# The Revolutionary Crisis of 1918-1921 in Germany, England, Italy and France

No. 3 in the Labor Herald Library
LABOR HERALD LIBRARY № 3
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Militants, Notice!!
Organize! Join the Trade Union Educational League. This is a system of informal committees throughout the entire union movement, organized to infuse the mass with revolutionary understanding and spirit. It is working for the closer affiliation and solidification of our existing craft unions until they have been developed into industrial unions. Believing that all workers should stand together regardless of their social or other opinions, it is opposed to the common policy of radical and progressive-minded workers quitting the trade unions and starting rival organizations based upon ideal principles. That policy is one of the chief reasons why the American labor movement is not further advanced. Its principal effects are to destroy all radical organization in the old unions and to leave the reactionaries in undisputed control.
The Trade Union Educational League is in no sense a dual union, nor is it affiliated with any such organization. It is purely an educational body of militants within existing mass unions, who are seeking through the application of modern methods to bring the policies and structure of the labor movement into harmony with present day economic conditions. It bespeaks the active cooperation of all militant union workers. For further details apply to the
WM. Z. FOSTER, Secretary-Treasurer
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Labor Herald Library No. 3
The Revolutionary Crisis of 1918–1921
in Germany, England, Italy and France
By Wm. Z. Foster
Price 25c
Published by THE TRADE UNION EDUCATIONAL LEAGUE
26
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
The great labor upheaval that shook all Europe following the war constitutes the first serious attempt of the proletariat to overthrow the capitalist system. The workers, horrified by the terrible slaughter and awakened to the bitter injustices of the wages system, made a desperate effort to do away with the state of society which engenders such crimes. But they failed: they were unable to break the power of the capitalist class. Only in Russia and Hungary were revolutions actually achieved—and the one in Hungary was quickly drowned in blood by the victorious reactionaries.
During my recent visit to Europe as a Federated Press correspondent I had an opportunity to study the post-war revolutionary movements in Germany, England, Italy, and France, and in the following pages I shall try to portray briefly their general outlines and the causes of their failure, together with such preceding and succeeding events as may prove interesting and instructive to American readers.
Wm. Z. Foster.
Chicago, Dec. 15, 1921.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1921, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1961, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 62 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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