Between the Social and Political Radicalism of 1918 – 1939

The means that people used to make it clear that they were feeling impoverished, marginalized, humiliated or disadvantaged in society were varied. They generally depended on the intensity of the feeling of threat and injustice, on the mentality and political culture of the affected group or class and also on the options made available to them by the ruling regime. The inter-war republic was no exception. Whether it was violent hunger riots of rural or urban "riff-raff" or cultured middle-class protests, they usually signalled where the neuralgic points of social cohesion were and where obstacles to the more harmonious society lay. On the other hand, the reactions of the state and social elite showed the extent to which society was able to cope with social problems, whether these problems pushed society forward, on the way to achieving its ideals or whether the problems brought it to an ever deeper paralysis. The Forum Historiae 2/2015 deals with the outlined aspects of the phenomenon of social and political protest.