Workers and Intellectuals

Abstract

The major national upheavals of the late twentieth century have pivoted on shifts of allegiance in workers and intellectuals. These two groups have been the focus of attempts to rebuild nations after war or revolution, in such diverse contexts as the post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, post-apartheid South Africa and post-intervention Iraq. Workers are crucial to economic life, and can generate material recovery and prosperity. Intellectuals are crucial to cultural life, and can generate a sense of common purpose and identity, including an attractive face to present to the outside world. Conversely, oppositional movements among workers, and dissident movements among intellectuals, may both create conditions of instability in which the future of a country is placed in jeopardy. Rebuilding the French nation after the Second World War, the imperative of national unity was accepted by both workers and intellectuals, most of whom were persuaded that the interests of the nation should override their sectional interests. These interests were traditionally reflected in the class-consciousness of workers, and in the intellectuals’ sense of professional autonomy. Both gave way, at least temporarily, to a sense of their duty to serve, or represent, the nation. Neither was easily achieved, or painless, but the willingness of both groups to subordinate themselves to the greater national good was a defining characteristic of the reinvented post-war France.