The term
socialism is commonly used to refer both to an ideology--a comprehensive set of
beliefs or ideas about the nature of human society and its future desirable
state--and to a state of society based on that ideology. Socialists have always
claimed to stand above all for the values of equality, social justice,
cooperation, progress, and individual freedom and happiness, and they have
generally sought to realize these values by the abolition of the
private-enterprise economy (see CAPITALISM) and its replacement by "public
ownership," a system of social or state control over production and
distribution. Methods of transformation advocated by socialists range from
constitutional change to violent revolution.
ORIGINS OF
SOCIALISM
Some scholars believe
that the basic principles of socialism were derived from the philosophy of
Plato, the teachings of the Hebrew prophets, and some parts of the New
Testament (the Sermon on the Mount, for example). Modern socialist ideology,
however, is essentially a joint product of the 1789 French Revolution and the
Industrial Revolution in England--the word socialist first occurred in an
English journal in 1827. These two great historical events, establishing
democratic government in France and the conditions for vast future economic
expansion in England, also engendered a state of incipient conflict between the
property owners (the bourgeoisie) and the growing class of industrial workers;
socialists have since been striving to eliminate or at least mitigate this conflict.
The first socialist movement emerged in France after the Revolution and was led
by Francois BABEUF, Filippo Buonarrotti (1761-1837), and Louis Auguste BLANQUI;
Babeuf's revolt of 1796 was a failure. Other early socialist thinkers, such as
the comte de SAINT-SIMON, Charles FOURIER, and Etienne CABET in France and
Robert OWEN and William Thompson (c.1785-1833) in England, believed in the
possibility of peaceful and gradual transformation to a socialist society by
the founding of small experimental communities; hence, later socialist writers
dubbed them with the label utopian.
THE EMERGENCE OF
MARXISM
In the mid-19th
century, more-elaborate socialist theories were developed, and eventually
relatively small but potent socialist movements spread. The German thinkers
Karl MARX and Friedrich ENGELS produced at that time what has since been
generally regarded as the most sophisticated and influential doctrine of
socialism. Marx, who was influenced in his youth by German idealist philosophy
and the humanism of Ludwig Andreas FEUERBACH, believed that human beings, and
particularly workers, were "alienated" in modern capitalist society;
he argued in his early writings that the institution of private property would
have to be completely abolished before the individual could be reconciled with
both society and nature. His mature doctrine, however, worked out in
collaboration with Engels and based on the teachings of classical English
political economy, struck a harder note, and Marx claimed for it "scientific"
status.
The first
important document of mature MARXISM, the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO (1848), written
with Engels, asserted that all known human history is essentially the history
of social classes locked in conflict. There has in the past always been a
ruling and an oppressed class. The modern, or bourgeois, epoch, characterized
by the capitalist mode of production with manufacturing industry and a free
market, would lead according to Marx and Engels to the growing intensity of the
struggle between capitalists and workers (the proletariat), the latter being
progressively impoverished and as a result assuming an increasingly
revolutionary attitude.
Marx further
asserted, in his most famous work, Das KAPITAL, that the capitalist employer of
labor had, in order to make a profit, to extract "surplus value" from
his employees, thereby exploiting them and reducing them to
"wage-slavery." The modern state, with its government and
law-enforcing agencies, was solely the executive organ of the capitalist class.
Religion, philosophy, and most other forms of culture likewise simply fulfilled
the "ideological" function of making the working class contented with
their subordinate position. Capitalism, however, as Marx claimed, would soon
and necessarily grind to a halt: economic factors, such as the diminishing rate
of profit, as well as the political factor of increasing proletarian
"class consciousness" would result in the forcible overthrow of the
existing system and its immediate replacement by the "dictatorship of the
proletariat." This dictatorship would soon be superseded by the system of
socialism, in which private ownership is abolished and all people are
remunerated according to their work, and socialism would lead eventually to
COMMUNISM, a society of abundance characterized by the complete disappearance
of the state, social classes, law, politics, and all forms of compulsion. Under
this ideal condition goods would be distributed according to need, and the
unity of all humankind would be assured because of elimination of greed.
VARIETIES OF
EUROPEAN SOCIALISM
Marxist ideas
made a great impact on European socialist movements. By the second half of the
19th century socialists in Europe were organizing into viable political parties
with considerable and growing electoral support; they also forged close links
in most countries with trade unions and other working-class associations. Their
short-term programs were mainly concerned with increasing the franchise,
introducing state welfare benefits for the needy, gaining the right to strike,
and improving working conditions, especially shortening the work day.
Moderate Socialism
Ideas other than
those of Marx were at this time also becoming influential. Such ideas included
moderate socialist doctrines, for example, those of the FABIAN SOCIETY in
England, founded by Sidney WEBB and including among its adherents the writers
H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw; those of Ferdinand LASSALLE in Germany;
and of Louis BLANC in France. These moderates sought to achieve socialism by
parliamentary means and by appealing deliberately to the middle class.
Fabianism had as one of its intellectual forebears the utilitarian
individualism of Jeremy BENTHAM and John Stuart MILL, and it became a doctrine
that sought to reconcile the values of liberty, democracy, economic progress,
and social justice. The Fabians believed that the cause of socialism would also
be aided by the advancement of the social sciences, especially economics and
sociology. These doctrines, collectively known as social democracy, did not,
like Marxism, look toward the complete abolition of private property and the
disappearance of the state but instead envisaged socialism more as a form of
society in which full democratic control would be exercised over wealth, and
production would be controlled by a group of responsible experts working in the
interests of the whole community. The achievement of socialism was seen by
social democrats as a long-term goal, the result of an evolutionary process
involving the growth of economic efficiency (advanced technology, large-scale
organization, planning), education in moral responsibility, and the voluntary
acceptance of equal shares in benefits and burdens; socialism would be the
triumph of common sense, the inevitable outcome of LIBERALISM, the extension of
democracy from politics to industry.
CHRISTIAN
SOCIALISM spread from its beginnings in England to France and Germany. Charles
KINGSLEY, John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow (1821-1911), and Frederick Denison MAURICE
were among its founders. They in the main supported moderate social democracy,
emphasizing what they understood as the central message of the church in social
ethics, notably the values of cooperation, brotherhood, simplicity of tastes,
and the spirit of self-sacrifice. Their ideas proved fertile in both the short
and the long runs, although in actual political terms Christian socialism never
succeeded in altering the predominantly secular orientation of most socialist
movements.
Radical Socialism
On the other hand,
many doctrines and movements were decidedly more militant than Marxism.
Anarchists (see ANARCHISM), influenced mainly by the ideas of the Frenchman
Pierre Joseph PROUDHON and later of the Russian emigres Mikhail Aleksandrovich
BAKUNIN and Pyotr Alekseyevich KROPOTKIN, were intent on immediately
overthrowing the capitalist state and replacing it with small independent
communities. Unlike the Marxists, whom they bitterly criticized, anarchists
were against the formation of socialist parties, and they repudiated
parliamentary politics as well as the idea of revolutionary dictatorship. Their
followers, never very numerous, were and are found mainly in the Latin
countries of Europe and America. SYNDICALISM, an offshoot of anarchism, was a
movement of militant working-class trade unionists who endeavored to achieve
socialism through industrial action only, notably by using the weapon of the
general strike. Their doctrine was similar to Marxism in that they also
believed that socialism was to be achieved only by and for the working class,
but unlike the Marxists they rejected the notion of a future centralized
socialist state. Their most eminent theorist was Georges SOREL. Syndicalist
ideas also had intermittent success in the British and American trade union movements,
for example, the INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD, an American-based syndicalist
union active around the turn of the century. Guild socialism in England,
dominated by George Douglas Howard Cole (1889-1959), the academic economist and
historian, represented a modified and milder form of syndicalism.
In Russia, where
it was impossible to organize openly a popular socialist movement under the
tsarist regime, socialism became mainly the ideology of young militant
intellectuals whose favored means of furthering the cause were secret
conspiracies and acts of individual terrorism. Debate raged between those who
believed in the native socialist ethos of the Russian village community and
those who wanted to adopt Western ideas of modernization. The latter party,
which eventually emerged victorious, soon came under Marxist influence. Among
its adherents was V. I. LENIN, who emerged as the leader of a small but
dedicated group of "professional revolutionaries," the Bolshevik (see
BOLSHEVIKS AND MENSHEVIKS) wing of the illegal Russian Social Democratic
Workers' party. Lenin was also the theorist who irrevocably gave a markedly
elitist and authoritarian twist to Marxism: he worked out the theory of the
proletarian vanguard--that is, the Communist party--which was destined to lead
the masses toward socialism, irrespective of the masses' inclinations.
SCHISM AND
CONTROVERSY
Throughout the
19th century the socialist movement was beset by a number of ever-deepening
conflicts and doctrinal controversies.
The Internationals
The International
Workingmen's Association (First International; see INTERNATIONAL, SOCIALIST),
founded in 1864, was expected to achieve unity among various socialist and
militant trade union organizations, but its efforts were greatly hindered by,
among other things, the conflict between the followers of Bakunin and those of
Marx. It came to an end soon after the suppression of the COMMUNE OF PARIS
(1871).
The Second
International (1889-1914) assumed for a time at least an outward appearance of
unity, in that it represented the high watermark of classical Marxist influence
in West European socialism. It was dominated by the largest socialist parties
then in existence, the French--led by Jean JAURES, Jules Guesde (1845-1922),
and Paul Lafargue (1842-1911)--and the German--led by August BEBEL, Karl Johann
KAUTSKY, and Wilhelm Liebknecht (see LIEBKNECHT family)--who agreed at least in
their broad understanding of the aims and methods of socialism. Their spokesmen
emphasized the need to foster international solidarity among the mass of the
working class and thus to avert the threat of a major war in Europe. This
effort proved singularly unsuccessful: NATIONALISM in 1914 and later proved a
much stronger mass emotion than socialism. Apart from a few exceptions, such as
Lenin and his Bolshevik group, socialist movements supported the war effort of
their respective governments. As a result of the general conflagration in 1914
the Second International disintegrated and therewith also the hopes of socialist
unity.
Revisionism
Another important
controversy broke out in the 1890s within Marxism, involving the German Social
Democratic party. This party was divided then between a militant revolutionary
left wing, an orthodox center that held to the classical Marxist doctrine of
economic determinism, and a right wing moving rapidly toward a position of open
reformism. The right wing had as its most renowned spokesman Eduard BERNSTEIN,
a personal friend of Marx and Engels, who was, however, also influenced by
English Fabian ideas.
Bernstein
repudiated the notion of violent revolution and argued that conditions in
civilized countries such as Germany made possible a peaceful, gradual
transformation to socialism. He sought to reinterpret Marxist doctrine in the
light of fresh advances made in economic science, such as those also embraced
in Fabian doctrine, and argued that socialism was compatible with individual
economic responsibility. He rejected, furthermore, the idea of "class
morality," which judged all actions according to their revolutionary
import. Instead he advocated a code of individual morality, derived from Kant's
moral philosophy. Consequently, Bernstein asserted the need for socialists to
concentrate on immediate tasks instead of ultimate and remote objectives; the
movement, he wrote, was everything; the goal, nothing.
This doctrine,
henceforward called revisionism, immediately became the subject of bitter
attacks by the revolutionary left wing, represented above all by Rosa LUXEMBURG,
which on this issue was supported by the orthodox center and its principal
theorist, Karl Kautsky. The terms of the debate on revisionism centered on the
facts, noted by Bernstein, of considerable improvement in the living standards
of the working class, its resultant political integration in the constitutional
(republican or monarchical) state, the purely reformist stance of trade unions,
and the virtual absence of any desire for a radical change on the part of the
great majority of workers.
The opponents of
revisionism, while acknowledging these tendencies, argued that material
improvements were insufficient and ephemeral. They felt that if the working
class and its organizations accepted the constitutional state they were merely
postponing indefinitely the change to socialism. According to them, the
principal tasks of the socialist leader are to arouse dissatisfaction with
existing conditions and to reemphasize constantly the worth of the ultimate
goal. The arguments on both sides continue with only slight changes in the
debate between reformist and revolutionary socialists everywhere. In Marxist
jargon the term revisionism became synonymous with treason. Ironically--but in
a way that pointed toward the subsequent fate of Marxist doctrine--the orthodox
center in the German party was soon to be denounced by left-wingers as
revisionist. Lenin, too, came to condemn sharply the German social democrats
and the "renegade" Kautsky. The latter, in turn, vehemently denounced
Lenin and the Bolsheviks for their adoption of terrorist methods in the
consolidation of their revolutionary gains in Russia. Marxist unity, like the
Second International, thus also fell victim to World War I and its aftermath:
from then on Marxists have tended to be either Marxist-Leninists--that is,
communists embracing the elitist doctrine of the vanguard party--or moderate
revisionists moving ever closer to reformist social democracy.
MODERN MARXIST
SOCIALISM
Modern socialism
owes its shape and fortune at least as much to secular events as to the
continuing attraction of its various doctrines. The major upheavals caused by
two world wars greatly contributed to the success of the Russian (1917) and
Chinese (1949) revolutions, and the governments of these two powerful countries
thereafter endeavored by diverse means to spread the Marxist revolutionary
doctrine further afield, resorting to military methods (as in Eastern Europe),
economic pressures, and military and economic aid, as well as subversion and
propaganda. Indigenous Marxist movements also succeeded in gaining and
maintaining power in Cuba (1959) and Nicaragua (1979). During most of the 20th
century, Marxist socialism meant the dictatorial rule of the Communist party,
intensive industrialization, central state direction of the economy, and the
collectivization of agriculture. These were accompanied, particularly during
the dictatorship of Joseph STALIN in the USSR, by a reign of terror and the
general absence of individual freedom. The Stalinist system, though shorn of
some of its worst brutalities, essentially remained in place until the rise to
power of Mikhail GORBACHEV in 1985. In a few short years, Gorbachev's policies
of GLASNOST (openness) and PERESTROIKA (restructuring) created irresistible
demands for liberalization in both the USSR and Eastern Europe. As the Soviet
regime loosened its grip, the countries of Eastern Europe threw off the
Communist governments that had been imposed on them after World War II. In the
USSR itself long-cherished doctrines of Leninism were jettisoned with
bewildering speed, and, following an abortive coup by party hard-liners in
1991, the Soviet regime collapsed.
EUROPEAN SOCIAL
DEMOCRACY
In Western
Europe, despite the presence of large Marxist parties (as in Italy and France)
and the Marxist influence among intellectuals, socialism was, and still is,
principally represented by widely based social democratic and labor movements,
which generally enjoy the active support of trade unions. This predominance of
reformist trends over revolutionary aspirations undoubtedly was occasioned by
economic stability and the deterrent example of Marxist rule in the East. The
social democratic parties of Sweden, Britain, France, and the Federal Republic
of Germany (the former West Germany and present reunified state), in
particular, governed their respective countries for lengthy periods during the
postwar era through constitutional means, fully accepting the principles of
parliamentary liberal democracy. The spirit of these Western European parties
has tended to be pragmatic and tolerant, seeking accommodation rather than
confrontation. Their programs repudiate the doctrines of the class war,
revolution, and communism. Instead, they have relied on the expedients of
progressive taxation, deficit financing, selective nationalization, the mixed
economy, and vast welfare programs in order to bring about socialism; their
political success has depended on considerable middle-class support. Although
most of these parties have recently accommodated themselves to free-market
reforms, they remain committed to the social democratic vision of a
"middle way" between the extremes of communism and unfettered
capitalism.
Social democratic
foreign policy has generally been pacific and until recently was mainly
concerned with defusing the cold war and accelerating the processes of
decolonization and the banning of nuclear weapons. In domestic politics,
European social democrats generally refused to cooperate with communist parties
and other extremist socialist groups. The Social Democratic party (SPD) in
Germany, although at one time the citadel of orthodox Marxism, has since 1959
been a purely reformist party, abandoning its original goals. The British
LABOUR PARTY, socialist in its aims (its constitution since 1919 has had reference
to "public ownership"), has never had any serious doctrinal or
organizational links with Marxism, although its powerful left wing consistently
advocates radical policies. A dispute with the leftists prompted a group of
Labour moderates to secede (1981) and found the Social Democratic party, which
later merged (1988) with the Liberal party to form the Social and Liberal
Democrats (later, Liberal Democrats). The French Socialist party, which had
long since abandoned its orthodox Marxism, allied itself with the Communists
during the 1960s, but under the leadership of Francois MITTERRAND, it won the
presidency on its own and gained a majority in the National Assembly in 1981.
In the same year, the Greek Socialists came to power under Andreas PAPANDREOU,
and in 1982, Felipe GONZALEZ MARQUEZ formed Spain's first Socialist government
since the Spanish Civil War. Bettino CRAXI became Italy's first Socialist
premier, heading a coalition government from 1983 to 1987. Although
Scandinavia's social democrats suffered electoral defeats in the late 1980s and
early 1990s, the political parties of Europe's moderate left retained broad
popular support.
The French
Communist party was long known for its subservience to the USSR and its rigid
Stalinism. The Italian Communist party, on the other hand, relied on an
indigenous Marxist tradition associated mainly with the teaching of Antonio
GRAMSCI, one of the party's founders, who is widely regarded as one of the most
significant of European Marxist thinkers. The Italian party, at one time the
largest in Western Europe, frequently obtained the highest percentage of the
popular vote in Italy's parliamentary elections and continuously governed a
number of Italian municipalities (Bologna is a prime example).
During the 1970s
the Italian Communists under Enrico BERLINGUER, the French Communists under
Georges Marchais, and the Spanish Communists under Santiago Carillo embraced a
doctrine known as Eurocommunism. The Eurocommunists, breaking not only with
Stalinism but with some aspects of the Leninist tradition, began moving toward
full acceptance of parliamentary democracy and the multiparty system, in many
ways prefiguring the glasnost-perestroika reforms that dramatically changed the
Communist world in the Gorbachev era. To the left of the Communists were a
number of new groups of militant revolutionaries, such as West Germany's Red
Army (Baader-Meinhof) Faction and Italy's Red Brigades, which carried out
campaigns of abduction, subversion, and terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s.
SOCIALISM IN THE
UNITED STATES
In North America,
Marxist influence never spread very far. In the United States no socialist
movement ever held a very large following, and although the country has
produced renowned socialist authors and popular leaders, they have not been
distinguished for their originality or for their impact on the worldwide
development of socialism. Socialism has not taken a firmer root in the United
States for several reasons, of which the country's cultural traditions and its wealth
in natural resources are the most important. Whereas in Europe the distribution
of wealth was a pressing problem, facilitating the rise of socialist movements,
in the United States the moving "frontier" meant the constant
creation of new land and wealth and its accessibility for those endowed with
initiative and a spirit of individual enterprise. Thus in the United States
even radical thinkers tended to be "individualists" and
"anarchists," rather than socialists. In this development the
country's tradition of republican self-government and its ethos of
egalitarianism and democracy also played a decisive role: unlike Europe, the
United States had no entrenched aristocratic privileges or monarchical
absolutism and consequently no need for democratic aspirations to be combined
with the socialist demand for economic equality and security. LABOR UNIONS
also, for the most part, concentrated on the achievement of higher earnings and
were not greatly interested in economic and social organization.
Numerous,
although small, utopian socialist communities did flourish, however, in the
United States, mostly during the early 19th century. Also, a celebrated
economist, Henry GEORGE, and writers of repute, such as Edward BELLAMY,
advocated socialism, and socialist political leaders, such as Victor L. BERGER,
Eugene V. DEBS, Daniel DE LEON, and Norman THOMAS, had at one time considerable
popular appeal. The U.S. SOCIALIST PARTY, founded in 1901, reached its greatest
strength in the 1912 and 1920 presidential elections, when its candidate, Debs,
received more than 900,000 votes. In 1932, Norman Thomas, running on the
Socialist ticket, polled more than 800,000 votes. Thereafter the party's
strength ebbed. The New Deal in the 1930s, although not socialist in inspiration,
also tended to draw votes away from the party. The New Deal's policies of
economic redistribution seemed to meet demands of those who previously
supported the Socialists.
In the economic
boom following World War II and especially in the cold-war era of the 1950s and
1960s, U.S. socialism was at a low ebb. Later, however, socialist ideas made
considerable, although indirect, impacts on various radical (see RADICALISM)
and liberal movements. In the United States many people no longer discuss
socialism in its conventional political and economic sense, but rather as a
remote ethical and social ideal.
SOCIALISM IN THE
THIRD WORLD
Socialism has
assumed a number of distinct forms in the Third World. But only in Israel has
moderate social democracy proved successful for long periods, mainly as a
result of the European socialist tradition brought in by immigrants. There the
Labor party in various forms has had a large following and has governed the
country longer than any other party. Israel has other socialist parties as
well, including a militant Marxist party. At least of equal significance,
however, are the cooperative agricultural communes (kibbutzim), which have
flourished since 1948. Commentators have argued that kibbutzim more than
anything else show the viability of socialist principles in practice; however,
the peculiarities of Israeli conditions (for example, religious tradition and
constant war readiness necessitated by the hostility of Israel's Arab
neighbors) could not easily be duplicated.
Elsewhere in the
Third World, Marxism and various indigenous traditions have been predominant in
socialist movements. In developing countries socialism as an ideology generally
has been fused with various doctrines of nationalism, also a European cultural
import but enriched by diverse motifs drawn from local traditions and cast in
the idiom of indigenous cultures. In India, for example, the largest socialist
movement has partially adapted the pacifist teaching of Mahatma Gandhi, and
distinct native brands of socialism exist in Japan, Burma (Myanmar), and
Indonesia. Similarly, in black Africa native traditions were used in the
adaptation of socialist, mainly Marxist, doctrines and political systems based
on them. Noteworthy instances were the socialist system of Tanzania
(decentralized under an internationally supported economic reform program of
the early 1990s) and the socialist theories of intellectual leaders such as
Kwame NKRUMAH of Ghana, Julius K. NYERERE of Tanzania, Leopold Sedar SENGHOR of
Senegal, and Sekou TOURE of Guinea. Socialism in these theories is usually
understood as a combination of Marxism, anticolonialism, and the updated
tradition of communal landownership and tribal customs of decision making. Most
of sub-Saharan Africa's socialist countries adopted free-market reforms in the
late 1980s and early 1990s.
Arab socialism
likewise represents an effort to combine modern European socialist ideology
with some Islamic principles. The BAATH PARTY in Iraq and Syria and the Destour
party in Tunisia have held power for considerable periods; Algeria also has had
a socialist system since its independence. In the Third World, however,
socialism has often been simply an ideology of anticolonialism and
modernization. Overtly Marxist movements, aided by the USSR, China, or Cuba,
nevertheless seized power in such African countries as Angola, Ethiopia, and
Mozambique. South Africa's AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS (ANC) was also strongly
influenced by Marxist ideas.
THE NEW LEFT
In the West in
the 1960s a radical socialist movement, known as the New Left, arose
principally out of the disaffection of young people with the way of life of
advanced industrial society, and not least with its prosperity and conformism.
The movement, which was apolitical in nature, sought to expose the growing
"alienation" of the individual in advanced industrial conditions,
castigating the values of the "consumer society" and attacking many
prevailing social institutions. The beliefs of this movement, particularly
strong in France, West Germany, and the United States, sprang from many diverse
sources. Most important among these were the ideas found in Marx's early
writings; the idea of "alienation," as interpreted by such
contemporary socialist philosophers as Gyorgy LUKACS and Herbert MARCUSE;
EXISTENTIALISM; romantic and utopian ideas adapted from earlier socialist
writers (for example, Fourier); sexual radicalism derived from the teaching of
Sigmund Freud; and some aspects of Eastern religious traditions, such as ZEN
BUDDHISM. Despite its initial appeal and successes, however, the New Left did
not prove to be a significant or lasting influence on socialism in its
worldwide context or even within advanced industrial societies where
conventional varieties still dominated.
It could well be
argued that socialism as an alternative system of society and government failed
to live up to its promises; by and large it is today no more than a dream or at
best a set of ideal criteria whereby to judge the shortcomings of existing
institutions. Socialist ideology, however, remains a popular and
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