The Age of Mass Politics
1871-1914
France, Germany, England, Russia,
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Austro-Hungarian Empire
• Ausgleich (Compromise)
• Hungarians had own government
– 25% wealthiest had right to vote
• Austria assimilated Magyars
– Language a sticky issue (German or Czech)
– 1907 universal male suffrage (Austria)
– Anti-Semitism
France Third Republic
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Paris Commune
Adolphe Thiers
Weak president
Chamber of Deputies had most power (elected)
Trade Unions legalized
Secular education & reform; tax supported
schools, compulsory education
• Multiparty system
• Shifting coalitions
Problems for the Third Republic
• Boulanger Crisis
– Leader gained support of military
– Attempted coup, failed
– Fled, killed himself
• Panama scandal
– De Lesseps
– Corrupt, millions of dollars
Dreyfus Affair
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1894
Jewish Captain
Emile Zola: J’accuse
Alliance between moderate republicans and
socialists
• Conservatives and Catholic Church discredited
• Socialists gain seats
• Anti-Catholic movement
Anti Semitism
• Dreyfus Affair
• Pogroms
• Zionist Movement
– Theodore Hertzel
– The Jewish State
– Father of Zionism
Victorian England
• Tory Party=Conservative Party=Benjamin
Disraeli
• Whig Party=Liberal Party=William Gladstone
Conservative Party=Benjamin Disraeli
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Aggressive foreign policy
Expansion of the British Empire
Sympathy for the working class
Reform Bill of 1867
– House of Commons, redistributed seats, more
representation
– Rotten boroughs lost seats
– Almost all men over 21 right to vote
– Doubled the number of men
Liberal Party=William Gladstone
• Liberal
• Supported Irish Home Rule, fiscal policy, free
trade, extension of democracy and against
Imperialism
• Abolished taxes to support Church of England
• Secret ballot
• Civil service reform, competitive examinations
Liberal Party=William Gladstone
• Reform Act of 1884
– Suffrage to adult males in the counties on the
same basis as in the boroughs
– 2 million agricultural voters added
– Close to universal male suffrage
New Groups Emerge
• Women’s suffrage
• Fabian Society
– Advanced a form of revisionist Marxism
– Political democracy and economic socialism
• Independent Labor Party
– Keir Hardie
– Third political party
– Trade unionists, socialists
Liberal Party
• 1905-1920’s
• Aggressive social & economic programs
• Foundations of social welfare state
– Guaranteed standard of living
– Unions right to strike
– Workers compensation
– Unemployment insurance & old age pensions
– Mandatory school
– Taxes increased on wealthy
Liberal Party
• Parliament Act 1911
– Eliminated power of House of Lords
– 5 year Parliament term
• Representation of the People Act 1918
– Women of 30 vote
– All men, no property qualifications
Women’s Rights & Suffrage
• Started with divorce, marriage, and property
laws
• Needed suffrage to change anything
• Suffragettes came from the middle class
– Had time, education
– Working class & socialists worked separately
Women’s Rights & Suffrage
• Millicent Garrett Fawcett
– National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies
(NUWSS)
– Demanded Parliament give vote
• Emmeline Pankhurst
– Militant
– Finland 1906, Norway 1913
– Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU)
Emmeline Pankhurst
• Destroyed:
– RR stations
– Art works
– Store windows
– Chained themselves to Parliament building
– Hunger strikes
– Emily Davison
Women’s Rights & Suffrage
• Representation of the People Act 1918
• Reform Act of 1928
– Women over 21
The Irish Question
• Young Ireland (Nationalism 1848)
• Gladstone: in favor of home rule
• Ulster
– Protestant counties in Northern Ireland
• Irish Home Rule Act: didn’t pass House of Lords
• Easter Rebellion (1916)
• 1922, Ireland gained independence, N.Ireland
remained part of British Empire
The Eastern Question
• Ottoman Empire
– “The Sick Man of Europe”
– Russia and A-H wanted territory
• Pan-Slavism
– Unite all Slavs under Russia
– Russo-Turkish War
– jingoism
• Congress of Berlin (1878)
– Russia gained little
– Romania, Serbia, Montenegro independent
Socialist Movements
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Advance the proletariat
Nationalism as a tool by ruling class
Opposed war
Marxism lead the way
Socialist united=First International
Huge growth: Germany, France, Belgium,A-H
1883, exiled from Russia (Lennin), Switzerland
Revisionism
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Elections instead of Revolutions
Standard of living up
Labor unions grew
Bread and butter issues: wages, hours, working
conditions
• Collective bargaining
• EDUARD BERNSTEIN
– Evolutionary Socialism
– Proved Marx false
Germany: Social Democratic Party
(S.P.D)
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Marxist
Sweeping social change
Demilitarization of Germany
Bismarck gives in to demands
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Protective tariff
Modern social security
National sickness & accident insurance
Old age pensions, retirement benefits
Regulated child labor
Improved working conditions
Socialists Elsewhere
• Jean Jaures-France, gained seats in Chamber
of Deputies
• England- Fabian Society, political democrarcy
& economic socialism, Labor Party,
foundations of social welfare state
Anarchy
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Spun off from mainstream socialists
Destroy the centralized state
Mikhail Bakunin
Strongest in Spain & Italy
Political assassinations: 6 leaders in 20 years
– Alexander II
– King Umbro (Italy)
– President William McKinley
Russia
• Crimean War defeat turning point
• Lacked middle class to push for reform
Alexander II (1855-1881)
• Emancipation Act 1861: freed the serfs
• Mirs: most Russians lived in Communes,
collective ownership, hard to leave
• Zemstvos: assemblies that adminstered local
areas, popular participation, lords controlled
them
• Censorship relaxed
• Education liberalized
Alexander II (1855-1881)
• Industrialization
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Railroads
Industrial suburbs
Factory working class
Strengthened military
• Critics
– Realism replaced Romanticism
– Intelligensia
– Nihilism: believed in only science, had to rebuild
society
• 1881 Assassinated
Count S.Y. Witte
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Industrialization of Russia
Western capital
Trans Siberian Railway
Gold standard
4th in steel production
Spread of Marxist thought
Russia Problems
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1/3 of farmland not used
Population explosion
Depression 1899
Russo-Japanese War 1905
Alexander III (1881-1894)
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Reactionary
Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and Russification
Anti Semitism, pogroms
Theodore Herzel: Zionism, Jewish homeland
Nicholas II (1894-1917)
• Russo-Japanese War
– Russia had Manchuria wanted Korea
– Russia lost
1905 Revolution
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Peasants and middle class demand change
“Bloody Sunday”: Jan.1905
General strike, peasant revolt, troop mutinies
October Manifesto
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Duma created
Freedom of speech, assembly, press
Czar had absolute veto
Revolutionaries divided in Duma
• Mild economic recovery
• Peter Stolypin: agrarian reform, encouraged free enterprise
• Gregorii Rasputin: doubt about the Czar increased