The situation of the Portuguese working-class on the eve of the Republic implantation

Abstract

Contrarily to many interpretations that see the working-class as a homogenous block, the notion of political class composition points to an analysis as fine as possible regarding the sections into which the working-class is divided and, more largely, the proletariat. Each cycle of struggles corresponds to a movement of political recomposition, i.e.: to a processus through which the class trends to be homogenous under the hegemony of one or more among its sections. Thus the first chapter of this article tries to identify some of the largest divisions that crossed the body of the Portuguese proletariat on the eve of the implantation of the Portuguese Republic. Those large divisions - that were not merely sociological but also political - appeared, first of all, under the form of regional divisions; nevertheless, the author tries to intersect them with other data in order to surpass the mere socio-economic geography. It is according to that orientation the second chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the available informative elements about wages, standard of life and working time - using, to this effect, the results of the Inquest ordered by King Manuel II himself, on the 26^th November 1909. Finally, in a third chapter, the author deals with what is the true touchstone of the political class composition of the working-class: the targets which this working-class was aiming at then. They are material and organizing targets, through which one might see, even in a very undefined way, the sketch of an alternative for the system inside and against which such targets were raising.