VI
THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMALISM
AFTER the armistice, and particularly after the
L\ elections of November 1919, there was a rush to join
JLjLthe c red ' General Confederation of Labour, which
swept in all classes of labour, including private employees,
skilled labourers, state employees, and in many districts
the local societies of small shop-keepers. The 321,000
members of the General Confederation of Labour at the
beginning of the war had increased to 2,200,000 by the end
of 1920. The same thing was happening in every country.
In France the Confederation Gmerak du Travail, from a million
members in 1914, reckoned 2,400,000 early in 1920 ; in
Germany the two and a half millions of 1913 leapt to eight
millions in 1920 ; even in England the careful calculations
of the Trade Unions showed over the same period an
increase of 1,572,391 to 4,317,537 in their membership.
An epidemic of strikes broke out and reached its peak in
1920 in Italy as elsewhere, although it was soon put an
end to by the cold douche of the economic crisis.1
1 This is illustrated by the statistics of strikes in the years 1919-22 taken
from the Annuaire of the Statistique Gtnlrak de France ;~—
england (a] 1352     1607	7^3
(b) 2400     1779	1770	512
germany (a) 3719 3807	4455	4785
(b) 1938 1429	1489	2046
france (a) 2026 1832	475	665
(b) n6x 1317	402	290
italy   (a) 1871     2070	1134	575
(b) 1554     2314	724	448
U.S.A.  (a) 3630     3411	2385	112
(b)     —               —	—	—
(a) Number of disputes (strikes and lock-outs).   (4) Number of strikes and
workers locked out in thousands.
Germany is the exception which proves the	rule, for the number of strikes
did not begin to fall until 1925, when the economic crisis	occurred in-
dependently of inflation.
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