The socialist political movement includes political philosophies that originated in the revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 18th century and out of concern for the social problems that socialists associated with capitalism. By the late 19th century, after the work of Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels, socialism had come to signify anti-capitalism and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production. By the early 1920s, communism and social democracy had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement, with socialism itself becoming the most influential secular movement of the 20th century. Many socialists also adopted the causes of other social movements, such as feminism, environmentalism, and progressivism. (Full article...)
Bernstein joined the Social Democratic Workers Party in 1872, which was merged into the SPD in 1875. He lived in exile in Switzerland and later London from 1878 to 1901, and in 1880 met Marx and Engels, who impressed him with their thought. With Karl Kautsky, Bernstein was one of the drafters of the party's Erfurt Program of 1891. In his 1899 book Evolutionary Socialism, Bernstein argued that socialism would be achieved through accumulated reforms and improvements of capitalism, rejecting the dialectical and revolutionary elements of Marxism. He was a member of the Imperial Reichstag from 1901 to 1907, and again from 1912 to 1918. After World War I, during which he joined the anti-war Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), he was again a member of the Reichstag from 1920 to 1928. (Full article...)
Image 20Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin opposed the Marxist aim of dictatorship of the proletariat in favour of universal rebellion and allied himself with the federalists in the First International before his expulsion by the Marxists (from History of socialism)
Image 26The first anarchist journal to use the term libertarian was Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social, published in New York City between 1858 and 1861 by French libertarian communistJoseph Déjacque, the first recorded person to describe himself as libertarian. (from Socialism)
Image 27New Harmony, a utopian attempt as proposed by Robert Owen (from Socialism)
... that in its 1962 election campaign, the Socialist Party of India demanded that twice-yearly inter-caste dining be made a mandatory criterion for government employment?
... that socialists received 31 percent of the vote in the 1917 Łódź City Council election, but the system implemented by the German occupying authorities only gave them 8 percent of the seats?
Not every submission of the individual to the command of a collective is socialism, any more than every socialization signifies state control or nationalizing. One could regard monopoly as a kind of socialism which is what Marxism does in practice. Through its antilife doctrine, Marxism helps socialism to increase so that it concentrates power in a few hands. Such a concentration of power places the so called dictatorship of the proletariat in control in the place of rule by the great world exploiters. Fundamentally, this signifies no alteration of circumstances. It is only world capitalism under other symbols. For this reason Marxism everywhere marches with democratic plutocracy. In the short run capitalism is the stronger.
If a measure is socialistic, it can be designed to be a preventive or revolutionary—disruptive—kind. What is determinative is
collective, in whose name it establishes socially economic instruction. The bourgeois parliamentary state legislates thousands of
socialistic encroachments. It inflicts tragedy by favouring reparations on all enterprises through compulsory mortgages. It regulates tolls, loan interest and division of labour. In spite of this it is a class state, whose ruling parties do not pass socialistic measures. Rather, it lays its burden upon the entire people. Just as little can Marxism, which carries on its class struggle from below, lay claim to power for itself. The millions of people standing under Marxism’s triumph are not treated as a totality. To a great degree they are mere objects, exploited by the Marxist oriented members of the community. The work state was erroneously used under heretofore existing political conditions. The state stands neither in service of the bourgeoisie nor of the Marxist class struggle. Thus, it does not exist at all, however much its substitute demands worship. However much confessionalism and this double sided class struggle may strive, neither of them can pass and carry out a truly socialistic measure. This can only be done by the representative of a system which is able to grasp the people as an organism, which regards the state as a means to their external security and inner peace, to whom the totality nation is thus the measuring rod for the individual and smaller collective restricting actions. Out of this thought process, for which the world has finally become ripe, we are witnessing the great struggle between nationalism and socialism.
The old nationalism was manifoldly not sincere. It was a mere cover for large agrarian and industrial, and later, finance capitalist,
private interests. For this reason, the words, Patriotism is the last refuge of great scoundrels (Doctor Samuel Johnson) could frequently be justified. Moreover, Marxism in the guise of social democracy was openly the adherent of plutocracy. The communistic folkish destructive ravings against the property values of all nations are making real socialism possible. The result was not a struggle, but an equation of real nationalism with real socialism, a synopsis with foundations. Germany has to thank Hitler for fabricating this synthesis.
.jpg?lang=en)
_-_Edward_Carpenter.jpg?lang=en)
.jpg?lang=en)
.jpg?lang=en)
