Socialism refers to economic and political arrangements that emphasize public or community ownership of productive property. Productive property includes land, factories, and other property used to produce goods and services. All societies have practiced some form of public ownership. But the term socialism, as it is used today, first appeared in Europe in the 1800’s. At that time, socialist thinkers contrasted the idea of socialism with the newly developed idea of capitalism. Many socialists were also concerned by the disruptions in people’s lives caused by the Industrial Revolution, a period of rapid industrialization that had begun in the 1700’s. See Industrial Revolution (Life during the Industrial Revolution) .
Eventually, many countries adopted socialist policies. These policies included government control of the economy and the establishment of vast social welfare programs to aid the needy. By the 1990’s, many people had begun to associate socialist policies with a lack of economic flexibility. As a result, numerous political parties that once called themselves socialist stopped doing so. Nevertheless, many institutions inspired by socialist ideas remained and kept the support of most citizens.
Early socialist ideas.
In the 1800’s, thinkers who favored socialism claimed it was a traditional economic system and perhaps a more natural one than capitalism. They pointed out, for example, that much property served public purposes in ancient Greece and Rome, in Europe during the Middle Ages, and in Christian monasteries. Public or communal ownership applied especially to natural resources and to large enterprises that required community cooperation.
The early socialists saw community ownership as an answer to poverty, great inequalities of wealth, and social unrest. The French journalist and politician Pierre J. Proudhon considered the establishment of any kind of private property as a theft from the community. The Welsh-born socialist leader Robert Owen believed that the sharing of property created social harmony and progress, in contrast to the competition and conflict generated by private property and capitalism.
Such ideas influenced political movements for protecting the working class. In the mid-1800’s, for example, the French socialist leader Louis Blanc began a French workers’ movement that was based on socialist ideas. The movement gave rise not only to labor unions but also to socialist political parties. Similar developments later occurred in all industrialized countries.
Karl Marx,
a German philosopher and economist, became the most influential socialist. His thinking was critical of French socialists, who focused on the moral questions of property and advocated reforms to achieve social justice. Marx proposed a type of socialism that his supporters called “scientific” and “revolutionary.”
Marx’s writings include the Communist Manifesto (1848), which he wrote with the German journalist Friedrich Engels. The work held that civilization had reached its condition at that time by an inevitable process that began with the invention of private property. The existence of private property divided society into owners and workers. According to Marx, conflict between those two classes drove civilization to adopt capitalism. But Marx thought capitalism soon would fall apart because of its defects, including a tendency to produce economic depressions. The working class would then use socialism to dismantle capitalism’s foundation of private property.
The Communist Manifesto served as the political platform for an organization called the First International (originally known as the International Workingmen’s Association). This organization united several labor and socialist groups. See Marx, Karl; and Communism (Communism in theory) .
The First International
brought together socialists from many countries at its first congress, which was held in London in 1865. Marx and Engels inspired the meeting. Socialists at the congress hammered out a common doctrine that included insistence on revolution instead of gradual reform, the elimination of private ownership of productive property, and the establishment of state socialism (authoritarian rule by the working class). The First International did not include all socialists, however.
Moderate socialism
developed in a variety of ways from the mid-1800’s through the early 1900’s. For example, the Fabian Society was founded in the United Kingdom in 1884. Its members taught that socialist goals could be achieved gradually through a series of reforms. Similar movements appeared in other countries. In both Europe and the United States, some reformers advocated Christian socialism, which stressed biblical ideas of shared property and a common good.
In the United States, Christian socialists and labor activists united to form the Socialist Party in 1901. Socialists in labor were led by Eugene V. Debs and Victor L. Berger. Debs ran for president of the United States as the Socialist Party candidate in 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920. Each time, he received less than 6 percent of the popular vote. Berger and several other socialists served in Congress.
Events of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s led many socialists to break with the Communists. The working-class revolution that Marx had expected failed to occur. In Europe, such everyday concerns as job safety, employment benefits, better wages, and social welfare occupied workers’ attention. Even many Marxists began to argue that achieving socialism should be evolutionary (gradual) rather than revolutionary. These socialists were led by such thinkers as the German writer and politician Eduard Bernstein. Bernstein claimed socialism must be achieved within a democratic system. Socialists should make members of the middle class their allies and strive for practical reforms instead of revolutionary change.
The Second International, organized at a meeting in Paris in 1889, highlighted this new moderation. Bernstein and other evolutionary socialists dominated the Paris meeting.
World Wars I and II.
In World War I (1914-1918), the Allies, who included France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, defeated the Central Powers, including Germany and Austria-Hungary. During the war, the international spirit of the Second International virtually disappeared. This change occurred partly because most socialist parties of the warring nations of Europe supported their own governments. But even more important may have been the war’s role in bringing Communists to power in Russia in 1917.
The war brought economic hardship and political unrest to Russia. Russian Communists led by V. I. Lenin took advantage of these conditions to gain control of Russia’s government. Lenin became the nation’s dictator. With his followers, he transformed Russia into the first self-described socialist state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Its political and economic principles became known as Marxism-Leninism. However, not all socialists throughout the world approved of the Soviet Union. Some socialists criticized the Soviets for their authoritarian methods and radical policies.
During the early 1900’s, socialist parties also came to power in Australia, Denmark, France, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In the United States, Norman M. Thomas ran as the Socialist Party’s candidate for president several times. In 1932, he received about 2 percent of the popular vote. Some scholars argue that his campaigns influenced the policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, especially those designed to help the nation recover from the Great Depression.
In World War II (1939-1945), the Allies, who included the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, defeated the Axis Powers, who included Germany, Italy, and Japan. The major socialist groups and parties of the Allied countries supported their nations’ war efforts. Nazi Germany occupied much of Europe during the war, and socialists played a key role in the European resistance to the Nazi occupation. Socialists became the targets of German dictator Adolf Hitler and of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist government in Italy.
After the war, socialist parties made gains around the world. In 1945, for example, the Labour Party in the United Kingdom won control of the government on a platform of largely socialist policies. These policies led to the nationalization of much of the nation’s economy, including the coal mining, iron and steel, railroad, and trucking industries. Similar socialist successes occurred in nearly every nation of Europe and in many of the independent countries of Latin America and Asia. Socialists also played a central role in establishing and developing the nation of Israel.
The Cold War.
The Soviet Union took advantage of political disorder following World War II to establish authoritarian Communist governments in Eastern Europe. Other governments that followed the Soviet pattern appeared around the world, including in China in 1945 and Cuba in 1959. The new governments, like that of the Soviet Union, described their countries as “socialist” states.
Non-Communist socialists in democratic nations found themselves caught between the two sides of the Cold War, a period of international hostility that developed after World War II. The Cold War pitted the Communist nations, led by the Soviet Union, against the non-Communist nations, led by the United States. The Cold War sharpened the division between moderate socialist groups and Communism. It also weakened the appeal of moderate socialism in nations where many people identified it with Communism. This weakening occurred especially in the United States, where support for socialist policies and ideas fell sharply in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Many socialists criticized Communists for accepting the brutal dictatorship of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
The New Left.
The 1960’s and 1970’s saw the rise of a new type of socialism called the New Left in many countries. In the United States, this new socialism was represented by such thinkers as philosopher Herbert Marcuse, who criticized the effects of advertising on consumers in capitalist societies; linguist and educator Noam Chomsky, who saw large capitalist corporations as a threat to personal freedom; and political scientist Michael Harrington, who advocated the gradual establishment of extensive welfare programs.
In Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and other Communist countries, the New Left favored liberal reforms and a rethinking of Marxism-Leninism. In Czechoslovakia in 1968, Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek introduced what became known as “socialism with a human face.” This type of socialism restored freedom of the press and other civil liberties. Dubcek’s reforms, known as the Prague Spring, ended later that year when troops from the Soviet Union and other Communist countries invaded Czechoslovakia.
In both Eastern and Western countries during the 1960’s and 1970’s, socialism influenced the civil rights movement, the youth culture, and the peace movement. The thinking of those years rejected large-scale state socialism in favor of a focus on socialist policies for local communities.
During the 1960’s and 1970’s, socialism also had wide appeal in less developed countries. Many newly independent nations viewed socialist policies as a means to speed their economic and political development. Nations that experimented with socialist policies included Kenya and Tanzania in Africa, Egypt and Iraq in the Middle East, Mexico and Chile in the Americas, and India and Burma (now Myanmar) in Asia. In the late 1900’s, the economies of many rapidly industrializing nations, including Indonesia, Thailand, and China, blended aspects of socialism and capitalism. For example, they maintained state ownership of rail transport and the petroleum industry. But they also encouraged private ownership of many types of productive property.
The fall of the Soviet Union.
In 1991, the Soviet Union broke apart into a number of separate countries, most of which rejected Communism. About the same time, many of the countries of Eastern Europe also set up non-Communist governments.
Some people saw the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe as proof of socialism’s inferiority. However, socialists could still point to new successes. In the late 1900’s, for example, socialist or formerly socialist parties came to power in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and many other nations. In addition, aspects of traditional socialist policies had become permanent features throughout the world. Numerous countries, for example, had adopted extensive social welfare programs.
Despite socialism’s numerous successes, the movement became difficult to define and identify after the fall of the Soviet Union. A large number of the “socialist” parties that came to power in the 1990’s rejected the socialist label.
Today, socialists throughout the world disagree on many doctrines they once held in common. For example, many still advocate that the government plan and administer a nation’s economy. Others support small-scale cooperatives instead of state-owned industries and believe that, in general, government involvement in citizens’ private lives should be kept to a minimum.
The focus of socialism has also changed. In the 1800’s, socialists saw socialism as a rival to capitalism. Today, many socialists see value in some aspects of capitalism. Traditionally, socialists focused on issues important to workers. Today, many also focus on issues important to the middle class, including women’s rights, consumer safety, and the environment. Some socialists and former socialists see these changes as evidence of socialism’s failure. Others see it as evidence that the movement has achieved many of its goals.
