Social Movements: Socialism, Marxism, Anarchism & Labor Movements

Posted on Jan 10, 2025 in History

Social Movements: Farm Worker Discontent

The farm worker discontent manifested in two ways:

  • The Pensadores ideologies of socialists and anarchists tried to rebuild the social harmony and solidarity of the community destroyed by the injustice of capitalist society.
  • A broad political-social movement where workers organized and created projects to improve their situation.

Socialism

Socialist ideologies agree on the following:

  • Progress is a force that leads to the overcoming of capitalism.
  • Social equality should predominate over individual rights and freedoms.
  • The value of society should be publicly owned.

Types of Socialists

There are three main types of socialists:

  • Socialist Utopian: Emerged in France and Britain. Society was planned by the will of socialist people. These companies experimented with models and condemned capitalism. Charles Fourier proposed communes (phalansteries), and Robert Owen established the cooperative movement.
  • Marxism: Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto, which expounded his theory of class struggle. In Capital, Marx made a devastating analysis of capitalism. His contributions were the most important of socialism and include:
    • History is a struggle of classes. Socialism meets the universal laws of history.
    • The contradictions of society create social and economic systems. Alienation and the suffering of workers who did not own production and received a minimum wage. The relation value is what the state keeps (capital gains).
    • The working class was to lead a revolution aimed at conquering the state.
  • Anarchism: Thinkers like Proudhon and Bakunin aimed to transform society by creating communities outside the state. They rejected political action and favored free trade unions and a social revolution.

The Formation of the Working-Class Movement

This took place in two ways:

  • Direct Action: Carried out by riots that destroyed machinery (Luddism). Workers joined unions. In Britain, these unions were reformist (Trades Unions). In Germany, they were reformers but did not control the game. In France and Spain, they were revolutionary. The UGT in Spain was modeled after the German and French national labor confederations. The riot was replaced by strikes.
  • Political Action: Popular insurrection was a common method. In Britain, the Chartism movement improved working conditions through universal suffrage and parliament. From 1871, worker-inspired parties appeared, such as the British Labour Party, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, and the French section of the French International. These parties participated in elections and organized political campaigns. The most important act was the establishment of May Day as a day of strike and protest.

International Workers’ Associations

These were formed to achieve unity and partnerships:

  • The First International: Formed in London, there were disputes between Marx and Bakunin on the role of the state, which led to the division between socialism and anarchism.
  • The Second International: Formed in Paris and led by the German SPD, led by Karl Kautsky. This association condemned revisionism (reformist interpretation of Marxism), imperialism, and war. In 1914, the First World War broke out, and the socialist governments supported their countries, dismantling the association.

Other labor movements included those of women with the WSPU and the thoughts of the Jews and Zionism.