How did the Journalist Wilhelm Wolff describe the revolt led by the Silesia weavers against contractors in 1845?
Answers
Life Edit
Wolff was born in Tarnau, Kreis Frankenstein, Silesia (now Tarnów, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, (Ząbkowice Śląskie), Poland). In 1831 he became active as a radical student organization member, for which he was imprisoned between 1834 and 1838.
In 1846, in Brussels, Wolff became a close friend of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He was active in the Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee and a member of the League of the Just in addition to being Co-founder of the League of Communists in 1848 as a member of its central authority. He served as an editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1848-9 and as a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly.
Wolff emigrated to Switzerland in 1849 and then to England in 1851.
Legacy Edit
On his death, Wolff left a substantial fortune to Marx, who dedicated the first volume of Das Kapital to him with the line "To my unforgettable friend, Wilhelm Wolff. Intrepid, faithful, noble protagonist of the proletariat."[1]
Gerhart Hauptmann's play Die Weber (The Weavers) is based on Wolff's essay about the weavers' uprising in Silesia in 1844 and its suppression, Das Elend und der Aufuhr in Schlesien.[2]
References Edit
^ "Glossary of People: Wolff, Wilhelm". Marxist Internet Archive.
^ Eyck, Frank The Revolutions of 1848 Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, 1972 p. 19
External links Edit
Archive of Wilhelm Wolff Papers at the International Institute of Social History
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Answer:
In 1845, weavers of Silesia had led a revolt against contractors who supplied them raw materials. They gave them order for finished textiles but drastically reduced their payments.
1. The workers were living in extreme poverty and misery.
2. The desperate need for has been taken advantage of by the contractors to reduce the prices of the goods they order.
3. On 4 June at 2 P.M. a large crowd of weavers emerged from their homes and marched in pairs up to the mansion of their contractor demanding higher wages.
4. They were treated with scorn and threats alternately.
5. A group of weavers entered in to a house of a contractor. They smashed the window panes, furniture and porcelain. They entered the storehouse and tore to shreds the supplies of cloth.
6. The contractor fled away with his family to a neighboring village and came back after 24 hours with army.