Chapter 14
Society and Culture, 1871-1914
Section 14.75
The Advance of Democracy: Socialism, Labor Unions, and
Feminism
Introduction
• Most people (especially liberals) in the
nineteenth century assumed that progress was
inevitable and beneficial
• Advances in modern life
– Science knowledge, new inventions,
economic expansion, constitutional
government, expansion of the protection of
human rights
• others pointed out that workers and women
were not receiving equal rights
• New trends (socialism, feminism, unionism)
emerged to gain progressive rights for their
respective groups
• Other thinkers began to question the the
certitudes of scientific knowledge and see
limits in human reason (Einstein & Freud)
• IE. The Newtonian paradigm was about to be
cracked
Introduction
Most people (especially liberals) in the
nineteenth century assumed that progress was
inevitable and beneficial
Advances in modern life
Science knowledge, new inventions,
economic expansion, constitutional
government, expansion of the protection of
human rights
others pointed out that workers and women
were not receiving equal rights
New trends (socialism, feminism, unionism)
emerged to gain progressive rights for their
respective groups
Other thinkers began to question the the
certitudes of scientific knowledge and see limits
in human reason (Einstein & Freud)
IE. The Newtonian paradigm was about to be
cracked
Opponents of liberalism
• Free markets and unrestrained capitalism was
challenged
• Bourgeois (classic) Liberalism =Capitalism, free
competition, unrestrained private enterprise,
Manchester School, laissez faire, free market were ideas
that didn’t do much for workers, artisans and radical
democrats
• These were ideas of Middle class liberals
– Their philosophy was opposed by the Sans Culottes during
French Rev., English Chartists, all who were anti-capitalistic
• Socialism grew during 1848 as many workers hoped for
a “social”republic
• Rev of 1848 failed but it frightened the ruling classes to
adopt some social measures (extension of suffrage)
Opponents of liberalism
Workers used two options to improve their
position:
Some wanted to abolish capitalism
They became proponents of socialists
Wanted to destroy their employers
Some wanted to bargain with capitalists
They became proponents of unionism
(labor unions)
Wanted to keep their employers
prosperous
Bargain for bread and butter issues
IE. A polarity of interests developed within
Workers and intellectuals
Who were the intellectuals (of the workers)?
• were middle class (Marx, Engels, Blanc, Lassalle)
• Tended to lean toward socialism
• Held long term views
– Saw economy as a complex social system, view society as
• Viewed worker as shortsighted and timid
What were the views of the workers?
• Tended to focus on unionism
• Had short term view
• barely educated, worked all day on manual jobs
• more interested in immediate action like safer machinery, 15
more for lunch
• saw intellectual as an outsider
The Trade Union Movement and Rise of
British Labor
• Unions (combinations) had always
been frowned upon or prohibited
– Le Chapelier Act of 1791, Combination
Act of 1799 (of the British Tories)
• Ironically the rise of the bourgeois
who had been insensitive to the
worker (via laissez-faire) gave legal
freedom to labor unions
• Gladstone recognized their right to
exists in 1871
• French unions fully legal in 1884
under Nap III
New Model Unions
• Prosperity of the 1850s was a favorable
environment for unionism
• Amalgamated Society of Engineers
(machinists) in 1851 introduce new policy of
unionism
• Made up of Skilled Workers
• Said they would take unions out of politics
• forget grand ideas of one big union (Owens)
and concentrate on the interests of each
separate trade
• Use moderate tactics to leverage union
interests
• would be reasonable with their employers,
avoid strikes
• Surprisingly moderate
• Conservatives and Liberals of England gave
worker vote in 1867
Forget grand ideas of one big union
(Owens) and concentrate on the
interests of each separate trade
Use moderate tactics to leverage
union interests
would be reasonable with their
employers, avoid strikes
Surprisingly moderate
Conservatives and Liberals of
England gave worker vote in 1867
New Model Unions
Unskilled Workers
• Great London dock strike of 1889 led to formation of
unskilled Industrial Unionism
– unionism within a certain industry regardless of the
actual task performed
• Some skilled workers joined
• By 1900
– 2 million union members in GB
– 850 thousand in Germany
– 250 thousand in France
• Ironically their success (in Great Britain) in collective
bargaining slowed the development of the formation of a
workers’ political party
Socialism was much stronger on Continent than in GB
(unions were successful)
Avowed socialists elected to German, French parliam
“Lib Labs”=liberals who supported labor numbered
about 6 in GB
Trade union officials and middle class intellectuals
formed the British Labour Party (around 1900)
In Germ and France it was socialist party who forme
unions, in GB in was the unions that formed the Party
GB Labour party was less socialistic
Wanted unions to be a respected and stable institution
Taff Vale decision
• British courts ruled in 1901 threatened existence of
unions
• Said that unions must pay for business losses if on
strike
– Similar to Coronado case in US
• Pulled unions together into the Labour Party in 1906
• Sent 29 members to Parliament in 1906
• Taff Vale decision was overruled
• New force in Parliament was driving force in the
liberal legislation of Disraeli, Gladstone, and D.L.
George
European Socialism after 1850
• 1867 Capital is published by Marx
• painstakingly research work gave
substance to the Communist
Manifesto
• Was a loner while exiled in England
• Didn’t mix with the labor unions
and was relatively unknown in GB
• Das Capital (p. 1867) was not
released in England until 1886
• IE. Little appeal and little influence
on GB Labour Party
The First International
• 1864 London was host to the first International
Working Men’s Association, known as the First
International
• sponsored by diverse group including British
carpenter’s union (Robert Applegarth), Italian
revolutionary Mazzini, and Marx,
• Marx took control of the Association and used it as a
Bully Pulpit for the ideas of Capital
• Later meetings he made Mazzinians unwelcome
• Denounced the German Lassalleans for their
willingness to cooperate with Bismarck
(opportunism)
• Said that Bakunin and anarchist of Russia were
abhorrent
• Marx said that proper target was not the state (this
was only a tool of the propertied class
• Real target should be the capitalist economic system
• Bukunin was driven from the International in 1872
The Paris Commune
• International watched and hoped that it was
the signal for working class upheaval
• Some members went to the Commune(to
study it ?)
• First International was labeled violent and
anarchistic
• Marx praised it as well and said that the
Dictatorship of the proletariat was coming
• First International losses momentum as this
frightened many
• First International fades after 1872
• Socialist parties emerge in many countries
• They eventually formed the Second
International
• Met every 3 years from 1889-1914
Revisionist & Revolutionary Socialism, 1880 – 1914
• Marxism or scientific socialism
was most prominent model of
the period
• Had attitude of hostility
towards other doctrines
• Strongest in Germany and
France
• Unsuccessful in Italy and Spain
• Population was illiterate, and
less industrialized
• More prone to insurrectionism
and anarchism
Inaugural Address of the International
Working Men's Association
Fabian socialism in England
• Marxism was weak here
• Workers liked trade unions
• Fabian Society =Middle class critics of capitalism
formed in 1883
• Named after Roman general Fabius Cunctator “The
delayer” or strategist of gradual methods
• very un-Marxist and very English
H.G. Wells
• Formed by George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Sidney
and Beatrice Webb
• Believed that socialism was the economic and social
outcome of democracy
• Socialism was the inevitable outcome
• No class conflict was necessary
• Municipal ownership of public utilities would bring
The Fabian society
about gradual socialism
• Supported the trade unions
Parliamentary socialism on the Continent
• Marxism turned into less revolutionary
parliamentary socialism (except in Russia
where no parliamentary gov existed)
• Workers may have believed in Marxism but
they worked for orderly legislation
benefiting the workers
• Sought social insurance, factory regulation,
minimum wages, max hours
• Marxism is loosing ground
• Although the bourgeoisie was getting richer
the proletarian class was not getting poorer
• Wages were rising
• Real wages rose 50% b/5 1870-1900
• Food prices were falling
The revisionists
• Marxism began in the 1890s to
be revised
• Jean Jaures
• Eduard Bernstein, author of
Evolutionary Socialism
• They believed that class conflict
might not be inevitable
• Capitalism might be gradually
transformed in the workers’
interest via democracy
• No need for a dictatorship of the
proletariat
Eduard Bernstein
Syndicalism
• A French word for trade unionism
• Georges Sorel was its main
exponent
• Idea was that the workers’ unions
become the supreme power in
society (replacing property, market
economy, gov)
• This power would be attained in a
spectacular general strike
• Strongest where unions were
weakest & had the least to lose
(Italy, Spain, France)
Georges Sorel
Orthodoxy vs. Revisionism
• Revisionism led to a revival of orthodox
Marxism
• revisionists were labeled compromisers
• Betrayed Marxism for bread and butter
concessions
• Karl Kautsky of Germany used the Second
International to condemn French socialist
Alexandre Millerand for joining the French
cabinet in 1899
• Said that socialists could use parliaments as
a forum but not join them
Karl Kautsky
V.I. Lenin
Orthodoxy vs. Revisionism
Lenin called for revisionism to be stamped out
Bolsheviks (majority at meeting of Russian
Social Democrats)
Revisionists were labeled Mensheviks
(minority)
but in 1903 who cared about Russian Marxists?
Revolutionary Marxism quieted down
Milder doctrines prevailed pin Europe inner
zone
Why?
Capitalism worked well enough to raise the
workers’ living standards
Workers had the vote and could expect to
benefit for government
Unions were becoming more powerful
Feminism 1880 – 1914
• As worker parties begin to spread
feminism became more of an international
movement
• Issues
• Equal pay
• new industrial economy pay them less for
the same work
• Restrictions on rights
• Property
• Participation in political meetings
• Vote
• Attend universities
• France
• Legal and social reforms were the focus
• Women receive the vote after WWII
• England and America
• Vote
• International Council of Women 1888
• Susan B. Anthony
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Suffragettes
• Smaller families
• promoted birth control as a means of freeing
women from childbirth prison
• Quest for voting rights attracted most attention
• Women’s Social and Political Union
– Sponsored petitions, Meetings, Protests, Demanded
equal voting rights
•
•
•
•
Especially militant in GB
Emmeline Pankhurst
Disrupted Parliament
Broke windows, mailboxes, damaged government
buildings
• when arrested they went on Hunger strikes
• police forced fed them with painful tube insertions
• By post-WWI women (over 30) gained the vote