To what extent did the key political ideas directly Influence change and development in Your chosen period of study?

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To what extent did the key political ideas directly Influence change and development in Your chosen period of study?

Over the past 150 years a number of new political ideas have developed and been accepted as normal practice throughout the majority of European and international society, these come from all sectors on the political spectrum; ranging from extreme left to extreme right.  Most of these have been manifested in one way or another since as far back as the middle ages, but it is only in very recent history that they have really ‘stolen the limelight’.  These ideas are not only responsible for forming the contemporary societies we live in, but also along the way they have influenced some of the most principal and key events history cares to remember.

These political ideas that have developed can be classified into two separate categories.  The first category includes liberalism and nationalism, both of which are not confined to one country, these are broad ideals and can be found in many ideologies throughout the world we live in today.  The second involves the more radical and extreme ideologies such as Fascism, Communism and Nazism.  The main school of thought indicates that the first category contains the base ideals for the second categories more extreme politics.  For example Nationalism is widely believed to be the basis for Fascism.

History is created when something changes and we look back at what it was before.  The period of study is full of history, therefore it is also packed full with change and developments.  Main areas of change were the specific areas of politics, societal change and economic change.  150 years ago, perhaps the most significant change in recent history was sweeping the world.  Industrial revolutions were now seen as the way forward and Britain was at the heart, other countries were beginning to follow suit.  Gone were the days of people and animals powering the machines that would draw in the harvest or produce the goods.  Now machines would signify a better and more stable economic life for everybody. Or would they?

One of the most prominent effects of the industrial revolution was that now people had lost their jobs to machines then surely they would not be needed by the owners of the means of production.  It would only take a small number of men to operate the machines, surely the rest would have to look elsewhere for work?  Not long before a German Sociologist and Historian named Karl Marx had warned against the dangers of the industrial revolution for the workers.  His theory was largely ignored at the time of writing but by the time ten years had passed, his ideas had become widely accepted, cue Socialism.  Marx had felt that the industrial revolution would shorten the gap between the owners of the means of production and the upper classes.  A bourgeoisie culture would arise, but if these people were getting richer then the poor would only get poorer.  The proletariat as he referred to them, would not benefit from this industrial revolution, the new economic age would only heighten the gap between bourgeois and proletariat.  Only a small number of workers would benefit with the revolution, the rest left to become the minority, the ‘proles’ who had no influence or power, by the early 1850’s, the Proletariat had become the largest growing class group in Europe, yet they still held the minority status.  Only a small number had joined trade unions, but the reason behind this was that they were illegal in a lot of places.  For the Proletariat, any benefits the revolution may hold would have to wait in the future.  Marx’s ideas would soon become a force in driving the striving proletariat into achieving what they believed to be a healthy state of living.  Marx highlighted the fact that throughout the whole of history, the mode of production was decided upon by a small elite who only stood to gain from it, by making themselves in charge and reaping the benefits, whilst the majority of people would tire night and day helping the elite achieve their aims of being richer and more powerful.  Marx also wrote on how every system that would take this form would be plagued with conflict, as the rich attempted to exploit the poor.  He realised to the people however, that every system that relied so heavily on this exploitation had cracks that could be widened until the system eventually destroyed itself, he felt that Capitalism would eventually ‘Choke on it’s own wealth’.

Marx felt that once the Capitalist system had destroyed itself, the system would be replaced by a new ideal, of a government run by, and for the people.  The oppressed would turn against the oppressors, private ownership would be abolished, industry and commerce would now not be in the business of profit-making, but more to do with producing what was needed to get by.  This was prophesised by Marx, who believed it would occur in the most highly advanced and capitalist countries in the west of  Europe.  This prophecy by Marx is yet to come true, many have tried and failed to instil the ideals, but pure Marxism has yet to be realised.  By the many, it is meant that for example in Russia where the Bolsheviks, a Communist group, came to power, the country that lay before them did not comply with the stringent conditions Marx had laid for the realisation of his theory.  Russia at the time of the Bolshevik revolution, was largely a backward country.  Many of the citizens were illiterate peasants with no political experience whatsoever, the country had only just shown shades of industrialisation and the economy was in a terrible state.  The previous system of government had been the Autocratic Tsarist system, not strictly a Capitalist system, due to the lack of industrialisation.  This system of government had weakened after a series of reforms had been demanded, it eventually crumbled away leading a period of political tempest and reformation, this was then succeeded by the revolutions of the Bolsheviks, a group of Russian-Marxist Zealots led by Lenin, they seized power and later became the Communist Party.  From the onset the Communist party were faced with a indomitable task, to take a country as backward as Russia and speed up the economy, prepare the people for twentieth century life and later industrialise to a similar level as the rest of Europe, whilst at the same time becoming a military power.  Russia had been devastated from World War I and the only way to succeed in bringing any remote prosperity to the land was through a method of rule which involved suppressing individual power and concentrating every into state hands.  The result was a term that very much summed up the Communist rule, ‘Totalitarianism’, in a way this was similar to the autocratic rule of the Tsar, but the consequences were promised to be better than the hardship and backwardness of the nineteenth century.  The totalitarian system of government was not quite as apparent under Lenin’s rule as his was under his successor’s leadership.  Such was the totalitarian extent of Joszef Stalin’s rule that many have substituted the word ‘Totalitarianism’ for ‘Stalinism’.  The police state was everything, harsh discipline and economic limitations had to be imposed for success purposes.  The government had total power, citizens were basically a tool of the state, used for work and as a catalyst to reach the utopian goal.  This form of rule however, was in no way the method of reaching the utopia society that Marx had foreseen, there was absolutely no way forward for the people of Russia.  This became apparent by the late 1980’s, when over thirty years after the death of the tyrant Stalin, the USSR was still managed in an authoritarian method, a huge bureaucratic regime where the people were distanced from the management and the communication routes for individual expression lay false and laden with danger.  Official word of the Soviet government however was still promoting the false dream that the Socialist state had been achieved and that pure Communism was only a heartbeat away.  

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It would not be fair to say that the Bolshevik system had replaced one evil for greater one.  Since the second World War, the state of Russia had made huge strides towards security both economically and socially.  By the 1980’s the USSR had become the world’s second highest ranked industrial country, living standards had risen significantly (although still lower than that of the Western Countries), and scientific and technological advances helped illustrate that the government had made good strides into educating a workforce quite capable of intelligent thought.  However, coupled with this was the fact that the government was ...

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