Episode 5 Marxism After Marx

The Rise of Communism from Marx to Lenin

Dr Vejas Gabriel Liulevius (2019)

Film Review

The years between Marx’s death in 1883 and  World War I saw the founding of numerous socialist parties seeking legislative reform (with Germany’s Social Democratic Party the largest), the creation of the Second International* in 1889 and fierce factional debates between those who wished to bring about revolution through gradual reform and those who favored violent revolution

In 1888 Eugene Pottier’s poem The Internationale was put to music and translated into all major languages.

The 1870 Franco-Prussian War was a major catalyst in the unification of Germany under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. This, in turn, facilitated a second industrial revolution. Europe experienced a 260% increase in industrial production, led by major German technological innovations improving the mass production of steel.

This massive economic growth led to clear changes in class structure, but not the ones Marx predicted in Das Kapital. Whereas Marx predicted a shrinking middle class and an expanding proletariat, the Second Industrial Revolution produced an expanding middle class with more office workers and white color technocrats, and, according to Liulevius   a greater capacity for reform.

This failure of history to live up to Marx’s predictions led to so-called Revisionism, a 150-year debate whether the Second Industrial Revolution necessitated a revision of Marxist theory (especially as his predictions about capitalism’s collapse didn’t come true). It was a pejorative label: activists attacked as Revisionists generally favored reform over violent revolution.

Britain had already seen similar reforms, eg the 1847 Factories Act, which limited working hours for women and children to 10 hours a day and the 1867 Reform Act, which eliminated the property requirement and extended the vote to all adult males.

Germany

Under Bismarck, Germany would become the first welfare state. In 1871 (in response to agitation by socialists) he introduced laws establishing sickness and accident insurance and old age pensions.

The German Social Democratic Party (the fusion of two older parties) was launched in 1875. It continued to gain seats in parliament at every election and had doubled in size by 1878, when Bismarck outlawed it (after two assassination attempts).

Its membership quintupled, as it went underground and stood candidates as independents. It also fostered a big increase in trade union membership, multiple strikes and an entire socialist subculture (with socialist reading groups, singing and hiking clubs, sports associations, kindergartens, schools and newspapers).

By 1920, it held the largest block of seats (30%) in the German parliament and German trade union membership was the highest in the world. Nevertheless it remained committed to revolution.

Poland

The splitting of large areas of Poland between Russia, Germany and Austria after Word War I led to frequent fragmentation of Poland’s socialists.

France

France was mainly dominated by anarchists and utopian socialists.

Italy

Italy’s socialist party was led by Benito Mussolini.

Britain

In Britain the Fabians (founded in 1888),* who also advocated gradual reform, dominated British socialism. Prominent Fabians included George Bernard Shaw, H G Wells, and Sydney and Beatrice Webb.

US

In the US, the socialist movement organized the infamous 1886 Haymarket protest, where a bomb was detonated after the police began shooting peaceful protestors. The death of seven police resulted in America’s first Red Scare and the mass arrest of socialists, anarchists and foreigners.

This possibly explains why the US was one of the few Western countries that failed to develop a mass socialist movement. Everywhere but the US, May 1 is celebrated as Labor Day, in remembrance of the Haymarket martyrs. In the US, Labor Day is celebrated the first Monday in September.

*Marx and Engels founded the International Working Men’s Association (aka the First International in 1864. It dissolved in 1876. See The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital

**According to Matt Ehret, the Fabian Society had close ties with the Roundtable Movement and British intelligence. See https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/the-fabian-society-eugenics-and-the

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https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/11239598/11239609