Why Was Marxism A Minority Ideology Amongst The European Working Class?

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Sarah Sutton

Teddy Hall

Dr Priestland

Why Was Marxism A Minority Ideology Amongst The European Working Class?

The 19th century was a period of social development unrivalled in the changes it brought about.  The Industrial Revolution was the fundamental basis of this, not only inflating the economy and making the rich far richer, but enlarging the mercantile classes, and creating a vast working class (proletariat).  It was this last group, the proletariat, that were, towards the mid to late 1800’s, of political and economic importance, not only due to their crucial role in the industrial process and therefore the economy, but because of their sheer size and potential volatility.  Geary identifies three major factors as being crucial to the formation and success of national labour movements: (1)  The structure and composition of the work force

        (2)  The nature of the State

        (3)  The availability to workers of alternative, radical ideologies.

However, of all the political movements that emerged during this period, the only one that concentrated almost entirely on this section of the population was Marxism.  On an intellectual and theoretical level, Marx rejected all the sources of capitalism and the dominance of a minority, unrepresentative class, and drew from ideals that emerged in the French Revolution, especially that the proletariat could become a ‘universal class’.  He also rejected the role of the state as identified by philosophers such as Hegel, namely an entity that embodied Spirit and Idea, and instead saw it as a reflection of class relations in society, and it was these class relations that shaped human nature. Until social relations are perfected, the ideal human condition can never be reached.  This gave rise to Marx’s vision that society is perfectible by human action, in other words revolution through class struggle.  This could not only used the strength of the working classes, but their role in industry, playing upon the structural weaknesses of the capitalist economic system.  

        In Germany, the roots of socialist organisation and trade unions amongst the working classes, predated the development of industry, but the class consolidation and the growth of the urban working classes largely served to strengthen its base.  1860 became the crucial time for the development of the socialist movement in Germany, and from here onwards not only were workers groups, from educational associations to strike action, part of the established socialist outlook, but independent working-class parties such as Ferdinand Lassalle’s General Union of German Workers and the Eisenach Party were also in existence, representing the movement on a national scale.  When these two merged in 1875, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was formed, becoming the most powerful socialist party in Europe.  The Trade Unions that flourished in this period were a particular strength to the movement in actively promoting the socialist cause at a local level, and were often blamed for the uprisings in the Hamburg Docks, (1888-1923), and strikes such as that at the Dortmund ‘Union’ Steel Works (1911).  The peak year for strikes was 1900, when 321,000 German workers came out in 1,468 strikes.  The Unions were all the more effective due to the fact that they were initially organised and participated in by the relatively better paid workers.  After the economic boom of the 60’s and 70’s, of which it was this section of society that benefited the most, increasing their wages and standard of living, leading to an increase in their bargaining power and subsequently, the growth of the trade union movement, as well as membership.  Essentially the trade unions guarded the interests of skilled workers in the face of merchant capitalism and competition from abroad, and reinforcing this with strike action, a form of protest particularly effective in industry after the first great miner’s strike of 1889.  Membership did involve great participation from skilled workers, but simply had great sway with the working classes due to the sheer number of votes it received.  However, just as the trade unions had helped to form the SPD, it did not mean that they could be amalgamated, and both continued to thrive right up to WW1.  Ultimately, the motivation behind the German socialist movement was that of labour ethic, and how skill had been replaced with power in the possession of capital – leading to the rise of the merchant in society.  Towards the end of the 19th century both the Trade Unions and the SPD came to represent this across Germany.

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        It was, therefore, partly because of the presence of these hugely influential factors in society that socialism came to be such a successful political movement in Germany.  However, other European countries also had both socialist political parties and Trade Unions, so why was Germany so remarkable at this time?  Part of the reason was that Germany had a political environment that could more easily facilitate the development of such a political movement.  The 1848 revolutions had left a temporary liberal atmosphere, leading to a resurgence in the 1860’s, which, like the earlier revolts was crushed, leaving the state, under ...

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