Socialism in Europe: 1870 to 1914

The Paris commune

In March 1871, following the lifting of the siege of Paris and the armistice in January, there was an insurrection. The government declared that rent in arrears and debts must be honoured, and this plunged middle-class families into financial ruin. On the 18th March, Thiers, the head of the provisional government, ordered the National Guard in Paris to hand over its artillery and he sent troops to enforce the order. The commune lasted for two months and ended after a siege and bitter street fighting and atrocities. The Tuilleries was burnt down.

Nonetheless, the example of the Paris commune inspired the left and revolutionaries with confidence. Marx and Engles in The Civil War in France called it “the glorious harbinger of a new society”.

Revolutionary theorists

Apart from Marx there were other influential revolutionary theorists

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who died in 1865, advocated the doctrine of federalism and the abolition of property and government. He claimed this would lead to the development of the best part of human nature and to the evolution of a reign of justice. He claimed that the attainment of justice would emerge as a result of a constant struggle against the violent and irrational elements in man. But Proudhon was disillusioned by the events of 1848 and had repudiated political action. Proudhon's influence in France, however, meant that Marxism was less successful there than in other countries.

Michael Bakunin

Michael Bakunin, a Russian who died in 1876. He maintained that the landless workers of Italy, Spain and Russia were the true revolutionaries because they had nothing to lose. Industrial workers enjoy the benefits of economic progress so have a stake in capitalist society. It was Bukunin's quarrel with Marx that led to the split of the 1st International; they argued over organisational and ideological questions.

Ferdinand Lassalle

Ferdinand Lassalle, a German, who died in 1864. Lassalle believed in the necessity of creating a strong German state under Prussian leadership. He believed that the ensuing democracy would give an organised working-class control of the state. In 1875 supporters of Lassalle united with those of Marx to form the German Social Democratic Party. Thus the spread of universal suffrage and the growth of the industrial proletariat meant that socialism was becoming a mass movement.

The theory of international socialism

Marx believed that socialism should be an international movement. The First International (which is short for the “International Working Men's Association”) was founded in London in 1864. It was a vehicle for the ideas of Marx. In 1871 the International came on the verge of dissolution, and in 1872 it split.

In 1889 the Second International was founded. (The First International was dissolved in 1876.) In 1900 the International Socialist Bureau was set up in Brussels, but it comprised only a secretariat for planning, for example, the international socialist congress. In 1904 the Amsterdam congress dictated that French socialist parties should unite; a decision which Jaurès obeyed. However, the international movement was not able to prevent Czech socialists separating from Germans for nationalist reasons. International socialists feared the development of nationalism. For example the special congress of the International at Basle in 1912 emphasised the determination of the socialist movement to avoid war. The French and German governments were deeply suspicious of socialists, whom they saw as potential traitors in the event of war.

Socialism in European Countries

British socialism

There were two ways in which socialism could develop. The first of these was through organised political parties within the framework of the existing constitution. The other route was through conflict and revolution.

The constitutional development took place, for example, in Great Britain and was coupled to the development of trade unions. By 1884 in England virtually all male adults had the vote. The Liberal party was committed to reform. In 1893 there was the foundation of the Independent Labour Party by James Ker Hardie. In 1901 the British courts judged that unions were liable to pay damages to employers for losses caused by strike action; but this stimulated the formation of an alliance between unions and the Labour party. In 1900 there was the foundation of the Labour Representation Committee. Its purpose was to return working men to Parliament. Membership of this group increased as it became clear that a conservative government would not change the legislation on union activity. In 1906 the committee called itself the Labour Party. In 1889 there was a great strike in the London docks, which won for the dockers recognition of their aims, and an increase in wages. In 1910 the Labour Party increased its Parliamentary strength. But many trade unionists believed that strike action was more effective than Parliamentary representation. The British working class was pragmatic, and had little interest in ideology. They were primarily concerned with practical gains and immediate reforms.

German socialism

In 1875 the Marxist and Lassalle branches of the socialist movement united to form the Social Democratic Party. The German socialist party subscribed to Marxism. The leaders were August Bebel and William Liebknecht, who remained in touch with Marx until Marx's death in 1883. Engles died in 1895. The late work of Engels was concerned with codifying and disseminating the work of Marx. As German industry grew so it the membership of the Social Democratic Party.

Statistics on the rise of the Social Democratic Party

In 1912 the SDP became the single largest party in the Reichstag, and one in three Germans voted for it.

Bismarck was afraid of the socialist movement. Following two unsuccessful attempts on the life of the Kaiser in 1878 he imposed severe restrictions on the political activities of the socialists.

The Reichstag had limited powers. It controlled taxation but had no power over the executive. The Imperial Chancellor was only responsible to the Emperor. In some individual state parliaments universal male suffrage did not apply. For example, in Prussia. The Saxon government abolished universal suffrage in 1896 when the socialists became too strong.

Mobility between the classes was very low. It was rare for a worker to rise into the bourgeoisie. The new industrialists acted like patriarchs, very much in the manner of a Prussian landowner. For example, Stumm, the mine and factory owner, dominated every aspect of life the Saar basin.

With German industrial expansion the standard of living of workers was rising. The SDP also had a programme of immediate social reform which was attractive to voters. German unions increased in strength. In 1900 the membership of the socialist unions, called the Free Trade Unions, was 680,000. By 1913 membership had risen to 2,575,000. The German unions became increasingly influential in SDP policy.

There was some dissent from the official Marxist line of the SDP. In 1899 Eduard Berstein in his work The Presuppositions of Socialism opposed Marxism and maintained that the working movement should concentrate on immediate reforms. His 'revisionist' ideas were officially condemned by the German SDP. Nonetheless, Berstein remained a member of the SDP.

French socialism

The French economy was less urbanised than the German, and likewise the French labour movement was much less homogeneous and less centralised than that of Germany. The doctrines of Proudhon, with its emphasis on decentralisation, accorded with this. In 1879 there was an amnesty for the leaders of the Paris commune, and many of them returned to France. In 1884 trade unions were made legal. In 1905 there was the formation of a united French socialist party.

Marx became increasingly popular in France owing to the influence of Jules Guesde. He promoted the idea of a disciplined, centralised Marxist party and this was popular especially among miners in Northern France. During the 1890s a parliamentary group of independent socialists formed. Jean Jaurès was the principle architect of a united socialist party in France.

In 1897 the Dreyfus affair shook French society to the core. Dreyfus was a Jewish officer of the general staff who was unjustly accused and convicted of espionage for the Germans and sent to Devil's island as a result. Jaurès took up this cause whereas Guesde thought it was of no concern to the socialist movement. In 1905 the French socialist parties united, and adopted Guesde's views as the official party line. This followed the decision of the 1904 International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam. The French Social Party was committed to permanent opposition to the French executive. By 1914 it polled 1.4 million votes and obtained 103 seats in the Chamber.

However, some French socialists believed in direct action, and there were several acts of terrorism. In 1894 the President was murdered. In the same year a bomb was thrown into the Chamber of Deputies. There was the development of anarcho-syndicalists and a distrust of politics and parliaments with a commitment to direct action. The theorist George Sorel, for example in his Reflections on Violence (1908) advocated direct action to purge and transform the corrupt old order. He advocated the use of the general strike. But numbers of syndicalist remained small until the First World War when the syndicalist union, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) became a major force in France.

Russian socialism

Following the Crimean War, he reforms of Tsar Alexander II, including the abolition of serfdom, solved very few problems and created new ones. Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. Alexander III started a reign of black reaction and almost unbroken repression. Bukanin was right in that the Russian peasantry was the most potentially revolutionary element in Europe. In addition, industrialisation in Russia was creating a new and potentially revolutionary urban proletariat.

There was an attempt to form a social democratic party by G.V. Plekhanov, P.B. Axelrod and Vera Zasulich, but they were forced into exile.

Lenin, whose real name was Vladimir Uitch Ulyanov, was born in 1870. His elder brother was executed for taking part in a plot to assassinate Tsar Alexander III, when Lenin was 17. Lenin was expelled from university. He was exiled to Siberia. He left Russia in 1900 and returned for some months during the Revolution of 1905. He returned again in April 1917. It was Lenin's conviction that revolution must be the work of dedicated professionals, willing to give up everything. He preferred to split the party rather than tolerate diversity of opinions. In 1903 he forced the division of the Russian Socialist Party into two groups, the Mensheviks (meaning the “majority”) and the Bolsheviks (“minority”). The Mensheviks became a Social Democratic Party, whilst the Bolsheviks stood for ruthlessness in the pursuit of the revolution.

In 1905 the disastrous defeat of Russia by the Japanese in the Far East led to peasant uprisings. The government was forced to make concessions and a constitution was introduced, which created a parliament, the state Duma. But after 1905 continuing state repression convinced Lenin of the need for a dedicated revolutionary organisation.

Anarchism in Italy and Spain

Italy had a strong tradition of anarchism. During Red week in 1914 there was the threat of a general strike coupled to an insurrection. However, the insurrection never occurred.

In Spain the anarchist tradition had the widest influence. In 1868, however, the failure of the republic led to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. Spain appeared to be ungovernable. In 1898 Spain was defeated by the United States with the result that it lost the Carribean and Pacific colonies.

Catalonia was the most advanced part of the country, with a strong federalist movement aiming at autonomy. The Basques hoped also for separation. Bakunin's ideas took a deep root in Spain. Anarchists led both the rural workers and industrial proletariat to believe that only a radical and total transformation of society could solve their problems and improve their lot. There were several examples of violent action. In the 1890s bombs exploded in theatres and at religious processions. In 1897 there was the assassination of Prime Minister, Canovas del Castillo. “Tragic week” occurred during 1907 when there were spontaneous outbreaks of violent rioting in Barcelona following the call-up of reservists to serve in an unsuccessful colonial war in Morocco. Following the repression that took place after this, many people turned back to organised action through trade unions.