Donald Sassoon

·        By 1914, a sizeable labour/working-class movement existed in virtually all European countries.

·        Prior to WWI, Britain had no significant socialist party.

·        No necessary causal link between the rise of an organized labour movement and the ideology of socialism.

·        Link between socialism and industrialization was only true of continental Europe (fairly limited geographical area).

·        Socialism’s diffusion outside Europe has been confined to countries without a significant industrial base, and hence without a significant working-class movement (Australia and New Zealand are main exceptions).

·        Continental Europe was captured by Marxism, which, at the turn of the century, dominated the labour movement.

·        ‘Vulgar Marxism’ is the interpretation of Marx’s doctrine which strongly appealed to the leaders of the working-class movement and the activists who followed him.

·        This ‘Vulgar Marxism’ had 3 main propositions:

1.      Present capitalist system is unfair. System disguises a real inequality; that capitalists ‘cheat’ the workers appropriating far more than they pay in wages and other necessary production costs – called ‘surplus value’ by Marxists. This gives the owners of capital great wealth and control over the economic development of society. Thus appropriating not only wealth but power.

2.      History proceeds through stages. Each stage is characterized by a specific economic system to which corresponds a particular system of power and hence a specific ruling class. Capitalist stage is not everlasting, present ruling class will not rule forever.

3.      Workers are fundamentally a homogeneous class. All workers are united in essence by similar interests; to improve life conditions under capitalism, to struggle against existing social order, to overcome this stage and bring about real equality. Workers must organize themselves into political parties and trade unions and reject any attempt to divide them.

·        Socialism distinguished itself from potential rivals by looking frankly to the future and not harking back to an idealized past. The 3 propositions express a simple ‘trinity’; statement of the present, statement of the future, and a strategic statement on this transition.

·        Believed fundamental agency of change to be the working class. By thinking of the working class as a political class, the pioneers of socialism thus virtually invented the working class.

·        19^th April 1890 – Castelfiorino, Tuscany, group of workmen sign the May Day manifesto which invited them to join in a banquet to celebrate May Day, under the banner ‘unity makes us strong’.

·        It was important that the theories provided by Marxism should be strong and sophisticated enough to appeal to the intellectual-minded, while being amenable to simplification and diffusion at a mass level by the socialist activists who were the real NCOs of the movement.

·        The fact that the ‘theory of history’ of Marxism could be presented in a positivist light (as a science on a par with Darwinism) contributed considerably to its success. By end of 19^th century most radical intellectuals were totally committed to the positivist aspect, gaining socialism much support.

·        1891 - Marxism expanded rapidly throughout the European Left after it became the official ideology of the most successful socialist party of the time, Germany’s SPD (founded in 1863).

·        The diffusion of Marxism was in part a response to Bismarck’s anti-socialist legislation (1878), with its official adoption occurring immediately after the German Reich had been forced to withdraw in 1890.

·        1895 – Engels congratulated the SPD for the intelligent way it used universal suffrage, resulting in a remarkable expansion of the social-democratic vote. He said the SPD ‘served as a model to the workers of all countries’.

·        The success of the SPD initiated a phase in which most European socialist parties were formed and expanded rapidly. Most were founded between 1890 and 1900, but electoral strength varied considerably.

·        Neither date of creation of socialist party, nor its electoral strength correlates with the level of industrialization or the size of the working-class electorate. In fact, correlation is negative. E.g. Italy’s socialist party, established in 1892, had conquered 1/5 of the electorate by 1904, whilst Great Britain, which had a far stronger industrial base and a more developed and ancient trade union movement, had no significant socialist party until 1900.

·        Suggests that key factors in the development of the socialist parties were political, rather than economic or social. More important determinant of electoral strength was the introduction of universal manhood suffrage or competition from parties which could, conceivably, promote some of the demands of the working class e.g. British Liberals).

·        Socialist parties of Belgium, Sweden, Finland and Denmark were as strong or stronger than the SPD, but parties in small and politically peripheral countries can never hope to play an international role like Germany.

·        Emergence of the SPD as a key party was due to a unique combination of circumstances; SPD operated in what was by then the strongest country in Europe (Germany had more steel and more soldiers than Britain and thus became a ‘model’ of development for other countries), culturally, especially in the social sciences, Germany had no rival.

·        Rapid development of the SPD was not only due to the ability of its leaders or the size of its working class. Its mass basis was connected to specific German factors which also led to the formation of a mass party of the Catholics – Zentrumspartei (Centre Party).

·        By 1914 SPD had one million members. By contrast, French SFIO was not a mass party.

·        During period of anti-socialist legislation, many of its leaders and intellectuals operated from Zurich, which was foremost meeting place for exiled radical students and thinkers from the Tsarist Empire. Thus it was ideally situated for an accelerated diffusion of SPD ideas.

·        The Erfurt Programme, the programme of the SPD, adopted in 1891, became one of the most widely read texts of socialist activists throughout Europe. Edited by Kautsky and Bernstein.

·        Most social-democratic parties were created after the German SPD and followed its lead as a ‘model’. E.g. Austrian (1889), Swedish (1889) and the Swiss (1888).

·        Norwegian Labour Party (founded 1887), like its Danish counterpart, took its programme straight from the SPD. The small parties of south-east Europe were the most loyal disciples of the SPD.

·        French socialists couldn’t offer a model to rival the SPD, in spite of the French revolutionary tradition, as they were weak in theory and organizationally divided. The French socialist party eventually emerged through the POF (1879), using vulgarized Marxism and German social democracy as its model. There was an emphasis on revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist state, and also the French revolutionary tradition, with its pronounced distrust of organization, strong taste for direct democracy and virulent anti-clericalism.

·        SFIO was organized on a local basis, had no factory groups and was more an electoral front than a party. It was its lack of theoretical distinction which prevented the expansion of French socialism even into countries profoundly influenced by French culture, such as Romania.

·        Some believe weakness of socialist party in France was due to the organizational split between the SFIO and the trade unions (CGT). The CGT rejected formal links with organized political parties.

·        Prior to 1914, in Britain, socialism itself did not achieve much popularity among the working class and it took longer to become accepted as the ideology of the labour movement than anywhere else in Europe.

·        Britain’s first socialist party, founded in 1884 –SDF – achieved very little. It was established by H. M. Hyndman, a stockbroker.

·        The Fabian Society, a middle-class intellectual organization opposed the formation of an independent socialist party, yet in a report in 1896 to Congress of the International asserted that it was ‘supporting those which make from Socialism and Democracy, and opposing those which are reactionary’.

·        It wasn’t until 1918 that a Labour Party was established with an unambiguously socialist aim: to secure for the producers the full fruits of their industry. (Sidney Webb). It was here that the British Labour movement entered the mainstream of European socialism. Labour Party was born with reformist goals.

·        Bernstein believed that capitalism had reached a new stage which had not been foreseen by Marx, and that this situation required not just adaptation of the current doctrine, but a drastic change. He believed that the capitalist system had developed a structure capable of self-regulation. The fact that parliamentary democracy had developed meant that the struggle between the working class and the bourgeoisie could take place in conditions of legality and equality. Power could thus be achieved peacefully and within the existing state.

·        Bernstein also identified that the growth of monopolies and vast development of communications contributed to a growing concentration in the industrial, distribution and agricultural sectors. There was also parallel expansion of small and medium sized businesses in Western Europe and North America. At the same time, there was a growth of intermediate social groups – which Bernstein claims, had a stabilizing function to society.

·        Bernstein also believed that socialism was not a goal but a never-ending process.

·        Even those who used violent revolution regarded it as a tactic for the future, on the grounds that the bourgeoisie would not give up power without a struggle.

·        Non-involvement in government was a strongly held view throughout European socialism. E.g. Holland, 1913 – the socialists had the opportunity to participate in government yet they deliberately refused.

·        Violent revolution barely came into play even in countries where the socialist movement operated in conditions of illegality. E.g. in Tsarist Empire the Bolsheviks were prepared to use all available legal forms as well as extra-legal ones. Lenin supported this saying ‘If Social Democracy sought to make the socialist revolution its immediate aim, it would assuredly discredit itself’. He also believed that the aim was not only ‘to prevent war from breaking out, but to use the crisis caused by the war to accelerate the fall of the bourgeoisie’. This shows Lenin’s approach to socialism believed it was more reactionary than revolutionary.

·        Leaders of German socialism believed in organization and discipline. They were most unwilling to lead a strike unless they believed there was a high probability of winning. Didn’t like options that were too radical.

·        The SPD combined a revolutionary rhetoric with a reformist practice. Underneath its revolutionary language, the SPD was reformist. By 1891, the SPD had already formulated the core demands of virtually all programmes of West European social democracy in the 20^th century; democratization of society, the welfare state and the regulation of the labour market.

·        Use or threatened use of mass strikes did however have an impact. Austria, 1905 - without mass strike for voting rights the 1907 electoral reforms would have been unlikely. Belgium, repeated general strikes between 1893-1913 forced Constituent Assembly to concede universal manhood suffrage.

·        The Leninist precept was that only an organization of professional revolutionaries could lead the Russian masses towards socialism. The heirs of the Narodniks, the socialist revolutionaries were known for their terrorist activities. They refused to accept the inevitability of capitalist advance in Tsarist Russia and denied the extent of the transformation which was occurring.