Hitlers Ernennung zum deutschen Reichskanzler am 30. Januar 1933; der Brand des Reichstages in Berlin am 27. Februar und die einen Tag später erlassene „Notverordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat”; der erste Boykott jüdischer Geschäfte am 1. April; die Auflösung der Gewerkschaften am 2. Mai und die Bücherverbrennung vom 10. Mai, mit der ein Grossteil der literarischen und wissenschaftlichen Produktion der Weimarer Periode als „geistiger Unflat” und „jüdische Entartung” verdammt wurde; schliesslich das Verbot der SPD am 22. Juni und das „Gesetz gegen die Neubildung von Parteien” vom 14. Juli 1933 – diese und eine Reihe anderer Ereignisse führten dazu, dass schlagartig Tausende Deutsch-land verliessen: führende politische Persönlichkeiten der Weimarer Republik, Wissenschaftler, Künstler, Schriftsteller, Journalisten und viele Angehörige des jüdischen Bürgertums.

The first World War was an important period in the history of the British trade union and labour movement. It is well known that at a national level the leaders of the trade unions were consulted by the government to a greater extent than ever before, and that the signing of the Treasury Agreements represented a recognition of their importance, and made them partners in the prosecution of the war. Labour Party leaders also became members of the administration, thus confirming once and for all that they were “fit to govern”. These were significant developments for the working class movement, but they did not take place without sharpened disagreements within the movement and the growth of increasingly radical political and social attitudes. The purpose of this article is to show that at a local level there were almost precisely parallel developments for the working class movement during the war years. There was a similar accession to power, if more limited, and to prestige in the local community, if often more grudgingly conceded. At the same time there was a growth of general disillusionment with the work which was undertaken, and by the end of the war, an increasingly militant attitude on trade union and general political questions.

By the early years of the twentieth century, the two major socialist parties in Russia, the Social Democrats and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, had taken shape. But these two parties did not win the adherence of all of Russia's revolutionary activists. There existed in addition a series of small extremist groups that formed what might be called the “militant fringe” of the revolutionary movement. These groups differed among themselves on programs, methods and ultimate objectives, but they all rejected the leading parties as insufficiently committed to revolution or too slow-moving in their tactics to achieve it. Although they never attained the numerical or organizational strength of the SD's and SR's, they remained a significant element in the revolutionary movement and left their mark on Russia's political life. The three main components of the militant fringe were the anarchists, the SR Maximalists, and the Makhaevists. Of these the Makhaevists are almost unknown today, although they formed organizations in several cities and rivalled the Maximalists and anarchists for the allegiance of the revolutionary extremists. An account of their program and activities will help to shed light on a segment of the Russian political spectrum whose insight into Russia's social and political condition has been underestimated, and on the revolutionary role of its smallest but in many ways most original element.

The last three decades of the nineteenth century were marked in British social history by a vigorous and far-reaching debate about the causes and incidence of poverty amongst the elderly. By the early 1890s this controversy had produced a sharp cleavage of opinion between those commentators who held that old-age pauperism was largely a product of character defects and those who attributed it to certain social and economic ills which the individual, acting alone, could never hope to remedy. Social thinkers who subscribed to this latter view – the loosely labelled collectivist school of thought – were not content, however, merely with the work of analysis; they were equally anxious to find a panacea for one of the main social problems of the day. In the end the solution they most widely canvassed was the introduction of an old age pensions scheme in which the state would have a vital rle to play. But perhaps of more significance for the development of social services in Great Britain, three of the leading advocates of state intervention endeavoured, in their own distinctive styles, to translate this general declaration of intent into detailed programmes of action.