.

A decisive influence on the development of society is the improvement of tools - from the primitive digging stick to the most complex modern tools and machines. The manufacture and use of tools depends on people with their skills and knowledge, methods of work. Not only the productivity of labor, but also the relations between social classes in the process of production, or relations of production, depend on the instruments of labor and the labor power of people, that is, on the productive forces of society. The latter depend primarily on who owns the main means of production. Thus, in a slave-owning society, the slave-owners are the owners of both the means of production and the slaves, i.e., the labor force. Under feudalism, the big landowners appropriate the results of the labor of dependent peasants.

In a capitalist society, the owners of the main means of production - the bourgeoisie - appropriate most of the results of the labor of the workers (proletarians), exploit the workers.

When the ownership of the means of production belongs to the exploiters, they force the workers to work for them, appropriate the fruits of their labor and occupy a dominant position in society. But if ownership of the means of production belongs to the working people, is public property, then the working people themselves become masters of their lives, they themselves decide the questions of production and distribution of products.

Luddite performance in the Nottingham area

From an English journal of 1812

At the end of January (1812), they (i.e., the Luddites) crossed the River Trent, entered the village of Redzington and broke 14 machines there, from there they went to Clifton and destroyed all the machines there, leaving only 2 intact. Clifton authorities in fear sent a notice to Nottingham and asked to send a squadron of hussars. There they gathered as many people as they could, and they rode to Clifton with the greatest possible speed; one part of them set off in pursuit of the Luddites, while the other part remained to guard all the crossings over the Trent with the full conviction that the Luddites would not be able to hide for anything. But the destroyers of machines were so organized that they were not at all confused ...

Vasyutineky V. A. Destroyers of machines in England. - M., 1929.

The destruction of machines (industrial sabotage) was made a capital crime, and 17 people were executed in 1813. Many people were sent to Australia. For a time, the troops were more concerned with suppressing the Luddist revolts than with resisting Napoleon in the Iberian Peninsula.

Recently, the concepts of "Luddism", "Luddite", as well as "neo-Luddism" and "neo-Luddite" have become synonymous with "a person who struggles with the achievements of innovative technologies."

The famous English writer Charlotte Brontë wrote one of her novels, Shirley, about the Luddite movement.

Notes

Literature

Bailey, Brian J. The Luddite Rebellion(1998), New York: New York University Press, ISBN 0-8147-1335-1 .
Binfield, Kevin. Writings of the Luddites, (2004), Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 0-8018-7612-5
Fox, Nicols. Against the Machine: The Hidden Luddite History in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives, (2003), Island Press ISBN 1-55963-860-5
Hunt, Lynn, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, R. Pochia Hsia, and Bonnie G. Smith. The Making of the West. 3rd ed. Edited by Mary Dougherty. Vol. C of Since 1740. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.
Jones, Steven E. Against Technology: From Luddites to Neo-Luddism, (2006) Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-97868-2
Fredy Perlman|Perlman, Fredy. Against His-tory, Against Leviathan, (1983) Black and Red, ISBN 0-934868-25-5
Kirkpatrick Sale|Sale, Kirkpatrick. Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution, (1996) ISBN 0-201-40718-3
Watson, David. Against the Megamachine: Essays on Empire and its Enemies, (1998) Autonomedia, ISBN 1-57027-087-2.

Links

History of Luddism
Charlotte Bronte's novel "Shirley" - about the era of the Luddite uprising (Russian)

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

See what "Luddites" are in other dictionaries:

- (English, named after the leader Ludd). In England, a party that sought by the destruction of machines to deliver a greater income to the workers suffering from their distribution. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. LUDDITES ... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

- (English Luddites), participants in the first spontaneous protests against the use of machines during the industrial revolution in Great Britain (late 18th and early 19th centuries). The name comes from the legendary journeyman Ned Ludd, who allegedly first destroyed ... ... Modern Encyclopedia

Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Participants in the first spontaneous demonstrations against the use of machines during the industrial revolution in Great Britain (late 18th and early 19th centuries). The name comes from the legendary apprentice Ned Ludd, who allegedly was the first to destroy the machine in a reckless ... ... Historical dictionary

- (Luddits) in England the destroyers of machines in factory cities, especially in Sheffield, in 1811 and 1816, in 1811 and 1816, according to a certain Ludd, who was around the middle of the 18th century. lived near Leicester and one day, in a fit of rage, broke into the house and destroyed ... ... Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron

- (eng. Luddites) participants in the first spontaneous protests against the use of machines during the industrial revolution in Great Britain (end of the 18th beginning of the 19th centuries). The name comes from the legendary journeyman Ned Ludd, who allegedly first destroyed the machine in ... ... Political science. Dictionary.

Luddites- (Luddite), in the 19th century. in England, workers protesting the destruction of machines, which, as they believed, deprived them of their livelihood. The movement began in Nottinghamshire in 1811, when knitters began to break a special type of wide ... ... The World History

Luddites- (English Luddites), participants in the first spontaneous protests against the use of machines during the industrial revolution in Great Britain (late 18th and early 19th centuries). The name comes from the legendary journeyman Ned Ludd, who allegedly first destroyed ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

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