Historical Events of the Revolutionary World Movement

Weaver Revolt in Silesia 1844

On July 4, weavers broke into the headquarters of the Zwanziger Brothers, a textile company in Peterswaldau, and destroyed everything. In the morning, the weavers, armed with makeshift weapons, left Peterswaldau and headed toward Langenbielau. When they arrived, they were met by Major Rosenberger and two companies of infantry. The troops opened fire and killed several bystanders. The weavers, incensed by the killings, managed to drive the soldiers away and continued on their destructive path.
 

Silesia Uprising

Word arrived of an uprising in the Prussian region of Silesia, where on June 4, 1844, a group of weavers marched on the home of Prussian industrialists. Their demands for higher pay denied, the weavers stormed the house and destroyed it. The next day, as many as 5,000 weavers and their families burst into homes and factories, destroyed machines, and looted and ransacked residences and offices. The industrialists called in the Prussian military, which fired on the crowd, killing 35.
The revolt was the first of its kind involving industrial workers in Germany, and though it failed, Marx recognized in it the connection he sought between an impassioned proletariat, economics and the state. The driving force behind the rebellion was not an abstraction such as religion or ethnicity or a throne, as many had been in the past, but something much more tangible: bread.

Today Heinrich Heine is probably best known for his prediction, “Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings”. Personally I’ve always preferred his slightly more lighthearted comment, “We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged”.
In his day he was one of the most famous poets in Prussia and the Silesian Weavers is probably his most famous work. The weavers worked for incredibly low wages, and as the industrial revolution gathered pace were gradually made unemployed in ever-increasing numbers. Their landlords also took most of their wages, to the point where they were effectively being treated as slave labour. As a result they rebelled against the state in 1844. The uprising was crushed but marked one of the first times that organised workers really attempted to improve their lot in life by working together. As a result it still has a huge symbolic significance amongst socialist movements worldwide. The weavers inspired Heine to write his poem but also for Carl Wilhelm Huebner to paint the scene above.
The poem deals directly with the issue of workers rights and how they are exploited and oppressed by the rich. Heine suggests that a day of reckoning can not be long postponed, and that sooner or later the rich will be forced to make amends.  In the poem monarchy, religion and nationalism are dismissed as being of little comfort then your family is starving and your rights are crushed underfoot. Heine was familiar with Karl Marx and it was Marx’s colleague and friend Friedrich Engels who first translated the poem into English.
I was thinking of the poem this week because of the ongoing events in Wisconsin in the US, and the dispute between local government and the trade unions. I think it’s always important to remember that certain rights were only won at great cost and therefore its important that we protect them as best we can.
Here is the full text of The Silesian Weavers:
In lightless eyes there are not tears.
They sit at the loom and gnash the gears.
Germany, we weave the cloth of the dead
Threefold be the curse we weave ’round your head
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.
A curse to the god to whom we knelt.
Through the winter’s cold, such hunger felt.
In the past we hoped, we waited, we cried
You’ve mocked us and poxed us and cast us aside
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.
A curse on the king of the empire,
Who would not quell our misery’s fire.
He took every penny we had to give
Then shot us like dogs with no right to live
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.
A curse on the cold, ruthless fatherland,
Where outrage and shame fester by your hand,
Where blossoms are trampled under your boot,
Where rot and decay are allowed to take root.
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.
The shuttle is flying, the weaving looms roar.
Day and night we weave with you at our door.
Old Germany, we weave the cloth of the dead.
Threefold be the curse we weave ’round your head.
We’re weaving, we’re weaving.