Russian Revolution; Economic Background

The Russian Revolution
1815-1924
Session III
The Industrial Revolution, Evolution of Capitalism
& Spread of Socialism, 1801-1914

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Major Topics

I.Economic Developments

Economic Theory

The Industrial Revolution

II.The Labor Movement:Trade Unions

III.A Philosophy for Labor: Karl Marx

IV. The Development of Socialism

The First International

Anarchism, Syndicalism, and Revisionism

The Second International


Economic Developments


Economic Developments

“Puﬃng Billy”
1813
for Wylam Colliery near
Newcastle upon Tyne
(not retired until 1862)


Review of Economics


Walt Whitman Rostow
1916-2003


WW Rostow, The Stages of Economic
Growth; A Non-Communist Manifesto.1960



The Five Stages
1. Traditional Societies



The Five Stages
2. Pre-conditions to Take-oﬀ



The Five Stages
3. Take-oﬀ



The Five Stages
3. Take-oﬀ
4. Drive to Maturity



The Five Stages
3. Take-oﬀ
4. Drive to Maturity
5. Age of High Mass Consumption


Russia’s First Four Stages

domestic product

50

37.5

25

12.5

0
1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950



domestic product

50

37.5

25

12.5

0
1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950

| traditional society |
… to Peter’s reforms



domestic product

50

37.5

25

12.5

0
1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950

| traditional society | | pre-conditions to take-oﬀ |
… to Peter’s reforms 1700-1885


Economically--Two Europes


Russia and Britain, 1830-1890

Russian GNP British GNP

30

22.5

15

7.5

0
1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890


Russia and Britain, 1830-1890

Russian GNP British GNP

30

22.5

15

7.5

0
1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890
| the Long Depression |
1873--------------------1896

Panics and Boom Times



• during the nineteenth century the global
economy became more and more
integrated

capitalism...is engaged perpetually
in a process of creative destruction
… it uses up its old forms and
creates new ones… inevitably
accompanied by a high degree of
social hardship
Joseph Schumpeter



integrated

• the Americas and Eastern Europe were a
source of raw materials, agricultural
exports, markets and investment for
Western Europe

capitalism...is engaged perpetually
in a process of creative destruction
… it uses up its old forms and
creates new ones… inevitably
accompanied by a high degree of
social hardship
Joseph Schumpeter



integrated

• the Americas and Eastern Europe were a
source of raw materials, agricultural
exports, markets and investment for
Western Europe

capitalism...is engaged perpetually • during the period 1815-1896, in spite of
in a process of creative destruction panics, especially the “hungry ‘40s” and the
… it uses up its old forms and “long depression, 1873-1896; the overall
creates new ones… inevitably trend was up and living standards
accompanied by a high degree of improved in the industrial world
social hardship
Joseph Schumpeter


The Industrial Revolution


A word about the term “industrial revolution.” Economic
historians have rebelled at it. They emphasize the length
of Britain’s experience. Any change over decades, or
centuries, is better called an evolution.

However valid that is for Britain, those countries which
followed had a much more rapid experience of the
transition from agricultural to industrial society. And the
pace shows no signs of abating. Hence Toﬄer’s term,
Futureshock.


Rostow’s Stages 3-5; Britain vs Russia

Britain

Russia


Rostow’s Stages 3-5; Britain vs Russia

Britain

Russia

Stage 3- Take-oﬀ 1783-1802 (19 years) 1885-1900 (15 years)

Britain vs Russia


Britain vs Russia
Private Enterprise
Consumer & Heavy
Industry
18th & early 19th c.s
textile mills
water power
Arkwright’s “Water Frame”
Hargreave’s “Spinning Jenny”
Crompton’s “Mule
steam & iron
Watt’s 1762 engine for pumping
out coal mines
iron mills, “puddling”
transportation, canals, iron
bridges, railroads--”Puﬃng
Billy” (1813-1862) Robert Fulton’s
“Clermont” (1807)


Britain vs Russia
Private Enterprise Government
Consumer & Heavy Infrastructure
Industry & Military
18th & early 19th c.s early & mid-19th c.
textile mills railroads
water power Skt-Peterburg-Tsarskoe
Arkwright’s “Water Frame” Selo (1836-37) to Moscow
Hargreave’s “Spinning Jenny” (1851)
Crompton’s “Mule steamships
steam & iron K.N. Bird’s “Elizabeth”
Watt’s 1762 engine for pumping (1815) Admiralty Shipyard,
out coal mines A.A. Schilder’s submarine
iron mills, “puddling” (1834) Russia’s 1st all metal
transportation, canals, iron ship
bridges, railroads--”Puﬃng locomotives
Billy” (1813-1862) Robert Fulton’s
N.I. Putilov “the Russian
“Clermont” (1807)
Krupp” 1870s, built cannon
next


government and industrialization:
subsidies and tariffs
• List’s “National System” had brought
to Prussia the Zollverein (tariff union)
and the railway network which aided
German unification

• Russia had always favored the state
leading economic development and
after 1870 all European states followed
suit with state encouragement of
development and commerce

• initially they tended to follow Britain’s
policy of free trade

• during the long depression all but
Britain, Belgium and Holland reverted
Friedrich List (1789-1866)
to protectionism Prussian Minister

The Early Economists

Adam Smith
1723-1790
The Wealth of Nations, 1776



Thomas Robert
Malthus
1766-1834
Essay on the Principle of Population,
1798



David Ricardo
1772-1823
Principles of Political Economy
and Taxation, 1817


Early Socialists-Marx’s “Utopians”

Robert Owen
1771-1858
Welsh industrialist’
social reformer
New Lanark, 1800
New Harmony, IN,
1826



Count de Saint-Simon
1760-1825
technocracy, capitalists and scientists
the new ruling class
only wrote, never tried



Charles Fourier
1772-1837
communes ca"ed phalanxes
tried in France and America
in the 1830s & ‘40s


Characteristics of the Second Industrial
Revolution


Characteristics of the Second Industrial
Revolution

The Krupp works,
Essen, 1905


Steel production--post 1850’s

Sir Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) Sir William Siemens
(1823-1883)


Ernst Werner von
Siemens
(1816-1892)

founder of Siemens A. G.
father of electrical engineering


communication--telegraphy, 1842

telegraph lines in 1891

communication--telephony, 1870s

Alexander
Bell’s
patent, 1876


communication--telephony, 1870s

Alexander
Bell’s
patent, 1876

Tivadar Puskas--”hallom! Boston, 1877
Edison Co., London, 1879
Swedish telephone, 1896

Technical Education

Science room at the Technical School, Finsbury, London, 1884


communication--print technology

The Miehle P.P. & Mfg. Co., 1905

Chemical industry
BASF - Badische Analin und
Soda-Fabrik, 1865 • by 1900, Germany dominated the world
market for synthetic dyes

• the three major firms, BASF, Bayer &
Hoechst produced several hundred different
dyes

• the five smaller, led by AGFA, concentrated
on high quality specialty dyes

• in 1913 these eight firms produced almost
90% of the world supply and sold 80% of
their production abroad

Indigo production at BASF, 1890 • the three majors began to expand into other
areas such as pharmaceuticals, photographic
film, fertilizers, explosives and munitions


The internal combustion engine

• 1860-a Belgian, Lenoir, produced
the first gasoline internal
combustion engine to be made in
significant numbers

• 1876-Nikolaus Otto gave his name
to the four stroke cycle, illustrated,
right
1.Intake
• 1885-Karl Benz built his own four 2. Compression
stroke engine used in the first 3. Combustion &
automobiles in production
Expansion
4. Exhaust


Business Combinations: Trusts and Cartels

The Match Trust



• survivors of capitalism’s early competition
sought to avoid further conﬂicts

The Match Trust
In 1843 two Quakers, May & Bryant,
formed a partnership to import the new
Swedish “Lucifer” matches. Their sales
grew and they expanded, ﬁrst in Britain
and then throughout the empire,
absorbing rivals. In 1861 they began
manufacturing their own product. They
were the target of the London matchgirls
strike of 1888 which won important
improvements in working conditions and
pay for the mostly female workforce.




• through trusts and cartels they aimed at:
The Match Trust




The Match Trust
• expanding their operations




The Match Trust
formed a partnership to import the new • avoiding duplication of eﬀort




The Match Trust
• lowering cost of production




The Match Trust
manufacturing their own product. They • dividing markets




The Match Trust
manufacturing their own product. They • dividing markets
strike of 1888 which won important • avoiding price cutting competition


Monopoly--Negative or Positive?

• trusts and cartels were unpopular because they were often exploitative
and caused tragedy in individual cases

• thus they were the targets of socialist critics of capitalism
• but in the last decades of the 19th century they also played a positive
role. They :

• made possible the introduction of new technology

• eliminated much inefficiency and duplication of effort

• contemporaries did not easily perceive these benefits


Types of Capitalists



• industrial capitalists
• factory owners: Robert Owen, Friedrich Engels, Alfred Krupp, N.I.Putilov,
Bryant & Mays (the match kings)




• comprador capitalists
• merchants: HEIC (the British East India Co.), how Bryant and Mays began, the
Stroganov family




Stroganov family

• ﬁnance capitalists
• bankers, insurers, stockbrokers: the Rothchilds, Bleichröder, Lloyds, Barings




Stroganov family

• ﬁnance capitalists
• bankers, insurers, stockbrokers: the Rothchilds, Bleichröder, Lloyds, Barings

• rentier capitalists
• property owners who take no active part in managing their assets: absentee
landowners, stock and bond holders--Marx’s “parasites


Azovsko-Donskoy Bank
• 1871-opened in Taganrog for
ﬁnancing trade and granting loans

• mid 1880s-largest bank in Russia

• end of the 1890s-one of ﬁve largest
national banks in the world

• 1903-moved to Skt Peterburg

• 73 branches

• 1917-controlled 90 companies

• 1909-1914--share value rose from 20
to 50 million roubles
Skt-Peterburg headquarters
built 1907-1909


European Bourses-Stock Exchanges


The Labor Movement:
Trade Unions

Tolpuddle Martyrs
Day, 2005


classic tensions


classic tensions
Direct Action vs political work
(strikes, sabotage) (parties, elections)


classic tensions
Seeking piecemeal, moderate gains vs radical demands


classic tensions
(wages, hours, work rules)


classic tensions
(wages, hours, work rules) (ultimately, revolution)


Challenges


Challenges

The “Peterloo Massacre”
the Duke of Wellington sends in cavalry to
break up a mass meeting at St Peter’s Field,
Manchester, 1819

gradual legalization of unions


• after 1815, all public assemblies were suspected of revolutionary
tendencies and usually harshly suppressed, e.g.,the “Peterloo
Massacre”(1819)


Massacre”(1819)

• 1834--in Britain, the least reactionary state, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, six
Dorsetshire agricultural laborers, were transported to Australia. Their
“crime”? Forming an Agricultural Benevolent Society and swearing to
refuse to work for less than 10 shillings a day


Massacre”(1819)


• 1840s--the Chartist Movement with its demands for the eight hour day
and the right to form trade unions was a response.


Massacre”(1819)



• reforms spread slowly across Europe from west to east


Massacre”(1819)



• by the last quarter of the 19th century unions were legal everywhere
but often crippled by laws restricting their most eﬀective tactics


Massacre”(1819)



• by the last quarter of the 19th century unions were legal everywhere
but often crippled by laws restricting their most eﬀective tactics

• in Alexander III’s Russia the police inﬁltrated the unions as with the
case of Father Gapon in 1905

Tolpuddle, Then & Now


unions increase in size and militancy



originally unions were benevolent societies, small in membership,
representing the better-educated, better-paid workers of the skilled
trades



trades

their main purpose: assistance to members with unemployment and
accident insurance plus death beneﬁts



trades


they were cautious with their funds and reluctant to use the strike



trades



in the 1880s, during the downturn, unions spread to less skilled
workers, became more militant, and several bitter strikes occurred:



trades



1886--Charleroi, Belgium; glass workers and miners battled police



trades




1889--London; dock workers won signiﬁcant gains with disciplined tactics



trades




1889--London; dock workers won signiﬁcant gains with disciplined tactics

1896--Hamburg; harbor workers failed to match their British counterparts’ success due
to employers’ associations resistance


Unions and Political Parties


Unions form political parties



• as representative government spread from west to east, the newly legal
unions tended to form political parties to advance their interest




the strongest of these was the Socialdemokratische Partei
Deutschlands (SPD) (1863) Germany’s oldest political party





not all the labor parties were Marxian socialist, as was the SPD






often there were rival parties reﬂecting diﬀerent ideologies







in France, for example, there was a movement called Syndicalism
which was militant (origin of the term: sabotage)








other parties called themselves Christian Socialist








other parties called themselves Christian Socialist

all aimed at improving the status of the working class


A Philosophy for Labor:
Karl Marx


A Philosophy for Labor:
Karl Marx

1818-1883


[Marx’s] prominence among socialists was
largely the result of the increasing respect felt for
The Communist Manifesto. As Harold Laski
once wrote, this was … seen to be the ﬁrst
document of its kind to give a direction and a
philosophy to what had before been little more
than an inchoate protest against injustice;… it
can be said to have created the modern socialist
movement, which until now had been run by
self-educated cranks.
Craig, pp. 272-73

Marx, the Man


the early years, 1818-1843

Marx’s Geburtshaus, Trier, Rhenish Prussia


born into a bourgeois family, the third of
seven children



seven children

1824, his father, Herschel Mordechai
Marx, converted to Lutheranism to be
able to practice law



seven children


Karl and his sibs were baptized although
both their grandfathers were rabbis



seven children



he changed from law to philosophy while
at several universities, arrested for
disorderly conduct, disciple of Bruno
Bauer



seven children



Bauer

“mail order PhD” from University of
Jena



seven children



Bauer

“mail order PhD” from University of
Jena

editor of the Rheinische Zeitung in
Cologne, 1841-43, until censors drove
him to emigrate


marriage
1837, against the wishes of Marx’s
parents, Karl (19) and Jenny (23)
became engaged

Jenny’s grandfather had been Chief of
Staff for Frederick the Great

her half brother would be Prussian
Minister of the Interior in the 1850s

1843, Jenny and Karl eloped to Paris
and despite many crushing hardships
maintained a lifelong devoted
marriage
Jenny von Westphalen, (1814-1881)
picture, 1840


political refugee, 1843-50


political refugee, 1843-50
he met his lifelong collaborator, Engels, in
Paris, 1844

both were political radicals who often ﬂed
from the police during the 1840s

together they wrote the Communist Manifesto
in 1848 at the outbreak of the revolutions

he returned to Germany with hope for the
revolution there

Engels often aided Marx ﬁnancially from his
income from the family textile mills in
Manchester

Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)


the famous
collaboration
begins
their ﬁrst joint work,
a pamphlet,
“The Holy Family”


against the “Young Hegelians”


against the “Young Hegelians”

The holy family
or
Critique
of the
Critical Criticism

____________
Against Bruno Bauer & Consorts
_____________

by

Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx
_____________________________
Frankfurt on the Main River
Literary Institute
1845


The Unholy Family


The Unholy Family

Helena Delmuth


family and later life


after the failure of 1848, the Marx family returned
to London

in happier times
Laura, Eleanor, daughter Jenny
Friedrich, Karl (1860)

to London

the 1850s saw their most desperate economic
circumstances

in happier times

to London

circumstances

two children were stillborn

in happier times

to London

circumstances


son Edgar (1847-1855) died in Karl’s arms

in happier times

to London

circumstances



Engels lent the money to bury him

in happier times

to London

circumstances




Karl sat in the reading room of the British Museum
researching Capital (vol. 1, 1867)

in happier times

to London

circumstances




Karl sat in the reading room of the British Museum
researching Capital (vol. 1, 1867)

1883, he died, two years after his wife
in happier times

1871-Great Hopes for the Paris Commune
• following the French defeat, Paris
radicals rebelled against the
bourgeois national government

• they declared a workers commune
and executed hostages

• Marx and Engels hoped this marked
the beginning of the World
Revolution

• 1871-Marx writes The Civil War in
France

• the memory of the bloody
repression ﬁred class hatreds
Commune prisoners being marched to Versailles
from a contemporary illustrated magazine


“The Young Marx”


“The Young Marx”

A 20th century,
post-Stalinist,
“new look”
at Marx


“Re-branding” a failed ideology



• the 1960s--the New Left of Europe and the U.S. faced a huge problem



• Marxism had divided into warring camps: USSR & its satellites vs Red
China, vs various Third World movements, most notably Cuba




• Stalin had been a huge embarrassment to the “faithful” when our CIA
published Khrushchev’s private denunciation





• radical students and their Marxist professors blamed Lenin and the
Russian tradition of authoritarian government for Stalinism, a
distortion of Marxism






• it was necessary to go back to the early writings, the “Young Marx,”






• it was necessary to go back to the early writings, the “Young Marx,”
• this was true Marxism which, if followed, really would bring about
“the workers’ paradise”


Ideas of the “Young Marx”

• his admirersand “communitarian”
humanistic
believe they are more

• his principal inﬂuence at this time was
Ludwig Feuerbach, atheist and
materialist

• early writings include:
• Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

• The German Ideology (both published posthumously)

• The Holy Family (1845)

• Eleven Theses on Feuerbach (1845)

• The Poverty of Philosophy (1847)

• The Communist Manifesto (1848)


The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852)


• Marx wrote this mocking pamphlet after
the coup of 2 December 1851



• the stated intention: “to demonstrate how the
class stru%le in France created circumstances …
that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to
play a hero’s part.”--Marx




• “Hegel remarks somewhere that a" great world-
historic facts and personages appear, so to speak,
twice. He forgot to add: the ﬁrst time as tragedy,
the second time as farce.”




• “Hegel remarks somewhere that a" great world-
historic facts and personages appear, so to speak,
twice. He forgot to add: the ﬁrst time as tragedy,
the second time as farce.”

• “Men make their own history, but they do not
make it as they please; they do not make it under
self-selected circumstances, but under
circumstances existing already, given and
transmitted 'om the past.”


Marxism


WORKERS OF EVERY LAND UNITE
HAIL THE INTERNATIONAL WORKERS ARMY

Marxism

ONLY BY SEIZING THE MEANS OF
PRODUCTION BY THE RED ARMY

RSFSR=
Russian Soviet Federated Socialist
Republic


The Materialistic Interpretation of History


“We found Hegel standing on his head…”

• the materialistic interpretation of
history reverses Hegelian idealist
philosophy

• for Hegel’s dialectic of ideas, Marx
substitutes dialectical materialism

• ideas don’t give birth to material
reality, physical reality gives birth to
ideas

• change, i.e., history advances through
“the negation (Aufhebung) of the
negation”


Dialectics

• the term originated with the Greek
philosopher Zeno of Elea, ca. 490 B.C.

• it is a form of argumentation
Thesis<¬>Antithesis
yields • Hegelian dialectics describes how ideas
Synthesis change through conﬂict leading to
synthesis

• Marx’s dialectical materialism describes
how opposing classes struggle and create
historic change as new classes emerge


The Class Struggle


The Class Struggle
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of
class struggles. (page 1, ﬁrst sentence after prologue)


The Class Struggle

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,
guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and
oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another,
carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open ﬁght,
a ﬁght that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-
constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of
the contending classes


The Class Struggle

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,
guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and
oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another,
carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open ﬁght,
a ﬁght that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-
constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of
the contending classes

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has
put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It ...
has left remaining no other nexus between man and man
than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment” ...
for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions,
it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal
exploitation ... Constant revolutionizing of production,
uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions,
everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the
bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones


The Four Epochs


The Four Epochs
• PRE-CLASSICAL
• THESIS = OPPRESSORS: chiefs & shamans

• ANTITHESIS = OPPRESSED : tribesmen

• TERMINAL EVENT: foundation of the River Kingdoms


The Four Epochs
• PRE-CLASSICAL



• SYNTHESIS = CLASSICAL
• priests and patricians

• plebeans

• fall of the Roman Empire (ﬁfth century)


The Four Epochs
• PRE-CLASSICAL




• plebeans


• FEUDAL
• clergy and lords

• peasantry

• Commercial, Industrial & Democratic Revolutions (16th-18th c)


The Four Epochs
• PRE-CLASSICAL




• plebeans


• FEUDAL
• clergy and lords

• peasantry

• Commercial, Industrial & Democratic Revolutions (16th-18th c)

• CAPITALIST
• bourgeoisie

• proletariat

• World Revolution (1917-?)


“The bourgeoisie are preparing their own gravediggers”
Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto

• as industrialization spreads and replaces the
agrarian economy, the “panics” will become
deeper and longer

• more small shopkeepers, farmers and
artisans will be ruined and forced into the
ranks of the proletariat

• businesses become bigger and fewer

• as the “immiseration of the working class”
becomes greater, so will their numbers

• the bourgeoisie richer, but fewer

• ﬁnally, a tipping point is reached and the
World Revolution breaks out, beginning
in the most advanced industrialized
states, Germany, Belgium, Britain


Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program, 1875

• 1891--not published until long after Marx’s
death in 1883

• he criticised the SPD agenda at the Gotha
Congress as not revolutionary enough

• it is his only statement on the future:
I.World Revolution

II.“dictatorship of the proletariat”

III.“the state shall wither away”

IV.communism
Marx and Lasalle


Marxism Comes to Russia


Marxism Comes to Russia

Georgi Valentinovich
Plekhanov


Kazan Cathedral, Skt-Peterburg
from a 19th century postcard


Russia’s First Political Demonstration
December 6, 1876


December 6, 1876

• organized and conducted by Zemlya i Volya and workers organizations


December 6, 1876

• some 400 people gathered in the cathedral square and sang the
Marsei"aise in Russian


December 6, 1876


• Georgi Plekhanov, organizer and chief speaker, indicted autocracy and
defended the views of Chernishevsky, then in exile


December 6, 1876



• a worker, Ia. Potapov, waived the red ﬂag. The demonstrators oﬀered
resistance to the police.


December 6, 1876




• 31 arrests; 5 sentenced to katorga 10-15 years, 10 to Siberian exile, 3
including Potapov to 5 years incarceration in a monastery


December 6, 1876




• 31 arrests; 5 sentenced to katorga 10-15 years, 10 to Siberian exile, 3
including Potapov to 5 years incarceration in a monastery

• it was at this demonstration that Vera Figner became radicalized


The Father of Russian Marxism
• switched from a military college to a mining
institute. dropped after two years

• Narodnik who continued to believe with them
in mass movements rather than small
revolutionary terrorist groups

• 1880-after 2 arrests ﬂed to Switzerland never
to return until 1917

• 1883-with Vera Zasulich and Pavel Axelrod
founded the Emancipation of Labor group,
Russia’s ﬁrst Marxists

• 1885-developed the constitution for the
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party

• his most famous early follower was V.I. Lenin
Georgi V. Plekhanov
1856-1918


Russian Social Democratic Labor Party

• created to oppose narodnichestvo, the
revolutionary populism of the narodniki

• based on Marxism, the party ignored Russia’s
agrarian economy and based its faith on the
role of Russia’s then small industrial proletariat

• illegal throughout its early years, all nine
delegates to the ﬁrst congress were arrested by
the imperial police

• the second congress in Brussels/London would
become famous for the Bolshevik/Menshevik
split

Minutes of the Second Congress • members thereafter would describe their party
of the RSDLP allegiance as the RSDLP (B) or RSDLP (M)


The Development of
Socialism


The Development of
Socialism
Socialist band
marching through
Hyde Park, 1896


The First Workingman’s International,
1864-1876


International Workingmen’s Association (1864-1876)
• Marx gave the inaugural address and
statement of principles in London

• subsequent congresses were held in :
• Geneva(1866)--the 8 hour day becomes a fundamental demand

• Lausanne (1867)--Proudonhists vs Blanquists

• Brussels (1868)--Marx gains supporters

• the Hague/New York(1872--showdown with the Anarchists

• Philadelphia (1876)--disagreements led to disbandment

• prominent but not dominant, Marx had to
vie with Mikhail Bakunin

• both agreed on the need for a revolutionary
elite, but on little else

The Internationale


The Internationale
• June,1871-the original lyrics were composed by Eugene Pottier, a
survivor of the Paris Commune

• he intended them to be sung to the tune of the Marse"aise

• Its original French refrain is C'est la lutte finale/ Groupons-nous et demain/
L'Internationale/ Sera le genre humain. (Freely translated: "This is the
final struggle/ Let us group together and tomorrow/ The
Internationale/ Will be the human race.")

• 1888-the current melody was composed by Pierre De Geyter, in
time for it to become the anthem of the Second International

• the anarchists also claimed it

• it is sung with the right fist clenched and raised, a salute of the
Left which predates the Fascists’ and Nazis’

• 1902-Arkady Kots translated to Russian in time for the
Revolution of 1905

• C'est la lutte finale/ Groupons-nous et demain/ L'Internationale/ Sera le genre
humain


Bakunin addressing a meeting of the
IWA in Basel, 1869


How Ukrainian students learned this material in 1972

a page from 10th grade text,
Novaya Historia (Modern History)


• Oct-Dec, 1972--I was an exchange
teacher in the Ukrainian city of
Vinnitsa



Vinnitsa

• I observed classes from kindergarten-
10th grade (then, the ﬁnal year)



Vinnitsa


• this textbook was the same, nationwide



Vinnitsa



• by high school all history and political
science instruction was in Russian
regardless of the local language



Vinnitsa



• by high school all history and political
science instruction was in Russian
regardless of the local language

• the level, if not the veracity, of the
historical material being presented was
much more demanding than what we
were presenting in America

Anarchism


Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (1814-1876)
• noble birth, a junior oﬃcer in the army,
resigned his commission in 1835

• studied philosophy in Moscow, inﬂuenced by
Westernizers, especially Alexander Herzen

• 1842-left for Dresden, then Paris where he
met George Sand, Proudhon, and Marx

• deported from France for criticizing Russia’s
oppression of Poland

• 1849-arrested in Dresden for his
participation in the Czech revolution of
1848, handed over to Russia, imprisoned

• 1857-sent to a Siberian labor camp, katorga
the young Bakunin • 1861-escaped to western Europe

Anarchism in the late 19th century

the ﬁrst self-proclaimed anarchist was Pierre
Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865). It was his
Philosophy of Poverty that Marx ridiculed in
1847.

but the great leader of the anarchists now was
Mikhail Bakunin

his group called themselves Mutualists and
approved of “propaganda of the deed,” terrrorism

they believed such acts by hard core
revolutionaries would inspire the masses of
proletarians to seize “the means of production”

they applauded the assassination of Alexander II
and encouraged similar acts against rulers and
industrialists


Marx versus Bakunin

each detested the other personally


Marx versus Bakunin


Bakunin hated Marx’s authoritarianism


Marx versus Bakunin



he saw correctly that a successful Marxist revolution would
leave the political and economic institutions which he hated
untouched, even if they were in other hands


Marx versus Bakunin




he believed that the dictatorship of the proletariat would be as
oppressive as the bourgeois order and that the state would
never “wither away”


Marx versus Bakunin





Marx was contemptuous of the lack of system and general
“wooliness” of the anarchists’ declarations


Marx versus Bakunin





Marx was contemptuous of the lack of system and general
“wooliness” of the anarchists’ declarations

he had a genuine horror of the ill-prepared acts of individual
terrorism that the anarchists admired


Anarchism after the First International
1873, expulsion from the First International, engineered by Marx:

the International, weakened by the conﬂict, broke up in 1876

the anarchist philosophy continued to attract individuals

French socialists, dissatisﬁed with caution after 1871, were attracted to
“propaganda of the deed” to avenge the bloody suppression of the Paris
Commune

Italy and Spain, where rural classes were the most depressed and backward
in western Europe, were especially open to the creed

German-American anarchist, Johann Most, “Dynamost,” inspired Emma
Goldman and her lover, Alexander Berkman, to gain fame during the
Homestead Strike, 1892

a series of heads of state were assassinated by anarchists, including
McKinley, 1901


Syndicalism


Georges Sorel (1847-1922) • French Syndicalist founder
bourgeois, engineer graduate of the Ecole
Polytechnique, director of public works

1892, retiring to write, favored Bakunin’s
anarcho-collectivism over Marxism

believed that force and “direct action” e.g.,
the strike, boycotts and sabotage, were
necessary for change to occur

anti-nationalist, anti-capitalist, he admired
Charles Maurras, Action Française, Lenin
and Mussolini for attacking bourgeois
democracy

most famous for Reﬂections on Violence, 1908


Revisionism


Despite the anarcho-syndicalist preference for direct
action as opposed to political maneuver, the main
tendency in European socialism was political, and,
by the 1890s, Socialist parties had been organized in
most countries, were vying for popular support in
national and local elections, and...were having
considerable success. Most of these parties were
Marxist….[This] did not mean that the parties …
were … united and harmonious, for they often
developed splinter groups…[E]ven before Engels’s
death in 1895 a profound division was looming ….

Craig, p.283

the revisionist controversy

for some time leading socialist and trade union leaders had been
uneasy
there was a gap between Marx’s predictions and the realities of
European economic development

“Peasants do not sink; Burgertum (the bourgeoisie) does not
disappear; crises do not grow ever longer; misery and serfdom do
not increase.”-- Eduard Bernstein
the co"apse of the capitalist system was not imminent
the Socialist parties must change their tactics if not their goals
“… rescue socialism 'om the barricades”--G.B. Shaw


Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932) German social democratic politician,
SPD member, founder of evolutionary socialism


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