1871-1901

Birth and breakthrough

The evolutionary process, which created the preconditions enabling a socialist labour movement to have its break-through in Denmark, took its beginning in the 1840s. 1847 saw the formation of the earliest independent workers' associations with objectives beyond those of the guilds. From this organisation, and others established during the revolutionary years 1848-49, a tenuous but unmistakable evolutionary line can be traced to the formation of "The International Working Men's Association" in 1871. The events leading up to the establishment of this socialist organisation can be seen as a process of constant interaction between, on the one hand, the experience of workers vis-à-vis the early bourgeois class-society, and, on the other, the political and theoretical response of workers to this type of society. 

However, it was not exclusively the experience and development among workers which came to play a role; a small number of university men - and among them especially Frederik Dreier, a physician, should be mentioned - took up a position of solidarity with the emerging labour movement and contributed to the overall experience among workers. Dreier died at an early age, but some of his collaborators established contacts with the I. International in London, and a number of delegates from that body was sent to Copenhagen.

However, the establishment of the Danish section of the International Working Men's Association took place independently of these contacts. From May 1871, Louis Pio, an official of the postal service, made preparations for the establishment of the Association by publishing a number of leaflets which, after July 21 were published in the form of the newspaper, the "Socialisten". This paper is still being published under the name of "Aktuelt" and is owned by the LO - the Danish Trade Union Centre. On October 15, the Association was officially founded: the socialist movement had come to Denmark for good.

As its members the Association primarily organised those workers who had become familiar with the industrialised mode of pro­duction; workers who had gained experience with working in larger undertakings, etc. They had already become wage earners. But a considerable store of international experience and solidarity was instrumental in the foundation of the Association: the Paris Com­mune had just been suppressed, and the first issue of the "Socialisten" printed an excerpt of the International's address (The Civil War in France), and the Association constituted the Danish section of the International.

Soon, the Association became a mass organisation numbering several thousand members, and already in October it was in a position to actively support strike activities which were spreading like wild-fire in the course of the autumn of 1871. It became a characteristic of the Danish section of the International Working Men's Association that political and trade union activities were intertwined - at one and the same time it was a trade union and a political party. In this manner, Louis Pio attempted to combine par­ticular trade union interests with general working-class interests.

What distinguished the socialists working with Louis Pio and his friends from other workers' associations was that the former had a strategy for their struggle, viz. that workers had to be organised and that strikes had to be well planned and prepared in advance. This provided the Association with a direct relevance in the eyes of workers. It made it seem obvious to workers that the theory of the socialists was also correct. All these things meant that the socialist movement - be it ever so small - seemed dangerous to the powers that be, and following a major rally in May 1872 the three leading figures of the Associa­tion were arrested and the following years were given very harsh prison sentences. At the same time, their organisation was banned.

However, the strike campaign continued in 1873 and was kept alive until 1876. This resulted in the foundation of further trade unions under socialist auspices. These unions set up a leadership in Copenhagen, and from then on the workers themselves ran the move­ment according to their own convictions. In 1876, delegates from all the unions, with a total membership of 6.000, were convened to hold their first congress. Here a socialist programme was adopted for which the 1875-programme of the German party served as a model - however with significant dis­tinctions: in the trade union issue, and in that the Danish programme included clauses on agrarian policies.

Shortly after the Congress, the European recession hit Denmark. Mass unemployment resulting from this in conjunction with a po­litical crisis in the movement, disrupted the work in its present form. As a consequence of this, it was decided in 1878 to separate the trade union movement from the political movement.

However, the crisis in the movement only lasted for a few years. Already from 1881 progress was once more perceptible, and what is more, the socialist labour movement was the only labour organisation to have survived the crisis. Society was slowly moving forward towards capitalism, and the industrial working class which was growing with it constituted the material prerequisite for this development. This is reflected by the degree of urbanisation: from 1850 to 1901 the urban population grew from 20% to 40%. By 1900 there were about 177,000 wage earners of which 37,000 were women of whom many carried out wage work in their homes.

The trade union movement made strides during the 1880s and 1890s; despite minor setbacks along the road the overall trend was that workers knew how to make use of improved business trends for establishing new organisations and for improving their pay and working conditions considerably. These results were not, of course, achieved without a struggle, and in the 1880s the industrial conflict of the widest scope ever was the lock-out of the metal workers in 1885. It was the aim of the employers to smash the union and for this purpose they hired an army of scabs. It was still one of the most serious problems that so many workers remained unorganized. The lock-out lasted for more than six months, and its result was a defeat for both parties. The metal workers did not get what they had fought for in terms of pay and had to accept working alongside of blacklegs, but the employers had to accept the continued existence of the trade union. However, many of the subsequent large-scale conflicts had to do with workers' right to organise, they constituted a struggle against the autocratic position of employers at the places of work.

Another important prerequisite for the success of the trade unions was that they succeeded in organising large numbers of unskilled and women workers despite the fact that it was difficult for these groups to gain acceptance by their skilled colleagues.

In 1898 most of the existing trade union organisations, national and local, joined for­ces to form the LO - the Trade Union Centre. In principle this concluded the foundation process of trade unions in Denmark. The LO-structure was one of decentralisation, which means that the power to bargain, conclude agreements and take industrial action rested with the national unions. The LO could refuse to sanction demands made by a union, thus preventing the union from getting any sup­port from other national unions in the event of industrial action. Thus, after all, the LO had a position of considerable influence as a co-ordinator of the common demands of the trade union movement. The position was re­inforced by an agreement with the Social Democratic Party: the Social Democratic Party had representatives in the executive committee of the LO and vice versa. This arrangement constituted a guarantee that the labour movement could continue to work as a united trade union and political movement. This circumstance has proven to be of major importance at all times, including those when political unity in the labour movement was not a matter of course. From time to time the co-operation has met with criticism, but so far it has withstood all strains.

Already the following year, the Association of Danish Employers forced the LO into the most extensive industrial conflict Denmark had experienced up to that time. More than 50% of all organised workers were involved in a conflict which lasted from May to September 1899. It was concluded by a compromise which involved recognition of workers' right to organise and employers' right to manage. This General Agreement - albeit in a revised and extended version - is the foundation on which the Danish system of labour relations still rests.

For the Social Democratic Party, too, the two last decades of the century constituted a phase of grandiose building up. Virtually only in Copenhagen had the political movement survived the crisis, but from 1882 the movement once more started to spread to all parts of the country. In the course of the 1890s the party established local branches in many places, and in general elections it obtained a growing number of votes. In 1892 the first social democrat was returned at a local elec­tion, by 1900 social democrats were on the council in 25 localities all over the country, especially in the towns. Similarly, the social democratic press had expanded. The "Social-Demokraten", the name of the principal newspaper after 1874, had the highest circu­lation in the country, and the 1890s saw the establishment of new social democratic newspapers all over the country. At the root of all this was the fact that workers saw the Social Democratic Party as representing the whole of the working class, and as constitu­ting the independent movement of the wor­king class. The politico-theoretical tenor of this concept can be summarised in the idea of "justice", in consistent anti-capitalism and recognition of the fact that the liberation of workers rests with the workers themselves. On this basis the two first social democratic members of parliament were returned to the Folketinget (1. chamber of the parliament) in 1884.

At that time the political line of confron­tation in Denmark ran between the democra­tic farmers' party, the "Venstre" (the Left) and conservative forces. Of course, the Social Democratic Party would support any democratic endeavours, but this was not unproblematic: the Danish election system was similar to that of Great Britain - a first-past-the-post system - which called for deals between the two parties in favour of parliamentarism not to run candidates in all provincial constitu­encies. In this way the social conflicts between the two political partners remained obscure. This led to widespread discussion in the labour movement, because, for instance, the local party branch in Århus saw the alliance with "Venstre" as something which would delay workers in their development to­wards becoming an autonomous class. This conflict proved to be significant for the next 20-30 years, despite the fact that in 1889 the most radical opponents to the alliance policy were expelled from the party. In this instance - as at many other occasions, e.g. at the Inter­national Socialist Congress in Paris - Peter Knudsen, the party president, maintained that the struggle for reforms had a revolutionary perspective.

By the turn of the century new ideas were emerging in the international labour move­ment. One was the concept of "ministerial socialism" which was rejected in Denmark, another was "gas & water socialism" which some social democrats tried to apply in local politics, and a third was placing emphasis on the political neutrality of the trade unions. This latter claim was made by the right wing forces arguing that the trade unions were to take care of their "proper" job and was turned into actual practice in Germany (Carl Legien) and the USA (Samuel Gompers). The same argument was also voiced by the left wing, viz. the syndicalists, who claimed that a poli­tical struggle could have no other result than a corruption of the labour movement. Both lines of reasoning were rejected in Denmark where the close co-operation between the trade unions and the political movement contin­ued to flourish. The trade unions knew perfectly well that their demands for immediate improvements in pay and working conditions were political demands. The unity of the movement remained intact.