The socialist political movement includes political philosophies that originated in the revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 18th century and out of concern for the social problems that socialists associated with capitalism. By the late 19th century, after the work of Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels, socialism had come to signify anti-capitalism and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production. By the early 1920s, communism and social democracy had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement, with socialism itself becoming the most influential secular movement of the 20th century. Many socialists also adopted the causes of other social movements, such as feminism, environmentalism, and progressivism. (Full article...)
Blanquism refers to a conception of revolution generally attributed to Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881) which holds that socialist revolution should be carried out by a relatively small group of highly organised and secretive conspirators. Having seized power, the revolutionaries would then use the power of the state to introduce socialism. It is considered a particular sort of 'putschism' – that is, the view that political revolution should take the form of a putsch or coup d'état.
Blanquism is distinguished from other socialist currents (especially Marxist ones) in various ways; on the one hand, contrary to Marx, Blanqui did not believe in the predominant role of the working class, nor did he believe in popular movements. Instead he believed that revolution should be carried out by a small group of professional, dedicated revolutionaries, who would establish a temporary dictatorship by force. This dictatorship would permit the implementation of the basis of a new order, after which power would then be handed to the people. In another respect, Blanqui was more concerned with the revolution itself rather than the future society that would result from it; if his thought was based on precise socialist principles, it rarely goes so far as to imagine a purely socialist society. For Blanquists, the overturning of the bourgeois social order and the revolution are ends sufficient in themselves, at least for their immediate purposes. He was one of the non-Marxist socialists of his day.
Image 10Barricades Boulevard Voltaire, Paris during the uprising known as the Paris Commune (from History of socialism)
Image 11Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin opposed the Marxist aim of dictatorship of the proletariat in favour of universal rebellion and allied himself with the federalists in the First International before his expulsion by the Marxists (from History of socialism)
Image 13The first anarchist journal to use the term libertarian was Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social, published in New York City between 1858 and 1861 by French libertarian communistJoseph Déjacque, the first recorded person to describe himself as libertarian. (from Socialism)
Image 35The celebration of the election of the Commune on 28 March 1871—the Paris Commune was a major early implementation of socialist ideas. (from Socialism)
... that following the ban of its labour unions in 1934, the Romanian United Socialist Party would rely on its youth and women's wings for political action?
Imperialism is the highest stage of development of capitalism. Capital in the advanced countries has outgrown the boundaries of national states. It has established monopoly in place of competition, thus creating all the objective prerequisites for the achievement of socialism. Hence, in Western Europe and in the United States of America, the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for the overthrow of the capitalist governments, for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, is on the order of the day. Imperialism is forcing the masses into this struggle by sharpening class antagonisms to an immense degree, by worsening the conditions of the masses both economically—trusts and high cost of living, and politically—growth of militarism, frequent wars, increase of reaction, strengthening and extension of national oppression and colonial plunder. Victorious socialism must achieve complete democracy and, consequently, not only bring about the complete equality of nations, but also give effect to the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, i.e., the right to free political secession. Socialist Parties which fail to prove by all their activities now, as well as during the revolution and after its victory, that they will free the enslaved nations and establish relations with them on the basis of a free union and a free union is a lying phrase without right to secession—such parties would be committing treachery to socialism.
Of course, democracy is also a form of state which must disappear when the state disappears, but this will take place only in the process of transition from completely victorious and consolidated socialism to complete communism.
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— Vladimir Lenin, The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination, 1916
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