-
Organizing the Working Classes
Trade Unions
- a. Trade unions formed and functioned as mutual aid societies in first half of 19th
- i. In return for small weekly payment, benefits were provided to assist unemployed workers
-
Late 19th
- a. Late 19th: desire to improve working and living conditions led many industrial workers to form political parties and labor unions based on Marx’s ideas
- i. Germany was big on socialist/ working-class parties
-
Marxist leaders
- 1. Under direction of two Marxist leaders, Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel, the German Social Democratic Party espoused revolutionary Marxist rhetoric while organizing self as mass political party competing in elections for the Reichstag
- a. Once in Reichstag (German parliament), SDP delegates worked to enact legislation to improve condition of working class
-
Despite government
- 1. Despite government efforts to destroy it, the SDP grew
- a. 1890: 1.5 million votes and 35 seats in Reichstagà 4 million votes (1912)
-
Other socialist parties
- a. Other socialist parties formed in other European countries, but not so successful
- i. France had some
- 1. Leader of French socialism, Jean Jaures, was independent socialist who looked to the French revolutionary tradition rather than Marxism to justify revolutionary socialism
-
1905 and other countries
- 1. 1905; unified themselves into a single, mostly Marxist-oriented socialist party
- ii. Other countries based on German model formed
- 1. Marxist Social Democratic Labor Party organized in Russia by 1898
-
Growth of socialist party
- a. With growth of socialist party came agitation for international organization that would strengthen position against international capitalism
- 1889: leaders of various socialist parties formed Second International, organized as loose association of national groups
-
May Day
- 1. Took some coordinated actions—May Day (May 1): international labor day marked by strikes, etc.—differences wreaked havoc at the organization’s congresses
- a. Two issues were divisive: revisionism and nationalism
-
Evolutionary Socialism
- i. Some Marxists believed in pure Marxism that accepted the imminent collapse of capitalism and the need for socialist ownership of the means of production
- 1. Severe challenge to this Orthodox Marxist position arose in the form of evolutionary socialism, also known as revisionism
-
Eduard Bernstein
i. Most prominent among evolutionary socialists was Eduard Bernstein, a member of the German Social Democratic Party who had spent years in exile in Britain, where he had been influenced by moderate English socialism and the British parliamentary system
-
1899: Bernstein
- 1. 1899: Bernstein challenged Marxist orthodoxy with his Evolutionary Socialism in which he argued that some of Marx’s ideas were wrong
- a. Capitalist system had not broken down and middle class wasn’t declining, but expanding; proletariat wasn’t sinking further down, but improving conditions
-
Discard Marx's emphasis
- a. He discarded his emphasis on class struggle and revolution
- i. The workers, Bernstein believed, must continue to organize in mass political parties and even work together with the other advanced elements in a nation to bring about change
- 1. With extension of right to vote, workers were in a better position than ever to achieve their aims through democratic channels
- 2. Evolution by democratic means, not revolution, would achieve the desired goal of socialism
-
German and French Socialist leaders
- 1. German and French socialist leaders, as well as the Second International, condemned evolutionary socialism as heresy and opportunism
- a. But many socialist parties, including the German Social Democrats, while spouting revolutionary slogans, followed Bernstein’s revisionist, gradualist approach
-
Nationalism
- a. Nationalism was a second divisive issue for international socialism
- i. Marx and Engels: working men have no country and national differences between peoples are vanishing due to development of bourgeoisie= WRONG!
-
Congresses of the Second International
- i. Congresses of the Second International passed resolutions in 1907 and 1910 advocating joint action by workers of different countries to avert warà no real machinery to implement the resolutions
- 1. Socialist parties varied from country to country and remained tied to national concerns and issues
-
Socialist leaders
- i. Socialist leaders always worried that in the end, national loyalties might outweigh class loyalties among the masses
- ii. Nationalism was more powerful than socialism
-
Workers
- a. Workers also formed trade unions to improve working conditions
- i. Attempts didn’t come until after unions won right to strike in 1870s
- 1. Strikes were necessary to achieve workers’ goals
- a. Female workers walkout; dockworkers walkoutà establishment of trade union organization for both groups
-
1900
- i. 1900: 2 million workers in British unionsà start of WWI: 3-4 million (1/5 workforce)
- ii. Trade unions were slower developing on continent
- 1. France: union movement was from the beginning closely tied to socialist ideology
- a. Due to French socialist parties, the socialist trade unions were badly splintered
-
1895
- a. 1895: French trade unions created a national organization called the General Confederation of Labor
- i. Its decentralization and failure to include some of the more important individual unions kept it weak and ineffective
-
German
- 1. German: trade unions first formed in 1860s
- a. Although there were liberal trade unions comprising skilled artisans and Catholic or Christian trade unions, the largest German trade unions were those of the socialists
-
1899
- i. 1899: even latter had accepted practice of collective bargaining with employers
- 1. As strikes and collective bargaining achieved successes, German workers were increasingly inclined to forgo revolution for gradual improvements
- a. 1914: its 3 million members made the German trade union movement the second largest in Europe, after Britain
- i. 85% of these 3 million belonged to socialist unions
-
Trade Unions
1. Trade unions in the rest of Europe had different successes, but by WWI, they made considerable progress in battering both the living and working conditions of the laboring classes
-
Despite revolutionary rhetoric
- a. Despite revolutionary rhetoric, socialist parties and trade unions became less radicalà anarchism
- i. At first, not violent since early anarchists believed people’s inherent goodness but corruption by state and society
- 1. True freedom only achieved by abolishing the state and all existing social institutions
-
2nd half of 19th
- i. 2nd half of 19th: anarchists in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Russia used radical means for goal
- 1. Russian Michael Bakunin believed that small groups of well-trained fanatical revolutionaries could perpetrate so much violence that the state and all its institutions would disintegrate
- a. They believed it would result in anarchist golden age
-
After Bakunin's death
- 1. After his death, anarchist revolutionaries used assassination as their primary instrument of terror
- a. List of victims of anarchist assassins at turn of century included Russian tsar, president of French Republic, king of Italy, and president of US
- i. Did not result in collapse of states
|
|
