History of socialism

This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. (May 2023)

This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (August 2023)

Part of a series on
Socialism
History Outline
Development Age of the Enlightenment French Revolution Revolutions of 1848 Socialist calculation debate Socialist economics
Ideas Calculation in kind Collective ownership Cooperative Common ownership Critique of political economy Economic democracy Economic planning Equal liberty Equal opportunity Free association Freed market Industrial democracy Input–output model Internationalism Labor-time calculation Labour voucher Material balance planning Peer‑to‑peer economics Production for use Sharing economy Spontaneism Social dividend Social ownership Socialism in one country Socialist mode of production Soviet democracy Strike action To each according to his contribution/needs Vanguardism Workers' self-management Workplace democracy
Models Communalism Socialist planned economy Decentralized planning Inclusive Democracy OGAS Project Cybersyn Soviet-type Market socialism Lange model Mutualism Socialist market economy Socialist-oriented market Participatory economics
Variants 21st-century African Arab Agrarian Anarchism Authoritarian Blanquism Buddhist Chinese Christian Communism Democratic Democratic road Digital Ethical Ecological Evolutionary Feminist Fourierism Free-market Gandhian Guild Islamic Jewish Laissez-faire Liberal Libertarian Marhaenism Market Marxism Municipal Nationalist Nkrumaism Owenism Popular Reformism Religious Revolutionary Ricardian Saint-Simonianism Scientific Sewer Social democracy State Syndicalism Third World Utopian Yellow Zionist
People Gracchi Brothers Mazdak Ball More Winstanley Morelly Hall Saint-Simon Buonarroti Owen Fourier Thompson Hodgskin Schulz Leroux Babeuf Pecqueur Sue Blanqui Ledru-Rollin Dézamy Considerant Proudhon Blanc Andrews Herzen Bakunin Marx Engels Wallace Lavrov Pi Lassalle Saltykov Chernyshevsky Tolstoy Michel Morris Jones Bebel Lorenzo Mainwaring Kropotkin Carpenter Sorel Parsons Bernstein Iglesias Parsons León Malatesta Kautsky Wilde Taylor Debs Plekhanov Ferrer Dewey Barone Wells Markievicz Du Bois Gorky Connolly Goldman Gandhi Landauer Berkman Luxemburg Liebknecht Blum Russell Pannekoek Larkin Einstein Trotsky Keller Tawney Schapiro Pankhurst Attlee Lukács Pestaña Korsch Polanyi Peiró Seguí Vanzetti Makhno Cole Gramsci Sacco Petrichenko Tito Maksimov Leval Nagy Durruti Gerhardsen Santillán Day Marcuse James García Ascaso Erlander Orwell Mattick Douglas Montseny Sartre Senghor Allende van der Lubbe Kreisky Mitterrand Chartrand Nasser Mandela Bookchin Dubček Zinn Castoriadis Gorz Thompson Lefort Ward Manley Che Chomsky King Gorbachev Scargill Fotopoulos Sanders Wolff Ali Lula Holloway Žižek Öcalan Corbyn Sankara West Hedges Marcos Graeber Varoufakis
Organizations International socialist organizations Socialist parties
Related topics Anarchism Capitalism Communist society Criticism of capitalism Criticism of socialism Economic calculation problem Economic system French Left Left-libertarianism Libertarianism List of socialist economists Market abolitionism Marxist philosophy Nanosocialism Progressivism Socialism and LGBT rights Socialist calculation debate Socialist Party Socialist state Workers' council
Lists Related lists Category By country Socialists Songs
Socialism portal (WikiProject)  Communism portal  Organized Labour portal
v t e

The history of socialism has its origins in the Age of Enlightenment and the 1789 French Revolution along with the changes that it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-48 just before the Revolutions of 1848 swept Europe, expressing what they termed scientific socialism. In the last third of the 19th century parties dedicated to Democratic socialism arose in Europe, drawing mainly from Marxism. The Australian Labor Party was the world's first elected socialist party when it formed government in the Colony of Queensland for a week in 1899.^[1]

In the first half of the 20th century, the

By 1968, the prolonged

Ideas and political traditions that are conceptually related to modern socialism have their origins in antiquity and the Middle Ages.

In Iran, Mazdak (died c. 524 or 528 CE), a priest and political reformer, preached and instituted a religiously based socialist or proto-socialist system in the Zoroastrian context of Sassanian Persia.^[16]

In response to the inequalities in the industrializing economy of late 18th century Britain pamphleteers and agitators such as Thomas Spence and Thomas Paine began to advocate for social reform. As early as the 1770s Spence called for the common ownership of land, democratically run decentralized government, and welfare support especially for mothers and children.^[26] His views were detailed in his self-published pamphlets such as Property in Land Every One's Right in 1775 and The Meridian Sun in 1796. Thomas Paine proposed a detailed plan to tax property owners to pay for the needs of the poor in his pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1797).^[27][28] Due to their dedication to social equality and democracy, Condorcet and Paine can be seen as the predecessors of social democracy.^[25] Charles Hall wrote The Effects of Civilization on the People in European States (1805), denouncing capitalism's effects on the poor of his time.^[29] In the post-revolutionary period in the decade after the French Revolution of 1789, activists and theorists like François-Noël Babeuf and Philippe Buonarroti spread egalitarian ideas that would later influence the early French labour and socialist movements.^[30] The views of Babeuf, Sylvain Maréchal, and Restif de la Bretonne specifically formed the basis for the emerging concepts of revolutionary socialism and modern communism.^[31] These social critics criticized the excesses of poverty and inequality of the Industrial Revolution, and advocated reforms such as the egalitarian distribution of wealth and the transformation of society into one where private property is abolished and the means of production are owned collectively.

Early modern socialism (1800-1830s)

The first modern socialists were early 19th-century Western European social critics. In this period socialism emerged from a diverse array of doctrines and social experiments associated primarily with British and French thinkers—especially

The UK government's Factory Act of 1833 attempted to reduce the hours adults and children worked in the textile industry. A fifteen-hour working day was to start at 5.30 a.m. and to cease at 8.30 p.m. Children of nine to thirteen years could work no more than 9 hours, and workers of a younger age were prohibited. There were, however, only four factory inspectors, and factory owners flouted this law.^[62] In the same year Owen stated: "Eight hours' daily labor is enough for any [adult] human being, and under proper arrangements sufficient to afford an ample supply of food, raiment and shelter, or the necessaries and comforts of life, and for the remainder of his time, every person is entitled to education, recreation and sleep."^[63]

Leaving England for the United States, Robert Owen and his sons began an experiment with a

Chartism, which flourished from 1838 to 1858, "formed the first organised labour movement in Europe, gathering significant numbers around the People's Charter of 1838, which demanded the extension of suffrage to all male adults. Prominent leaders in the movement also called for a more equitable distribution of income and better living conditions for the working classes. The very first trade unions and consumers’ cooperative societies also emerged in the hinterland of the Chartist movement, as a way of bolstering the fight for these demands".^[72] The word socialism first appeared on 13 February 1832 in Le Globe, a French Saint-Simonian newspaper founded by Pierre Leroux.^[73][74]

There were also currents inspired by dissident Christianity of

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) pronounced that "property is theft" and that socialism was "every aspiration towards the amelioration of society".^[77] Proudhon termed himself an anarchist and proposed that free association of individuals should replace the coercive state.^[78][79] Proudhon himself, Benjamin Tucker, and others developed these ideas in a mutualist direction, while Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876), Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921), and others adapted Proudhon's ideas in a more conventionally socialist direction. In a letter to Marx in 1846, Proudhon wrote: "I myself put the problem in this way: to bring about the return to society, by an economic combination, of the wealth which was withdrawn from society by another economic combination. In other words, through Political Economy to turn the theory of Property against Property in such a way as to engender what you German socialists call community and what I will limit myself for the moment to calling liberty or equality."

For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster, "[i]t is apparent ... that Proudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism of

Alexander Herzen was a Russian writer, revolutionary, and the first champion of socialism in Russia.^[82][83] His writings contributed to the abolition of serfdom in Russia under Alexander II, and he later became known as the "Father of Russian socialism".^[84] Herzen initiated the belief that socialism would eventually take hold in Russia using the traditional rural Russian communal villages or mir as a basis for its propagation.^[83] Influenced by Hegel, he believed that only though revolution could the dialectic be accelerated to bring about socialism, he translated many socialist books into Russian so they could be accessible to Russian speakers and financially supported Proudhon's publications.^[82]

Etymology and terminology (c. 19th century–20th century)

While the use of the term socialism was initially adopted to describe the philosophy of the

• Pierre Leroux who claimed priority in coining the word socialism presented his definition of the term as "a political organization in which the individual is sacrificed to society", stating he had intended to create a term that would directly oppose the term "individualism".^[89][90][91]
• French philosopher Émile Littré defined socialism in 1859 as only as a general sentiment that society ought to be improved, claiming it otherwise was without any set doctrine, instead being only a tendency to modify and improve society with the involvement of the working class.^[92] In a later dictionary, Littré defined it merely as a system which "offers a plan of social reform."^[93]
• French philosopher Paul Janet, defined socialism as "every doctrine that teaches that the state has a right to correct the inequality of wealth which exists among men.^[87]
• In his summation of socialism the 19th-century, Belgian economist
  Émile Laveleye stated that "socialistic doctrine aims at introducing greater equality in social conditions, and....realizing those reforms by law."^[94][87]
• Pierre-Joseph Proudhon concisely defined socialism as "every aspiration towards the improvement of society."[95]
• German economist Adolf Held claimed in 1877 that any view was socialistic if it exhibited a "tendency which demands the subordination of the individual will to the community."^[96]
• Writing in 1887, English historian of socialist thought Thomas Kirkup defined socialism, as it was generally conceived of at the time as, "the systematic interference of the state in favour of the suffering classes", and "the use of public resources on behalf of the poor."^[97]
• Preeminent French
  Emile Durkheim recognized in his late 19th century study on Saint-Simon any theory as socialism if it demanded that the "directing and knowing organs of society" be connected with its economic functions.^[98]
• In his 1904 book Die Frau und der Sozialismus, German socialist politician August Bebel defined socialism as "science applied with clear consciousness and full knowledge to every sphere of human activity."^[99]
• Published in 1911, the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition defined socialism as "that policy or theory which aims at securing...a better distribution and...a better production of wealth than now prevails."^[100]

Prior to the Revolutions of 1848, communism and socialism had differing religious implications with socialism being seen as secular and atheistic and communism being seen as religious, leading to Owen preferring the term socialism.^[36][101] In 1830, the two leaders of socialist group the Saint-Simonians, Amand Bazard and Barthélemy Enfantin, denounced communism to the French Chamber of Deputies.^[102] Because the Saint-Simonians still advocated the socialization of the means of production, just not all private property, this established an important early distinction between their school of socialism and the communism of rival political groups such as the Neo-Babouvists.^[103]

According to Friedrich Engels, by 1847 socialism, such as that of the Owenites and Fourierists, was considered a respectable, middle-class, or bourgeoise movement on the continent of Europe, while communism was considered a less respectable working-class movement associated with organizations such as those led by

"The French Revolution of 1789," Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Frederick Engels (1820–1895) wrote, "abolished feudal property in favour of bourgeois property".^[106] The French Revolution was preceded and influenced by the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose Social Contract famously began: "Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains".^[107] Rousseau is credited with influencing socialist thought, but it was François-Noël Babeuf, and his Conspiracy of Equals, who is credited with providing a model for left-wing and communist movements of the 19th century.

Marx and Engels drew from these socialist or communist ideas born in the French revolution, as well as from the German philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and British political economy, particularly that of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Marx and Engels developed a body of ideas which they called scientific socialism, more commonly called Marxism. Marxism comprised a theory of history (historical materialism), a critique of political economy, as well as a political, and philosophical theory.

In the

Marx believed that capitalism could only be overthrown by means of a revolution carried out by the working class: "The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority."[108] Marx believed that the proletariat was the only class with both the cohesion, the means and the determination to carry the revolution forward. Unlike the utopian socialists, who often idealised agrarian life and deplored the growth of modern industry, Marx saw the growth of capitalism and an urban proletariat as a necessary stage towards socialism.

For Marxists, socialism or, as Marx termed it, the first phase of communist society, can be viewed as a transitional stage characterised by common or state ownership of the

Anarchism as a social movement has regularly endured fluctuations in popularity. Its classical period, which scholars demarcate as from 1860 to 1939, is associated with the working-class movements of the 19th century and the Spanish Civil War-era struggles against fascism.^[112]

In 1907, the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam gathered delegates from 14 countries, among which important figures of the anarchist movement, including Errico Malatesta, Pierre Monatte, Luigi Fabbri, Benoît Broutchoux, Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker, and Christiaan Cornelissen. Various themes were treated during the Congress, in particular concerning the organisation of the anarchist movement, popular education issues, the general strike or antimilitarism. A central debate concerned the relation between anarchism and syndicalism (or trade unionism). The Federación Obrera Regional Española (Workers' Federation of the Spanish Region) in 1881 was the first major anarcho-syndicalist movement; anarchist trade union federations were of special importance in Spain. The most successful was the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour: CNT), founded in 1910. Before the 1940s, the CNT was the major force in Spanish working class politics, attracting 1.58 million members at one point and playing a major role in the Spanish Civil War.^[118] The CNT was affiliated with the International Workers Association, a federation of anarcho-syndicalist trade unions founded in 1922, with delegates representing two million workers from 15 countries in Europe and Latin America. Federación Anarquista Ibérica.

Some anarchists, such as

First International

In Europe, harsh reaction followed the

In 1868, following their unsuccessful participation in the League of Peace and Freedom (LPF), Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin and his collectivist anarchist associates joined the First International (which had decided not to get involved with the LPF).^[122] They allied themselves with the federalist socialist sections of the International,^[123] who advocated the revolutionary overthrow of the state and the collectivisation of property.

The

In 1871, in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War an uprising in Paris established the Paris Commune. The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from 18 March (more formally, from 28 March) to 28 May 1871. The Commune was the result of an uprising in Paris after France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War. Anarchists participated actively in the establishment of the Paris Commune. The 92 members of the Communal Council included a high proportion of skilled workers and several professionals. Many of them were political activists, ranging from reformist republicans, various types of socialists, to the Jacobins who tended to look back nostalgically to the Revolution of 1789.

The "reforms initiated by the Commune, such as the re-opening of workplaces as co-operatives, anarchists can see their ideas of associated labour beginning to be realised...Moreover, the Commune's ideas on federation obviously reflected the influence of

According to Marx and Engels, for a few weeks the Paris Commune provided a glimpse of a socialist society before it was brutally suppressed by the French government. Engels' 1891 postscript to The Civil War In France by Marx read: "From the outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the working class, once come to power, could not manage with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against it itself, and, on the other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment."^[129]

Second International

As the ideas of Marx and Engels took on flesh, particularly in central Europe, socialists sought to unite in an international organisation. In 1889, on the centennial of the French Revolution of 1789, the

Just before his death in 1895, Engels argued that there was now a "single generally recognised, crystal clear theory of Marx" and a "single great international army of socialists". Despite its illegality due to the Anti-Socialist Laws of 1878, the Social Democratic Party of Germany's use of the limited universal male suffrage were "potent" new methods of struggle which demonstrated their growing strength and forced the dropping of the Anti-Socialist legislation in 1890, Engels argued.^[132] In 1893, the German SPD obtained 1,787,000 votes, a quarter of votes cast. However, before the leadership of the SPD published Engels' 1895 Introduction to Marx's Class Struggles in France 1848–1850, they removed certain phrases they felt were too revolutionary.^[133]

Marx believed that it was possible to have a peaceful socialist transformation in England, although the British ruling class would then revolt against such a victory.^[134] The United States and the Netherlands might also have a peaceful transformation, but not in France, where Marx believed there had been "perfected... an enormous bureaucratic and military organisation, with its ingenious state machinery" which must be forcibly overthrown. However, eight years after Marx's death, Engels argued that it was possible to achieve a peaceful socialist revolution in France, too.^[135]

Germany

The SPD was by far the most powerful of the social democratic parties. Its votes reached 4.5 million, it had 90 daily newspapers, together with trade unions and co-ops, sports clubs, a youth organisation, a women's organisation and hundreds of full-time officials. Under the pressure of this growing party, Bismarck introduced limited welfare provision and working hours were reduced. Germany experienced sustained economic growth for more than forty years. Commentators suggest that this expansion, together with the concessions won, gave rise to illusions amongst the leadership of the SPD that capitalism would evolve into socialism gradually.

Beginning in 1896, in a series of articles published under the title "Problems of socialism",

Russia

Bernstein coined the aphorism: "The movement is everything, the final goal nothing". But the path of reform appeared blocked to the Russian Marxists while Russia remained the bulwark of reaction. In the preface to the 1882 Russian edition to the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels had saluted the Russian Marxists who, they said, "formed the vanguard of revolutionary action in Europe". But the working class, although many were organised in vast modern western-owned enterprises, comprised no more than a small percentage of the population and "more than half the land is owned in common by the peasants". Marx and Engels posed the question: How was the Russian Empire to progress to socialism? Could Russia "pass directly" to socialism or "must it first pass through the same process" of capitalist development as the West? They replied: "If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development."^[136]

In 1903, the

By the 1880s

On 3 May, in Chicago, a fight broke out when strikebreakers attempted to cross the picket line, and two workers died when police opened fire upon the crowd.^[146] The next day on 4 May, anarchists staged a rally at Chicago's Haymarket Square.^[147] A bomb was thrown and in the ensuing panic, police opened fire on the crowd and each other.^[148] Seven police officers and at least four workers were killed.^[149] Eight anarchists directly and indirectly related to the organisers of the rally were arrested and charged with the murder of the deceased officer. The men became international political celebrities among the labour movement. Four of the men were executed and a fifth committed suicide prior to his own execution. The incident became known as the Haymarket affair, and was a setback for the labour movement and the struggle for the eight-hour day. In 1890 a second attempt, this time international in scope, to organise for the eight-hour day was made. The event also had the secondary purpose of memorialising workers killed as a result of the Haymarket affair.^[150] Although it had initially been conceived as a once-off event, by the following year the celebration of International Workers' Day on May Day had become firmly established as an international worker's holiday.^[145]Emma Goldman, the activist and political theorist, was attracted to anarchism after reading about the incident and the executions, which she later described as "the events that had inspired my spiritual birth and growth." She considered the Haymarket martyrs to be "the most decisive influence in my existence".^[151] Her associate, Alexander Berkman also described the Haymarket anarchists as "a potent and vital inspiration."^[152] Others whose commitment to anarchism crystallized as a result of the Haymarket affair included Voltairine de Cleyre and "Big Bill" Haywood, a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World.^[152] Goldman wrote to historian, Max Nettlau, that the Haymarket affair had awakened the social consciousness of "hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people".^[153]

In 1877, the

French socialism was beheaded by the suppression of the

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) became the largest and most powerful socialist party in Europe, despite working illegally until the anti-socialist laws were dropped in 1890. In the 1893 elections it gained 1,787,000 votes, a quarter of the total votes cast, according to Engels. In 1895, the year of his death, Engels emphasised the Communist Manifesto's emphasis on winning, as a first step, the "battle of democracy".^[155] Since the 1866 introduction of universal male franchise the SPD had proved that old methods of, "surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of masses lacking consciousness is past". Marxists, Engels emphasised, must "win over the great mass of the people" before initiating a revolution.^[156] Marx believed that it was possible to have a peaceful socialist revolution in England, America and the Netherlands, but not in France, where he believed there had been "perfected ... an enormous bureaucratic and military organisation, with its ingenious state machinery" which must be forcibly overthrown. However, eight years after Marx's death, Engels regarded it possible to achieve a peaceful socialist revolution in France, too.^[135]

In 1896, Eduard Bernstein argued that once full democracy had been achieved, a transition to socialism by gradual means was both possible and more desirable than revolutionary change. Bernstein and his supporters came to be identified as "

In 1914, the outbreak of World War I led to a crisis in European socialism. Many European socialist leaders supported their respective governments' war aims. The social democratic parties in the UK, France, Belgium and Germany supported their respective state's wartime military and economic planning, discarding their commitment to internationalism and solidarity. The parliamentary leaderships of the socialist parties of Germany, France, Belgium and Britain each voted to support the war aims of their country's governments, although some leaders, like Ramsay MacDonald in Britain and Karl Liebknecht in Germany, opposed the war from the start.

However, in many cases this caused the fragmentation between socialists who were willing to support the war effort and those who were not. In the German example, support for the war by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) led to a schism between them and some of their far left supporters.^[157]

Lenin, in exile in

The Russian Revolution of October 1917 led to a withdrawal from World War I, one of the principal demands of the Russian revolution, as the Soviet government immediately sued for peace. Germany and the former allies invaded the new Soviet Russia, which had repudiated the former

Inter-war era (1917–1939)

The Russian Revolution of October 1917 brought about the definitive ideological division between Communists as denoted with a capital "C" on the one hand and other communist and socialist trends such as anarcho-communists and social democrats, on the other. The Left Opposition in the Soviet Union gave rise to Trotskyism which was to remain isolated and insignificant for another fifty years, except in Sri Lanka where Trotskyism gained the majority and the pro-Moscow wing was expelled from the Communist Party.

In 1922, 4th World Congress of the Communist International took up the policy of the united front, urging Communists to work with rank and file Social Democrats while remaining critical of their leaders, who they criticised for "betraying" the working class by supporting the war efforts of their respective capitalist classes. For their part, the social democrats pointed to the dislocation caused by revolution and later the growing authoritarianism of the Communist Parties. When the Communist Party of Great Britain applied to affiliate to the Labour Party in 1920 it was turned down.

Revolutionary socialism and the Soviet Union

Bolshevik party.

Leon Trotsky, founder of the Red Army and a key figure in the October Revolution

.

Anarchists participated alongside the Bolsheviks in both February and October revolutions, and were initially enthusiastic about the Bolshevik coup.^[162] However, the Bolsheviks soon turned against the anarchists and other left-wing opposition, a conflict that culminated in the 1921 Kronstadt rebellion which the new government repressed. Anarchists in central Russia were either imprisoned, driven underground or joined the victorious Bolsheviks; the anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow fled to the Ukraine.^[163] There, in the Makhnovshchina, they fought in the civil war against the Whites (a Western-backed grouping of monarchists and other opponents of the October Revolution) and then the Bolsheviks as part of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno, who established an anarchist society in the region for a number of months.

The initial success of the Russian Revolution inspired other revolutionary parties to attempt the same thing unleashing the

In the Soviet Union, from 1924 Stalin pursued a policy of "socialism in one country". Trotsky argued that this approach was a shift away from the theory of Marx and Lenin, while others argued that it was a practical compromise fit for the times. The postwar revolutionary upsurge provoked a powerful reaction from the forces of conservatism. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle".^[170]

When Stalin consolidated his power in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s, Trotsky was forced into exile, eventually residing in Mexico. He maintained active in organising the Left Opposition internationally, which worked within the Comintern to gain new members. Some leaders of the Communist Parties sided with Trotsky, such as James P. Cannon in the United States. They found themselves expelled by the Stalinist Parties and persecuted by both GPU agents and the political police in Britain, France, the United States, China, and all over the world.^{[citation needed]} Trotskyist parties had a large influence in Sri Lanka and Bolivia.^{[citation needed]}

After 1929, with the Left Opposition legally banned and Trotsky exiled, Stalin led the Soviet Union into a what he termed a "higher stage of socialism."

The Soviet achievement in the 1930s seemed hugely impressive from the outside, and convinced many people, not necessarily Communists or even socialists, of the virtues of state planning and authoritarian models of social development. This was later to have important consequences in countries like China, India and Egypt, which tried to copy some aspects of the Soviet model. It also won large sections of the western intelligentsia over to a pro-Soviet view, to the extent that many were willing to ignore or excuse such events as Stalin's Great Purge of 1936–38, in which millions of people died. The Great Depression, which began in 1929, seemed to socialists and Communists everywhere to be the final proof of the bankruptcy, literally as well as politically, of capitalism. Socialists were unable to take advantage of the Depression to either win elections or stage revolutions.

In the United States, the

Once the world's most powerful nation, Britain avoided a revolution during the period of 1917–1923 but was significantly affected by revolt. The Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, had promised the troops in the 1918 United Kingdom general election that his Conservative-led coalition would make post-war Britain "a fit land for heroes to live in". But many demobbed troops complained of chronic unemployment and suffered low pay, disease and poor housing.^[176] In 1918, the Labour Party adopted as its aim to secure for the workers, "the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange". In 1919, the Miners Federation, whose Members of Parliament predated the formation of the Labour Party and were since 1906 a part of that body, demanded the withdrawal of British troops from Soviet Russia. The 1919 Labour Party Conference voted to discuss the question of affiliation to the Third (Communist) International, "to the distress of its leaders".^[177] A vote was won committing the Labour Party committee of the Trades Union Congress to arrange "direct industrial action" to "stop capitalist attacks upon the Socialist Republics of Russia and Hungary."^[178] The threat of immediate strike action forced the Conservative-led coalition government to abandon its intervention in Russia.^[179]

In 1914 the unions of the transport workers, the mine workers and the railway workers had formed a

In the United States, the

In 1928, the Communist International, now fully under the leadership of Stalin, turned from the united front policy to an ultra-left policy of the

In the 1930s, the

Hitler's regime swiftly destroyed both the German Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party.

Sweden

The Swedish Social democrats formed a government in 1932. They broke with economic orthodoxy during the depression and carried out extensive public works financed from government borrowing. They emphasised large-scale intervention and the high unemployment they had inherited was eliminated by 1938. Their success encouraged the adoption of Keynesian policies of deficit financing pursued by almost all Western countries after World War II.

Spain

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2023)

During the

Jewish

As a result of the failure of the Popular Fronts and the inability of Britain and France to conclude a defensive alliance against Hitler, Stalin again changed his policy in August 1939 and signed a non-aggression pact, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, with Nazi Germany. Shortly afterwards World War II broke out, and within two years Hitler had occupied most of Europe, and by 1942 both democracy and social democracy in Central and Eastern Europe fell under the threat of fascism. The only socialist parties of any significance able to operate freely were those in Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But the entry of the Soviet Union into the war in 1941 marked the turning of the tide against fascism, and as the German armies retreated another great upsurge in left-wing sentiment swelled up in their wake. The resistance movements against German occupation were mostly led by socialists and Communists, and by the end of the war the parties of the left were greatly strengthened.^{[citation needed]}

The Second International, which had been based in

In 1945, the three great powers of the Allies of World War II met at the Yalta Conference to negotiate an amicable and stable peace. UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill joined USA President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee. With the relative decline of Britain compared to the two superpowers, the US and the Soviet Union, however, many viewed the world as "bi-polar" – a world with two irreconcilable and antagonistic political and economic systems.^{[citation needed]}

One of the great postwar victories of democratic socialism was the election victory of the British

Social democracy in government

The social democratic governments in the post war period introduced measures of social reform and wealth redistribution through state welfare and taxation policy. For instance the newly elected UK Labour government carried out

In the UK, cabinet minister Herbert Morrison famously argued that, "Socialism is what the Labour government does",^[198] and Anthony Crosland argued that capitalism had been ended.^[200] However many socialists within the social democracy, at rank and file level as well as in a minority in the leadership such as Aneurin Bevan, feared the 'return of the 1930s' unless capitalism was ended, either directly or over a definite period of time. They criticised the government for not going further to take over the commanding heights of the economy. Bevan demanded that the "main streams of economic activity are brought under public direction" with economic planning, and criticised the Labour Party's implementation of nationalisation for not empowering the workers in the nationalised industries with democratic control over their operation.^[201] In the post war period, many Trotskyists expected at first the pattern of financial instability and recession to return. Instead the capitalist world, now led by the United States, embarked on a prolonged boom which lasted until 1973. Rising living standards across Europe and North America alongside low unemployment, was achieved, in the view of the socialists, by the efforts of trade union struggle, social reform by social democracy, and the ushering in of what was termed a "mixed economy".^[198]

Social democracy at first took the view that they had begun a "serious assault" on the five "Giant Evils" afflicting the working class, identified for instance by the British social reformer

In the 1960s and 1970s the new social forces, introduced, the social democrats argued, by their 'mixed economy' and their many reforms of capitalism, began to change the political landscape in the western world. The long postwar boom and the rapid expansion of higher education produced, as well as rising living standards for the industrial working class, a mass university-educated white collar workforce, nevertheless began to break down the old socialist-versus-conservative polarity of European politics. This new white-collar workforce, some claimed, was less interested in traditional socialist policies such as state ownership and more interested expanded personal freedom and liberal social policies. The proportion of women in the paid workforce increased and many supported the struggle for equal pay, which, some argued, changed both the composition and the political outlook of the working class. Some socialist parties reacted more flexibly and successfully to these changes than others, but eventually the leaderships of all social democracies in Europe moved to an explicitly pro-capitalist stance. Symbolically in the UK, the socialist clause, Clause four, was removed from the Labour Party constitution, in 1995. A similar change took place in the German SDP.

Particularly after the coming to power of British Premier

African socialism has been and continues to be a major ideology around the continent, playing a major role in the post-war period of

Other African socialists include Jomo Kenyatta, Kenneth Kaunda, Nelson Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah. Fela Kuti was inspired by socialism and called for a democratic African republic.

Mass discontent and radicalisation

Another manifestation of this changing social landscape was the rise of mass discontent, including the radical

The New Left in the United States also included anarchist,

In 1946, speaking at

By the late 1960s, the people of several Eastern bloc countries had become discontented with the human and economic costs of the Soviet system, the

Through the Second World War, the

In 1965, Wenyuan wrote a thinly veiled attack on the deputy mayor of Beijing, Wu Han. Over the six months that followed, on behalf of ideological purity, Mao and his supporters purged many public figures, Liu Shao-chi among them. By the middle of 1966, Mao had not only put himself back into the centre of things, he had initiated what is known as the Cultural Revolution, a mass and army-supported action against the Communist Party apparatus itself on behalf of a renovated conception of Communism. Chaos continued throughout China for three years, particularly due to the agitations of the

By the start of the 21st century, though, the leadership of China was embarked upon a program of market-based reform that was more sweeping than had been Soviet leader Gorbachev's perestroika program of the late 1980s, which is traceable to Deng's Socialism with Chinese characteristics. It is in this context that Leo Melamed, chairman emeritus and senior policy adviser to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, spoke to the 2003 Beijing Forum on China and East Asian Prospects of Financial Cooperation on September 23. He said that the CME applauds the National People's Congress for recognising their country's need for additional trading in futures contracts.

21st-century socialism in Latin America

Since the 1998 election of

In many

In South Africa the African National Congress (ANC) abandoned its partial socialist allegiances after taking power and followed a standard neoliberal route. From 2005 through to 2007, the country was wracked by many thousands of protests from poor communities. One of these gave rise to a mass movement of shack dwellers, Abahlali baseMjondolo that despite major police suppression continues to work for popular people's planning and against the creation of a market economy in land and housing.

Asia

In Asia, states with socialist economies—such as the People's Republic of China, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam—have largely moved away from centralised economic planning in the 21st century, placing a greater emphasis on markets. Forms include the Chinese socialist market economy and the Vietnamese socialist-oriented market economy. They use

Although the authority of the state remained unchallenged under Đổi Mới, the government of Vietnam encourages private ownership of farms and factories, economic deregulation and foreign investment, while maintaining control over strategic industries.^[247] The Vietnamese economy subsequently achieved strong growth in agricultural and industrial production, construction, exports and foreign investment. However, these reforms have also caused a rise in income inequality and gender disparities.^[248][249]

Elsewhere in Asia, some elected socialist parties and communist parties remain prominent, particularly in India and Nepal. Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) in particular calls for multi-party democracy, social equality and economic prosperity.^[250] In Singapore, a majority of the GDP is still generated from the state sector comprising government-linked companies.^[251] In Japan, there has been a resurgent interest in the Japanese Communist Party among workers and youth.^[252][253] In Malaysia, the Socialist Party of Malaysia got its first Member of Parliament, Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj, after the 2008 general election. In 2010, there were 270 kibbutzim in Israel. Their factories and farms account for 9% of Israel's industrial output, worth US$8 billion and 40% of its agricultural output, worth over $1.7 billion.^[254] Some Kibbutzim had also developed substantial high-tech and military industries. Also in 2010, Kibbutz Sasa, containing some 200 members, generated $850 million in annual revenue from its military-plastics industry.^[255]

Europe

The United Nations World Happiness Report 2013 shows that the happiest nations are concentrated in Northern Europe, where the Nordic model is employed, with Denmark topping the list. This is at times attributed to the success of the Nordic model in the region that has been labelled social democratic in contrast with the conservative continental model and the liberal Anglo-American model. The Nordic countries ranked highest on the metrics of real GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived freedom to make life choices, generosity and freedom from corruption.^[256]

The objectives of the

According to a 2013 article in

New Democratic Party (NDP), had significant success in provincial politics. In 1944, the Saskatchewan CCF formed the first socialist government in North America. At the federal level, the NDP was the Official Opposition, from 2011 through 2015.^[294]

In their Johnson linguistics column, The Economist opines that in the 21st century United States, the term socialism, without clear definition, has become a pejorative used by conservatives to attack liberal and progressive policies, proposals, and public figures.^[295]

Latin America and the Caribbean

Main articles: Pink tide and Socialism of the 21st century

For the

Encyclopedia Britannica, "the attempt by Salvador Allende to unite Marxists and other reformers in a socialist reconstruction of Chile is most representative of the direction that Latin American socialists have taken since the late 20th century. ... Several socialist (or socialist-leaning) leaders have followed Allende's example in winning election to office in Latin American countries".^[296] The success of the Workers' Party (Portuguese: Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT) of Brazil

, formed in 1980 and governing Brazil from 2003 to 2016, was the first major breakthrough for this trend.

Frente de Todos

.

In the first decade of the 21st century, Venezuelan President

Nicaragua experienced political crises. However, socialism saw a resurgence in 2018–19 after successive electoral victories of left-wing and centre-left candidates in Mexico, Panama, and Argentina.^{[305][306][307]}

Oceania

Main articles: Melanesian socialism, Socialism in Australia, and Socialism in New Zealand

Australia saw an increase in interest of socialism in the early 21st century, especially amongst youth.

Victoria, where three socialist parties have merged into the Victorian Socialists

, who aim to address problems in housing and public transportation.

In New Zealand, socialism emerged within the budding trade union movement during the late 19th century and early 20th century. In July 1916, several left-wing political organisations and trade unions merged to form the

social democrat^[315] who has criticized capitalism as a "blatant failure" due to high levels of homelessness and low wages.^[316] New Zealand still has a small socialist scene, mainly dominated by Trotskyist groups.^{[citation needed}

]

Melanesian socialism developed in the 1980s, inspired by African socialism. It aims to achieve full independence from Britain and France in Melanesian territories and creation of a Melanesian federal union. It is very popular with the New Caledonia independence movement.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Anti-communism
• Authoritarian socialism
• Communist state
• Ethical socialism
• History of communism
• History of socialism in Canada
• History of socialism in France
• History of socialism in the United Kingdom
• List of anti-capitalist and communist parties with national parliamentary representation
• List of communist parties
• List of democratic socialist parties and organisations
• List of democratic socialist parties which have governed
• List of social democratic parties
• List of socialist states
• Pre-Marxist communism
• Socialism in liberal democratic constitutions
• Socialism in the United States
• Socialist state
• State socialism
• Welfare State

References

Bibliography

• Edinger, Lewis Joachim (1956). German Exile Politics: The Social Democratic Exexctive Committee in the Nazi Era. University of California Press.
• Franks, Peter; McAloon, Jim (2016). Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party 1916–2016. Wellington: Victoria University Press.
  ISBN 978-1-77656-074-5
  .
• Lytle, Mark H. (2006), America's Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon, Oxford University Press,
  ISBN 978-0-19-517496-0
  .

Further reading

• Bonar, James (1911). "Socialism" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 301–308.
• Derfler, Leslie. Socialism Since Marx: A Century of the European Left (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1973)
• Friedman, Jeremy. Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World (Harvard University Press, 2021).
• Laidler, Harry W. History of Socialism: An Historical Comparative Study of Socialism, Communism, Utopia (1968). 970pp
• Lamb, Peter. Historical dictionary of socialism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).
• Lamb, Peter and Docherty, James C. Historical Dictionary of Socialism (Scarecrow Press, 2006)
• Lindemann, Albert S. A history of European socialism (Yale University Press, 1983). online
• Lipset, Seymour Martin and Gary Marks. It Didn't Happen Here : Why Socialism Failed in the United States (1971)
• Malia, Martin. Soviet tragedy: A history of socialism in Russia (Simon and Schuster, 2008).
• Nichols, John. The 'S' word: A short history of an American tradition... socialism (Verso, 2011).
• ISBN 978-0-8133-9821-1
• Steenson, Gary P. After Marx, before Lenin: Marxism and socialist working-class parties in Europe, 1884-1914 (U of Pittsburgh Press, 1991).
• Weinstein, James Chris/ Long Detour: The History and Future of the American Left, Westview Press, 2003, hardcover, 272 pages,
  ISBN 978-0-8133-4104-0
• Wright, Tony. Socialisms: old and new (2nd ed Routledge, 2006). excerpt
• Young, James D. Socialism since 1889: a biographical history (Rowman & Littlefield, 1988). excerpt

Primary sources

• Walling, William English, et al. eds. The socialism of to-day; a source-book of the present position and recent development of the socialist and labor parties in all countries (1916) 676pp online

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to History of socialism.

• Libertarian Communist Library Archive
• libcom.org peoples history