By Norm Scott
Going back to its roots in the
mid 1800s, the many brands of “socialism” kept dividing as new tendencies and
interpretations arose. Those divisions continue through today and sorting it
all out can be daunting. Which is why I am using this space to explore the
depths and limits of my own knowledge. What motivates me is the current
mainstream media talk which so often demonstrates a lack of understanding about
socialism. The earliest roots of socialism was tied to the rise of unions in
the most highly industrialized nations with growing working classes. And my own union, the UFT, was founded by people
who considered themselves socialists.
We’ve heard Bernie Sanders
get challenged and respond he is not talking about Soviet or Chinese style
communism (both of which differed significantly from each other – the Soviet
system came down after 70 years while the Chinese version seems to be
flourishing after 70 years), but the Scandinavian brand of social democracy, a
very different situation. The Russian/Chinese models abolished capitalism by nationalizing, or
“socializing” the means of production and remade society in the process. A one
party system - the communist party – was in control. Theoretically, the party
internally was democratic but the reality was that one strongman took control. Don’t
forget that both Russia and China were poor nations with large peasant
populations and in crisis as an outcome of WWI in Russia and WWII in China and
communism was not the worst alternative. Democracy, which hadn’t existed
anyway, was not the highest priority.
The Western European model of
socialism – you will find a democrat socialist party in almost every nation
today - maintains a multi-party electoral system and puts capitalism under a high
level of governmental control. Part and parcel of that control is an electoral
process that controls campaign contributions to keep the influences limited.
But don’t forget, these nations were highly industrialized and had already moved toward democratic systems, though
fragile as we saw in Germany and Italy in the 1930s. (It is no accident that
both Germany and Italy had only come together as a nation in the mid- 19th
century.)
In previous columns I raised
the issue of the relative popularity of socialism in this country until 1912
and pointed to the Russian Revolution of 1917 as the big event that for the
first time brought a socialist revolution into reality. I neglected to mention
that is was the outcomes of World War I itself (1914-18) that created so many
changes and situations around the world that still affect us today – the fall
of the Turkish empire in middle east is the most obvious. The War also created
and exaggerated the many divisions that already existed within the socialist
movement worldwide. My knowledge is limited and what I present should be
subject to alternate interpretations and fact checking, if “facts” still exist.
One of the key ideas behind
Marxism was “class struggle”, that a working class would unite in ways that
crossed national boundaries and battle the capitalist class. And when WWI was
on the horizon, many socialist parties in Europe and the Socialist Party here
in the states took anti-war positions. But to the surprise and dismay of many, many
socialist parties, even some of the most radical, supported the war in their
own countries. And it was that act that broke many socialist parties and
provoked splits. One of the keys to winning power for the Bolsheviks in Russia
in 1917 was the slogan “Peace, Land and Bread” advocated by Vladimir Lenin in a
nation ravaged by the war. And true to his promise, Lenin, resisting many of
his won comrades who wanted to continue the war, pulled the new nation out of
the war after signing a very bad treaty with Germany, which ended up losing the
war anyway after Woodrow Wilson pulled our nation into the war.
And to tie things together, the major socialist party here in the states, led by Eugene Debs, a union organizer, strongly opposed the war. Debs had received 6% of the vote as the socialist candidate for president in the 1912 elections. For his opposition to the war, he was sent to prison for a 10 year term but was pardoned in 1921. He died not soon after from prison related illnesses. So much for democracy here and there.
Norm still slogs and blogs
every day at ednotesonline.com. Read his detailed analyses of UFT election
outcomes.
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