A form of mass movement, refers to the social movement joined, driven and led by the working class in order to fight for its own political, economic and cultural interests. The main subject of the workers’ movement is the working class, which includes the working-class political parties, trade unions and other workers’ organizations. In The Condition of the Working Class in England, Engels wrote: The factory-hands, eldest children of the industrial revolution, have from the beginning to the present day formed the nucleus of the workers’ movement, and the others have joined this movement just in proportion as their handicraft has been invaded by the progress of machinery. After the Industrial Revolution in Europe during the mid-18th century, with the rapid development of capitalism, the ranks of industrial workers gradually formed, the cruel exploitation of workers by capitalists intensified the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie. In the 1850s and 1860s, the industrial production of capitalist countries in Western Europe doubled and the industrial proletariat grew rapidly, while the fundamental contradictions and class contradictions of the capitalist society became increasingly intense, and the economic crises of capitalism arose, which were the socio-economic prerequisites and class basis for the formation and development of the workers’ movement…
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