Between Class War on All Fronts and Anti-Political Autonomy: The Contested Place of Politics in the Working-Class Movements of Leipzig and Lyon during the Inter-War Years

Abstract

AbstractThis article investigates the contested boundaries of the political within the working-class movements in Leipzig and Lyon at the end of the Weimar Republic and during the Popular Front. What the appropriate issues and places of politics should be was a question that was highly contested among the organisations of the local working-class movements in both cities. The article argues that an over-politicisation of the left-proletarian milieu in Leipzig contributed to the working-class movement's failure successfully to mobilise against the Nazis, while the dynamics of politicisation in Lyon helped the formation of the Popular Front in Lyon, but then contributed to its rapid collapse.