Russian Revolution; Economic Background

The Russian Revolution1815-1924

Session IIIThe Industrial Revolution, Evolution of Capitalism

& Spread of Socialism, 1801-1914

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Major Topics

I.Economic Developments

Economic Theory

The Industrial Revolution

II.The Labor Movement:Trade Unions

III.A Philosophy for Labor: Karl Marx

IV. The Development of Socialism

The First International

Anarchism, Syndicalism, and Revisionism

The Second International

Economic Developments

“Puffing Billy”1813

for Wylam Colliery nearNewcastle upon Tyne(not retired until 1862)

Review of Economics

Walt Whitman Rostow1916-2003

WW Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth; A Non-Communist Manifesto.1960

1. Traditional Societies

The Five Stages

2. Pre-conditions to Take-off

The Five Stages

3. Take-off

The Five Stages

3. Take-off

4. Drive to Maturity

The Five Stages

3. Take-off

4. Drive to Maturity

5. Age of High Mass Consumption

The Five Stages

Russia’s First Four Stages

1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950

domestic product

1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950

domestic product

| traditional society |… to Peter’s reforms

1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950

domestic product

| pre-conditions to take-off |1700-1885

1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950

domestic product

| take-off|1885-1900

1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950

domestic product

| take-off|1885-1900

| drive tomaturity |1900-1980

Economically--Two Europes

Russia and Britain, 1830-1890

1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890

Russian GNP British GNP

Russia and Britain, 1830-1890

1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890

Russian GNP British GNP

| the Long Depression |1873--------------------1896

Panics and Boom Times

• during the nineteenth century the global economy became more and more integrated

capitalism...is engaged perpetually in a process of creative destruction

… it uses up its old forms and creates new ones… inevitably

accompanied by a high degree of social hardship

Joseph Schumpeter

• the Americas and Eastern Europe were a source of raw materials, agricultural exports, markets and investment for Western Europe

Joseph Schumpeter

• the Americas and Eastern Europe were a source of raw materials, agricultural exports, markets and investment for Western Europe

• during the period 1815-1896, in spite of panics, especially the “hungry ‘40s” and the “long depression, 1873-1896; the overall trend was up and living standards improved in the industrial world

Joseph Schumpeter

A word about the term “industrial revolution.” Economic historians have rebelled at it. They emphasize the length of Britain’s experience. Any change over decades, or centuries, is better called an evolution.

However valid that is for Britain, those countries which followed had a much more rapid experience of the transition from agricultural to industrial society. And the pace shows no signs of abating. Hence Toffler’s term, Futureshock.

Rostow’s Stages 3-5; Britain vs Russia

Britain

Russia

Rostow’s Stages 3-5; Britain vs Russia

Britain

Russia

1783-1802 (19 years) 1885-1900 (15 years)Stage 3- Take-off

Britain vs Russia

Britain vs RussiaPrivate Enterprise

Consumer & HeavyIndustry

18th & early 19th c.stextile mills

water power Arkwright’s “Water Frame” Hargreave’s “Spinning Jenny”

Crompton’s “Mulesteam & iron

Watt’s 1762 engine for pumpingout coal minesiron mills, “puddling”transportation, canals, ironbridges, railroads--”PuffingBilly” (1813-1862) Robert Fulton’s“Clermont” (1807)

Britain vs RussiaPrivate Enterprise

Consumer & HeavyIndustry

18th & early 19th c.stextile mills

water power Arkwright’s “Water Frame” Hargreave’s “Spinning Jenny”

Crompton’s “Mulesteam & iron

Watt’s 1762 engine for pumpingout coal minesiron mills, “puddling”transportation, canals, ironbridges, railroads--”PuffingBilly” (1813-1862) Robert Fulton’s“Clermont” (1807)

GovernmentInfrastructure

& Militaryearly & mid-19th c.

railroadsSkt-Peterburg-TsarskoeSelo (1836-37) to Moscow(1851)

steamshipsK.N. Bird’s “Elizabeth” (1815) Admiralty Shipyard,A.A. Schilder’s submarine(1834) Russia’s 1st all metalship

locomotivesN.I. Putilov “the Russian Krupp” 1870s, built cannonnext

government and industrialization: subsidies and tariffs

• List’s “National System” had brought to Prussia the Zollverein (tariff union) and the railway network which aided German unification

• Russia had always favored the state leading economic development and after 1870 all European states followed suit with state encouragement of development and commerce

• initially they tended to follow Britain’s policy of free trade

• during the long depression all but Britain, Belgium and Holland reverted to protectionism Friedrich List (1789-1866)

Prussian MinisterTuesday, September 29, 2009

The Early Economists

Adam Smith1723-1790

The Wealth of Nations, 1776

Thomas Robert Malthus1766-1834

Essay on the Principle of Population,1798

David Ricardo1772-1823

Principles of Political Economyand Taxation, 1817

Early Socialists-Marx’s “Utopians”

Robert Owen1771-1858

Welsh industrialist’social reformer

New Lanark, 1800New Harmony, IN,

Count de Saint-Simon1760-1825

technocracy, capitalists and scientists the new ruling class

only wrote, never tried

Charles Fourier1772-1837

communes ca"ed phalanxestried in France and America

in the 1830s & ‘40s

Characteristics of the Second Industrial Revolution

The Krupp works,Essen, 1905

Steel production--post 1850’s

Sir Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) Sir William Siemens(1823-1883)

Ernst Werner vonSiemens(1816-1892)

founder of Siemens A. G.father of electrical engineering

communication--telegraphy, 1842

telegraph lines in 1891Tuesday, September 29, 2009

communication--telephony, 1870s

AlexanderBell’s

patent, 1876

communication--telephony, 1870s

Tivadar Puskas--”hallom! Boston, 1877Edison Co., London, 1879

AlexanderBell’s

patent, 1876

Swedish telephone, 1896

Technical Education

Science room at the Technical School, Finsbury, London, 1884

communication--print technology

The Miehle P.P. & Mfg. Co., 1905Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Chemical industryBASF - Badische Analin und

Soda-Fabrik, 1865

Indigo production at BASF, 1890

• by 1900, Germany dominated the world market for synthetic dyes

• the three major firms, BASF, Bayer & Hoechst produced several hundred different dyes

• the five smaller, led by AGFA, concentrated on high quality specialty dyes

• in 1913 these eight firms produced almost 90% of the world supply and sold 80% of their production abroad

• the three majors began to expand into other areas such as pharmaceuticals, photographic film, fertilizers, explosives and munitions

The internal combustion engine

• 1860-a Belgian, Lenoir, produced the first gasoline internal combustion engine to be made in significant numbers

• 1876-Nikolaus Otto gave his name to the four stroke cycle, illustrated, right

• 1885-Karl Benz built his own four stroke engine used in the first automobiles in production

1.Intake2. Compression3. Combustion & Expansion4. Exhaust

Business Combinations: Trusts and Cartels

The Match Trust

• survivors of capitalism’s early competition sought to avoid further conflicts

In 1843 two Quakers, May & Bryant, formed a partnership to import the new Swedish “Lucifer” matches. Their sales grew and they expanded, first in Britain and then throughout the empire, absorbing rivals. In 1861 they began manufacturing their own product. They were the target of the London matchgirls strike of 1888 which won important improvements in working conditions and pay for the mostly female workforce.

The Match Trust

• through trusts and cartels they aimed at:

The Match Trust

• expanding their operationsIn 1843 two Quakers, May & Bryant, formed a partnership to import the new Swedish “Lucifer” matches. Their sales grew and they expanded, first in Britain and then throughout the empire, absorbing rivals. In 1861 they began manufacturing their own product. They were the target of the London matchgirls strike of 1888 which won important improvements in working conditions and pay for the mostly female workforce.

The Match Trust

• expanding their operations

• avoiding duplication of effortIn 1843 two Quakers, May & Bryant, formed a partnership to import the new Swedish “Lucifer” matches. Their sales grew and they expanded, first in Britain and then throughout the empire, absorbing rivals. In 1861 they began manufacturing their own product. They were the target of the London matchgirls strike of 1888 which won important improvements in working conditions and pay for the mostly female workforce.

The Match Trust

• avoiding duplication of effort

• lowering cost of production

The Match Trust

• dividing markets

The Match Trust

• dividing markets

• avoiding price cutting competition

The Match Trust

Monopoly--Negative or Positive?

• trusts and cartels were unpopular because they were often exploitative and caused tragedy in individual cases

• thus they were the targets of socialist critics of capitalism

• but in the last decades of the 19th century they also played a positive role. They :

• made possible the introduction of new technology

• eliminated much inefficiency and duplication of effort

• contemporaries did not easily perceive these benefits

Types of Capitalists

• industrial capitalists

• factory owners: Robert Owen, Friedrich Engels, Alfred Krupp, N.I.Putilov, Bryant & Mays (the match kings)

• comprador capitalists

• merchants: HEIC (the British East India Co.), how Bryant and Mays began, the Stroganov family

• finance capitalists

• bankers, insurers, stockbrokers: the Rothchilds, Bleichröder, Lloyds, Barings

• finance capitalists

• bankers, insurers, stockbrokers: the Rothchilds, Bleichröder, Lloyds, Barings

• rentier capitalists

• property owners who take no active part in managing their assets: absentee landowners, stock and bond holders--Marx’s “parasites

Azovsko-Donskoy Bank• 1871-opened in Taganrog for

financing trade and granting loans

• mid 1880s-largest bank in Russia

• end of the 1890s-one of five largest national banks in the world

• 1903-moved to Skt Peterburg

• 73 branches

• 1917-controlled 90 companies

• 1909-1914--share value rose from 20 to 50 million roubles

Skt-Peterburg headquartersbuilt 1907-1909

European Bourses-Stock Exchanges

The Labor Movement:Trade Unions

Tolpuddle MartyrsDay, 2005

classic tensions

Direct Action vs political work(strikes, sabotage) (parties, elections)

classic tensions

Direct Action vs political work

Seeking piecemeal, moderate gains vs radical demands(strikes, sabotage) (parties, elections)

classic tensions

Seeking piecemeal, moderate gains vs radical demands(wages, hours, work rules)

(strikes, sabotage) (parties, elections)

classic tensions

Seeking piecemeal, moderate gains vs radical demands(wages, hours, work rules) (ultimately, revolution)

(strikes, sabotage) (parties, elections)

Challenges

The “Peterloo Massacre”the Duke of Wellington sends in cavalry tobreak up a mass meeting at St Peter’s Field,

Manchester, 1819Tuesday, September 29, 2009

gradual legalization of unions

gradual legalization of unions• after 1815, all public assemblies were suspected of revolutionary

tendencies and usually harshly suppressed, e.g.,the “Peterloo Massacre”(1819)

• 1834--in Britain, the least reactionary state, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, six Dorsetshire agricultural laborers, were transported to Australia. Their “crime”? Forming an Agricultural Benevolent Society and swearing to refuse to work for less than 10 shillings a day

• 1840s--the Chartist Movement with its demands for the eight hour day and the right to form trade unions was a response.

• reforms spread slowly across Europe from west to east

• by the last quarter of the 19th century unions were legal everywhere but often crippled by laws restricting their most effective tactics

• in Alexander III’s Russia the police infiltrated the unions as with the case of Father Gapon in 1905

Tolpuddle, Then & Now

unions increase in size and militancy

originally unions were benevolent societies, small in membership, representing the better-educated, better-paid workers of the skilled trades

their main purpose: assistance to members with unemployment and accident insurance plus death benefits

they were cautious with their funds and reluctant to use the strike

in the 1880s, during the downturn, unions spread to less skilled workers, became more militant, and several bitter strikes occurred:

1886--Charleroi, Belgium; glass workers and miners battled police

1889--London; dock workers won significant gains with disciplined tactics

1896--Hamburg; harbor workers failed to match their British counterparts’ success due to employers’ associations resistance

Unions and Political Parties

Unions form political parties

• as representative government spread from west to east, the newly legal unions tended to form political parties to advance their interest

the strongest of these was the Socialdemokratische Partei

Deutschlands (SPD) (1863) Germany’s oldest political party

not all the labor parties were Marxian socialist, as was the SPD

often there were rival parties reflecting different ideologies

in France, for example, there was a movement called Syndicalism which was militant (origin of the term: sabotage)

other parties called themselves Christian Socialist

all aimed at improving the status of the working class

A Philosophy for Labor:Karl Marx

1818-1883

[Marx’s] prominence among socialists was largely the result of the increasing respect felt for The Communist Manifesto. As Harold Laski once wrote, this was … seen to be the first document of its kind to give a direction and a philosophy to what had before been little more than an inchoate protest against injustice;… it can be said to have created the modern socialist movement, which until now had been run by self-educated cranks.

Craig, pp. 272-73Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Marx, the Man

the early years, 1818-1843

Marx’s Geburtshaus, Trier, Rhenish Prussia

the early years, 1818-1843born into a bourgeois family, the third of seven children

1824, his father, Herschel Mordechai Marx, converted to Lutheranism to be able to practice law

Karl and his sibs were baptized although both their grandfathers were rabbis

he changed from law to philosophy while at several universities, arrested for disorderly conduct, disciple of Bruno Bauer

“mail order PhD” from University of Jena

editor of the Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne, 1841-43, until censors drove him to emigrate

marriage1837, against the wishes of Marx’s parents, Karl (19) and Jenny (23) became engaged

Jenny’s grandfather had been Chief of Staff for Frederick the Great

her half brother would be Prussian Minister of the Interior in the 1850s

1843, Jenny and Karl eloped to Paris and despite many crushing hardships maintained a lifelong devoted marriage

Jenny von Westphalen, (1814-1881)picture, 1840

political refugee, 1843-50

political refugee, 1843-50he met his lifelong collaborator, Engels, in Paris, 1844

both were political radicals who often fled from the police during the 1840s

together they wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848 at the outbreak of the revolutions

he returned to Germany with hope for the revolution there

Engels often aided Marx financially from his income from the family textile mills in Manchester

Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)

the famouscollaboration

begins

their first joint work,a pamphlet,

“The Holy Family”

against the “Young Hegelians”

The holy family

Critiqueof the

Critical Criticism

____________Against Bruno Bauer & Consorts

_____________

Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx_____________________________

Frankfurt on the Main RiverLiterary Institute

The Unholy Family

Helena Delmuth

family and later life

after the failure of 1848, the Marx family returned to London

in happier timesLaura, Eleanor, daughter Jenny

Friedrich, Karl (1860)Tuesday, September 29, 2009

the 1850s saw their most desperate economic circumstances

two children were stillborn

son Edgar (1847-1855) died in Karl’s arms

Engels lent the money to bury him

Karl sat in the reading room of the British Museum researching Capital (vol. 1, 1867)

1883, he died, two years after his wifein happier times

Laura, Eleanor, daughter JennyFriedrich, Karl (1860)

1871-Great Hopes for the Paris Commune

• following the French defeat, Paris radicals rebelled against the bourgeois national government

• they declared a workers commune and executed hostages

• Marx and Engels hoped this marked the beginning of the World Revolution

• 1871-Marx writes The Civil War in France

• the memory of the bloody repression fired class hatreds

Commune prisoners being marched to Versaillesfrom a contemporary illustrated magazine

“The Young Marx”

A 20th century,post-Stalinist,

“new look”at Marx

“Re-branding” a failed ideology

• the 1960s--the New Left of Europe and the U.S. faced a huge problem

• Marxism had divided into warring camps: USSR & its satellites vs Red China, vs various Third World movements, most notably Cuba

• Stalin had been a huge embarrassment to the “faithful” when our CIA published Khrushchev’s private denunciation

• radical students and their Marxist professors blamed Lenin and the Russian tradition of authoritarian government for Stalinism, a distortion of Marxism

• it was necessary to go back to the early writings, the “Young Marx,”

• this was true Marxism which, if followed, really would bring about “the workers’ paradise”

Ideas of the “Young Marx”

• his admirers believe they are more humanistic and “communitarian”

• his principal influence at this time was Ludwig Feuerbach, atheist and materialist

• early writings include:• Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

• The German Ideology (both published posthumously)

• The Holy Family (1845)

• Eleven Theses on Feuerbach (1845)

• The Poverty of Philosophy (1847)

• The Communist Manifesto (1848)

The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852)

The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852)• Marx wrote this mocking pamphlet after

the coup of 2 December 1851

• the stated intention: “to demonstrate how the class stru%le in France created circumstances … that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part.”--Marx

•“Hegel remarks somewhere that a" great world- historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

•“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted 'om the past.”

Marxism

RSFSR=Russian Soviet Federated Socialist

Republic

WORKERS OF EVERY LAND UNITEHAIL THE INTERNATIONAL WORKERS ARMY

ONLY BY SEIZING THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION BY THE RED ARMY

The Materialistic Interpretation of History

“We found Hegel standing on his head…”

• the materialistic interpretation of history reverses Hegelian idealist philosophy

• for Hegel’s dialectic of ideas, Marx substitutes dialectical materialism

• ideas don’t give birth to material reality, physical reality gives birth to ideas

• change, i.e., history advances through “the negation (Aufhebung) of the negation”

Dialectics

• the term originated with the Greek

philosopher Zeno of Elea, ca. 490 B.C.

• it is a form of argumentation

• Hegelian dialectics describes how ideas

change through conflict leading to

synthesis

• Marx’s dialectical materialism describes

how opposing classes struggle and create

historic change as new classes emerge

Thesis<¬>Antithesisyields

Synthesis

The Class Struggle

The Class StruggleThe history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. (page 1, first sentence after prologue)

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It ... has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment” ... for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation ... Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones

The Four Epochs

The Four Epochs• PRE-CLASSICAL

• THESIS = OPPRESSORS: chiefs & shamans

• ANTITHESIS = OPPRESSED : tribesmen

• TERMINAL EVENT: foundation of the River Kingdoms

• SYNTHESIS = CLASSICAL

• priests and patricians

• plebeans

• fall of the Roman Empire (fifth century)

• plebeans

• FEUDAL

• clergy and lords

• peasantry

• Commercial, Industrial & Democratic Revolutions (16th-18th c)

• plebeans

• FEUDAL

• clergy and lords

• peasantry

• Commercial, Industrial & Democratic Revolutions (16th-18th c)

• CAPITALIST

• bourgeoisie

• proletariat

• World Revolution (1917-?)

“The bourgeoisie are preparing their own gravediggers”Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto

• as industrialization spreads and replaces the agrarian economy, the “panics” will become deeper and longer

• more small shopkeepers, farmers and artisans will be ruined and forced into the ranks of the proletariat

• businesses become bigger and fewer

• as the “immiseration of the working class” becomes greater, so will their numbers

• the bourgeoisie richer, but fewer

• finally, a tipping point is reached and the World Revolution breaks out, beginning in the most advanced industrialized states, Germany, Belgium, Britain

Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program, 1875

• 1891--not published until long after Marx’s death in 1883

• he criticised the SPD agenda at the Gotha Congress as not revolutionary enough

• it is his only statement on the future:

I.World Revolution

II.“dictatorship of the proletariat”

III.“the state shall wither away”

IV.communismMarx and Lasalle

Marxism Comes to Russia

Georgi ValentinovichPlekhanov

Kazan Cathedral, Skt-Peterburgfrom a 19th century postcard

Russia’s First Political DemonstrationDecember 6, 1876

• organized and conducted by Zemlya i Volya and workers organizations

• some 400 people gathered in the cathedral square and sang the Marsei"aise in Russian

• Georgi Plekhanov, organizer and chief speaker, indicted autocracy and defended the views of Chernishevsky, then in exile

• a worker, Ia. Potapov, waived the red flag. The demonstrators offered resistance to the police.

• 31 arrests; 5 sentenced to katorga 10-15 years, 10 to Siberian exile, 3 including Potapov to 5 years incarceration in a monastery

• it was at this demonstration that Vera Figner became radicalized

The Father of Russian Marxism• switched from a military college to a mining

institute. dropped after two years

• Narodnik who continued to believe with them in mass movements rather than small revolutionary terrorist groups

• 1880-after 2 arrests fled to Switzerland never to return until 1917

• 1883-with Vera Zasulich and Pavel Axelrod founded the Emancipation of Labor group, Russia’s first Marxists

• 1885-developed the constitution for the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party

• his most famous early follower was V.I. LeninGeorgi V. Plekhanov

1856-1918

Russian Social Democratic Labor Party

• created to oppose narodnichestvo, the revolutionary populism of the narodniki

• based on Marxism, the party ignored Russia’s agrarian economy and based its faith on the role of Russia’s then small industrial proletariat

• illegal throughout its early years, all nine delegates to the first congress were arrested by the imperial police

• the second congress in Brussels/London would become famous for the Bolshevik/Menshevik split

• members thereafter would describe their party allegiance as the RSDLP (B) or RSDLP (M)

Minutes of the Second Congressof the RSDLP

The Development of Socialism

Socialist band marching throughHyde Park, 1896

The First Workingman’s International,1864-1876

International Workingmen’s Association (1864-1876)• Marx gave the inaugural address and

statement of principles in London

• subsequent congresses were held in :

• Geneva(1866)--the 8 hour day becomes a fundamental demand

• Lausanne (1867)--Proudonhists vs Blanquists

• Brussels (1868)--Marx gains supporters

• the Hague/New York(1872--showdown with the Anarchists

• Philadelphia (1876)--disagreements led to disbandment

• prominent but not dominant, Marx had to vie with Mikhail Bakunin

• both agreed on the need for a revolutionary elite, but on little else

The Internationale

The Internationale• June,1871-the original lyrics were composed by Eugene Pottier, a

survivor of the Paris Commune

• he intended them to be sung to the tune of the Marse"aise

• Its original French refrain is C'est la lutte finale/ Groupons-nous et demain/ L'Internationale/ Sera le genre humain. (Freely translated: "This is the final struggle/ Let us group together and tomorrow/ The Internationale/ Will be the human race.")

• 1888-the current melody was composed by Pierre De Geyter, in time for it to become the anthem of the Second International

• the anarchists also claimed it

• it is sung with the right fist clenched and raised, a salute of the Left which predates the Fascists’ and Nazis’

• 1902-Arkady Kots translated to Russian in time for the Revolution of 1905

• C'est la lutte finale/ Groupons-nous et demain/ L'Internationale/ Sera le genre humain

Bakunin addressing a meeting of the IWA in Basel, 1869

How Ukrainian students learned this material in 1972

a page from 10th grade text,Novaya Historia (Modern History)

• Oct-Dec, 1972--I was an exchange teacher in the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa

• I observed classes from kindergarten- 10th grade (then, the final year)

• this textbook was the same, nationwide

• by high school all history and political science instruction was in Russian regardless of the local language

• the level, if not the veracity, of the historical material being presented was much more demanding than what we were presenting in America a page from 10th grade text,

Novaya Historia (Modern History)Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Anarchism

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (1814-1876)• noble birth, a junior officer in the army,

resigned his commission in 1835

• studied philosophy in Moscow, influenced by Westernizers, especially Alexander Herzen

• 1842-left for Dresden, then Paris where he met George Sand, Proudhon, and Marx

• deported from France for criticizing Russia’s oppression of Poland

• 1849-arrested in Dresden for his participation in the Czech revolution of 1848, handed over to Russia, imprisoned

• 1857-sent to a Siberian labor camp, katorga

• 1861-escaped to western Europethe young BakuninTuesday, September 29, 2009

Anarchism in the late 19th century

the first self-proclaimed anarchist was Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865). It was his Philosophy of Poverty that Marx ridiculed in 1847.

but the great leader of the anarchists now was Mikhail Bakunin

his group called themselves Mutualists and approved of “propaganda of the deed,” terrrorism

they believed such acts by hard core revolutionaries would inspire the masses of proletarians to seize “the means of production”

they applauded the assassination of Alexander II and encouraged similar acts against rulers and industrialists

Marx versus Bakunin

each detested the other personally

Marx versus Bakunin

Bakunin hated Marx’s authoritarianism

Marx versus Bakunin

he saw correctly that a successful Marxist revolution would leave the political and economic institutions which he hated untouched, even if they were in other hands

Marx versus Bakunin

he believed that the dictatorship of the proletariat would be as oppressive as the bourgeois order and that the state would never “wither away”

Marx versus Bakunin

Marx was contemptuous of the lack of system and general “wooliness” of the anarchists’ declarations

Marx versus Bakunin

Marx was contemptuous of the lack of system and general “wooliness” of the anarchists’ declarations

he had a genuine horror of the ill-prepared acts of individual terrorism that the anarchists admired

Anarchism after the First International1873, expulsion from the First International, engineered by Marx:

the International, weakened by the conflict, broke up in 1876

the anarchist philosophy continued to attract individuals

French socialists, dissatisfied with caution after 1871, were attracted to “propaganda of the deed” to avenge the bloody suppression of the Paris Commune

Italy and Spain, where rural classes were the most depressed and backward in western Europe, were especially open to the creed

German-American anarchist, Johann Most, “Dynamost,” inspired Emma Goldman and her lover, Alexander Berkman, to gain fame during the Homestead Strike, 1892

a series of heads of state were assassinated by anarchists, including McKinley, 1901

Syndicalism

Georges Sorel (1847-1922) • French Syndicalist founder

bourgeois, engineer graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, director of public works

1892, retiring to write, favored Bakunin’s anarcho-collectivism over Marxism

believed that force and “direct action” e.g., the strike, boycotts and sabotage, were necessary for change to occur

anti-nationalist, anti-capitalist, he admired Charles Maurras, Action Française, Lenin and Mussolini for attacking bourgeois democracy

most famous for Reflections on Violence, 1908

Revisionism

Despite the anarcho-syndicalist preference for direct action as opposed to political maneuver, the main tendency in European socialism was political, and, by the 1890s, Socialist parties had been organized in most countries, were vying for popular support in national and local elections, and...were having considerable success. Most of these parties were Marxist….[This] did not mean that the parties … were … united and harmonious, for they often developed splinter groups…[E]ven before Engels’s death in 1895 a profound division was looming ….

Craig, p.283Tuesday, September 29, 2009

the revisionist controversy

for some time leading socialist and trade union leaders had been uneasy

there was a gap between Marx’s predictions and the realities of European economic development

“Peasants do not sink; Burgertum (the bourgeoisie) does not disappear; crises do not grow ever longer; misery and serfdom do not increase.”-- Eduard Bernstein

the co"apse of the capitalist system was not imminent

the Socialist parties must change their tactics if not their goals

“… rescue socialism 'om the barricades”--G.B. Shaw

Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932) German social democratic politician,SPD member, founder of evolutionary socialism

born in Berlin to Jewish parents

began politics as an opponent to the Lassalleans in 1872

1875, helped plan the Gotha party congress of the SPD

1878, exiled by Bismarck’s anti-Socialist legislation; first to Switzerland, then Britain

in London he was close to Engels

1880-1890, edited the magazine Sozialdemokrat

1896-1899, published a series of articles and books which led to the revisionism debate in the SPD

the appeal of revisionism

revisionist ideas appealed to those tired of negative parliamentary tactics

the trade-union wing of the socialist movement had long resented the hard-liners’ stance against “bread and butter” gains desired by the rank and file members

party doctrinaires opposed gradualism because it would weaken revolutionary fervor or“dull the edge of the class struggle”

the rising level of real wages and the general prosperity of Europe in the years before 1914 added to the force of Bernstein’s message

Vladimir Illych Ulyanov (Lenin) 1870-1924

Russia’s famous hard-liner led the attack on such a “trade-union mentality”

Tsarist Police Picture, 1895

in the 1902 pamphlet, echoing Chernyshevsky’s title, “What Is to Be Done?” (Что Делать?), he eschewed politics, gradualism and logrolling

Socialist parties must become disciplined elites of professional revolutionaries

give workers not what they want but what they should want

The Second International,1889-1917

14 July 1889-1917

revived the congresses of socialist parties and labor organizations beginning in Paris with delegates from 20 countries

14 July 1889-1917

proclaimed 1 May as an international working-class holiday and 8 March as International Women’s Day

14 July 1889-1917

famous delegates include: August Bebel, Karl Kautsky, the Liebknechts (father and son), Rosa Luxembourg, Clara Zetkin, Jean Jaures, V. I. Lenin, G. Plekhanov, Victor Adler, James Connolly

14 July 1889-1917

famous delegates include: August Bebel, Karl Kautsky, the Liebknechts (father and son), Rosa Luxembourg, Clara Zetkin, Jean Jaures, V. I. Lenin, G. Plekhanov, Victor Adler, James Connolly

the Second International essentially was a casualty of the war because in spite of pacifist talk, only a minority of socialist delegates voted against the conflict

French Socialist Anti-militarism

The International had no common policy with respect to means of preventing conflict if it should actually materialize; and when the great crisis of 1914 came, although the International Socialist Bureau sought to coordinate the tactics to be followed by the national parties, its efforts were defeated by the forces of patriotism, which proved as seductive to the socialists as to the bourgeoisie. The [Second]international did not survive the war that followed.

Craig, p. 285

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