might of the entire nation in the defense of its privileges. And this history might serve as an example for further struggles targeting much more effective gains for the good of the people.
Avanti! has received from its Belgian correspondent (A. Dewinne) an account of those events, which we know to be truthful. We think it might be useful to reprint it here, summarizing some points for reasons of space, after which we shall offer our own observations.157
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From 1831 to 1893, Belgium had an electoral arrangement referred to as census suffrage. In order to qualify for the vote, one had to pay a poll tax levy, which after the ’48 riots was reduced to 42.32 Italian lire.
The levy was ordained by the Constitution, which can only be changed with the consensus of two-thirds of the members of Parliament, and the king’s endorsement. Therefore, since it could not be expected for the bourgeoisie to be sufficiently self-sacrificing as to renounce its political privileges, electoral reform looked unattainable by legal means.
For 20 years, the radicals pressed for a revision of Article 47 of the constitution prescribing the poll tax levy. In 1870 they stood 4 candidates in Brussels and were defeated. Some radicals, elected in the provinces, proposed the revision but the Chamber refused to give it any consideration.
In 1881, Janson, the leader of the radical party, moved that the administrative vote be widened to include all who had reached the age of 21 and who could read and write; but, coming under attack in the Catholic and Liberal press and showered with insults, he withdrew that motion. “Ability to read and write” remained the radicals’ formula, up until the emergence of the workers’ party that forced them into campaigning for universal suffrage.
In 1883, Janson again moved a revision of Article 47, and the motion, after a stormy debate, garnered only 11 votes, with 116 against.
In 1884, the Belgian Workers’ Party was founded in Antwerp, and instead of asking the bourgeois sitting in Parliament to grant workers the vote, the Belgian socialists addressed the workers directly, organizing them on a sound economic footing.
In 1885, at the party congress held in Ghent, Dr. César de Paepe, the most intelligent Belgian socialist, first launched the idea of the general strike in order to secure universal suffrage—an idea that was enthusiastically embraced by the Walloon workers.
The following year, formidable strikes erupted among the miners of the Borinage, Liege, and Charleroi; the strikers demanded better pay and universal suffrage. Violence broke out pretty much everywhere; armed mobs roamed the Charleroi basin, smashing up machinery, looting offices, and torching castles.
The repression was terrible. Troops opened fire on the strikers, there were many dead, and a great number of mass arrests were made.
Once calm had returned, the ferocity exhibited by the bourgeoisie was proportional to its earlier scare. The courts were merciless, and frequent sentences rained down on the poor rebels.
The entire bourgeoisie realized that there was a lesson to be learned from these events. In fact, 1886 marks the beginning of the first social legislation, behind which the Catholic government today shields itself, but which they granted only out of fear of fresh upheavals. And so the regulation of female and child labor began. Just a little bit, though! Yet for the previous half century it had not even been a consideration.
However, the government remained hostile to any revision of the Constitution and, above all, to universal suffrage.
The following year, the Workers’ Party debated whether or not the threat of a general strike should be carried out. A party congress was convened to decide, and the debates were very animated.
The miners’ delegates wanted work abandoned immediately; other delegates, especially the ones from Brussels and Ghent, vigorously opposed the idea of a general strike, finding it premature and the preparations inadequate. The congress rejected the proposal by a slight majority.
The miners’ delegates walked out, declaring that they would ignore the decision made and promote the strike.
And so the Workers’ Party was split into two factions.
The dissidents held a new congress and a general strike was approved.
Within days, thousands of miners struck. The disturbances, violence and riots of 1886 resumed. In the mining basins in Hainaut revolvers were fired and dynamite bombs were going off pretty much everywhere.
The government dispatched its most terrifying butcher, General Vandersmissen to the strike area with absolute powers. When it came to the crackdown, this sabre-rattler was ruthless; he ordered his troops to open fire on the strikers without—as required by law—issuing any warning first.
In that instance, a great number of soldiers, worked up by the socialist propaganda, fired blanks; this was a serious choice, for which they could be shot on the spot if they were caught. Many workers were killed and wounded, mass arrests were made, and the General Council of the dissident socialist party was thrown in prison.
The predictions came true: the strike came to a painful and ineffectual end.
But the newspaper Le Peuple had pointed to the presence of agents provocateurs among the armed gangs that roamed the industrial regions, and the trial of the members of the General Council proved that Le Peuple had it right. It was proved that a certain Laloin, who had chaired the congress at which the general strike was approved, was an agent provocateur. And it was also proved that one Pourbaix, who had set off dynamite bombs and issued revolvers to strikers, had had a secret night-time audience with the prime minister, Beernaert.
The upshot of the trial was the reconciliation of the two factions of the Workers’ Party, which has always been indissolubly united ever since.
The Belgian socialists then laid the groundwork for a new general strike. Hundreds of comrades came forward as makeshift orators, writers, and organizers.
For four years, meetings were held in every region of the country—all of them calling for universal suffrage.
On August 10, 1890, Brussels witnessed a demonstration, which even the bourgeois press estimated was 80,000-strong; they marched through the streets of the city under torrential rainfall and a veritable hurricane without dispersing.
Once the huge crowd arrived at a suburban open space that had a commanding view of the entire city, before breaking up they made the following solemn pledge, of which everyone had a copy in writing: “Belgian workers swear that they shall not stop and shall not rest for a moment until they have won universal suffrage.”
Scarcely had the party’s orators read out the pledge than a formidable cry arose from the chests of all workers assembled in the vast clearing. “We swear it,” they said, to endless applause, while the rain continued to fall in torrents.
It was an unforgettable sight.
From that day on, things happened quickly.
In November, the socialists organized another demonstration, the delegates from which were received at the town hall by Buls, the city burgomaster, and by Janson.
Buls and Janson, both of them deputies representing the capital, were approached by Volders on behalf of the Workers’ Party, and promised to table a motion for review. They were true to their word and this time the motion was unanimously added to the agenda; but despite the lobbying by the left, the discussion of it was postponed until
