Post-Marxian Socialism

Fabian Socialism

• Fabian Society formed in 1883; destined to become one of the most influential forces in British politics

• Middle class intellectuals: the Webbs (Sidney & Beatrice), G.B. Shaw, H.G. Wells, Annie Besant

• Looked to “utopians” and John Stuart Mill for inspiration

Their Principles

• Competitive capitalism has outlived its usefulness• Careful and gradual transition to socialism was both

necessary and practical

Their Program Unlimited democracy in the political sphere Socialism in the economic sphere

Their Tactics

• Initial approach– “Permeate” middle class – Gain control of parties and Parliament

• Later approach– Turn to working class– Called for abandoning Liberal Party and for formation of a

“Trade Union party” (1893)– Labour Party organized (1900) by coalition of Fabian

Society, Independent Labour movement, and Trades Union Congress

Christian Socialism

• Center Party in Germany; Christian Socialist Party in Austria – organized by Catholic Church to promote socio-economic reform to “Christianize” capitalism and draw the working classes away from Marxist parties.

• Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, 1891, an attempt to give Church’s blessings to many of the social/intellectual forces of the 19th century which had been condemned in . . .

• Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors, 1864

Marxist “Revisionism”• Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932)

– Leader of German Social Democratic Party (the party Marx originally established)

– Worked with Fabians while in England

– Collapse of capitalism was NOT imminent

• “Peasants do not sink; middle class does not disappear; crises do not grow more frequent nor last longer; misery and serfdom do not increase”

– Agreed with Shaw that socialism “must be rescued from the barricades.” (meaning from the lower classes/proletariat)

– Must stress social regeneration (improvement of the lot of the working class) by democratic means: renounce class struggle and revolution and use the opportunities provided by the parliamentary systems becoming common in Europe

• Vladimir Lenin– Russian context did not lend itself to Marx’s analysis in any

acceptable timeframe

– To be viable, it must be adapted to Russia’s situation• Need for a conspiratorial, elite party rather than a broad, mass

proletarian party– Insignificant proletariat in Russia

– No possibilities for political parties prior to 1905

• “Voluntarism” – party can accelerate the revolutionary timetable rather than “letting nature take its course”

• Skip (or telescope) stages of development (go straight from feudalism to socialism, bypassing the capitalist stage altogether)

– Dispute over these tenets became basis of Bolshevik-Menshevik split in the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1903

– Lenin bitterly accused Bernstein and others of “revisionism” while stoutly rejecting his critics’ claims that he was as guilty of revisionism himself; he actually revised Marx more significantly than Bernstein and others did but always managed to wrap himself in the mantle of orthodox Marxism