The origin of the working movement in Oporto (Porto): the mutualist association (1850-70)

Abstract

This text intends to present a description of the origin, development and organization of the first working class associations in Oporto: the mutual aid associations. The period covered by this study goes from the appearance of the first organization of this kind, in 1852, up to the beginning of the seventies, when the Portuguese working class movement was to have a significant change at the organizing and ideological level. In his analysis of the working class organizations in Oporto, the author underlines specially the organizing aspects (the internal organization of the associations, the processus of their formation, the analysis of their expenses, the internal democraticity, the relations between the direction and the members, etc.), neglecting the ideological analysis of mutualism. This position was taken in order to point out the internal tensions of the mutualist associativism that were revealing an evolutive processus towards other forms of working class organization. To this purpose, an analysis is made concerning some typical pressures («political», trade-unionist, corporatist) existing in the mutualism of that time, but all of them aiming at their overtaking at the level of organization and ideology.