Bakeries & Anarchism
Sep 14 2008
Hey folks,
I am very curious to see what, if any, relationship bakeries in France, or Spain, or elsewhere, had with mass movements, or community organisations, or in revolutionary movements.
Anyways, if anyone has any information let me know. Maybe il post anything if I find it.
thanks
Sep 16 2008
#2
That story really sucks, but if we are talking about Bialystok, the situation may have been quite complicated. The history of strikes, antisemitism, etc. in this area is extremely difficult. There was a large anarcho-communist and communist movement in this area and a strong strain of internationalism. In the beginning of the 20th century, hardcore revolutionaries acted over an area with is now in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuanian and Russia. It didn't make much of a difference to this people, and the concept of nationality was more flexible. There were also many Jews involved, the main division being between Yiddish speaking Jewish activists who organized within that community and those who acted with the other nationalities.
In 1905, there were pogroms in Bialystok, in the same years that there were very strong social uprisings and movements. (Our town of Krynki, near Bialystok was the second one to be run, albeit not for long, by a Soviet.) These were usually started by czarist agents.
Jews were getting attacked from czarist agents sometimes because of antisemitism, sometimes because of their involvement in anti-czarist activities. In the 30s, antisemitism took different forms in Poland. Endecja saw Jews as an element which economically dominated Poles and sought to fight with them, beat them, boycott them, etc. to ensure the predominance of Polish capital. Of course this was often exaggerated. On the other hand, some claimed that Jews supported communism and/or Russia and were against the idea of a Polish national state. Many antisemitic publications at the time wildly confused their arguments in their mixed-up hatred; you could find that people would blame jews for being capitalist exploiters who ruled the world financial institutions on the one hand, and communists on the other.
In 1937 and 1938 there were strikes in Bialystok with large jewish participation. Maybe this was when your grandfather's wanted to bake bread for the strikers. Between 1939-1941 there was a Soviet occupation in the area. There were no czarist pogroms. The Russians prefered the socialist and Jewish populations over the more national-minded Poles. (The Poles would later take revenge for this. In the summer of 1941 lots of pogroms took place in the region, although usually outside of the big cities.) The Germans occupied the area starting in 1941. After that there were mass murders by Germans and others. (Besides Poles who committed murder of Jews, there were also Latvians and Ukrainians who did this on the territory of current Poland.)
There are no pogroms recorded in the Bialystok area in this time, but beatings probably occured commonly. I don't know your grandfather's story, but probably anything could have been the reason. Supporting a strike could have been the reason as much as scabbing, particularly since there was a strong socialist movement in that region at the time and there was some socialist/anti-socialist violence as well.
Sep 16 2008
#3
Within the "ethnic" communities of the US, the Jewish workers usually organized cooperative bakeries. Mention of these cooperative bakeries can be found in a number of historical studies of strikes and so forth. An interesting mention is the cooperative baerky in South Africa at the turn of the last century. See "The Bakers' Unions and the first cooperative Efforts" at http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/library-resources/online%20books/labour-struggles/chapter-2.htm
During the famouus US textile strikes in Paterson, NJ, Lawrence, MA and Passaic, NJ cooperative bakeries provided bread to the strikers. I believe the cooperative in Paterson, NJ also donated a weekly sum of cash as well.
Sep 16 2008
#4
My father's side of the family was from a little village somewhere outside of Bialystok , of which I do not know the name. They weren't political people, just poor people.
An interesting website about Jewish Bialystok is BIALYGen Bialystok Region Jewish Genealogy Group
http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/bialygen/homepage.htm.
I think it would be great if Akai can post stuff on the large anarchist movement in Bialystok. I think it would be interesting to learn more about anarchist organization amongst textile workers or anarchist organizations in Lodz, the former textile center.
I know there were Jewish anarchists there. Not sure about Syndicalists of the ZZZ.
Sep 16 2008
#5
It's a long and interesting story; I'd need days to write it. My knowledge however is incomplete. I was able to read both the anarchist press and the police reports at the time which were available in Russian or Polish. There are more materials available in Yiddish which I never got around to.
One day. 
Sep 16 2008
#6
France;
Bakeries are unique in that they can be open anytime they like regardless of opening-hour laws.
This right was given to the bakeries under the Revolution to ensure the population was fed following a famine which led to the overthrow of the Ancien Regime.
Useful if you've stumbled out of a club at 4 in the morning with monster munchies
Sep 17 2008
#7
laureakai - thats really interesting, thanks a lot for the info. If you know of anything in English regarding the 1905 uprising (which I've heard of but don't know much about) or the '37/38 strikes, I'd appreciate it if you could send me links (or I can flick you my email address for .pdf files etc)
Sep 17 2008
#8
hmm, in English....
Stuff tends to get published in works on the 1905 Russian Revolution, since that's where what is now eastern Poland was in 1905. Also, many works in English concentrate rather on the PPS and Pilsudski because of Pilsudski's later significance.
Wikipedia has the very basics to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_in_the_Kingdom_of_Poland_(1905-1907)
There is some material in Avrich, but it's mixed in with info about the whole empire.
There are short bits here and there. On Libcom is a bio of one person:
http://libcom.org/history/yarchuk-efim
There is a little about anarchists in Puah Rakovsky's bio, but not enough to buy the book. Parts of it are online.
We reoublished something about Krynki years ago. It has a few things about anarchists:
http://www.alter.most.org.pl/fa/memorial%20krynki.htm
I'll try to think what else is in English. Bad memory these days.
Sep 18 2008
#9
beau wrote:
Hey folks,I am very curious to see what, if any, relationship bakeries in France, or Spain, or elsewhere, had with mass movements, or community organisations, or in revolutionary movements.
Anyways, if anyone has any information let me know. Maybe il post anything if I find it.
thanks
I would guess a good example would be the heavy role mills and bakeries played in the limerick soviet and perhaps more importantly the various soviet occupations around dublin and munster that the IRA eventually crushed since they were part of a more rapidly spreading strike wave also connected to rural land occupations at the time. Couldn;t find anything that went into detail on the subject though.
Sep 20 2008
#10
wow. This is all amazing information.
I found limited information about a huge collective bakery in Mas de Las Mantas, Spain during the revolution.
http://struggle.ws/ws91/sapin33.html
Also a Worker Coop bakery called Black Bear out of St Louis, USA.
http://blackbearbakery.org/
I feel as though bakeries are really important. For example, in Winnipeg Manitoba during the general strike in 1919 certain services were continued throughout the strike like milk delivery, telephone, and a volunteer fire dept. It had to be authorized by the strike committee though.
bakeries can also be very lucrative for a worker-cooperative. Compared to the struggling cooperatives in the cafe market. but what about the rural population. I suppose its useless to have abakery if theres no grain and/or agribusiness wont sell / prices to high.
thanks for your comments!
Sep 21 2008
#11
In Argentina the bakers resistance society was the first of the workers guilds that became anarchist. Bakers' societies/unions were really important in anarchist history in Argentina, and usually, into the most radicals. In any book talking about anarchism in Argentina you will read about it.
Still nowadays some names of products are the ones that anarchist bakers invented against the police, Church,... See it here. It's written in spanish.
Another spanish written article titled "the story of anarchist bakers" (about Peru).
In Spain also were anarchist bakers. I remember have reading something about the colectivization in Barcelona in 1936, and that there were breath in stores in the first days of revolution, as the anarchist were theorized that basic products had to be supplied at the beginning of the revolution.
Sep 21 2008
#12
I vaguely recall reading a probably apocryphal but i do hope it wasn't story about a bakery somewhere that served a pastry called the Kropotkin. Anyone else ever run into that?
Sep 23 2008
#13
Re: Beau, yes, my partner told me that Argentian pastries and their equivalent of doughnuts often have anarchist and anti-clerical names, a holdover from the days when anarchism was a powerful force in the bakers' unions.
In the 18th and 19th centuries bakeries were terrible places of employment, with huge injury rates, long and strange hours, low pay - being a baker often meant leading a short, painful life. ...perhaps this is little more than a characterization of the entire proletariat during the time, but nonetheless, it comes up in the literature quite often - I've read that English bakers were easily identified by the deformities which their trade incurred on their bodies. Indeed, Marx touches on this occasionally (I'll grab a source when I have a minute.) During the Paris Commune, some of the early revolutionary enactments pertained to bakeries (the elimination of night-time baking for instance); and if the working conditions in bakeries were on the top 'o' the pile for the Communards, one assumes they were of import.
Sep 23 2008
#14
I'm really digging this thread!
Quote:
On April 16 the Commune ordered a statistical tabulation of factories which had been closed down by the manufacturers, and the working out of plans for the carrying on of these factories by workers formerly employed in them, who were to be organized in co-operative societies, and also plans for the organization of these co-operatives in one great union. On the 20th the Commune abolished night work for bakers, and also the workers' registration cards, which since the Second Empire had been run as a monopoly by police nominees – exploiters of the first rank; the issuing of these registration cards was transferred to the mayors of the 20 arrondissements of Paris.
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/p/a.htm#paris-commune
Was there more explanation for the reason the commune outlined to eliminate night baking? Or was it because the working conditions were so bad at night? I suppose basic staples reduced the amount of work and therefore made it possible to do daytime?
edit: didnt quote the enactment
Sep 23 2008
#15
From Maximoff: Syndicalists in the Russian Revolution
Quote:
At the beginning of 1920 only one union in Moscow held out for the Anarcho-Syndicalist line. This was the Bakers' Union, whose Anarcho-Syndicalist orientation was due to the work of our comrade N. I. Pavlov. (The latter, however, recanted his Anarcho-Syndicalist views under the pressure of the GPU, this being the price paid by him for his liberty. Pavlov made the statement disavowing his Anarchist views on release from prison). A contributing factor to the persistence of Anarcho-Syndicalist influence in the Bakers' Union was the work of the Maximalists, Niushenkov and Kamyshev.At the Second All-Russian Convention, the Bakers' Union delegation contained a "Federalist" faction numbering ten to fifteen people, whose following extended to nearly a third of the union membership. At that convention, the first attempt was made (Maximoff, Niushenkov, Pavlov) to organise an underground revolutionary Federation of Food Workers. This was to be the first step towards organising a Russian General Confederation of Labour. The move was to have been a genuine attempt by the Executive Committee of Russian Anarcho-Syndicalists to carry out the basic points of its programme. In view of the repressions which soon began, the committee of the above-mentioned comrades, elected at the meeting of the faction of the convention, did not even get a chance to start its work, as planned at the meeting. This was the last vivid manifestation of the struggle waged by Anarcho-Syndicalism within the Communist State-controlled trade union
Oct 3 2008
#16
It seems that the Federación de obreros panaderos Estrella del Perú --Peru's Star Bakers Workers Federation-- founded in 1887 exists nowadays and have a local:
Here is a meeting/forum organized by them and the anarchist newspaper Humanidad (Humanity) in oct 2008.
http://www.alasbarricadas.org/noticias/?q=node/8647
Image:
http://peru.indymedia.org/uploads/2008/09/4_octubre4.jpg
Oct 3 2008
#17
Hey, thats tomorrow! We should all send them greetings.
Oct 3 2008
#18
Bakeries and Anarchism...a pastry called the Kropotkin...wasn't he the bloke who wrote The Conquest of Bread?
Oct 4 2008
#19
That he was.
Possibly slightly irrelevant, but an interesting story I heard for the first time recently about my family - my great-grandfather was a baker in Poland back in the 1900s, and when he died (either late 20s or early 30s), my (then quite young) grandfather took over (at the time, he'd never baked a thing in his life!)
Not too long before the Nazi invasion of Poland, there was a large scale strike in his town, Bialystok (I think possibly a general strike, but not positive about that). He supported it, and offered to bake bread for the picket lines, which the local unions happily accepted. When he went to do that, some striking workers realised he was Jewish, and beat him up quite badly (for supposedly being a scab, even though he was only going to the bakery to bake bread for them - realistically it was just an excuse for an antisemitic beating). This was what made him decide to finally leave Poland, and he managed to get out just before the invasion, and became the only person in his family to survive the holocaust.