From December 20, 1960, to January 18, 1961, a wave of strikes swept across Belgium, much to the dismay of those who (even then!) were discussing the disappearance of the working class and the end of the class struggle. Four years earlier, there had indeed been the "events" in Poland and Hungary with their workers' councils. But then, it was argued, to downplay their significance, the movement had taken place in Eastern European countries, certainly developed, but poor, and it was primarily a political revolt against a bureaucratic and dictatorial power, one of those struggles for freedom that the West so admires. In the case of Belgium in 1960-1961, none of these linguistic artifices applied, because this time we were dealing with the proletariat of an industrialized and wealthy country mobilizing against a capitalist government.
The Context
At the end of the 1950s, we were in the midst of a major industrial transformation, with all the chaos and consequences for workers that this entailed. After Wallonia's golden age of capitalist expansion and industrial development based on steel and coal, a rebalancing was taking place, to Flanders' advantage. Coal, as everywhere in Europe, was in crisis (no fewer than 11 mines had to be closed in the Borinage region); the steel industry was tending to relocate to the coastal areas of Flanders, with its ports (Bruges and Antwerp) increasingly aligned with the globalization of the economy and the central role played by oil. Flemish capitalism, less rooted in the traditions that had brought prosperity to its Walloon counterpart, was becoming more dynamic, focusing on new technologies and especially on the automobile. The image of a wealthy Wallonia and a miserable Flanders that had characterized the first half of the century was becoming blurred.
This business-led restructuring required significant financial involvement from the state. However, the windfall generated by the exploitation of the Congo, which had fueled industrial development and enriched Belgian capitalists (the Lambert, Empain, and other families), dried up with the colony's independence on June 30, 1960[1]. The state was broke! The "liberal-Christian" government and its leader, Gaston Eyskens, had only the classic solution to replenish the coffers: making the workforce pay. A proposed "single law" aimed to raise the retirement age, increase taxes, and cut unemployment benefits.
A fierce struggle ensued... Left-wing political parties and unions, primarily the FGTB (General Federation of Belgian Workers), verbally expressed their opposition to the proposal. A strike notice was nevertheless filed... for December 20th, even though the strike had been in effect and widespread since the 13th, following initiatives and numerous walkouts by rank-and-file workers across the country for weeks. The strike began in the civil service, among the most exploited of its employees, the municipal workers, then spread to steelworkers and would eventually involve up to a million participants. Clashes escalated with the 40,000 gendarmes and soldiers mobilized by the government. It took on an insurrectionary character (paratroopers occupied train stations; in Liège, violent clashes resulted in two deaths; thousands of acts of sabotage were recorded, often to prevent strikebreakers from restarting production). On December 24th, an appeal for fraternization with the strikers was issued to the soldiers. The newspapers that published it were seized. Further clashes resulted in four deaths.
Initially, it was mostly Walloon workers who demonstrated and stopped work, but the movement began to spread to several Flemish cities (Renaix, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, etc.).
The danger for the bourgeoisie was that Catholic Flanders, hitherto steeped in conservative ideology and which had not experienced the early emergence of a proletariat carrying socialist ideas, was now producing a working class free from pre-capitalist ideological dross. For us, on the contrary, it was a hope that could have been embodied in the project of a great march on Brussels. The idea spread favorably among the strike committees and the grassroots structures of the unions, with the prospect of giving the movement a second wind by bringing together Flemish and Walloon workers in the capital, united hand in hand against a common enemy: the central government and the capitalist class. While enthusiasm reigns in the streets and factories, anxiety reigns in ministerial offices. This anxiety is shared by the Socialist Party and the upper echelons of the FGBT (Belgian General Federation of Labour). The latter is incapable of organizing and controlling such an event given the complexity and disorganization of Belgian trade unionism. Only structures stemming from the strike committees would have been capable of taking charge of the project. This was not the case. These committees, which rank-and-file workers had begun to elect in several locations, played a major role in the development of the movement.
... but taken over by the FGTB (General Federation of Belgian Labour)
Overwhelmed at the outset, the unions very quickly imposed THEIR strike committees, appointed from the top of the bureaucracy. This would later allow them, with the help of the socialists, to abandon the strike and negotiate its end at the expense of the strikers. On January 3, the charismatic and extremely popular Walloon leader of the FGTB, André Renard, delivered a major speech in which he rejected the idea of marching on Brussels, reviving the idea of a federal Belgium that would give way to a unitary state. There was no "left-wing" criticism of the state as such to be seen here, but rather a marked preference for the language struggle over the class struggle! He summed up the situation thus: "It's a Flemish government crushing a Walloon strike!" André Renard is one of those charismatic, outspoken, and eloquent figures that the labor movement is so adept at producing when it comes to shifting from revolutionary demagoguery to class collaboration.
The strike committees failed to maintain control over a movement they had initiated. The leap that would have involved opening up to one another, taking charge of organizing the movement and the factories themselves, was not made. Ultimately, the strike was called off after 35 days. The "single law," an unjust law, was passed and implemented. The regional question replaced the social question, which would lead in 1993 to Belgium becoming a federal state. In our view, the positive outcome will be a Belgian bourgeoisie haunted by the specter of a new strike of the century and the return of the working class to the forefront.
Six years later in Flanders, in Limburg...
A return that would hit her hard in 1966 in Limburg, Flanders, when a miners' strike at the Zwartberg coal mine sparked bloody riots in the coalfield, leaving two dead. While it was believed that the government had yielded to the demands of the Flemish miners and that the unions had just issued the order to return to work, the workers had other ideas. 800 miners who had been on strike underground returned to the surface. But 700 others immediately went back down to take their place-despite the unions' ban. Several hundred more miners then spread through the town to encourage other miners to continue the strike. On the way, they sabotaged railway lines, telegraph and electricity pylons, and then, after overwhelming the security forces, stormed the Winterslag coal mine. Law enforcement will be forced to comb the streets, house by house, to dislodge the rioters. Paratrooper detachments will be deployed, and armored vehicles will be placed on alert. It's over.
JPD
The Strike from Below
"As soon as they launched the strike, the workers felt liberated, human relationships changed, and everyone in the workforce came together in a great surge of camaraderie. For a month, two societies existed in Belgium: on one side, official society continued to function, Parliament continued to operate, officers continued to command, and boards of directors continued to administer." On the other hand, there was the society of the working world that was created in the streets, in meetings, on picket lines, trampling underfoot all the values of the other world, destroying hierarchical relationships, flouting the sacrosanct principles of money in the capitalist world, sweeping away individualism, recreating genuine human relationships between individuals, giving rise to a society imbued with friendship and solidarity. It was this atmosphere that sustained this movement, gave it its momentum and all its fighting spirit. It is this community that many workers are still desperately trying to recreate after the strike.
Notes
[1]It can never be overstated how the colonization of the Congo was a cascade of mass atrocities on a level unmatched except later by the Third Reich. The personal property of the king, who donated it to the Belgian state in 1908, the Congo became "independent"
https://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4710
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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