The net effect of the deflation that unfolded after 1920 was to tame the drama of post-war politics. Above all it broke the onrush of the labour movement. As unemployment surged and prices fell the momentum ebbed away from the trade unions. But its implications both domestic and international were more comprehensive than merely the crushing of the left. The deflation worked to contain the right as well. Whilst revolutionaries and paramilitaries traded blows on street corners, picket lines and in meeting halls, deflation acted as a force for strategic demobilization not only across the world
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