The essence of the Marxist theory of the historical process. Two currents in the trade union movement The totalitarian experiments of the past were limited in scale and in the nature of their goals. Only in the 20th century, under the conditions of the existence of mass political parties using
§ 7. MARXISM, REVISIONISM AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
Back in the 19th century, many thinkers, among them A. Saint-Simon (1760-1825), C. Fourier (1772-1837), R. Owen (1771-1858) and others, drew attention to the contradictions of their contemporary society. Social polarization, the growing number of poor and disadvantaged, and periodic crises of overproduction, from their point of view, evidenced the imperfection of social relations.These thinkers paid special attention to what the ideal organization of society should be. They constructed speculative projects that went down in the history of social science as a product of utopian socialism. Thus, Saint-Simon assumed that a transition to a system of planned production and distribution, the creation of associations where everyone would be engaged in one or another type of socially useful labor, was necessary. R. Owen believed that society should consist of self-governing communes, whose members jointly own property and jointly use the produced product. Equality in the view of the utopians does not contradict freedom; on the contrary, it is a condition for its acquisition. At the same time, achieving the ideal was not associated with violence; it was assumed that the dissemination of ideas about a perfect society would become a strong enough incentive for their implementation.
The emphasis on the problem of egalitarianism (equality) was also characteristic of the doctrine that had a great influence on the development of the socio-political life of many countries in the 20th century - Marxism.
The teachings of K. Marx and the labor movement. K. Marx (1818-1883) and F. Engels (1820-1895), sharing many of the views of utopian socialists, linked the achievement of equality with the prospect of social revolution, the preconditions of which, in their opinion, matured with the development of capitalism and the growth of industrial production.
The Marxist forecast for the development of the social structure of society assumed that with the development of the factory industry, the number of hired workers, deprived of property, living from hand to mouth and because of this forced to sell their labor power (proletarians), would constantly increase in number. All other social groups - the peasantry, small owners of towns and villages, those who do not use or use hired labor to a limited extent, and employees - were predicted to have an insignificant social role.
It was expected that the working class, faced with a sharp deterioration in its position, especially during periods of crisis, would be able to move from putting forward demands of an economic nature and spontaneous riots to a conscious struggle for a radical restructuring of society. The condition for this, K. Marx and F. Engels considered the creation of a political organization, a party capable of introducing revolutionary ideas into the proletarian masses and leading them in the struggle to gain political power. Having become proletarian, the state had to ensure the socialization of property and suppress the resistance of supporters of the old order. In the future, the state was supposed to wither away, replaced by a system of self-governing communes realizing the ideal of universal equality and social justice.
K. Marx and F. Engels did not limit themselves to developing the theory, they tried to put it into practice. In 1848 they wrote a program document for a revolutionary organization, the League of Communists, which sought to become the international party of the proletarian revolution. In 1864, with their direct participation, a new organization was formed - the First International, which included representatives of various currents of socialist thought. The greatest influence was enjoyed by Marxism, which became the ideological platform of the social democratic parties that emerged in many countries (one of the first such parties arose in Germany in 1869). They created a new international organization in 1889 - the Second International.
At the beginning of the 20th century, parties representing the working class operated legally in most industrialized countries. In Great Britain, the Labor Representation Committee was created in 1900 to bring representatives of the labor movement into parliament. In 1906, the Labor (Labor) Party was created on its basis. In the USA, the Socialist Party was formed in 1901, in France - in 1905.
Marxism as a scientific theory and Marxism as an ideology, which absorbed individual provisions of the theory, which became political, programmatic guidelines and, as such, were adopted by many followers of K. Marx, were very different from each other. Marxism as an ideology served as a justification for political activity directed by leaders and party functionaries who determined their attitude to the original ideas of Marxism and attempts to scientifically rethink them on the basis of their own experience and the current interests of their parties.
Revisionism in the parties of the Second International. Changes in the appearance of society at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the growing influence of social democratic parties in Germany, England, France and Italy required theoretical understanding. This implied a revision (revision) of a number of the initial provisions of Marxism.
Revisionism took shape as a direction of socialist thought in the 1890s. in the works of the theorist of German social democracy E. Bernstein, which gained popularity in the majority of socialist and social democratic parties of the Second International. Such trends of revisionism as Austro-Marxism and economic Marxism appeared.
Revisionist theorists (K. Kautsky - in Germany, O. Bauer - in Austria-Hungary, L. Martov - in Russia) believed that universal laws of social development, similar to the laws of nature, which Marxism claimed to discover, do not exist. The greatest doubts were raised by the conclusion that the aggravation of the contradictions of capitalism was inevitable. Thus, when analyzing the processes of economic development, the revisionists put forward a hypothesis that the concentration and centralization of capital, the formation of monopolistic associations (trusts, cartels) lead to overcoming the anarchy of free competition and allow, if not eliminating crises, then mitigating their consequences. Politically, it was emphasized that as suffrage becomes universal, the need for revolutionary struggle and revolutionary violence to achieve the goals of the labor movement disappears.
Indeed, Marxist theory was created in conditions when power in most European countries still belonged to the aristocracy, and where parliaments existed, due to the system of qualifications (settlement, property, age, lack of voting rights for women), 80-90% of the population did not have voting rights. In such a situation, only owners were represented in the highest legislative body, parliament. The state primarily responded to the demands of the wealthy segments of the population. This left the poor with only one way to protect their interests - putting forward demands on entrepreneurs and the state, threatening a transition to revolutionary struggle. However, with the introduction of universal suffrage, parties representing the interests of wage earners had the opportunity to gain strong positions in parliaments. Under these conditions, it was quite logical to connect the goals of social democracy with the struggle for reforms conducted within the framework of the existing government system without violating democratic legal norms.
According to E. Bernstein, socialism as a doctrine that presupposes the possibility of building a society of universal justice cannot be fully considered scientific, since it has not been tested and proven in practice and in this sense remains a utopia. As for the social democratic movement, it is the product of very specific interests, towards the satisfaction of which it should direct its efforts, without setting utopian super goals.
Social democracy and ideas of V.I. Lenin. The revisionism of the majority of social democratic theorists was opposed by the radical wing of the labor movement (in Russia it was represented by the Bolshevik faction, led by V.I. Lenin, in Germany - by a group of “leftists”, whose leaders were K. Zetkin, R. Luxemburg, K. Liebknecht) . Radical factions believed that the labor movement should first of all strive to destroy the system of wage labor and entrepreneurship, and the expropriation of capital. The struggle for reform was recognized as a means of mobilizing the masses for subsequent revolutionary actions, but not as a goal of independent significance.
According to the views of V.I. Lenin, formulated in its final form during the First World War, a new stage in the development of capitalism, imperialism, is characterized by a sharp aggravation of all the contradictions of capitalist society. The concentration of production and capital was seen as evidence of the extreme aggravation of the need for their socialization. The perspective of capitalism V.I. Lenin considered only stagnation in the development of the productive forces, the growing destructiveness of crises, military conflicts between the imperialist powers due to the redivision of the world.
IN AND. Lenin was characterized by the conviction that the material prerequisites for the transition to socialism exist almost everywhere. Lenin believed that the main reason why capitalism managed to prolong its existence was the unwillingness of the working masses to rise up in the revolutionary struggle. To change this situation, that is, to liberate the working class from the influence of reformists, it should be led, according to Lenin and his supporters, by a party of a new type, focused not so much on parliamentary activity, but on preparing a revolution, a violent seizure of power.
Lenin's ideas about imperialism as the highest and final stage of capitalism initially did not attract much attention from Western European social democrats. Many theorists have written about the contradictions of the new era and the reasons for their aggravation. In particular, the English economist D. Hobson argued at the beginning of the century that the creation of colonial empires enriched narrow groups of oligarchy, stimulated the outflow of capital from the metropolises, and aggravated relations between them. The theorist of German social democracy R. Hilferding analyzed in detail the consequences of the growth of concentration and centralization of production and capital, and the formation of monopolies. The idea of a “new type” party initially remained unclear in the legally operating social democratic parties of Western Europe.
Creation of the Comintern. At the beginning of the 20th century, most social democratic parties represented both revisionist and radical views. There was no insurmountable barrier between them. Thus, K. Kautsky in his early works polemicized with E. Bernstein, and later agreed with many of his views.
The program documents of legally operating social democratic parties included a mention of socialism as the ultimate goal of their activities. At the same time, the commitment of these parties to the methods of changing society and its institutions through reforms, in compliance with the procedure provided for by the constitution, was emphasized.
Left Social Democrats were forced to put up with the reformist orientation of party programs, justifying it by the fact that the mention of violence and revolutionary means of struggle would give the authorities a reason for repression against socialists. Only in social democratic parties operating in illegal or semi-legal conditions (in Russia, Bulgaria) did an organizational demarcation occur between the reformist and revolutionary currents in social democracy.
After the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, the representations of V.I. Lenin about imperialism as the eve of the socialist revolution became the basis of the ideology of the radical wing of the international social democratic movement. In 1919 it took shape as the Third Communist International. Its adherents focused on violent means of struggle and considered any doubt about the correctness of Lenin’s ideas as a political challenge, a hostile attack against their activities. With the creation of the Comintern, the Social Democratic movement finally split into reformist and radical factions, not only ideologically, but also organizationally.
DOCUMENTS AND MATERIALS
From E. Bernstein’s work “Is Scientific Socialism Possible?”:
“Socialism represents something more than the simple isolation of those demands around which the temporary struggle waged by the workers with the bourgeoisie in the economic and political field is waged. As a doctrine, socialism is the theory of this struggle, as a movement - the result of it and the desire for a specific goal, namely the transformation of capitalist social order into a system based on the principle of collective farming. But this goal is not predicted by theory alone; its arrival is not expected with a certain fatalistic faith; it is largely an intended goal that is fought for. But, setting as its goal such a supposed or future system and trying to completely subordinate its actions in the present to this goal, socialism is to a certain extent utopian. By this I do not want to say, of course, that socialism strives for something impossible or unattainable; I only want to state that it contains an element of speculative idealism, a certain amount of what is scientifically unprovable.”
From the work of E. Bernstein “Problems of socialism and tasks of social democracy”:
"feudalism with its<...>class institutions were eradicated almost everywhere through violence. The liberal institutions of modern society differ from it precisely in that they are flexible, changeable and capable of development. They do not require their eradication, but only further development. And this requires appropriate organization and energetic actions, but not necessarily a revolutionary dictatorship<...>The dictatorship of the proletariat is where the working class does not yet have a strong economic organization of its own and has not yet achieved high degree moral independence through training in self-government bodies is nothing more than the dictatorship of club speakers and scientists<...>A utopia does not cease to be a utopia only because phenomena that supposedly happen in the future are mentally applied to the present. We must take workers as they are. They, firstly, are not at all as impoverished as one could conclude from the “Communist Manifesto”, and secondly, they are far from getting rid of prejudices and weaknesses, as their henchmen would like us to believe.”
From the work of V. I. Lenin “The Historical Fate of the Teachings of Karl Marx”:
“Internally rotten liberalism is trying to revive itself in the form of socialist opportunism. They interpret the period of preparing forces for great battles in the sense of abandoning these battles. They explain the improvement of the position of slaves in order to fight against wage slavery in the sense of slaves selling their rights to freedom. They cowardly preach “social peace” (i.e. peace with slavery), renunciation of class struggle, etc. They have a lot of supporters among socialist parliamentarians, various officials of the labor movement and “sympathetic” intelligentsia.”
From the work of R. Luxemburg"Social reform or revolution?":
“Whoever speaks out for the legal path of reform instead of and in contrast to the conquest of political power and a social revolution, in fact chooses not a calmer, more reliable and slower path to the same goal, but a completely different goal, namely, instead of implementing a new social order only minor changes to the old one. Thus, the political views of revisionism lead to the same conclusion as its economic theory: essentially it does not aim to realize socialist system, but only to transform the capitalist, not to destroy the hiring system, but only to establish more or less exploitation, in a word, to eliminate only the growths of capitalism, but not capitalism itself.”
QUESTIONS AND TASKS
1. Why do you think the theory created by K. Marx in the 19th century, unlike other utopian teachings, found significant spread in many countries of the world in the 20th century?
2. Why was there a revision of a number of provisions of Marxist teaching at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries? Which ones have been the target of the most criticism? What new directions of socialist thought have emerged?
3. How can you explain the difference between the concepts: “Marxism as a theory”
and “Marxism as an ideology.”
4. Identify the main differences between the reformist and radical trends in the labor movement.
5. What role did Lenin’s theory of imperialism play in the international labor movement?
§ 8. SOCIAL RELATIONS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
The existence in society of social groups with different property status does not mean that conflict between them is inevitable. The state of social relations at any given point in time depends on many political, economic, historical and cultural factors. Thus, the history of past centuries was characterized by low dynamics of social processes. In feudal Europe, class boundaries existed for centuries; for many generations of people this traditional order seemed natural, unshakable. Riots by townspeople and peasants, as a rule, were generated not by a protest against the existence of the upper classes, but by the latter’s attempts to expand their privileges and thereby disrupt the usual order.The increased dynamism of social processes in countries that embarked on the path of industrial development back in the 19th, and even more so in the 20th century, weakened the influence of traditions as a factor of social stability. The way of life and the situation of people changed faster than the tradition corresponding to the changes was formed. Accordingly, the importance of the economic and political situation in society, the degree of legal protection of citizens from arbitrariness, and the nature of the social policy pursued by the state increased.
Forms of social relations. The completely natural desires of hired workers to improve their financial situation, and of entrepreneurs and managers to increase corporate profits, as the experience of the history of the 20th century has shown, caused various social consequences.
Firstly, situations are possible in which workers associate an increase in their income with an increase in their personal contribution to the activities of the corporation, with an increase in the efficiency of its work, and with the prosperity of the state. In turn, entrepreneurs and managers strive to create incentives for employees to increase labor productivity. The relationship between the managed and the managers that develops in such a situation is usually defined as a social partnership.
Secondly, a situation of social conflict is possible. Its occurrence implies the conviction of hired workers that increasing wages, receiving other benefits and payments can only be achieved through a process of tough bargaining with employers, which does not exclude strikes and other forms of protest.
Thirdly, the emergence of social confrontations cannot be ruled out. They develop on the basis of an exacerbation of social conflict that does not receive resolution due to reasons of an objective or subjective nature. During social confrontation, actions in support of certain demands become violent, and these demands themselves go beyond the scope of claims against individual employers. They develop into calls for a violent change in the existing political system, for breaking existing social relations.
The parties that were members of the Comintern, which shared Lenin’s theory of imperialism, considered social confrontation a natural form of social relations in a society where there is private ownership of the means of production. The position of these parties was that the basic interests of an individual are predetermined by his belonging to one or another social class - the haves (owners of the means of production) or their antagonists, the have-nots. National, religious, personal motives of political and economic behavior people were viewed as unimportant. Social partnership was regarded as an anomaly or a tactical maneuver designed to deceive the working masses and reduce the intensity of the class struggle. This approach, associated with the explanation of any social processes by economic reasons, the struggle for the possession and control of property, can be characterized as economic determinism. It was characteristic of many Marxists of the 20th century.
The appearance of the working class in industrial countries. Attempts to overcome economic determinism in the study of social processes and relationships have been made by many scientists. The most significant of them is associated with the activities of the German sociologist and historian M. Weber (1864-1920). He viewed social structure as a multidimensional system, proposing to take into account not only the place of groups of people in the system of property relations, but also the social status of the individual - his position in society in accordance with age, gender, origin, profession, marital status. Based on the views of M. Weber, the functionalist theory of social stratification, which became generally accepted by the end of the century, developed. This theory assumes that people's social behavior is determined not only by their place in the system of social division of labor and their attitude towards ownership of the means of production. It is also a product of the prevailing value system in society, cultural standards that determine the significance of this or that activity, justifying or condemning social inequality, and capable of influencing the nature of the distribution of rewards and incentives.
According to modern views, social relations cannot be reduced only to conflicts between employees and employers on issues of working conditions and wages. This is the entire complex of relations in society, which determines the state of the social space in which a person lives and works. Of great importance are the degree of social freedom of the individual, the opportunity for a person to choose the type of activity in which he can best realize his aspirations, and the effectiveness of social security in the event of loss of ability to work. Conditions are important not only for work, but also for everyday life, leisure, family life, state environment, the general social climate in society, the situation in the field of personal safety, and so on.
The merit of sociology of the 20th century was its rejection of a simplified class approach to the realities of social life. Thus, hired workers have never represented an absolutely homogeneous mass. From the point of view of the sphere of application of labor, industrial, agricultural workers, workers employed in the service sector (in transport, in the public utilities system, communications, warehousing, etc.) were distinguished. The largest group consisted of workers employed in various industries (mining, manufacturing, construction), which reflected the reality of mass, conveyor production, developing extensively and requiring more and more new workers. However, even under these conditions, differentiation processes took place within the working class, associated with the variety of labor functions performed. Thus, the following groups of hired workers were distinguished by status:
Engineering, technical, scientific and technical, the lowest layer of managers - masters;
Skilled workers with high level professional training, experience and skills necessary to perform complex labor operations;
Semi-skilled workers are highly specialized machine operators whose training allows them to perform only simple operations;
Unskilled, untrained workers performing auxiliary work, engaged in rough physical labor.
Due to the heterogeneity of the composition of hired workers, some layers gravitated toward behavior within the framework of the social partnership model, others toward social conflict, and still others toward social confrontation. Depending on which of these models was dominant, the general social climate of society, the appearance and orientation of those organizations that represent the social interests of workers, employers, public interests and determine the nature of the state’s social policy were formed.
Trends in the development of social relations, the predominance of social partnership, conflict or confrontation were largely determined by the extent to which the demands of workers were satisfied within the framework of the system of social relations. If there were at least minimal conditions for improving the standard of living, the possibility of increasing social status, individually or for individual employed groups, social confrontations did not arise.
Two currents in the trade union movement. The trade union movement became the main instrument for ensuring the interests of workers in the last century. It originated in Great Britain, the first to experience the industrial revolution. Initially, trade unions arose at individual enterprises, then nationwide sectoral trade unions arose, uniting workers across the industry and the entire state.
The growth in the number of trade unions and their desire for maximum coverage of industry workers were associated with the situation of social conflict characteristic of developed countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus, a trade union that arose at one enterprise and put forward demands on the employer was often faced with the mass dismissal of its members and the hiring of non-union members who were willing to work for lower wages. It is no coincidence that trade unions, when concluding collective agreements with entrepreneurs, required them to hire only their own members. In addition, the larger the number of trade unions, the funds of which were made up of contributions from their members, the longer they could provide material support workers who started a strike. The outcome of strikes was often determined by whether workers could hold out long enough for the loss of production to induce the employer to make concessions. At the same time, the concentration of labor in large industrial complexes created the preconditions for the activation of the labor and trade union movement, the growth of its strength and influence. Strikes have become easier to carry out. It was enough to hold a strike in just one of the dozens of workshops in the complex to stop all production. A form of creeping strikes arose, which, due to the intransigence of the administration, spread from one workshop to another.
The solidarity and mutual support of trade unions led to the creation of national organizations. Thus, in Great Britain, back in 1868, the British Congress of Trade Unions (trade unions) was created. By the beginning of the 20th century, 33% of employees were in trade unions in Great Britain, 27% in Germany, and 50% in Denmark. In other developed countries, the level of organization of the labor movement was lower.
At the beginning of the century, international trade union relations began to develop. In Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1901, the International Trade Union Secretariat (ITU) was created, which ensured cooperation and mutual support of trade union centers different countries. In 1913, the SME, renamed the International Trade Union Federation, included 19 national trade union centers, representing 7 million people. In 1908, an international association of Christian trade unions arose.
The development of the trade union movement was the most important factor in increasing the living standards of hired workers, especially skilled and semi-skilled ones. And since the ability of entrepreneurs to satisfy the demands of employees depended on the competitiveness of corporations in the world market and colonial trade, trade unions often supported an aggressive foreign policy. There was a widespread belief in the British labor movement that the colonies were necessary because their markets provided new jobs and cheap agricultural products.
At the same time, members of the oldest trade unions, the so-called “labor aristocracy,” were more oriented toward social partnership with entrepreneurs and support for state policies than members of newly emerging trade union organizations. In the United States, the Industrial Workers of the World trade union, created in 1905 and uniting mainly unskilled workers, took a revolutionary position. In the largest trade union organization in the United States, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which united skilled workers, aspirations for social partnership prevailed.
In 1919, trade unions of European countries, whose connections during the First World War of 1914-1918. found themselves torn apart, they founded the Amsterdam International of Trade Unions. Its representatives took part in the activities of the international intergovernmental organization established in 1919 at the initiative of the United States - the International Labor Organization (ILO). It was designed to help eliminate social injustice and improve working conditions throughout the world. The first document adopted by the ILO was a recommendation to limit the working day in industry to eight hours and establish a 48-hour working week.
ILO decisions were advisory in nature for member states, which included most of the countries of the world, colonies and protectorates controlled by them. However, they provided a certain unified international legal basis for the solution social problems, labor disputes. The ILO had the right to consider complaints about violations of the rights of trade union associations, non-compliance with recommendations, and to send experts to improve the system of social relations.
The creation of the ILO contributed to the development of social partnership in the field of labor relations, expanding the capabilities of trade unions to protect the interests of employees.
Those trade union organizations whose leaders were inclined to take a position of class confrontation, in 1921, with the support of the Comintern, created the Red International of Trade Unions (Profintern). His goals were not so much to protect the specific interests of workers, but to politicize the labor movement and initiate social confrontations.
DOCUMENTS AND MATERIALS
From Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Theory and Practice of Trade Unionism:
“If a certain branch of industry is divided between two or more rival societies, especially if these societies are unequal in the number of their members, in the breadth of their views, and in their character, then there is no practical possibility of uniting the policies of all the sections or of consistently adhering to any course of action.<...>
The entire history of trade unionism confirms the conclusion that trade unions in their present form were formed for a very specific purpose - to achieve certain material improvements in the working conditions of their members; therefore they cannot, in their simplest form, extend without risk beyond the territory within which these desired improvements are exactly the same for all members, that is, they cannot expand beyond the boundaries of the individual professions<...>If the differences between the classes of workers make a complete merger impracticable, then the similarity of their other interests forces them to look for some other form of union<...>The solution was found in a series of federations, gradually expanding and intersecting; each of these federations unites, exclusively within the limits of specially set goals, those organizations that have realized the identity of their goals.”
From the Constitution of the International Labor Organization (1919):
“The objectives of the International Labor Organization are:
contribute to the establishment of lasting peace by promoting social justice;
improve working conditions and living standards through international activities, as well as contribute to the establishment of economic and social stability.
To achieve these goals, the International Labor Organization convenes joint meetings of representatives of governments, workers and employers in order to make recommendations on international minimum standards and develop international labor conventions on such issues as wages, hours of work, minimum age for entry to work , working conditions for various categories of workers, compensation for accidents at work, social insurance, paid vacations, labor protection, employment, labor inspection, freedom of association, etc.
The organization provides extensive technical assistance to governments and publishes periodicals, studies and reports on social, industrial and labor issues."
From the resolution of the Third Congress of the Comintern (1921) “The Communist International and the Red International of Trade Unions”:
“Economics and politics are always connected with each other by inextricable threads<...>There is not a single major issue of political life that should not be of interest not only workers' party, but also the proletarian, trade union, and, conversely, there is not a single major economic issue that should not be of interest not only to the trade union, but also to the workers’ party<...>
From the point of view of saving forces and better concentration of blows, the ideal situation would be the creation of a single International, uniting in its ranks both political parties and other forms workers' organization. However, in the present transitional period, with the current diversity and diversity of trade unions in different countries, it is necessary to create an independent international association of red trade unions, standing on the platform of the Communist International as a whole, but accepting into their midst more freely than is the case in the Communist International<...>
The basis of the tactics of trade unions is the direct action of the revolutionary masses and their organizations against capital. All the gains of the workers are directly proportional to the degree of direct action and revolutionary pressure of the masses. Direct action refers to all types of direct pressure from workers on state entrepreneurs: boycotts, strikes, street demonstrations, demonstrations, seizure of enterprises, armed uprising and other revolutionary actions that unite the working class to fight for socialism. The task of the revolutionary class trade unions is therefore to transform direct action into an instrument for the education and combat training of the working masses for the social revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
From the work of W. Reich “Mass Psychology and Fascism”:
“The words “proletarian” and “proletarian” were created more than a hundred years ago to designate a deceived class of society that was doomed to mass impoverishment. Of course, such social groups still exist, but the adult grandchildren of the 19th century proletarians have become highly skilled industrial workers who are aware of their skill, indispensability and responsibility<...>
In 19th-century Marxism, the use of the term "class consciousness" was limited to manual workers. Persons in other necessary professions, without which society could not function, were labeled “intellectuals” and “petty bourgeoisie.” They were opposed to the “proletariat of manual labor”<...>Along with industrial workers, such persons should include doctors, teachers, technicians, laboratory assistants, writers, public figures, farmers, scientists, etc.<...>
Thanks to ignorance of mass psychology, Marxist sociology contrasted the “bourgeoisie” with the “proletariat.” From a psychological point of view, such a opposition should be considered incorrect. The character structure is not limited to capitalists; it also exists among workers of all professions. There are liberal capitalists and reactionary workers. Characterological analysis does not recognize class differences.”
QUESTIONS AND TASKS
1. What explains the increasing dynamism of social processes in the 20th century?
2. What forms of social relations did the desire of social groups to defend their economic interests take?
3. Compare the two points of view on the social status of an individual given in the text and discuss the legitimacy of each of them. Draw your own conclusions.
4. Clarify what content you mean by the concept of “social relations”. What factors determine the social climate of a society? Expand the role of the trade union movement in its creation.
5. Compare the views given in the appendix on the tasks of the trade union movement. How did the economic determinism of the Comintern ideologists influence their attitude towards trade unions? Did their position contribute to the success of the trade union movement?
§ 9. REFORMS AND REVOLUTIONS IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 1900-1945.
In the past, revolutions played a special role in social development. Beginning with a spontaneous explosion of discontent among the masses, they were a symptom of the existence of acute contradictions in society and at the same time a means of their speedy resolution. Revolutions destroyed institutions of power that had lost their effectiveness and the trust of the masses, overthrew the former ruling elite (or ruling class), eliminated or undermined the economic foundations of its dominance, led to the redistribution of property, and changed the forms of its use. However, the patterns of development of revolutionary processes that were traced through experience bourgeois revolutions countries of Europe and North America of the 17th-19th centuries, changed significantly in the 20th century.Reforms and social engineering. First of all, the relationship between reform and revolution has changed. Attempts to solve worsening problems using reform methods have been made in the past, but the inability of the majority ruling nobility Transcending the boundaries of class prejudices and tradition-sanctified ideas determined the limitations and low effectiveness of reforms.
With the development of representative democracy, the introduction of universal suffrage, and the growing role of the state in regulating social and economic processes, the implementation of reforms became possible without disrupting the normal flow of political life. In democratic countries, the masses were given the opportunity to express their protest without violence, at the ballot box.
The history of the 20th century has given many examples when changes associated with changes in the nature of social relations, the functioning political institutions, in many countries occurred gradually, were the result of reforms, not violent actions. Thus, industrial society with such features as concentration of production and capital, universal suffrage, active social politics, was fundamentally different from the free-competitive capitalism of the 19th century, but the transition from one to the other in most European countries was evolutionary in nature.
Problems that in the past seemed insurmountable without the violent overthrow of the existing system have been solved by many countries around the world through experiments with so-called social engineering. This concept was first used by theorists of the British trade union movement Sidney and Beatrice Webb, it became generally accepted in legal and political science in the 1920s-1940s.
Social engineering refers to the use of the levers of state power to influence the life of society, its restructuring in accordance with theoretically developed, speculative models, which was especially characteristic of totalitarian regimes. Often these experiments led to the destruction of the living tissue of society, without giving rise to a new, healthy social organism. At the same time, where the methods of social engineering were applied carefully and carefully, taking into account the aspirations and needs of the majority of the population, material capabilities, as a rule, it was possible to smooth out emerging contradictions, ensure an increase in people’s living standards, and resolve the problems that concern them at significantly lower costs.
Social engineering also covers such areas as the formation of public opinion through the media. This does not exclude elements of spontaneity in the reaction of the masses to certain events, since the possibilities of manipulating people by political forces advocating both the preservation of existing orders and their overthrow by revolutionary means are not unlimited. So, within the framework of the Comintern back in the early 1920s. An ultra-radical, ultra-left movement emerged. Its representatives (L.D. Trotsky, R. Fischer, A. Maslov, M. Roy and others), based on the Leninist theory of imperialism, argued that the contradictions in most countries of the world had reached their utmost severity. They assumed that a small push from within or from without, including in the form of acts of terror, the violent “export of revolution” from country to country, was enough to realize the social ideals of Marxism. However, attempts to push revolutions (in particular in Poland during the Soviet-Polish War of 1920, in Germany and Bulgaria in 1923) invariably failed. Accordingly, the influence of representatives of the ultra-radical deviation in the Comintern gradually weakened, in the 1920-1930s. they were expelled from the ranks of most of its sections. Nevertheless, radicalism in the 20th century continued to play a major role in global socio-political development.
Revolutions and violence: the Russian experience. In democratic countries, a negative attitude has developed towards revolutions as a manifestation of uncivilization, characteristic of underdeveloped, undemocratic countries. The formation of such an attitude was facilitated by the experience of revolutions of the 20th century. Most of the attempts to violently overthrow the existing system were suppressed by armed force, which was associated with great casualties. Even a successful revolution was followed by a bloody civil war. In the conditions of constant improvement of military equipment, the destructive consequences, as a rule, exceeded all expectations. In Mexico during the revolution and peasant war of 1910-1917. at least 1 million people died. IN civil war in Russia 1918-1922 At least 8 million people died, almost as many as all the warring countries combined lost in the First World War of 1914-1918. 4/5 of the industry was destroyed, the main cadre of specialists and qualified workers emigrated or died.
This way of solving the contradictions of industrial society, which removes their severity by throwing society back to the pre-industrial phase of development, can hardly be considered consistent with the interests of any segments of the population. In addition, with a high degree of development of world economic relations, a revolution in any state and the civil war that follows it affect the interests of foreign investors and commodity producers. This encourages the governments of foreign powers to take measures to protect their citizens and their property, and to help stabilize the situation in a civil war-torn country. Such measures, especially if they are carried out by military means, add intervention to a civil war, causing even greater casualties and destruction.
Revolutions of the 20th century: basic typology. According to the English economist D. Keynes, one of the creators of the concept of state regulation of a market economy, revolutions by themselves do not solve social and economic problems. At the same time, they can create the political preconditions for their solution, be a tool for overthrowing political regimes of tyranny and oppression that are incapable of carrying out reforms, and removing weak leaders from power who are powerless to prevent the aggravation of contradictions in society.
According to political goals and consequences, in relation to the first half of the 20th century, the following main types of revolutions are distinguished.
Firstly, democratic revolutions directed against authoritarian regimes (dictatorships, absolutist monarchies), ending with the full or partial establishment of democracy.
In developed countries, the first of the revolutions of this type was the Russian revolution of 1905-1907, which gave the Russian autocracy the features of a constitutional monarchy. The incompleteness of the changes led to a crisis and February Revolution 1917 in Russia, ending the 300-year reign of the Romanov dynasty. In November 1918, as a result of the revolution, the monarchy in Germany, discredited by the defeat in the First World War, was overthrown. The emerging republic was called Weimar, since the Constituent Assembly, which adopted a democratic constitution, took place in 1919 in the city of Weimar. In Spain in 1931, the monarchy was overthrown and a democratic republic was proclaimed.
The arena of the revolutionary, democratic movement in the 20th century was Latin America, where in Mexico as a result of the revolution of 1910-1917. The republican form of government was established.
Democratic revolutions also swept a number of Asian countries. In 1911-1912 In China, as a result of the rise of the revolutionary movement led by Sun Yat-sen, the monarchy was overthrown. China was proclaimed a republic, but actual power ended up in the hands of provincial feudal-militarist cliques, which led to a new wave of the revolutionary movement. In 1925, a national government was formed in China, headed by General Chiang Kai-shek, and a formally democratic regime arose, but in fact a one-party, authoritarian regime.
The democratic movement has changed the face of Turkey. The revolution of 1908 and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy opened the way for reforms, but their incompleteness and defeat in the First World War became the cause of the revolution of 1918-1923, led by Mustafa Kemal. The monarchy was abolished, and in 1924 Türkiye became a secular republic.
Secondly, national liberation revolutions became typical of the 20th century. In 1918, they engulfed Austria-Hungary, which disintegrated as a result of the liberation movement of peoples against the power of the Habsburg dynasty into Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. National liberation movements unfolded in many colonies and semi-colonies of European countries, in particular in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and India, although the greatest rise of the national liberation Movement began after the Second World War. Its result was the liberation of peoples from the power of the colonial administration of the metropolises, their acquisition of their own statehood and national independence.
A national liberation orientation was also present in many democratic revolutions, especially when they were aimed against regimes that relied on the support of foreign powers and were carried out under conditions of foreign military intervention. Such were the revolutions in Mexico, China and Turkey, although they were not colonies.
A specific result of revolutions in a number of countries in Asia and Africa, carried out under the slogans of overcoming dependence on foreign powers, was the establishment of traditional regimes familiar to the poorly educated majority of the population. Most often, these regimes turn out to be authoritarian - monarchical, theocratic, oligarchic, reflecting the interests of the local nobility.
The desire to return to the past appeared as a reaction to the destruction of the traditional way of life, beliefs, and way of life due to the invasion of foreign capital, economic modernization, social and political reforms that affected the interests of the local nobility. One of the first attempts to accomplish a traditionalist revolution was the so-called “Boxer” uprising in China in 1900, initiated by peasants and the urban poor.
In a number of countries, including developed ones, which have a great influence on international life, revolutions occurred that led to the establishment of totalitarian regimes. The peculiarity of these revolutions was that they took place in countries of the second wave of modernization, where the state traditionally played a special role in society. With the expansion of its role, up to the establishment of total (comprehensive) state control over all aspects of public life, the masses associated the prospect of solving any problems.
Totalitarian regimes were established in countries where democratic institutions were fragile and ineffective, but the conditions of democracy provided the opportunity for the unimpeded activity of political forces preparing for its overthrow. The first of the revolutions of the 20th century, which ended with the establishment of a totalitarian regime, occurred in Russia in October 1917.
For most revolutions, armed violence and widespread participation of the popular masses were common, but not obligatory, attributes. Revolutions often began with a coup at the top, the coming to power of leaders who initiated changes. Moreover, more often than not, the political regime that arose directly as a result of the revolution was unable to find a solution to the problems that became its cause. This determined the onset of new upsurges of the revolutionary movement, following each other, until society reached a stable state.
DOCUMENTS AND MATERIALS
From the book by J. Keynes “Economic Consequences of the Treaty of Versailles”:
“Rebellions and revolutions are possible, but at present they are not capable of playing any significant role. Against political tyranny and injustice, revolution can serve as a weapon of defense. But what can a revolution give to those whose suffering comes from economic deprivation, a revolution that will be caused not by the injustice of the distribution of goods, but by their general lack? The only guarantee against revolution in Central Europe is that, even for the most desperate people, it offers no hope of any significant relief.<...>The events of the coming years will be directed not by the conscious actions of statesmen, but by hidden currents running continuously beneath the surface of political history, the results of which no one can predict. We are given only a way to influence these hidden currents; this method is V using those powers of enlightenment and imagination that change people's minds. Proclamation of truth, exposure of illusions, destruction of hatred, expansion and enlightenment of human feelings and minds - these are our means."
From the work of L.D. Trotsky “What is permanent revolution? (Basic provisions)":
“The conquest of power by the proletariat does not complete the revolution, but only opens it. Socialist construction is conceivable only on the basis of class struggle on a national and international scale. This struggle, in conditions of the decisive predominance of capitalist relations in the international arena, will inevitably lead to explosions of internal, that is, civil and external revolutionary war. This is the permanent nature of the socialist revolution as such, regardless of whether it is a backward country that only yesterday completed its democratic revolution, or an old democratic country that has gone through a long era of democracy and parliamentarism.
The completion of the socialist revolution within a national framework is unthinkable. One of the main reasons for the crisis of bourgeois society is that the productive forces created by it can no longer be reconciled with the framework of the national state. This leads to imperialist wars<...>The socialist revolution begins on the national stage, develops on the national stage and ends on the world stage. Thus, the socialist revolution becomes permanent in a new, broader sense of the word: it does not receive its completion until the final triumph of the new society on our entire planet.
The above diagram of the development of the world revolution removes the question of countries “ripe” and “not ripe” for socialism in the spirit of the pedantically lifeless qualifications given by the current program of the Comintern. Since capitalism created the world market, the world division of labor and the world productive forces, it prepared the world economy as a whole for socialist reconstruction.”
From the work of K. Kautsky “Terrorism and Communism”:
“Lenin would very much like to carry the banners of his revolution victoriously through Europe, but he has no plans for this. The revolutionary militarism of the Bolsheviks will not enrich Russia; it can only become a new source of its impoverishment. Nowadays Russian industry, since it is set in motion, works primarily for the needs of the armies, and not for productive purposes. Russian communism is truly becoming the socialism of the barracks<...>No world revolution, no outside help can eliminate the paralysis of Bolshevik methods. The task of European socialism in relation to “communism” is completely different: to take care O ensuring that the moral catastrophe of one particular method of socialism does not become a catastrophe of socialism in general - that a sharp distinction is drawn between this and the Marxist method and that mass consciousness perceives this difference.”
QUESTIONS AND TASKS
1 Remember what revolutions in the history of a number of countries before the 20th century you studied? How do you understand the content of the terms “revolution”, “revolution as a political phenomenon”. And
2 What are the differences in social functions revolutions of past centuries and the 20th century? Why have views on the role of revolutions changed? Z. Think and explain: revolution or reforms - under what socio-economic and political conditions is this or that alternative realized?
4. Based on the text you read and previously studied history courses, compile a summary table “Revolutions in the world in the first decades of the 20th century” according to the following columns:
Draw possible conclusions from the data obtained.
5. Name the names of the most famous revolutionary figures in the world. Determine your attitude towards them, evaluate the significance of their activities.
6. Using the material given in the appendix, characterize the typical attitude of liberal theorists (D. Keynes), “left” communists (L.D. Trotsky) and social democrats (K. Kautsky) towards revolutions.
Supporters of the concept of economic determinism are well aware that technology and the productive forces of society as a whole cannot develop in isolation from the economic or production relations that develop in a given society. For this reason, they highlight the economic factor as the determining force of historical development.
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In their opinion, it is on the basis of economic relations that not only political, legal, moral and other ideas and institutions of society are formed, but also the nature of its science and art. As already noted in Chapter 1, K. Marx was often accused of economic determinism. Moreover, these reproaches apply not so much to himself, but to his followers and especially commentators. The talented propagandist of the teachings of Karl Marx, Paul Lafargue (1842-1911), who owns the famous work “The Economic Determinism of Karl Marx,” where he tries to prove the dependence of the most abstract ideas and concepts on social, class relations, did not escape this.
“Economic determinism,” writes P. Lafargue, “is a new weapon provided by Marx at the disposal of socialists to establish some order in chaos historical facts, which historians and philosophers were unable to classify and explain.
Indeed, highlighting economic relations As the defining relations in society, Marxism established repetition in history, and thereby the natural nature of its development. Based on this, P. Lafargue was able to show that concepts such as social progress, justice, freedom and others are historical in nature and arise on the basis of the socio-economic conditions developing in a given society. At the same time, he did not take into account the relative independence of the development of theoretical thinking, and in connection with this, he even tried to explain the emergence of abstract mathematical concepts and axioms with the help of “facts taken from experience”; at least, he did not make any distinction between socio-historical concepts and the concepts of such abstract sciences as mathematics.
ʼʼThe concepts of progress, justice, freedom, fatherland, etc. etc., like the axioms of mathematics, he pointed out, do not exist on their own and outside of experience. Οʜᴎ do not precede experience, but follow itʼʼ. But the non-Euclidean geometries he relied on for his justification historical view on the development of geometric knowledge, just preceded experience, and did not follow it. In fact, the creators of non-Euclidean geometries (N.I. Lobachevsky, J. Bolyai, K. Gauss and B. Riemann) came to their new ideas not with the help of experience, but purely logically. They replaced the axiom of parallel lines in Euclid's geometry with the opposite axiom and derived all logical consequences from the newly obtained system of axioms. These consequences turned out to be so inconsistent with traditional geometric concepts that N.I. Out of caution, Lobachevsky at first called his geometry imaginary. Only a century later, non-Euclidean geometries found application in general relativity and cosmology, which study the properties of physical space and matter in the Universe. This example clearly shows how untenable are attempts to explain the origin of abstract ideas from empirical experience, much less from the economic structure of society.
Undoubtedly, P. Lafargue did not at all try to derive philosophical views and scientific theories directly from economics, although such attempts were sometimes made. This is what V.M. did, for example. Shulyatikov in his book “The Justification of Capitalism in Western European Philosophy”. At the same time, being carried away by the criticism of idealism in history and sociology, P. Lafargue in a number of cases makes concessions to economic determinism.
The fact that economics plays, if not a determining, but important role in the development of society, was recognized by many historians who are very far from Marxism. The very logic of the study of historical material led them to such conclusions, although they could not correctly explain how exactly the economic basis influences the ideological superstructure of society. In this regard, it is worth noting that economic determinism appeared before the emergence of Marxism and some ideas about it can be found in the writings of a number of economists of the 19th century. We find the most clear formulation of its essence in the works of the English economist Richard Jones (1790-1855), who emphasized that the basis of any society is the method of production and distribution of social wealth that forms it economic structure or organization. It is this organization, in his opinion, that determines all other connections and relationships of people living in a given society. “Changes in the economic organization of society,” he wrote, “are accompanied by major political, social, moral and intellectual changes affecting those abundant or meager means by which the tasks of the economy are realized. These changes inevitably have a decisive influence on the various political and social foundations of the respective peoples, and these influences extend to intellectual character, customs, manners, morals and happiness at birthʼʼ(our italics - G.R.).
The above quote indicates that for R. Jones, the economic organization of society determines not only its political, legal and social structure, but also all the specific features of the existence and behavior of the people living in it.
For almost two centuries, ideas about the dominance of economics in society have had an increasingly negative impact on the minds and affairs of many people. They even began to talk about the emergence of a unique type of person, designated by the term homo economicus, who is not interested in anything other than profit and money. Exactly at A This is where he sees his success and the meaning of life; it is from the point of view of the ability to “make money” that he approaches the very assessment of progress in society. This attitude to life is strongly imposed by modern ideologists of economic determinism, who consider the market to be the only regulator of economic life, and the state is assigned the role of a night watchman, designed to provide conditions for free competition.
The mistake of economic determinism lies not in the fact that it puts forward the economic factor as a determining factor in the development of society, but in the fact that it tries to explain all phenomena and processes of not only material, but also spiritual life, the development of science and culture exclusively by economic factors and practice, ᴛ.ᴇ. The economic factor is put forward here not as an essential factor, but as the only one that determines the development of society, its ideology and other forms of consciousness.
§ 8. SOCIAL RELATIONS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT The existence in society of social groups with different property status does not mean the inevitability of conflict between them. The state of social relations at any given point in time depends on many political, economic, historical and cultural factors. Thus, the history of past centuries was characterized by low dynamics of social processes. In feudal Europe, class boundaries existed for centuries; for many generations of people this traditional order seemed natural, unshakable. Riots by townspeople and peasants, as a rule, were generated not by a protest against the existence of the upper classes, but by the latter’s attempts to expand their privileges and thereby disrupt the usual order.
The increased dynamism of social processes in countries that embarked on the path of industrial development back in the 19th, and even more so in the 20th century, weakened the influence of traditions as a factor of social stability. The way of life and the situation of people changed faster than the tradition corresponding to the changes was formed. Accordingly, the importance of the economic and political situation in society, the degree of legal protection of citizens from arbitrariness, and the nature of the social policy pursued by the state increased.
Forms of social relations. The completely natural desires of hired workers to improve their financial situation, and of entrepreneurs and managers to increase corporate profits, as the experience of the history of the 20th century has shown, caused various social consequences.
Firstly, situations are possible in which workers associate an increase in their income with an increase in their personal contribution to the activities of the corporation, with an increase in the efficiency of its work, and with the prosperity of the state. In turn, entrepreneurs and managers strive to create incentives for employees to increase labor productivity. The relationship between the managed and the managers that develops in such a situation is usually defined as a social partnership.
Secondly, a situation of social conflict is possible. Its occurrence implies the conviction of hired workers that increasing wages, receiving other benefits and payments can only be achieved through a process of tough bargaining with employers, which does not exclude strikes and other forms of protest.
Thirdly, the emergence of social confrontations cannot be ruled out. They develop on the basis of an exacerbation of social conflict that does not receive resolution due to reasons of an objective or subjective nature. During social confrontation, actions in support of certain demands become violent, and these demands themselves go beyond the scope of claims against individual employers. They develop into calls for a violent change in the existing political system, for breaking existing social relations.
The parties that were members of the Comintern, which shared Lenin’s theory of imperialism, considered social confrontation a natural form of social relations in a society where there is private ownership of the means of production. The position of these parties was that the basic interests of an individual are predetermined by his belonging to one or another social class - the haves (owners of the means of production) or their antagonists, the have-nots. National, religious, and personal motives for a person’s political and economic behavior were considered insignificant. Social partnership was regarded as an anomaly or a tactical maneuver designed to deceive the working masses and reduce the intensity of the class struggle. This approach, associated with the explanation of any social processes by economic reasons, the struggle for the possession and control of property, can be characterized as economic determinism. It was characteristic of many Marxists of the 20th century.
The appearance of the working class in industrial countries. Attempts to overcome economic determinism in the study of social processes and relationships have been made by many scientists. The most significant of them is associated with the activities of the German sociologist and historian M. Weber (1864-1920). He viewed social structure as a multidimensional system, proposing to take into account not only the place of groups of people in the system of property relations, but also the social status of the individual - his position in society in accordance with age, gender, origin, profession, marital status. Based on the views of M. Weber, the functionalist theory of social stratification, which became generally accepted by the end of the century, developed. This theory assumes that people's social behavior is determined not only by their place in the system of social division of labor and their attitude towards ownership of the means of production. It is also a product of the prevailing value system in society, cultural standards that determine the significance of this or that activity, justifying or condemning social inequality, and capable of influencing the nature of the distribution of rewards and incentives.
According to modern views, social relations cannot be reduced only to conflicts between employees and employers on issues of working conditions and wages. This is the entire complex of relations in society, which determines the state of the social space in which a person lives and works. Of great importance are the degree of social freedom of the individual, the opportunity for a person to choose the type of activity in which he can best realize his aspirations, and the effectiveness of social security in the event of loss of ability to work. Not only working conditions are important, but also everyday life, leisure, family life, the state of the environment, the general social climate in society, the situation in the field of personal safety, and so on.
The merit of sociology of the 20th century was its rejection of a simplified class approach to the realities of social life. Thus, hired workers have never represented an absolutely homogeneous mass. From the point of view of the sphere of application of labor, industrial, agricultural workers, workers employed in the service sector (in transport, in the public utilities system, communications, warehousing, etc.) were distinguished. The largest group consisted of workers employed in various industries (mining, manufacturing, construction), which reflected the reality of mass, conveyor production, developing extensively and requiring more and more new workers. However, even under these conditions, differentiation processes took place within the working class, associated with the variety of labor functions performed. Thus, the following groups of hired workers were distinguished by status:
Engineering, technical, scientific and technical, the lowest layer of managers - masters;
Qualified workers with a high level of professional training, experience and skills necessary to perform complex labor operations;
Semi-skilled workers are highly specialized machine operators whose training allows them to perform only simple operations;
Unskilled, untrained workers performing auxiliary work, engaged in rough physical labor.
Due to the heterogeneity of the composition of hired workers, some layers gravitated toward behavior within the framework of the social partnership model, others toward social conflict, and still others toward social confrontation. Depending on which of these models was dominant, the general social climate of society, the appearance and orientation of those organizations that represent the social interests of workers, employers, public interests and determine the nature of the state’s social policy were formed.
Trends in the development of social relations, the predominance of social partnership, conflict or confrontation were largely determined by the extent to which the demands of workers were satisfied within the framework of the system of social relations. If there were at least minimal conditions for improving the standard of living, the possibility of increasing social status, individually or for individual employed groups, social confrontations did not arise.
Two currents in the trade union movement. The trade union movement became the main instrument for ensuring the interests of workers in the last century. It originated in Great Britain, the first to experience the industrial revolution. Initially, trade unions arose at individual enterprises, then nationwide sectoral trade unions arose, uniting workers across the industry and the entire state.
The growth in the number of trade unions and their desire for maximum coverage of industry workers were associated with the situation of social conflict characteristic of developed countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus, a trade union that arose at one enterprise and put forward demands on the employer was often faced with the mass dismissal of its members and the hiring of non-union members who were willing to work for lower wages. It is no coincidence that trade unions, when concluding collective agreements with entrepreneurs, required them to hire only their own members. In addition, the larger the number of trade unions, the funds of which were made up of contributions from their members, the longer they could provide material support to workers who began a strike action. The outcome of strikes was often determined by whether workers could hold out long enough for the loss of production to induce the employer to make concessions. At the same time, the concentration of labor in large industrial complexes created the preconditions for the activation of the labor and trade union movement, the growth of its strength and influence. Strikes have become easier to carry out. It was enough to hold a strike in just one of the dozens of workshops in the complex to stop all production. A form of creeping strikes arose, which, due to the intransigence of the administration, spread from one workshop to another.
The solidarity and mutual support of trade unions led to the creation of national organizations. Thus, in Great Britain, back in 1868, the British Congress of Trade Unions (trade unions) was created. By the beginning of the 20th century, 33% of employees were in trade unions in Great Britain, 27% in Germany, and 50% in Denmark. In other developed countries, the level of organization of the labor movement was lower.
At the beginning of the century, international trade union relations began to develop. In Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1901, the International Trade Union Secretariat (ITU) was created, which ensured cooperation and mutual support of trade union centers in different countries. In 1913, the SME, renamed the International Trade Union Federation, included 19 national trade union centers, representing 7 million people. In 1908, an international association of Christian trade unions arose.
The development of the trade union movement was the most important factor in increasing the living standards of hired workers, especially skilled and semi-skilled ones. And since the ability of entrepreneurs to satisfy the demands of employees depended on the competitiveness of corporations in the world market and colonial trade, trade unions often supported an aggressive foreign policy. There was a widespread belief in the British labor movement that the colonies were necessary because their markets provided new jobs and cheap agricultural products.
At the same time, members of the oldest trade unions, the so-called “labor aristocracy,” were more oriented toward social partnership with entrepreneurs and support for state policies than members of newly emerging trade union organizations. In the United States, the Industrial Workers of the World trade union, created in 1905 and uniting mainly unskilled workers, took a revolutionary position. In the largest trade union organization in the United States, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which united skilled workers, aspirations for social partnership prevailed.
In 1919, trade unions of European countries, whose connections during the First World War of 1914-1918. found themselves torn apart, they founded the Amsterdam International of Trade Unions. Its representatives took part in the activities of the international intergovernmental organization established in 1919 at the initiative of the United States - the International Labor Organization (ILO). It was designed to help eliminate social injustice and improve working conditions throughout the world. The first document adopted by the ILO was a recommendation to limit the working day in industry to eight hours and establish a 48-hour working week.
ILO decisions were advisory in nature for member states, which included most of the countries of the world, colonies and protectorates controlled by them. However, they provided a certain unified international legal framework for resolving social problems and labor disputes. The ILO had the right to consider complaints about violations of the rights of trade union associations, non-compliance with recommendations, and to send experts to improve the system of social relations.
The creation of the ILO contributed to the development of social partnership in the field of labor relations, expanding the capabilities of trade unions to protect the interests of employees.
Those trade union organizations whose leaders were inclined to take a position of class confrontation, in 1921, with the support of the Comintern, created the Red International of Trade Unions (Profintern). His goals were not so much to protect the specific interests of workers, but to politicize the labor movement and initiate social confrontations.
DOCUMENTS AND MATERIALS
From Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Theory and Practice of Trade Unionism:
“If a certain branch of industry is divided between two or more rival societies, especially if these societies are unequal in the number of their members, in the breadth of their views, and in their character, then there is no practical possibility of uniting the policies of all the sections or of consistently adhering to any course of action.<...>
The entire history of trade unionism confirms the conclusion that trade unions in their present form were formed for a very specific purpose - to achieve certain material improvements in the working conditions of their members; therefore they cannot, in their simplest form, extend without risk beyond the territory within which these desired improvements are exactly the same for all members, that is, they cannot expand beyond the boundaries of the individual professions<...>If the differences between the classes of workers make a complete merger impracticable, then the similarity of their other interests forces them to look for some other form of union<...>The solution was found in a series of federations, gradually expanding and intersecting; each of these federations unites, exclusively within the limits of specially set goals, those organizations that have realized the identity of their goals.”
From the Constitution of the International Labor Organization (1919):
“The objectives of the International Labor Organization are:
contribute to the establishment of lasting peace by promoting social justice;
improve working conditions and living standards through international activities, as well as contribute to the establishment of economic and social stability.
To achieve these goals, the International Labor Organization convenes joint meetings of representatives of governments, workers and employers in order to make recommendations on international minimum standards and develop international labor conventions on such issues as wages, hours of work, minimum age for entry to work , working conditions for various categories of workers, compensation for accidents at work, social insurance, paid vacations, labor protection, employment, labor inspection, freedom of association, etc.
The organization provides extensive technical assistance to governments and publishes periodicals, studies and reports on social, industrial and labor issues."
From the resolution of the Third Congress of the Comintern (1921) “The Communist International and the Red International of Trade Unions”:
“Economics and politics are always connected with each other by inextricable threads<...>There is not a single major issue of political life that should not be of interest not only to the workers’ party, but also to the proletarian trade union, and, conversely, there is not a single major economic issue that should not be of interest not only to the trade union, but also to workers' party<...>
From the point of view of saving forces and better concentration of blows, the ideal situation would be the creation of a single International, uniting in its ranks both political parties and other forms of workers' organization. However, in the present transitional period, with the current diversity and diversity of trade unions in different countries, it is necessary to create an independent international association of red trade unions, standing on the platform of the Communist International as a whole, but accepting into their midst more freely than is the case in the Communist International<...>
The basis of the tactics of trade unions is the direct action of the revolutionary masses and their organizations against capital. All the gains of the workers are directly proportional to the degree of direct action and revolutionary pressure of the masses. Direct action refers to all types of direct pressure from workers on state entrepreneurs: boycotts, strikes, street demonstrations, demonstrations, seizure of enterprises, armed uprising and other revolutionary actions that unite the working class to fight for socialism. The task of the revolutionary class trade unions is therefore to transform direct action into an instrument for the education and combat training of the working masses for the social revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
From the work of W. Reich “Mass Psychology and Fascism”:
“The words “proletarian” and “proletarian” were created more than a hundred years ago to designate a deceived class of society that was doomed to mass impoverishment. Of course, such social groups still exist, but the adult grandchildren of the 19th century proletarians have become highly skilled industrial workers who are aware of their skill, indispensability and responsibility<...>
In 19th-century Marxism, the use of the term "class consciousness" was limited to manual workers. Persons in other necessary professions, without which society could not function, were labeled “intellectuals” and “petty bourgeoisie.” They were opposed to the “proletariat of manual labor”<...>Along with industrial workers, such persons should include doctors, teachers, technicians, laboratory assistants, writers, public figures, farmers, scientists, etc.<...>
Thanks to ignorance of mass psychology, Marxist sociology contrasted the “bourgeoisie” with the “proletariat.” From a psychological point of view, such a opposition should be considered incorrect. The character structure is not limited to capitalists; it also exists among workers of all professions. There are liberal capitalists and reactionary workers. Characterological analysis does not recognize class differences.”
QUESTIONS AND TASKS
1. What explains the increasing dynamism of social processes in the 20th century?
2. What forms of social relations did the desire of social groups to defend their economic interests take?
3. Compare the two points of view on the social status of an individual given in the text and discuss the legitimacy of each of them. Draw your own conclusions.
4. Clarify what content you mean by the concept of “social relations”. What factors determine the social climate of a society? Expand the role of the trade union movement in its creation.
5. Compare the views given in the appendix on the tasks of the trade union movement. How did the economic determinism of the Comintern ideologists influence their attitude towards trade unions? Did their position contribute to the success of the trade union movement?
§ 9. REFORMS AND REVOLUTIONS IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 1900-1945.
In the past, revolutions played a special role in social development. Beginning with a spontaneous explosion of discontent among the masses, they were a symptom of the existence of acute contradictions in society and at the same time a means of their speedy resolution. Revolutions destroyed institutions of power that had lost their effectiveness and the trust of the masses, overthrew the former ruling elite (or ruling class), eliminated or undermined the economic foundations of its dominance, led to the redistribution of property, and changed the forms of its use. However, the patterns of development of revolutionary processes, which were traced in the experience of bourgeois revolutions in Europe and North America in the 17th-19th centuries, changed significantly in the 20th century.Reforms and social engineering. First of all, the relationship between reform and revolution has changed. Attempts to solve worsening problems using reform methods were made in the past, but the inability of the majority of the ruling nobility to transcend the boundaries of class prejudices and tradition-sanctified ideas determined the limitations and low effectiveness of reforms.
With the development of representative democracy, the introduction of universal suffrage, and the growing role of the state in regulating social and economic processes, the implementation of reforms became possible without disrupting the normal flow of political life. In democratic countries, the masses were given the opportunity to express their protest without violence, at the ballot box.
The history of the 20th century gave many examples when changes associated with changes in the nature of social relations and the functioning of political institutions occurred gradually in many countries and were the result of reforms, rather than violent actions. Thus, industrial society, with such features as concentration of production and capital, universal suffrage, active social policy, was fundamentally different from free competition capitalism of the 19th century, but the transition from one to the other in most European countries was evolutionary in nature.
Problems that in the past seemed insurmountable without the violent overthrow of the existing system have been solved by many countries around the world through experiments with so-called social engineering. This concept was first used by theorists of the British trade union movement Sidney and Beatrice Webb, it became generally accepted in legal and political science in the 1920s-1940s.
Social engineering refers to the use of the levers of state power to influence the life of society, its restructuring in accordance with theoretically developed, speculative models, which was especially characteristic of totalitarian regimes. Often these experiments led to the destruction of the living tissue of society, without giving rise to a new, healthy social organism. At the same time, where the methods of social engineering were applied carefully and carefully, taking into account the aspirations and needs of the majority of the population, material capabilities, as a rule, it was possible to smooth out emerging contradictions, ensure an increase in people’s living standards, and resolve the problems that concern them at significantly lower costs.
Social engineering also covers such areas as the formation of public opinion through the media. This does not exclude elements of spontaneity in the reaction of the masses to certain events, since the possibilities of manipulating people by political forces advocating both the preservation of existing orders and their overthrow by revolutionary means are not unlimited. So, within the framework of the Comintern back in the early 1920s. An ultra-radical, ultra-left movement emerged. Its representatives (L.D. Trotsky, R. Fischer, A. Maslov, M. Roy and others), based on the Leninist theory of imperialism, argued that the contradictions in most countries of the world had reached their utmost severity. They assumed that a small push from within or from without, including in the form of acts of terror, the violent “export of revolution” from country to country, was enough to realize the social ideals of Marxism. However, attempts to push revolutions (in particular in Poland during the Soviet-Polish War of 1920, in Germany and Bulgaria in 1923) invariably failed. Accordingly, the influence of representatives of the ultra-radical deviation in the Comintern gradually weakened, in the 1920-1930s. they were expelled from the ranks of most of its sections. Nevertheless, radicalism in the 20th century continued to play a major role in global socio-political development.
Revolutions and violence: the Russian experience. In democratic countries, a negative attitude has developed towards revolutions as a manifestation of uncivilization, characteristic of underdeveloped, undemocratic countries. The formation of such an attitude was facilitated by the experience of revolutions of the 20th century. Most of the attempts to violently overthrow the existing system were suppressed by armed force, which was associated with great casualties. Even a successful revolution was followed by a bloody civil war. In the conditions of constant improvement of military equipment, the destructive consequences, as a rule, exceeded all expectations. In Mexico during the revolution and peasant war of 1910-1917. at least 1 million people died. In the Russian Civil War 1918-1922. At least 8 million people died, almost as many as all the warring countries combined lost in the First World War of 1914-1918. 4/5 of the industry was destroyed, the main cadre of specialists and qualified workers emigrated or died.
This way of solving the contradictions of industrial society, which removes their severity by throwing society back to the pre-industrial phase of development, can hardly be considered consistent with the interests of any segments of the population. In addition, with a high degree of development of world economic relations, a revolution in any state and the civil war that follows it affect the interests of foreign investors and commodity producers. This encourages the governments of foreign powers to take measures to protect their citizens and their property, and to help stabilize the situation in a civil war-torn country. Such measures, especially if they are carried out by military means, add intervention to a civil war, causing even greater casualties and destruction.
Revolutions of the 20th century: basic typology. According to the English economist D. Keynes, one of the creators of the concept of state regulation of a market economy, revolutions by themselves do not solve social and economic problems. At the same time, they can create the political preconditions for their solution, be a tool for overthrowing political regimes of tyranny and oppression that are incapable of carrying out reforms, and removing weak leaders from power who are powerless to prevent the aggravation of contradictions in society.
According to political goals and consequences, in relation to the first half of the 20th century, the following main types of revolutions are distinguished.
Firstly, democratic revolutions directed against authoritarian regimes (dictatorships, absolutist monarchies), ending with the full or partial establishment of democracy.
In developed countries, the first of the revolutions of this type was the Russian revolution of 1905-1907, which gave the Russian autocracy the features of a constitutional monarchy. The incompleteness of the changes led to a crisis and the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia, which put an end to the 300-year rule of the Romanov dynasty. In November 1918, as a result of the revolution, the monarchy in Germany, discredited by the defeat in the First World War, was overthrown. The emerging republic was called Weimar, since the Constituent Assembly, which adopted a democratic constitution, took place in 1919 in the city of Weimar. In Spain in 1931, the monarchy was overthrown and a democratic republic was proclaimed.
The arena of the revolutionary, democratic movement in the 20th century became Latin America, where in Mexico as a result of the revolution of 1910-1917. The republican form of government was established.
Democratic revolutions also swept a number of Asian countries. In 1911-1912 In China, as a result of the rise of the revolutionary movement led by Sun Yat-sen, the monarchy was overthrown. China was proclaimed a republic, but actual power ended up in the hands of provincial feudal-militarist cliques, which led to a new wave of the revolutionary movement. In 1925, a national government was formed in China, headed by General Chiang Kai-shek, and a formally democratic regime arose, but in fact a one-party, authoritarian regime.
The democratic movement has changed the face of Turkey. The revolution of 1908 and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy opened the way for reforms, but their incompleteness and defeat in the First World War became the cause of the revolution of 1918-1923, led by Mustafa Kemal. The monarchy was abolished, and in 1924 Türkiye became a secular republic.
Secondly, national liberation revolutions became typical of the 20th century. In 1918, they engulfed Austria-Hungary, which disintegrated as a result of the liberation movement of peoples against the power of the Habsburg dynasty into Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. National liberation movements unfolded in many colonies and semi-colonies of European countries, in particular in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and India, although the greatest rise of the national liberation Movement began after the Second World War. Its result was the liberation of peoples from the power of the colonial administration of the metropolises, their acquisition of their own statehood and national independence.
A national liberation orientation was also present in many democratic revolutions, especially when they were aimed against regimes that relied on the support of foreign powers and were carried out under conditions of foreign military intervention. Such were the revolutions in Mexico, China and Turkey, although they were not colonies.
A specific result of revolutions in a number of countries in Asia and Africa, carried out under the slogans of overcoming dependence on foreign powers, was the establishment of traditional regimes familiar to the poorly educated majority of the population. Most often, these regimes turn out to be authoritarian - monarchical, theocratic, oligarchic, reflecting the interests of the local nobility.
The desire to return to the past appeared as a reaction to the destruction of the traditional way of life, beliefs, and way of life due to the invasion of foreign capital, economic modernization, social and political reforms that affected the interests of the local nobility. One of the first attempts to accomplish a traditionalist revolution was the so-called “Boxer” uprising in China in 1900, initiated by peasants and the urban poor.
In a number of countries, including developed ones, which have a great influence on international life, revolutions occurred that led to the establishment of totalitarian regimes. The peculiarity of these revolutions was that they took place in countries of the second wave of modernization, where the state traditionally played a special role in society. With the expansion of its role, up to the establishment of total (comprehensive) state control over all aspects of public life, the masses associated the prospect of solving any problems.
Totalitarian regimes were established in countries where democratic institutions were fragile and ineffective, but the conditions of democracy provided the opportunity for the unimpeded activity of political forces preparing for its overthrow. The first of the revolutions of the 20th century, which ended with the establishment of a totalitarian regime, occurred in Russia in October 1917.
For most revolutions, armed violence and widespread participation of the popular masses were common, but not obligatory, attributes. Revolutions often began with a coup at the top, the coming to power of leaders who initiated changes. Moreover, more often than not, the political regime that arose directly as a result of the revolution was unable to find a solution to the problems that became its cause. This determined the onset of new upsurges of the revolutionary movement, following each other, until society reached a stable state.
DOCUMENTS AND MATERIALS
From the book by J. Keynes “Economic Consequences of the Treaty of Versailles”:
“Rebellions and revolutions are possible, but at present they are not capable of playing any significant role. Against political tyranny and injustice, revolution can serve as a weapon of defense. But what can a revolution give to those whose suffering comes from economic deprivation, a revolution that will be caused not by the injustice of the distribution of goods, but by their general lack? The only guarantee against revolution in Central Europe is that, even for the most desperate people, it offers no hope of any significant relief.<...>The events of the coming years will be directed not by the conscious actions of statesmen, but by hidden currents running continuously beneath the surface of political history, the results of which no one can predict. We are given only a way to influence these hidden currents; this method is V using those powers of enlightenment and imagination that change people's minds. Proclamation of truth, exposure of illusions, destruction of hatred, expansion and enlightenment of human feelings and minds - these are our means."
From the work of L.D. Trotsky “What is permanent revolution? (Basic provisions)":
“The conquest of power by the proletariat does not complete the revolution, but only opens it. Socialist construction is conceivable only on the basis of class struggle on a national and international scale. This struggle, in conditions of the decisive predominance of capitalist relations in the international arena, will inevitably lead to explosions of internal, that is, civil and external revolutionary war. This is the permanent nature of the socialist revolution as such, regardless of whether it is a backward country that only yesterday completed its democratic revolution, or an old democratic country that has gone through a long era of democracy and parliamentarism.
The completion of the socialist revolution within a national framework is unthinkable. One of the main reasons for the crisis of bourgeois society is that the productive forces created by it can no longer be reconciled with the framework of the national state. This leads to imperialist wars<...>The socialist revolution begins on the national stage, develops on the national stage and ends on the world stage. Thus, the socialist revolution becomes permanent in a new, broader sense of the word: it does not receive its completion until the final triumph of the new society on our entire planet.
The above diagram of the development of the world revolution removes the question of countries “ripe” and “not ripe” for socialism in the spirit of the pedantically lifeless qualifications given by the current program of the Comintern. Since capitalism created the world market, the world division of labor and the world productive forces, it prepared the world economy as a whole for socialist reconstruction.”
From the work of K. Kautsky “Terrorism and Communism”:
“Lenin would very much like to carry the banners of his revolution victoriously through Europe, but he has no plans for this. The revolutionary militarism of the Bolsheviks will not enrich Russia; it can only become a new source of its impoverishment. Nowadays Russian industry, since it is set in motion, works primarily for the needs of the armies, and not for productive purposes. Russian communism is truly becoming the socialism of the barracks<...>No world revolution, no outside help can eliminate the paralysis of Bolshevik methods. The task of European socialism in relation to “communism” is completely different: to take care O ensuring that the moral catastrophe of one particular method of socialism does not become a catastrophe of socialism in general - that a sharp distinction is drawn between this and the Marxist method and that mass consciousness perceives this difference.”
QUESTIONS AND TASKS
1 Remember what revolutions in the history of a number of countries before the 20th century you studied? How do you understand the content of the terms “revolution”, “revolution as a political phenomenon”. And
2 What are the differences in the social functions of the revolution of past centuries and the 20th century? Why have views on the role of revolutions changed? Z. Think and explain: revolution or reforms - under what socio-economic and political conditions is this or that alternative realized?
4. Based on the text you read and previously studied history courses, compile a summary table “Revolutions in the world in the first decades of the 20th century” according to the following columns:
Draw possible conclusions from the data obtained.
5. Name the names of the most famous revolutionary figures in the world. Determine your attitude towards them, evaluate the significance of their activities.
6. Using the material given in the appendix, characterize the typical attitude of liberal theorists (D. Keynes), “left” communists (L.D. Trotsky) and social democrats (K. Kautsky) towards revolutions.
§ 7. MARXISM, REVISIONISM AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
Back in the 19th century, many thinkers, among them A. Saint-Simon (1760-1825), C. Fourier (1772-1837), R. Owen (1771-1858) and others, drew attention to the contradictions of their contemporary society. Social polarization, the growing number of poor and disadvantaged, and periodic crises of overproduction, from their point of view, evidenced the imperfection of social relations.These thinkers paid special attention to what the ideal organization of society should be. They constructed speculative projects that went down in the history of social science as a product of utopian socialism. Thus, Saint-Simon assumed that a transition to a system of planned production and distribution, the creation of associations where everyone would be engaged in one or another type of socially useful labor, was necessary. R. Owen believed that society should consist of self-governing communes, whose members jointly own property and jointly use the produced product. Equality in the view of the utopians does not contradict freedom; on the contrary, it is a condition for its acquisition. At the same time, achieving the ideal was not associated with violence; it was assumed that the dissemination of ideas about a perfect society would become a strong enough incentive for their implementation.
The emphasis on the problem of egalitarianism (equality) was also characteristic of the doctrine that had a great influence on the development of the socio-political life of many countries in the 20th century - Marxism.
The teachings of K. Marx and the labor movement. K. Marx (1818-1883) and F. Engels (1820-1895), sharing many of the views of utopian socialists, linked the achievement of equality with the prospect of social revolution, the preconditions of which, in their opinion, matured with the development of capitalism and the growth of industrial production.
The Marxist forecast for the development of the social structure of society assumed that with the development of the factory industry, the number of hired workers, deprived of property, living from hand to mouth and because of this forced to sell their labor power (proletarians), would constantly increase in number. All other social groups - the peasantry, small owners of towns and villages, those who do not use or use hired labor to a limited extent, and employees - were predicted to have an insignificant social role.
It was expected that the working class, faced with a sharp deterioration in its position, especially during periods of crisis, would be able to move from putting forward demands of an economic nature and spontaneous riots to a conscious struggle for a radical restructuring of society. The condition for this, K. Marx and F. Engels considered the creation of a political organization, a party capable of introducing revolutionary ideas into the proletarian masses and leading them in the struggle to gain political power. Having become proletarian, the state had to ensure the socialization of property and suppress the resistance of supporters of the old order. In the future, the state was supposed to wither away, replaced by a system of self-governing communes realizing the ideal of universal equality and social justice.
K. Marx and F. Engels did not limit themselves to developing the theory, they tried to put it into practice. In 1848 they wrote a program document for a revolutionary organization, the League of Communists, which sought to become the international party of the proletarian revolution. In 1864, with their direct participation, a new organization was formed - the First International, which included representatives of various currents of socialist thought. The greatest influence was enjoyed by Marxism, which became the ideological platform of the social democratic parties that emerged in many countries (one of the first such parties arose in Germany in 1869). They created a new international organization in 1889 - the Second International.
At the beginning of the 20th century, parties representing the working class operated legally in most industrialized countries. In Great Britain, the Labor Representation Committee was created in 1900 to bring representatives of the labor movement into parliament. In 1906, the Labor (Labor) Party was created on its basis. In the USA, the Socialist Party was formed in 1901, in France - in 1905.
Marxism as a scientific theory and Marxism as an ideology, which absorbed individual provisions of the theory, which became political, programmatic guidelines and, as such, were adopted by many followers of K. Marx, were very different from each other. Marxism as an ideology served as a justification for political activity directed by leaders and party functionaries who determined their attitude to the original ideas of Marxism and attempts to scientifically rethink them on the basis of their own experience and the current interests of their parties.
Revisionism in the parties of the Second International. Changes in the appearance of society at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the growing influence of social democratic parties in Germany, England, France and Italy required theoretical understanding. This implied a revision (revision) of a number of the initial provisions of Marxism.
Revisionism took shape as a direction of socialist thought in the 1890s. in the works of the theorist of German social democracy E. Bernstein, which gained popularity in the majority of socialist and social democratic parties of the Second International. Such trends of revisionism as Austro-Marxism and economic Marxism appeared.
Revisionist theorists (K. Kautsky - in Germany, O. Bauer - in Austria-Hungary, L. Martov - in Russia) believed that universal laws of social development, similar to the laws of nature, which Marxism claimed to discover, do not exist. The greatest doubts were raised by the conclusion that the aggravation of the contradictions of capitalism was inevitable. Thus, when analyzing the processes of economic development, the revisionists put forward a hypothesis that the concentration and centralization of capital, the formation of monopolistic associations (trusts, cartels) lead to overcoming the anarchy of free competition and allow, if not eliminating crises, then mitigating their consequences. Politically, it was emphasized that as suffrage becomes universal, the need for revolutionary struggle and revolutionary violence to achieve the goals of the labor movement disappears.
Indeed, Marxist theory was created in conditions when power in most European countries still belonged to the aristocracy, and where parliaments existed, due to the system of qualifications (settlement, property, age, lack of voting rights for women), 80-90% of the population did not have voting rights. In such a situation, only owners were represented in the highest legislative body, parliament. The state primarily responded to the demands of the wealthy segments of the population. This left the poor with only one way to protect their interests - putting forward demands on entrepreneurs and the state, threatening a transition to revolutionary struggle. However, with the introduction of universal suffrage, parties representing the interests of wage earners had the opportunity to gain strong positions in parliaments. Under these conditions, it was quite logical to connect the goals of social democracy with the struggle for reforms conducted within the framework of the existing government system without violating democratic legal norms.
According to E. Bernstein, socialism as a doctrine that presupposes the possibility of building a society of universal justice cannot be fully considered scientific, since it has not been tested and proven in practice and in this sense remains a utopia. As for the social democratic movement, it is the product of very specific interests, towards the satisfaction of which it should direct its efforts, without setting utopian super goals.
Social democracy and ideas of V.I. Lenin. The revisionism of the majority of social democratic theorists was opposed by the radical wing of the labor movement (in Russia it was represented by the Bolshevik faction, led by V.I. Lenin, in Germany - by a group of “leftists”, whose leaders were K. Zetkin, R. Luxemburg, K. Liebknecht) . Radical factions believed that the labor movement should first of all strive to destroy the system of wage labor and entrepreneurship, and the expropriation of capital. The struggle for reform was recognized as a means of mobilizing the masses for subsequent revolutionary actions, but not as a goal of independent significance.
According to the views of V.I. Lenin, formulated in its final form during the First World War, a new stage in the development of capitalism, imperialism, is characterized by a sharp aggravation of all the contradictions of capitalist society. The concentration of production and capital was seen as evidence of the extreme aggravation of the need for their socialization. The perspective of capitalism V.I. Lenin considered only stagnation in the development of the productive forces, the growing destructiveness of crises, military conflicts between the imperialist powers due to the redivision of the world.
IN AND. Lenin was characterized by the conviction that the material prerequisites for the transition to socialism exist almost everywhere. Lenin believed that the main reason why capitalism managed to prolong its existence was the unwillingness of the working masses to rise up in the revolutionary struggle. To change this situation, that is, to liberate the working class from the influence of reformists, it should be led, according to Lenin and his supporters, by a party of a new type, focused not so much on parliamentary activity, but on preparing a revolution, a violent seizure of power.
Lenin's ideas about imperialism as the highest and final stage of capitalism initially did not attract much attention from Western European social democrats. Many theorists have written about the contradictions of the new era and the reasons for their aggravation. In particular, the English economist D. Hobson argued at the beginning of the century that the creation of colonial empires enriched narrow groups of oligarchy, stimulated the outflow of capital from the metropolises, and aggravated relations between them. The theorist of German social democracy R. Hilferding analyzed in detail the consequences of the growth of concentration and centralization of production and capital, and the formation of monopolies. The idea of a “new type” party initially remained unclear in the legally operating social democratic parties of Western Europe.
Creation of the Comintern. At the beginning of the 20th century, most social democratic parties represented both revisionist and radical views. There was no insurmountable barrier between them. Thus, K. Kautsky in his early works polemicized with E. Bernstein, and later agreed with many of his views.
The program documents of legally operating social democratic parties included a mention of socialism as the ultimate goal of their activities. At the same time, the commitment of these parties to the methods of changing society and its institutions through reforms, in compliance with the procedure provided for by the constitution, was emphasized.
Left Social Democrats were forced to put up with the reformist orientation of party programs, justifying it by the fact that the mention of violence and revolutionary means of struggle would give the authorities a reason for repression against socialists. Only in social democratic parties operating in illegal or semi-legal conditions (in Russia, Bulgaria) did an organizational demarcation occur between the reformist and revolutionary currents in social democracy.
After the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, the representations of V.I. Lenin about imperialism as the eve of the socialist revolution became the basis of the ideology of the radical wing of the international social democratic movement. In 1919 it took shape as the Third Communist International. Its adherents focused on violent means of struggle and considered any doubt about the correctness of Lenin’s ideas as a political challenge, a hostile attack against their activities. With the creation of the Comintern, the Social Democratic movement finally split into reformist and radical factions, not only ideologically, but also organizationally.
DOCUMENTS AND MATERIALS
From E. Bernstein’s work “Is Scientific Socialism Possible?”:
“Socialism represents something more than the simple isolation of those demands around which the temporary struggle waged by the workers with the bourgeoisie in the economic and political field is waged. As a doctrine, socialism is the theory of this struggle; as a movement, it is the result of it and the desire for a specific goal, namely the transformation of the capitalist social system into a system based on the principle of collective farming. But this goal is not predicted by theory alone; its arrival is not expected with a certain fatalistic faith; it is largely an intended goal that is fought for. But, setting as its goal such a supposed or future system and trying to completely subordinate its actions in the present to this goal, socialism is to a certain extent utopian. By this I do not want to say, of course, that socialism strives for something impossible or unattainable; I only want to state that it contains an element of speculative idealism, a certain amount of what is scientifically unprovable.”
From the work of E. Bernstein “Problems of socialism and tasks of social democracy”:
"feudalism with its<...>class institutions were eradicated almost everywhere through violence. The liberal institutions of modern society differ from it precisely in that they are flexible, changeable and capable of development. They do not require their eradication, but only further development. And this requires appropriate organization and energetic actions, but not necessarily a revolutionary dictatorship<...>The dictatorship of the proletariat - where the working class does not yet have a strong economic organization of its own and has not yet achieved a high degree of moral independence through training in the bodies of self-government - is nothing more than the dictatorship of club speakers and scientists<...>A utopia does not cease to be a utopia only because phenomena that supposedly happen in the future are mentally applied to the present. We must take workers as they are. They, firstly, are not at all as impoverished as one could conclude from the “Communist Manifesto”, and secondly, they are far from getting rid of prejudices and weaknesses, as their henchmen would like us to believe.”
From the work of V. I. Lenin “The Historical Fate of the Teachings of Karl Marx”:
“Internally rotten liberalism is trying to revive itself in the form of socialist opportunism. They interpret the period of preparing forces for great battles in the sense of abandoning these battles. They explain the improvement of the position of slaves in order to fight against wage slavery in the sense of slaves selling their rights to freedom. They cowardly preach “social peace” (i.e. peace with slavery), renunciation of class struggle, etc. They have a lot of supporters among socialist parliamentarians, various officials of the labor movement and “sympathetic” intelligentsia.”
From the work of R. Luxemburg"Social reform or revolution?":
“Whoever speaks out for the legal path of reform instead of and in contrast to the conquest of political power and a social revolution, in fact chooses not a calmer, more reliable and slower path to the same goal, but a completely different goal, namely, instead of implementing a new social order only minor changes to the old one. Thus, the political views of revisionism lead to the same conclusion as its economic theory: in essence, it is not aimed at the implementation of the socialist system, but only at the transformation of the capitalist system, not at the abolition of the hiring system, but only at the establishment of more or less exploitation, one in a word, to eliminate only the growths of capitalism, but not capitalism itself.”
QUESTIONS AND TASKS
1. Why do you think the theory created by K. Marx in the 19th century, unlike other utopian teachings, found significant spread in many countries of the world in the 20th century?
2. Why was there a revision of a number of provisions of Marxist teaching at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries? Which ones have been the target of the most criticism? What new directions of socialist thought have emerged?
3. How can you explain the difference between the concepts: “Marxism as a theory”
and “Marxism as an ideology.”
4. Identify the main differences between the reformist and radical trends in the labor movement.
5. What role did Lenin’s theory of imperialism play in the international labor movement?
§ 8. SOCIAL RELATIONS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
The existence in society of social groups with different property status does not mean that conflict between them is inevitable. The state of social relations at any given point in time depends on many political, economic, historical and cultural factors. Thus, the history of past centuries was characterized by low dynamics of social processes. In feudal Europe, class boundaries existed for centuries; for many generations of people this traditional order seemed natural, unshakable. Riots by townspeople and peasants, as a rule, were generated not by a protest against the existence of the upper classes, but by the latter’s attempts to expand their privileges and thereby disrupt the usual order.The increased dynamism of social processes in countries that embarked on the path of industrial development back in the 19th, and even more so in the 20th century, weakened the influence of traditions as a factor of social stability. The way of life and the situation of people changed faster than the tradition corresponding to the changes was formed. Accordingly, the importance of the economic and political situation in society, the degree of legal protection of citizens from arbitrariness, and the nature of the social policy pursued by the state increased.
Forms of social relations. The completely natural desires of hired workers to improve their financial situation, and of entrepreneurs and managers to increase corporate profits, as the experience of the history of the 20th century has shown, caused various social consequences.
Firstly, situations are possible in which workers associate an increase in their income with an increase in their personal contribution to the activities of the corporation, with an increase in the efficiency of its work, and with the prosperity of the state. In turn, entrepreneurs and managers strive to create incentives for employees to increase labor productivity. The relationship between the managed and the managers that develops in such a situation is usually defined as a social partnership.
Secondly, a situation of social conflict is possible. Its occurrence implies the conviction of hired workers that increasing wages, receiving other benefits and payments can only be achieved through a process of tough bargaining with employers, which does not exclude strikes and other forms of protest.
Thirdly, the emergence of social confrontations cannot be ruled out. They develop on the basis of an exacerbation of social conflict that does not receive resolution due to reasons of an objective or subjective nature. During social confrontation, actions in support of certain demands become violent, and these demands themselves go beyond the scope of claims against individual employers. They develop into calls for a violent change in the existing political system, for breaking existing social relations.
The parties that were members of the Comintern, which shared Lenin’s theory of imperialism, considered social confrontation a natural form of social relations in a society where there is private ownership of the means of production. The position of these parties was that the basic interests of an individual are predetermined by his belonging to one or another social class - the haves (owners of the means of production) or their antagonists, the have-nots. National, religious, and personal motives for a person’s political and economic behavior were considered insignificant. Social partnership was regarded as an anomaly or a tactical maneuver designed to deceive the working masses and reduce the intensity of the class struggle. This approach, associated with the explanation of any social processes by economic reasons, the struggle for the possession and control of property, can be characterized as economic determinism. It was characteristic of many Marxists of the 20th century.
The appearance of the working class in industrial countries. Attempts to overcome economic determinism in the study of social processes and relationships have been made by many scientists. The most significant of them is associated with the activities of the German sociologist and historian M. Weber (1864-1920). He viewed social structure as a multidimensional system, proposing to take into account not only the place of groups of people in the system of property relations, but also the social status of the individual - his position in society in accordance with age, gender, origin, profession, marital status. Based on the views of M. Weber, the functionalist theory of social stratification, which became generally accepted by the end of the century, developed. This theory assumes that people's social behavior is determined not only by their place in the system of social division of labor and their attitude towards ownership of the means of production. It is also a product of the prevailing value system in society, cultural standards that determine the significance of this or that activity, justifying or condemning social inequality, and capable of influencing the nature of the distribution of rewards and incentives.
According to modern views, social relations cannot be reduced only to conflicts between employees and employers on issues of working conditions and wages. This is the entire complex of relations in society, which determines the state of the social space in which a person lives and works. Of great importance are the degree of social freedom of the individual, the opportunity for a person to choose the type of activity in which he can best realize his aspirations, and the effectiveness of social security in the event of loss of ability to work. Not only working conditions are important, but also everyday life, leisure, family life, the state of the environment, the general social climate in society, the situation in the field of personal safety, and so on.
The merit of sociology of the 20th century was its rejection of a simplified class approach to the realities of social life. Thus, hired workers have never represented an absolutely homogeneous mass. From the point of view of the sphere of application of labor, industrial, agricultural workers, workers employed in the service sector (in transport, in the public utilities system, communications, warehousing, etc.) were distinguished. The largest group consisted of workers employed in various industries (mining, manufacturing, construction), which reflected the reality of mass, conveyor production, developing extensively and requiring more and more new workers. However, even under these conditions, differentiation processes took place within the working class, associated with the variety of labor functions performed. Thus, the following groups of hired workers were distinguished by status:
Engineering, technical, scientific and technical, the lowest layer of managers - masters;
Qualified workers with a high level of professional training, experience and skills necessary to perform complex labor operations;
Semi-skilled workers are highly specialized machine operators whose training allows them to perform only simple operations;
Unskilled, untrained workers performing auxiliary work, engaged in rough physical labor.
Due to the heterogeneity of the composition of hired workers, some layers gravitated toward behavior within the framework of the social partnership model, others toward social conflict, and still others toward social confrontation. Depending on which of these models was dominant, the general social climate of society, the appearance and orientation of those organizations that represent the social interests of workers, employers, public interests and determine the nature of the state’s social policy were formed.
Trends in the development of social relations, the predominance of social partnership, conflict or confrontation were largely determined by the extent to which the demands of workers were satisfied within the framework of the system of social relations. If there were at least minimal conditions for improving the standard of living, the possibility of increasing social status, individually or for individual employed groups, social confrontations did not arise.
Two currents in the trade union movement. The trade union movement became the main instrument for ensuring the interests of workers in the last century. It originated in Great Britain, the first to experience the industrial revolution. Initially, trade unions arose at individual enterprises, then nationwide sectoral trade unions arose, uniting workers across the industry and the entire state.
The growth in the number of trade unions and their desire for maximum coverage of industry workers were associated with the situation of social conflict characteristic of developed countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus, a trade union that arose at one enterprise and put forward demands on the employer was often faced with the mass dismissal of its members and the hiring of non-union members who were willing to work for lower wages. It is no coincidence that trade unions, when concluding collective agreements with entrepreneurs, required them to hire only their own members. In addition, the larger the number of trade unions, the funds of which were made up of contributions from their members, the longer they could provide material support to workers who began a strike action. The outcome of strikes was often determined by whether workers could hold out long enough for the loss of production to induce the employer to make concessions. At the same time, the concentration of labor in large industrial complexes created the preconditions for the activation of the labor and trade union movement, the growth of its strength and influence. Strikes have become easier to carry out. It was enough to hold a strike in just one of the dozens of workshops in the complex to stop all production. A form of creeping strikes arose, which, due to the intransigence of the administration, spread from one workshop to another.
The solidarity and mutual support of trade unions led to the creation of national organizations. Thus, in Great Britain, back in 1868, the British Congress of Trade Unions (trade unions) was created. By the beginning of the 20th century, 33% of employees were in trade unions in Great Britain, 27% in Germany, and 50% in Denmark. In other developed countries, the level of organization of the labor movement was lower.
At the beginning of the century, international trade union relations began to develop. In Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1901, the International Trade Union Secretariat (ITU) was created, which ensured cooperation and mutual support of trade union centers in different countries. In 1913, the SME, renamed the International Trade Union Federation, included 19 national trade union centers, representing 7 million people. In 1908, an international association of Christian trade unions arose.
The development of the trade union movement was the most important factor in increasing the living standards of hired workers, especially skilled and semi-skilled ones. And since the ability of entrepreneurs to satisfy the demands of employees depended on the competitiveness of corporations in the world market and colonial trade, trade unions often supported an aggressive foreign policy. There was a widespread belief in the British labor movement that the colonies were necessary because their markets provided new jobs and cheap agricultural products.
At the same time, members of the oldest trade unions, the so-called “labor aristocracy,” were more oriented toward social partnership with entrepreneurs and support for state policies than members of newly emerging trade union organizations. In the United States, the Industrial Workers of the World trade union, created in 1905 and uniting mainly unskilled workers, took a revolutionary position. In the largest trade union organization in the United States, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which united skilled workers, aspirations for social partnership prevailed.
In 1919, trade unions of European countries, whose connections during the First World War of 1914-1918. found themselves torn apart, they founded the Amsterdam International of Trade Unions. Its representatives took part in the activities of the international intergovernmental organization established in 1919 at the initiative of the United States - the International Labor Organization (ILO). It was designed to help eliminate social injustice and improve working conditions throughout the world. The first document adopted by the ILO was a recommendation to limit the working day in industry to eight hours and establish a 48-hour working week.
ILO decisions were advisory in nature for member states, which included most of the countries of the world, colonies and protectorates controlled by them. However, they provided a certain unified international legal framework for resolving social problems and labor disputes. The ILO had the right to consider complaints about violations of the rights of trade union associations, non-compliance with recommendations, and to send experts to improve the system of social relations.
The creation of the ILO contributed to the development of social partnership in the field of labor relations, expanding the capabilities of trade unions to protect the interests of employees.
Those trade union organizations whose leaders were inclined to take a position of class confrontation, in 1921, with the support of the Comintern, created the Red International of Trade Unions (Profintern). His goals were not so much to protect the specific interests of workers, but to politicize the labor movement and initiate social confrontations.
DOCUMENTS AND MATERIALS
From Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Theory and Practice of Trade Unionism:
“If a certain branch of industry is divided between two or more rival societies, especially if these societies are unequal in the number of their members, in the breadth of their views, and in their character, then there is no practical possibility of uniting the policies of all the sections or of consistently adhering to any course of action.<...>
The entire history of trade unionism confirms the conclusion that trade unions in their present form were formed for a very specific purpose - to achieve certain material improvements in the working conditions of their members; therefore they cannot, in their simplest form, extend without risk beyond the territory within which these desired improvements are exactly the same for all members, that is, they cannot expand beyond the boundaries of the individual professions<...>If the differences between the classes of workers make a complete merger impracticable, then the similarity of their other interests forces them to look for some other form of union<...>The solution was found in a series of federations, gradually expanding and intersecting; each of these federations unites, exclusively within the limits of specially set goals, those organizations that have realized the identity of their goals.”
From the Constitution of the International Labor Organization (1919):
“The objectives of the International Labor Organization are:
contribute to the establishment of lasting peace by promoting social justice;
improve working conditions and living standards through international activities, as well as contribute to the establishment of economic and social stability.
To achieve these goals, the International Labor Organization convenes joint meetings of representatives of governments, workers and employers in order to make recommendations on international minimum standards and develop international labor conventions on such issues as wages, hours of work, minimum age for entry to work , working conditions for various categories of workers, compensation for accidents at work, social insurance, paid vacations, labor protection, employment, labor inspection, freedom of association, etc.
The organization provides extensive technical assistance to governments and publishes periodicals, studies and reports on social, industrial and labor issues."
From the resolution of the Third Congress of the Comintern (1921) “The Communist International and the Red International of Trade Unions”:
“Economics and politics are always connected with each other by inextricable threads<...>There is not a single major issue of political life that should not be of interest not only to the workers’ party, but also to the proletarian trade union, and, conversely, there is not a single major economic issue that should not be of interest not only to the trade union, but also to workers' party<...>
From the point of view of saving forces and better concentration of blows, the ideal situation would be the creation of a single International, uniting in its ranks both political parties and other forms of workers' organization. However, in the present transitional period, with the current diversity and diversity of trade unions in different countries, it is necessary to create an independent international association of red trade unions, standing on the platform of the Communist International as a whole, but accepting into their midst more freely than is the case in the Communist International<...>
The basis of the tactics of trade unions is the direct action of the revolutionary masses and their organizations against capital. All the gains of the workers are directly proportional to the degree of direct action and revolutionary pressure of the masses. Direct action refers to all types of direct pressure from workers on state entrepreneurs: boycotts, strikes, street demonstrations, demonstrations, seizure of enterprises, armed uprising and other revolutionary actions that unite the working class to fight for socialism. The task of the revolutionary class trade unions is therefore to transform direct action into an instrument for the education and combat training of the working masses for the social revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
From the work of W. Reich “Mass Psychology and Fascism”:
“The words “proletarian” and “proletarian” were created more than a hundred years ago to designate a deceived class of society that was doomed to mass impoverishment. Of course, such social groups still exist, but the adult grandchildren of the 19th century proletarians have become highly skilled industrial workers who are aware of their skill, indispensability and responsibility<...>
In 19th-century Marxism, the use of the term "class consciousness" was limited to manual workers. Persons in other necessary professions, without which society could not function, were labeled “intellectuals” and “petty bourgeoisie.” They were opposed to the “proletariat of manual labor”<...>Along with industrial workers, such persons should include doctors, teachers, technicians, laboratory assistants, writers, public figures, farmers, scientists, etc.<...>
Thanks to ignorance of mass psychology, Marxist sociology contrasted the “bourgeoisie” with the “proletariat.” From a psychological point of view, such a opposition should be considered incorrect. The character structure is not limited to capitalists; it also exists among workers of all professions. There are liberal capitalists and reactionary workers. Characterological analysis does not recognize class differences.”
QUESTIONS AND TASKS
1. What explains the increasing dynamism of social processes in the 20th century?
2. What forms of social relations did the desire of social groups to defend their economic interests take?
3. Compare the two points of view on the social status of an individual given in the text and discuss the legitimacy of each of them. Draw your own conclusions.
4. Clarify what content you mean by the concept of “social relations”. What factors determine the social climate of a society? Expand the role of the trade union movement in its creation.
5. Compare the views given in the appendix on the tasks of the trade union movement. How did the economic determinism of the Comintern ideologists influence their attitude towards trade unions? Did their position contribute to the success of the trade union movement?
§ 9. REFORMS AND REVOLUTIONS IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 1900-1945.
In the past, revolutions played a special role in social development. Beginning with a spontaneous explosion of discontent among the masses, they were a symptom of the existence of acute contradictions in society and at the same time a means of their speedy resolution. Revolutions destroyed institutions of power that had lost their effectiveness and the trust of the masses, overthrew the former ruling elite (or ruling class), eliminated or undermined the economic foundations of its dominance, led to the redistribution of property, and changed the forms of its use. However, the patterns of development of revolutionary processes, which were traced in the experience of bourgeois revolutions in Europe and North America in the 17th-19th centuries, changed significantly in the 20th century.Reforms and social engineering. First of all, the relationship between reform and revolution has changed. Attempts to solve worsening problems using reform methods were made in the past, but the inability of the majority of the ruling nobility to transcend the boundaries of class prejudices and tradition-sanctified ideas determined the limitations and low effectiveness of reforms.
With the development of representative democracy, the introduction of universal suffrage, and the growing role of the state in regulating social and economic processes, the implementation of reforms became possible without disrupting the normal flow of political life. In democratic countries, the masses were given the opportunity to express their protest without violence, at the ballot box.
The history of the 20th century gave many examples when changes associated with changes in the nature of social relations and the functioning of political institutions occurred gradually in many countries and were the result of reforms, rather than violent actions. Thus, industrial society, with such features as concentration of production and capital, universal suffrage, active social policy, was fundamentally different from free competition capitalism of the 19th century, but the transition from one to the other in most European countries was evolutionary in nature.
Problems that in the past seemed insurmountable without the violent overthrow of the existing system have been solved by many countries around the world through experiments with so-called social engineering. This concept was first used by theorists of the British trade union movement Sidney and Beatrice Webb, it became generally accepted in legal and political science in the 1920s-1940s.
Social engineering refers to the use of the levers of state power to influence the life of society, its restructuring in accordance with theoretically developed, speculative models, which was especially characteristic of totalitarian regimes. Often these experiments led to the destruction of the living tissue of society, without giving rise to a new, healthy social organism. At the same time, where the methods of social engineering were applied carefully and carefully, taking into account the aspirations and needs of the majority of the population, material capabilities, as a rule, it was possible to smooth out emerging contradictions, ensure an increase in people’s living standards, and resolve the problems that concern them at significantly lower costs.
Social engineering also covers such areas as the formation of public opinion through the media. This does not exclude elements of spontaneity in the reaction of the masses to certain events, since the possibilities of manipulating people by political forces advocating both the preservation of existing orders and their overthrow by revolutionary means are not unlimited. So, within the framework of the Comintern back in the early 1920s. An ultra-radical, ultra-left movement emerged. Its representatives (L.D. Trotsky, R. Fischer, A. Maslov, M. Roy and others), based on the Leninist theory of imperialism, argued that the contradictions in most countries of the world had reached their utmost severity. They assumed that a small push from within or from without, including in the form of acts of terror, the violent “export of revolution” from country to country, was enough to realize the social ideals of Marxism. However, attempts to push revolutions (in particular in Poland during the Soviet-Polish War of 1920, in Germany and Bulgaria in 1923) invariably failed. Accordingly, the influence of representatives of the ultra-radical deviation in the Comintern gradually weakened, in the 1920-1930s. they were expelled from the ranks of most of its sections. Nevertheless, radicalism in the 20th century continued to play a major role in global socio-political development.
Revolutions and violence: the Russian experience. In democratic countries, a negative attitude has developed towards revolutions as a manifestation of uncivilization, characteristic of underdeveloped, undemocratic countries. The formation of such an attitude was facilitated by the experience of revolutions of the 20th century. Most of the attempts to violently overthrow the existing system were suppressed by armed force, which was associated with great casualties. Even a successful revolution was followed by a bloody civil war. In the conditions of constant improvement of military equipment, the destructive consequences, as a rule, exceeded all expectations. In Mexico during the revolution and peasant war of 1910-1917. at least 1 million people died. In the Russian Civil War 1918-1922. At least 8 million people died, almost as many as all the warring countries combined lost in the First World War of 1914-1918. 4/5 of the industry was destroyed, the main cadre of specialists and qualified workers emigrated or died.
This way of solving the contradictions of industrial society, which removes their severity by throwing society back to the pre-industrial phase of development, can hardly be considered consistent with the interests of any segments of the population. In addition, with a high degree of development of world economic relations, a revolution in any state and the civil war that follows it affect the interests of foreign investors and commodity producers. This encourages the governments of foreign powers to take measures to protect their citizens and their property, and to help stabilize the situation in a civil war-torn country. Such measures, especially if they are carried out by military means, add intervention to a civil war, causing even greater casualties and destruction.
Revolutions of the 20th century: basic typology. According to the English economist D. Keynes, one of the creators of the concept of state regulation of a market economy, revolutions by themselves do not solve social and economic problems. At the same time, they can create the political preconditions for their solution, be a tool for overthrowing political regimes of tyranny and oppression that are incapable of carrying out reforms, and removing weak leaders from power who are powerless to prevent the aggravation of contradictions in society.
According to political goals and consequences, in relation to the first half of the 20th century, the following main types of revolutions are distinguished.
Firstly, democratic revolutions directed against authoritarian regimes (dictatorships, absolutist monarchies), ending with the full or partial establishment of democracy.
In developed countries, the first of the revolutions of this type was the Russian revolution of 1905-1907, which gave the Russian autocracy the features of a constitutional monarchy. The incompleteness of the changes led to a crisis and the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia, which put an end to the 300-year rule of the Romanov dynasty. In November 1918, as a result of the revolution, the monarchy in Germany, discredited by the defeat in the First World War, was overthrown. The emerging republic was called Weimar, since the Constituent Assembly, which adopted a democratic constitution, took place in 1919 in the city of Weimar. In Spain in 1931, the monarchy was overthrown and a democratic republic was proclaimed.
The arena of the revolutionary, democratic movement in the 20th century became Latin America, where in Mexico as a result of the revolution of 1910-1917. The republican form of government was established.
Democratic revolutions also swept a number of Asian countries. In 1911-1912 In China, as a result of the rise of the revolutionary movement led by Sun Yat-sen, the monarchy was overthrown. China was proclaimed a republic, but actual power ended up in the hands of provincial feudal-militarist cliques, which led to a new wave of the revolutionary movement. In 1925, a national government was formed in China, headed by General Chiang Kai-shek, and a formally democratic regime arose, but in fact a one-party, authoritarian regime.
The democratic movement has changed the face of Turkey. The revolution of 1908 and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy opened the way for reforms, but their incompleteness and defeat in the First World War became the cause of the revolution of 1918-1923, led by Mustafa Kemal. The monarchy was abolished, and in 1924 Türkiye became a secular republic.
Secondly, national liberation revolutions became typical of the 20th century. In 1918, they engulfed Austria-Hungary, which disintegrated as a result of the liberation movement of peoples against the power of the Habsburg dynasty into Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. National liberation movements unfolded in many colonies and semi-colonies of European countries, in particular in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and India, although the greatest rise of the national liberation Movement began after the Second World War. Its result was the liberation of peoples from the power of the colonial administration of the metropolises, their acquisition of their own statehood and national independence.
A national liberation orientation was also present in many democratic revolutions, especially when they were aimed against regimes that relied on the support of foreign powers and were carried out under conditions of foreign military intervention. Such were the revolutions in Mexico, China and Turkey, although they were not colonies.
A specific result of revolutions in a number of countries in Asia and Africa, carried out under the slogans of overcoming dependence on foreign powers, was the establishment of traditional regimes familiar to the poorly educated majority of the population. Most often, these regimes turn out to be authoritarian - monarchical, theocratic, oligarchic, reflecting the interests of the local nobility.
The desire to return to the past appeared as a reaction to the destruction of the traditional way of life, beliefs, and way of life due to the invasion of foreign capital, economic modernization, social and political reforms that affected the interests of the local nobility. One of the first attempts to accomplish a traditionalist revolution was the so-called “Boxer” uprising in China in 1900, initiated by peasants and the urban poor.
In a number of countries, including developed ones, which have a great influence on international life, revolutions occurred that led to the establishment of totalitarian regimes. The peculiarity of these revolutions was that they took place in countries of the second wave of modernization, where the state traditionally played a special role in society. With the expansion of its role, up to the establishment of total (comprehensive) state control over all aspects of public life, the masses associated the prospect of solving any problems.
Totalitarian regimes were established in countries where democratic institutions were fragile and ineffective, but the conditions of democracy provided the opportunity for the unimpeded activity of political forces preparing for its overthrow. The first of the revolutions of the 20th century, which ended with the establishment of a totalitarian regime, occurred in Russia in October 1917.
For most revolutions, armed violence and widespread participation of the popular masses were common, but not obligatory, attributes. Revolutions often began with a coup at the top, the coming to power of leaders who initiated changes. Moreover, more often than not, the political regime that arose directly as a result of the revolution was unable to find a solution to the problems that became its cause. This determined the onset of new upsurges of the revolutionary movement, following each other, until society reached a stable state.
DOCUMENTS AND MATERIALS
From the book by J. Keynes “Economic Consequences of the Treaty of Versailles”:
“Rebellions and revolutions are possible, but at present they are not capable of playing any significant role. Against political tyranny and injustice, revolution can serve as a weapon of defense. But what can a revolution give to those whose suffering comes from economic deprivation, a revolution that will be caused not by the injustice of the distribution of goods, but by their general lack? The only guarantee against revolution in Central Europe is that, even for the most desperate people, it offers no hope of any significant relief.<...>The events of the coming years will be directed not by the conscious actions of statesmen, but by hidden currents running continuously beneath the surface of political history, the results of which no one can predict. We are given only a way to influence these hidden currents; this method is V using those powers of enlightenment and imagination that change people's minds. Proclamation of truth, exposure of illusions, destruction of hatred, expansion and enlightenment of human feelings and minds - these are our means."
From the work of L.D. Trotsky “What is permanent revolution? (Basic provisions)":
“The conquest of power by the proletariat does not complete the revolution, but only opens it. Socialist construction is conceivable only on the basis of class struggle on a national and international scale. This struggle, in conditions of the decisive predominance of capitalist relations in the international arena, will inevitably lead to explosions of internal, that is, civil and external revolutionary war. This is the permanent nature of the socialist revolution as such, regardless of whether it is a backward country that only yesterday completed its democratic revolution, or an old democratic country that has gone through a long era of democracy and parliamentarism.
The completion of the socialist revolution within a national framework is unthinkable. One of the main reasons for the crisis of bourgeois society is that the productive forces created by it can no longer be reconciled with the framework of the national state. This leads to imperialist wars<...>The socialist revolution begins on the national stage, develops on the national stage and ends on the world stage. Thus, the socialist revolution becomes permanent in a new, broader sense of the word: it does not receive its completion until the final triumph of the new society on our entire planet.
The above diagram of the development of the world revolution removes the question of countries “ripe” and “not ripe” for socialism in the spirit of the pedantically lifeless qualifications given by the current program of the Comintern. Since capitalism created the world market, the world division of labor and the world productive forces, it prepared the world economy as a whole for socialist reconstruction.”
From the work of K. Kautsky “Terrorism and Communism”:
“Lenin would very much like to carry the banners of his revolution victoriously through Europe, but he has no plans for this. The revolutionary militarism of the Bolsheviks will not enrich Russia; it can only become a new source of its impoverishment. Nowadays Russian industry, since it is set in motion, works primarily for the needs of the armies, and not for productive purposes. Russian communism is truly becoming the socialism of the barracks<...>No world revolution, no outside help can eliminate the paralysis of Bolshevik methods. The task of European socialism in relation to “communism” is completely different: to take care O ensuring that the moral catastrophe of one particular method of socialism does not become a catastrophe of socialism in general - that a sharp distinction is drawn between this and the Marxist method and that mass consciousness perceives this difference.”
QUESTIONS AND TASKS
1 Remember what revolutions in the history of a number of countries before the 20th century you studied? How do you understand the content of the terms “revolution”, “revolution as a political phenomenon”. And
2 What are the differences in the social functions of the revolution of past centuries and the 20th century? Why have views on the role of revolutions changed? Z. Think and explain: revolution or reforms - under what socio-economic and political conditions is this or that alternative realized?
4. Based on the text you read and previously studied history courses, compile a summary table “Revolutions in the world in the first decades of the 20th century” according to the following columns:
Draw possible conclusions from the data obtained.
5. Name the names of the most famous revolutionary figures in the world. Determine your attitude towards them, evaluate the significance of their activities.
6. Using the material given in the appendix, characterize the typical attitude of liberal theorists (D. Keynes), “left” communists (L.D. Trotsky) and social democrats (K. Kautsky) towards revolutions.
As mentioned above, Marxism is a theory of history (although history as scientific discipline and not reducible). The terms "Marxism" and " historical materialism" are often used as synonyms. According to Louis Althusser " Marx laid the foundations of a new science: the science of history " social formations"...opened for scientific knowledge new continent - continent of history"Althusser L., For Marx. M., Praxis, 2006. P. 359. Below we will try to reveal the main ideas and concepts underlying this “new science”.
Economic determinism
It is known that the basis of the Marxist understanding historical process lies economic determinism, which considers the development of productive forces and the associated evolution of production relations as the main content of human history, in relation to which ideology, culture, morality, and politics represent a “superstructure over the economic base.” Indeed, according to Marx, “ people themselves make their own history, but they do not make it as they please, under circumstances that they did not choose themselves, but which are immediately available, given to them and passed on from the past"Marx K. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte // Marx, K. and Engels, F. Soch., vol. 8. P. 27.. This kind of point of view assumes that in their activities human beings are limited by the material conditions of their own existence, those. historically established method of production.
Each system of production relations (socio-economic formation), which arises at a certain stage of development of productive forces, is subject to both common for all formations and special, characteristic only of one of them, laws of emergence, functioning and transition to higher form. The actions of people within each formation were generalized and reduced by Marx to the actions of large masses or classes, realizing in their activities the urgent needs of social development.
This theoretical position is often interpreted in the sense that Marx supposedly preached “historical fatalism”, i.e. the concept according to which history develops in accordance with inevitable economic laws and, obeying their logic, naturally moves towards its “end” - communism. Such an interpretation of Marxism was indeed characteristic of a number of theoreticians of the Second International, and was inherited by official Marxist-Leninist ideologists. However, in reality it represents an unacceptable simplification and distortion of Marx's thought. In recent decades, after the fall of the USSR and other communist regimes, most modern Marxist authors emphasize that the views of the classics were far from so unambiguous and straightforward. In particular, York University professor Alex Callinicos writes: “ In contrast to the rare and random judgments of Marx, which are cited to confirm this(“fatalistic” - Author) point of view, the whole pathos of his thought is significantly different... In the “Manifesto Communist Party"Marx says that every great crisis of class society has ended either in a "revolutionary reconstruction of the entire social edifice or in the general destruction of the struggling classes." In other words, a crisis presupposes alternatives, not predetermined outcomes. The reaction of wage earners to a severe economic downturn is determined not only by their material position, but also the strength of their collective organizations, the various ideologies that influence them, and the political parties that fight with each other for the right to govern them.Marx distinguishes between the economic basis of society and its political, legal and ideological superstructure. He describes the economic basis as the "real basis" of social life. However, this does not mean, as his critics claim, that he does not take into account the superstructure. On the contrary, in a moment of crisis, events occurring in the superstructure, where, as Marx says, people “are aware of this conflict and struggle to resolve it,” become decisive in determining the outcome of the struggle» Callinikos A. Marx: hit and myth. Website of the scientific and educational magazine "Scepsis" - http://www.scepsis.ru. Editor-in-chief: Sergey Solovyov. http://scepsis.ru/library/id_174.html.
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