ABSTRACT
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed an analysis of combinations which has often been employed to gauge the relative strength of unionism at different times or in different regions. They emphasised that as the labour movement grew in Stockport, it shifted: from temporary combinations, such as those organised for a single strike, to more permanent institutions, with officers, treasuries, and long-term objectives; from combinations consisting only of skilled workers to those which organised the semi-skilled and the unskilled; from partial, local combinations, which included only a segment of a given trade, to comprehensive, national combinations; from simple intra-trade organisations to those which focused on inter-trade alliances; and from combinations concerned only with industrial matters like apprenticeship regulations, introduction of new machinery, wages and hours, to those with explicit political concerns like the formation of a workers' party and the acquisition of power in the state.
