Poverty and harsh working conditions forced the rural poor and proletariat to organize and fight through strikes. Although there were strikes in previous years, those in 1897 were the most massive. The center of the struggle was in Elemir, and the most significant battle took place in Potisje, in the former District, where the strike gained the most momentum in Turski Bečej, Kuman, Melenac, and especially in the Torda municipality.
Before the strikes broke out, arrests had already occurred because workers across Vojvodina, despite the ban, celebrated International Workers' Day (May 1st) in 1897. When spring planting began, workers stopped working and raised their demands, which surprised and frightened the authorities. The strike also erupted in Kuman, where workers demanded higher wages, better and higher-quality food, the abolition of forced labor (kuluk), and a twelve-hour workday. To force employers to accept their demands, agricultural workers from Kuman, Melenac, Elemir, and other villages formed larger groups (500-600 people), armed with sickles, hoes, and pitchforks, and alternately, for a week, besieged the "county building" in Veliki Bečkerek (now Zrenjanin), where their delegates were negotiating with the county prefect.
To suppress the strikes, the authorities brought in strikebreakers from southern Banat, people who had suffered from floods. With the escort of gendarmes, they arrived in Kuman. However, the strikers were well-organized, patrolling villages in groups of 100-200, not allowing strikebreakers to work. This was reported in the press: "Every day we see that the workers' movement is becoming better organized. Agricultural work has completely stopped. Around 100-200 workers go out in the mornings to see if workers from other places are working. They drive them away with kind words or threats, although these workers came from flood-stricken areas and were interested in earning money. The strikers managed to convince most of the workers not to accept contract agreements. Here and there, one or two would agree to sign a contract, but even they were unreliable, as they would back out at the last moment." For this reason, the gendarmerie forced workers to go out to the fields. Under threat, the workers went out, sat on the ground, and mockingly said: "No one can force us to work. We are here, let that satisfy you."
The strike was successful, and employers were forced to accept the agricultural workers' demands. The main driving force behind the strikes was the Socialist Party, which supplied workers with leaflets and printed materials from socialist literature through rural organizations. "The socialist movement finds the most favorable base in Serbian municipalities, and one of the main reasons for this is the printed propaganda material in Serbian."
As the socialist movement in Banat gained strength, public opinion increasingly focused on this issue. The bourgeois press was forced to write about it, noting that the main cause of the workers' movement was poverty and dire conditions in the countryside. It was stated that agricultural workers could work only 80-100 days a year, and they were forced to support their families with the earnings from that period. The press also noted that socialist leaders, the "apostles," went to neighboring municipalities, around Zrenjanin, where socialist newspapers and magazines immediately began to appear.
Vojislav Gavrilović, in his manuscript "Kumane before the First World War," mentions this strike, noting that 59 years ago a strike broke out in Kuman, where there were 10 sets of threshers. "The owners of the threshers and landlords met the strikers' demands, fearing that the grain in their storage would sprout. The strike lasted several days."
After the wave of strikes by agricultural workers, who succeeded thanks to the sacrifices and determination of the rural proletariat, from December 25-27, 1897, the Agricultural Workers' Congress was held in Budapest, with delegates from Banat attending. After that, the movement became more organized and widespread in the villages, based on the congress resolution, which energetically demanded a twelve-hour workday, with the ultimate goal of introducing an eight-hour workday based on the program of the Socialist Party. The resolution also called for all agricultural work to be paid in cash, overtime work for all agricultural workers, including seasonal workers, to be paid by the hour, the abolition of "forced labor," and the introduction of piecework.
Some points of this resolution were the demands of agricultural workers that they had fought for during the 1897 strikes.
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