Ouvriers nomades et patrons briards : les grandes exploitations agricoles de la brie: 1848-1938
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Abstract EN:
This study is about the so-called classical agrarian capitalism that one finds in the wheat and sugar-beet farms of brie (east part of the Paris basin). The covered period, from 1848-to 1938, shows this form of capitalism at his height. However, agrarian capitalism in brie is singular for it generates and reproduces its managers but not its proletarians. The latters were recruited firstly from areas in which technical and social production modes were decaying: cottage-weavers chased from their natal Flanders by the mechanization, cowherds evicted from or fleeing the dying Morvan communities of laborers that were dissolved by the development of the market. They replace the local working force, made up partly of small landowners, who left to earn wages in the local and Parisian industries. The flows of the working force as well as its forms of recruitment became modified after the First World War. However, its characteristics did not change: Polish and Slovaks were also coming from the peasantry. As well as being unable to give birth to a local proletariat, the employers were also unable to retain the one they had attracted from abroad. Wages were indeed appealing only for the new recruits, who were not aware of the better standards of living and working conditions found outside the agriculture. Recruited by the big farmers, the migrants did always end up in the industry. It is mainly by this way that laborers did improve their conditions of life. However, the workers’ nomadism did not exclude, but quite at the contrary fed the big strikes of 1906-1907 and 1936-1937. Nevertheless these were also depending on the mobilization present in other sectors of activity as well as on the national political situation.
Abstract FR:
Le capitalisme agraire, sous sa forme classique, grandes exploitations céréalières et betteravières, telles qu'elles existent en brie, constituent l'objet de l'étude. Celle-ci porte sur la période 1848-1938 qui montre cette forme à son apogée. Ce capitalisme a cependant une caractéristique originale: il engendre et reproduit bien ses patrons mais non ses prolétaires. Ceux-ci sont recrutés d'abord au sein de mode techniques et sociaux de production en décomposition: les paysans-tisserands chasses par le machinisme de leur Flandre natale, les bouviers expulses ou fuyant les communaux tes de laboureurs du Morvan qui finissent par être dissoutes par la plus forte pénétration du marché, remplacent les travailleurs locaux, petit propriétaires ou non, partis se salarier dans l'industrie parisienne ou locale. Les courants de main d'œuvre et les formes de recrutement furent modifiés après la première guerre mondiale, mais non ses caractéristiques essentielles: Polonais et Tchécoslovaques provenaient également de sociétés paysannes. Incapable d'engendrer son propre prolétariat, le patronat est tout aussi incapable de retenir celui qu'il reconstitue: le niveau du salaire est attrayant pour les nouvelles recrues, répulsif pour ceux qui connaissent les conditions de vie et de travail hors de l'agriculture. Recrutés par les grands exploitants, les migrants finissent toujours par rejoindre l'industrie. La fuite est donc le moyen essentiel d'améliorer les conditions de vie de l'ouvrier agricole. Cependant, le nomadisme ouvrier n'exclue pas, bien au contraire il alimente, les grands mouvements de grève (1906-1907; 1936-1937). Néanmoins, ceux-ci dépendent à la fois de la mobilisation dans les autres secteurs d'activité et de la conjoncture politique nationale.