Not Only Paramilitarism: Civil Militias, Strike-Breaking Groups, and the Long-Term Origins of Bourgeois Armed Mobilisation in Europe (ca. 1900s-1923)

Scholars have interpreted post-WWI paramilitarism as resulting from the brutalising effect of war, defeat, state collapse, and revolutionary contagion in Central and Eastern Europe. However, these approaches do not account for all forms of armed mobilisation in post-war Europe. Throughout the continent, civil militias, strike-breaking organisations and vigilante groups were formed or revived in response to strikes and social protests. Although less spectacular and brutal than full-fledged paramilitary groups, these groups established a transnational counter-revolutionary network to coordinate their response to revolutionary threats. This chapter makes three key contributions to current scholarship on paramilitarism and fascism. Firstly, it emphasises that post-war armed mobilisation was part of a longer tradition. Secondly, the development of militias and strike-breaking groups spanned the continent from Portugal to Poland and included countries that had not experienced war, defeat or state collapse. Thirdly, the chapter emphasises that armed mobilisation provided fertile ground for the consensus enjoyed by fascism among broad sectors of the middle classes.