Reflections on Comparative Everyday History: Practices in the Working-Class Movement in Leipzig and Lyon during the Early 1930s 1

Abstract

The essay develops a methodological approach to writing comparative history of everyday life and discusses methodological problems this involves. To empirically ground this discussion, it compares the working-class movements' reactions to the rise of the radical right in Leipzig and Lyon in the early 1930s. Methodologically, the essay argues for ‘dissecting’ stories, the ‘raw material’ historians of everyday life use, and comparing different aspects of such stories, for example the place where they take place or the tools actors use, This approach allows both for arriving at meaningful conclusions based on comparisons, and maintaining the sense of complexity and ‘messiness’ that characterizes the history of everyday life. A comparative approach to the history of everyday life might thus be a way to integrate micro- and macro-historical approaches. Empirically, the essay suggests that the deep politicization of the working-class movement in Leipzig contributed to its rapid collapse, first because it made conflicts between Sccial Democrats and Communists an everyday experience for many activists, and second because these activists were so frustrated by politics that they turned away from politics altogether. In Lyon, in contrast, the relative weakness of a political working-class movement helps explain the initial success of the Popular Front.