Labor movement at the beginning of the XX century. International labor movement in the second half of the XIX - early XX century Conquest of the working class

The entry of the "independent socialist" Millerand into the Waldeck-Rousseau government led to a serious crisis in the French socialist movement http://guideviaggi.net/map192.

The question of the attitude towards Millerand's entry into the bourgeois government was discussed at the Congress of French Socialists in Paris in December 1899. After a long and heated debate, 818 delegates condemned Millerand's act. However, a significant number of delegates - 634 - reacted positively to his act. Such a ratio of votes testified to the rather strong positions of the "ministerials" (as they began to call Millerand's supporters) in the socialist movement in France.

The Paris Congress of the Second International (1900), which also paid much attention to the "Millerand case", passed the so-called "rubber resolution", the author of which was the prominent German Social Democrat Karl Kautsky. Kautsky's resolution. formally condemned the act of Millerand, but contained reservations, the meaning of which was essentially to justify cooperation with the bourgeois ruling circles.

V. I. Lenin in his work "What is to be done?" exposed Millerandism as "practical Bernsteinism"; "... a new" critical "trend in socialism is nothing but a new kind of opportunism."

At the beginning of the XX century. the position of the working class continued to deteriorate. The average standard of living of the French proletariat was significantly lower than in the USA or England. The working day, as a rule, averaged 10 hours; in the pre-war years, on average 6–8% of workers were unemployed. Due to the increase in productivity (in the metallurgical industry, labor productivity increased by 54% on the eve of the World War compared to 1900) and the intensification of labor, the number of industrial accidents increased.

Casus Millerand influenced the situation in the French trade union movement http://barbarocardiology.com/?map192.

http://dykast.us/map192 Under these conditions, the anarcho-syndicalists in 1902 firmly took over the leadership of the CGT. Anarcho-syndicalism has caused considerable harm to the French labor movement. Claiming to be the only infallible leaders of the working class, the anarcho-syndicalists were in fact the enemies of Marxism. The ultra-left phrases, which the new leaders of the CGT did not skimp on, only covered up their theoretical helplessness, lack of faith in the creative forces of the proletariat.

“Anarcho-syndicalist,” wrote VI Lenin, “rejects“ petty work, ”especially the use of the parliamentary tribune. In fact, this last tactic (anarcho-siidicalist, Auth.) Boils down to waiting for "great days" with the inability to gather forces that create great events. "

The basis of the tactics of the anarcho-syndicalists was “direct action — strike, sabotage, boycott. The anarcho-syndicalists considered the "general strike of crossed arms" to be the highest form of struggle of the proletariat. The Anarcho-Syndicalists completely and completely denied the political struggle of the working class. Anarcho-syndicalism, in the words of V. I. Lenin, was "revisionism on the left."

The views of the French anarcho-syndicalists on the role of trade unions, on the relationship between the economic and political struggle of the proletariat, found their complete expression in the Charter of Labor, adopted at the Congress of the CGT in 1906 in Amiens. "The CGT - noted in the Amiens Charter - unites, regardless of any political direction, all workers who are conscious supporters of the struggle for the destruction of wage labor."

The working masses, disappointed with the social measures of the reformists, losing faith in the ability of the leaders of the Socialist Party to lead the class struggle, often found themselves in captivity to the pseudo-revolutionary phraseology of the anarcho-syndicalists.

The strike struggle in the country was growing. If in 1900 there were 222,714 people on strike, then in 1906 there were 438,466 people on strike. Individual strikes, which took place against the will of the leadership of the CGT, acquired a political character. In November 1905 workers of the arsenals and workshops of the naval department went on strike in Brest, Cherbourg, Toulon, Lorian. In a number of cities - Limoges, Longwy, it came to armed clashes between the strikers and the police.

All of France was shocked by the news of the terrible disaster at the Courier mine in March 1906. 1,300 workers were buried underground as a result of the administration's unacceptable indifference to safety. The workers responded with a strike of the miners of the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments, which lasted 52 days. The government sent 20,000 soldiers against the strikers. The strike area was declared martial law.

Serious events unfolded in the first half of 1907 in the south of France. Small peasants - winemakers of the southern departments rose up to fight, demanding to limit the arbitrariness of large capitalist firms, the competition of foreign wine producers and organizations engaged in falsification of wines. The movement of peasant winemakers took on a broad, massive character. Beginning in late March 1907, mass demonstrations were organized on Sundays in the southern cities of the country. At some moments, the number of participants in these protests, which were predominantly peaceful in nature, reached 500 thousand people. On June 10, peasants went on a municipal strike in four southern departments and refused to pay taxes. The movement acquired a political character. “Paris, hold on! The South began to stir ... The grain is threshed, the government is beaten, ”the rebellious peasants proclaimed. In a number of places, including Narbonn, bloody clashes take place.

The Clemenceau government, frightened by the scale of the peasant movement, sent troops to the areas of the uprising. However, the soldiers of the 17th regiment, which included many local peasants, refused to participate in the bloody massacre of their fellow winemakers. With great difficulty, the government managed to cope with the insurgent soldiers. The feat of the soldiers of the 17th regiment was not forgotten by the French people. The popular "Song of the 17th Regiment", composed in honor of the immortal feat, dearly beloved by V. I. Lenin, 40 years later, in 1947, sounded within the walls of the French National Assembly in protest against the government's decision to use troops during the November strike of miners.

The peasant winemaking movement was defeated in 1907. The lack of organization of the uprising, the lack of leadership from the Socialist Party, and the purely economic nature of the movement predetermined its failure. And yet it testified to a sharp exacerbation of class contradictions in bourgeois France at the beginning of the 20th century.

In the middle of the XIX century. in the Western countries, there were about 20 million wage workers. At this time, along with economic demands, political demands began to play an increasing role in the labor movement. International organizations arose with the goal of changing the state system and the conquest of power by the working class. The greatest theoreticians and leaders of the international proletariat were the German socialists K. Marx and F. Engels, the founders of a new, revolutionary doctrine - Marxism.

K. Marx and F. Engels Marxism

K. Marx (1818-1883) was born in the Prussian city of Trier into the family of a lawyer. He graduated from high school, then university, where he studied history, philosophy, law, foreign languages. F. Engels (1820-1895) was born in the Rhine province of Prussia into a family of a manufacturer. For several years he lived in England and knew well the position of the proletariat in this most developed industrial country in the world.


They believed that the time was not far off when the rulers, wealthy industrialists and landowners would be overthrown and the working people who would elect their government would come to power.

A great influence on the formation of the views of Marx and Engels was exerted by previous and modern economists and philosophers, whose works they deeply studied and subjected to critical analysis.

One of the sources of Marxism is utopian socialism, of which François Fourier (1772-1837) was a prominent representative. He was born in France into a businessman's family. Almost all his life he served in trading houses. He was a genius self-taught, combined the features of a sage and an eccentric. He sharply criticized capitalist civilization. He believed that poverty and crime could be eradicated throughout the world. He argued that the path to social harmony lies through the creation of collective associations ("phalanges"), in which income should be distributed in proportion to labor, capital and talent. Fourier died alone and misunderstood by his contemporaries.

Since 1844, close cooperation and friendly relations have been established between Marx and Engels. The study of the history of social development led them to the same conclusions, which were as follows.

Marx and Engels considered the capitalist system unjust and hostile to the common man, because it allows the capitalist to exploit wage labor, that is, to live at his expense. Capitalist exploitation is based on private ownership of the means of production - factories, plants, land, etc. To eliminate the exploitation of man by man, it is necessary to abolish private ownership of the means of production and establish public ownership in which the means of production will belong to society, to all people. This can only be done as a result of the socialist revolution. Its main driving force can only be the proletariat, since it is the most revolutionary and organized class. As a result of the revolution, the bourgeois state will be destroyed and the dictatorship of the proletariat will be established, that is, the power of the working class, which will suppress the resistance of the exploiters and ensure the building of socialism. To accomplish these tasks, the workers need a revolutionary proletarian party.

Marx and Engels deeply analyzed the contradictions of bourgeois society, but, as it turned out later, they exaggerated their significance. Capitalism turned out to be stronger and more viable than it seemed to the creators of Marxism in the middle of the 19th century. Their hopes for an early proletarian revolution in the most developed countries of Western Europe did not come true.


I and II Internationals

In the middle of the XIX century. ties between the workers of different countries began to strengthen, meetings and rallies were held. In one of these rallies, held in London on September 28, 1864, British, French, German, Italian, and Polish workers took part. Here it was decided to form an international political party of the proletariat - the International Workingmen's Association. Later this party became known as the I International.

The international workers' association set itself the task of uniting the efforts of the proletariat of various countries with the aim of conquering political power, eliminating private property and exploitation, and preserving peace. The ideological leaders of the International were Marx and Engels.

The First International provided practical assistance to the workers' movement. He organized fundraising for the benefit of the workers on strike, provided political and moral support to democratic and national liberation movements, and called on the workers to solidarity with the Paris Communards. But the International was weakened by the lack of unity of views. In contrast to the Marxists, some of its representatives opposed revolutionary methods of struggle, for purely peaceful transformations. In addition, within the organization itself, there was a struggle for key posts.

After the defeat of the Paris Commune, the members of the International were repressed. Therefore, in 1876, the organization disbanded itself. The main result of her activity was the enrichment of the workers with the experience of political struggle. But the main tasks remained unresolved.

The work begun by the First International was continued by the Second International. It was founded in Paris in July 1889 on the centenary of the taking of the Bastille and the start of the first French Revolution. Unlike the First International, the Second International was not a single party, but an organization in the form of international congresses (congresses) of representatives of workers' organizations. Congresses were convened in 2-4 years. They generalized the experience of the labor movement and developed policy recommendations. Representatives of many parties and trade unions, regardless of political orientation, took part in their work. The Paris Congress of 1889, in particular, proposed organizing simultaneous demonstrations of workers on May 1, 1890. This was how the traditions of May Day demonstrations were laid.

Workers' and socialist organizations have become an influential political force. On the eve of World War I, there were over 4 million people in their ranks. Workers' representatives held about 700 seats in the parliaments of various countries.

The main goal of the Second International was the struggle for socialism. However, among its leaders and ordinary members, the understanding of the methods of this struggle and of socialism itself was different.

Currents in the workers' and socialist movement in the late 19th - early 20th centuries

The Marxists continued to adhere to the line of socialist revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. After Engels' death, the most prominent representatives of this trend were the Russian revolutionary V. I. Lenin and the German socialist A. Bebel. Bebel (1840-1913) was one of the founders and leaders of the German Social Democracy and the Second International. Like Lenin, he called on the masses to revolution and was opposed to an agreement with the bourgeoisie.

At the end of the XIX century. another influential trend was formed - revisionism. Its supporters came up with a proposal to revise, that is, revise, Marxism. The founder of revisionism was the German Social Democrat E. Bernstein (1850-1932). In his opinion, the theory of Marx and Engels is outdated. The situation of workers under capitalism, Bernstein argued, is improving, not worsening.Consequently, the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is dying out rather than sharpening. Therefore, the workers do not need destructive revolutions, but creative reforms that will ensure the peaceful development of capitalism into socialism.

Many Social Democrats supported these ideas. The revolutionary Marxists waged an irreconcilable ideological struggle with the revisionists. They viewed reforms only as a secondary measure and continued to prove the correctness of Marxism. At the beginning of the XX century. the influence of revisionism in the Second International increased. Debates about how to improve the situation of workers - through revolution or peaceful reforms - have continued since then to the present day.

Anarcho-syndicalism has become widespread in a number of countries.It combined the idea of \u200b\u200bthe decisive role of syndicates (trade unions) with anarchism. Anarchism (from the Greek anarchia - anarchy) denied the need for any state. The state, the government, in the conviction of the anarchists, carry out violence against the individual and therefore must be destroyed. The society should be governed by independent professional organizations, not government ministers or other officials.

Disputes over the goals and methods of action in most parties subsided with the outbreak of the First World War.Workers' leaders in Western Europe protested against the arms buildup and sought to prevent war. The corresponding proposals were submitted to parliaments, documents of the congresses of the Second International. They were heard at meetings and congresses of socialist parties. The antiwar movement was a significant force.

But with the outbreak of war, the leaders of the socialist parties of Western European countries for the most part supported the policy of their governments aimed at preparing military actions. They considered it more important to protect national interests than the class goals of workers in all countries of the world. Under such conditions, the Second International, as a general organization, could not function and fell apart. It was impossible to convoke the socialists of the countries at war against each other.

Working class conquests

At the beginning of the XIX century. workers' trade union organizations were banned everywhere. For a century, their activities have been allowed in all countries of Western Europe. Influential national and international political organizations arose, seeking to improve the position of the exploited mass of the population. The result of their activities was an increase, albeit not permanent, in the standard of living of hired workers. Political rights were expanded. Most male workers won the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

IT'S INTERESTING TO KNOW

At the secret conference of the First International in London, it was decided to create a political party of the proletariat in each country. In the 70-80s. XIX century. socialist parties and organizations arose in Germany, France, England, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and the USA.

References:
V.S.Koshelev, I.V. Orzhekhovsky, V.I.Sinitsa / World history of modern times XIX - early. XX century, 1998.

The lesson on the social movements of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century provides a detailed description of the three political camps in Russia - conservative, liberal and radical. Particular attention is paid to the consideration of the revolutionary movements - the populist, social democrats (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) and Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Subject: Russia at the turn of the XIX-XX centuriesXX in.

Lesson:Social movement of Russia at the beginningXX century

Social movement in Russia at the beginning of the XX century. acquired a completely different strength. The empire found itself in a situation of choice: either radical changes, or try to "preserve" the model.

1. The main directions of social and political thought

The incipient process of modernization of the Russian Empire could not but generate further differentiation of public consciousness. Prominent representatives of the country's ruling elite, opposition and revolutionary circles were especially acutely worried about the problems of the country's further development, its place in the world community, the relationship between traditional values \u200b\u200band new ideas. According to its ideological convictions, the Russian public elite was extremely heterogeneous:

1.1. State conservatism was represented by the names of K.P. Pobedonostseva, L.A. Tikhomirova, D.I. Ilovaisky, V.P. Meshchersky and other prominent Russian traditionalists, who advocated the defense of the autocratic form of government, the Orthodox faith and centuries-old folk traditions and values.

Figure: 1. Procession of activists of the Union of Michael the Archangel ()

1.2. Slavophil tradition found its further development in the works of the outstanding Russian philosophers V.S. Solovyova, N.F. Fedorov, brothers S.N. and E.N. Trubetskoy and other prominent representatives of this movement, who made a special emphasis on the ideas of a religious and moral renewal of the country and Russian society based on traditional values: the patriarchal nature of the Russian community and family, spirituality, religiosity, etc.

1.3. Westernizing doctrine found its prominent representatives in the person of prominent Russian liberals, among whom a special place was occupied by the prominent Russian historians and social scientists P.N. Milyukov, V.O. Klyuchevsky, N.I. Kareev, A.A. Kornilov, V.D. Nabokov, D.N. Shipov, V.I. Vernadsky and others. Unlike their perennial opponents, they advocated the establishment of a constitutional form of government in the form of a parliamentary (constitutional) monarchy and the formation of a rule of law based on the principle of separation of powers.

1.4. Revolutionary camp was represented by supporters of the socialist doctrine - populists, anarchists and Marxists, in the depths of which there were several main trends:

liberal (legal) populists and revolutionary neo-populists, who still professed the theory of "peasant socialism". Prominent ideologists of legal populists were N.K. Mikhailovsky, V.P. Vorontsov, S.N. Yuzhakov, N.F. Danielson and S.N. Krivenko, and the generally recognized leaders and ideologists of the illegal populists were V.Ya. Chernov and N. D. Avksentiev;

Figure: 2. Zemsky assembly of Priamurye ()

anarchists, in the depths of which two main trends emerged - revolutionary anarchism ("Khlebovoltsy") (P. Kropotkin, M. Dainov, G. Gogelia, M. Goldsmith) and non-violent anarchism ("Tolstoyans") (L. Tolstoy, P. Nikolaev , V. Chertkov), - continued to profess the idea of \u200b\u200bliquidation of any state, which was the main carrier of all existing forms of oppression and despotism;

social Democrats, which was represented by two main streams:

legal Marxists (P.B. Struve, N.A. Berdyaev, S.L. Frank, S.N.Bulgakov) and economists (M.I.Tugan-Baranovsky, E.D. Kuskova), who rejected the inevitability of a socialist revolution as a necessary condition for building socialism;

revolutionary Marxists, within which they traditionally distinguish: the moderate wing (G.V. Plekhanov, P. B. Axelrod, L. G. Deich, V. I. Zasulich), which considered the socialist revolution a matter of the distant future; the radical wing (V.I. Lenin, Yu.O. Martov), \u200b\u200bwhich argued that a socialist revolution in Russia is possible in the foreseeable historical perspective.

2. Formation of the first political parties and movements

From the second half of the 1890s. in Russia, a noticeable growth of the opposition and revolutionary movement began, a distinctive feature of which was the emergence of the first political parties and movements of various ideological orientations.

2.1. Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP)

In the mid-1890s. In the capitals of the Russian Empire, two new illegal Marxist circles arose - the Moscow Workers' Union and the Petersburg Union of the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class, whose main task was to promote the ideas of Marxism among the workers. However, soon the activities of these circles were suppressed by the police, and many of their leaders, including V.I. Lenin, Yu.O. Martov V.D. Bonch-Bruevich, G.M. Krzhizhanovsky were arrested, convicted and exiled to Siberia.

In March 1898, the I Constituent Congress of Social Democrats was convened in Minsk, at which 9 delegates from six Marxist circles decided to form the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), approved its party manifesto, authored by P. Struve, and elected the Central Committee of three people: S.I. Radchenko, B.L. Eidelman and A.I. Kremer.

However, due to serious disagreements, this congress was unable to accept either the party's program or its charter, so local Marxist circles continued to work autonomously. Organizational fragmentation was matched by ideological confusion: within the social democratic movement, a new split between the supporters of "pure Marxism" and the "revisionists" emerged. In 1899, the famous brochure entitled "Credo" ("I Believe") was published, the author of which was E. Kuskov and S. Prokopovich, members of the foreign Union of Russian Social Democrats. In this work, the concept of "economism" ("trade unionism") was formulated for the first time, the essence of which was as follows: since the Russian proletariat is not yet ripe to participate in a conscious political struggle, it is necessary to create a legal workers' party on the basis of trade unions, which will defend exclusively economic and social interests of the working class. This platform was categorically opposed by most of the prominent figures of Russian social democracy, including G.V. Plekhanov and V.I. Lenin, who in their "Protest" called this platform "political suicide" and called for the creation of a revolutionary workers' party.

A new attempt to create such a party was made at the end of 1900, when V. Ulyanov-Lenin, in his famous article "Where to start?" proposed to start creating a party of a new type through the ideological defeat of the opportunists - "legal Marxists" and "economists" - and the development of common program goals and tactical tasks of the party. According to V. Lenin's plan, this important work was to be carried out by an all-Russian political newspaper.

After returning from exile, he came to grips with this problem, and already in December 1900 in Leipzig the first issue of the newspaper of Russian Social Democrats, Iskra, was published. Its editorial staff from the Russian side included V. Lenin, Yu. Martov and A. Potresov, and from the foreign side, members of the famous Geneva group "Emancipation of Labor" V. Plekhanov, P. Axelrod and V. Zasulich. Iskra's activities and Lenin's new work What Is to Be Done? (1902) created the necessary ideological and organizational prerequisites for convening a new party congress.

In July-August 1903, the Second Congress of the RSDLP was held in Brussels, and then in London, with 43 representatives of 26 regional Marxist circles as its delegates. The congress quickly adopted the first party program (in the Leninist version), which consisted of two parts:

The "minimum program", which contained the tasks of the party at the stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution (the liquidation of the autocratic monarchy, the establishment of a democratic republic, the solution of the agrarian question by the complete elimination of landlord ownership);

"Maximum program", which set the task of conquering political power by the proletariat by organizing and carrying out a socialist revolution.

However, a rather heated debate erupted over the party charter. The stumbling block was the issue of party membership: a rigid party charter based on the principles of "democratic centralism" proposed by V. Ulyanov (Lenin) was rejected by the majority of the congress delegates, and a more liberal charter was adopted, authored by Y. Tsederbaum (Martov) ...

The party's governing bodies were elected at the congress: the Central Organ (CO) - the newspaper Iskra, edited by V. Lenin, Yu. Martov, and G. Plekhanov, and the Central Committee (Central Committee) consisting of G. Krizhanovsky, V. Lengnik and V. Noskov. The oldest Russian Marxist, Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov, became the chairman of the party council, which was supposed to coordinate the activities of the Central Organ and Central Committee.

At the Second Congress, for the first time, a division of the party into Mensheviks (supporters of Yu. Martov and G. Plekhanov) and Bolsheviks (supporters of V. Lenin) arose, which will soon be formalized organizationally. It is no coincidence that a little later V. Lenin would point out directly that "Bolshevism as a current of political thought and as a political party has existed since 1903".

After the congress, an acute struggle for influence in the central party organs will begin between the two currents of Russian Social Democracy, in which the Mensheviks will win: at the turn of 1903-1904. Yu. Martov, G. Plekhanov, P. Axelrod and L. Bronshtein (Trotsky) will take control of Iskra and the Central Committee. In connection with this circumstance, in May 1904, in his new work One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, V. Lenin urged his supporters to immediately dissociate themselves from the Mensheviks, and already in December 1904 around the new newspaper Vperyod, whose editorial office was headed by V. Lenin, V. Vorovsky and A. Lunacharsky, the Bolshevik faction - the RSDLP (b) will be organizationally formed.

2.2. Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs)

Another powerful revolutionary movement in Russia was the revolutionary neo-people. Back in the late 1890s. the rebirth of the populist organizations, defeated by the tsarist government in the early 1880s, began. The main provisions of the populist doctrine remained practically unchanged. However, its new theorists, first of all Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov, Grigory Andreevich Gershuni, Nikolai Dmitrievich Avksentyev and Abram Rafailovich Gots, not recognizing the very progressive nature of capitalism, nevertheless recognized its victory in the country. But being absolutely convinced that Russian capitalism is a completely artificial phenomenon, forcibly implanted by the Russian police state, they still fervently believed in the theory of "peasant socialism" and considered the land-based peasant community a ready-made cell of socialist society.

At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Several large neo-nationalist organizations arose in Russia and abroad, including the Berne Union of Russian Socialist-Revolutionaries (1894), the Moscow Northern Union of Socialist Revolutionaries (1897), the Agrarian-Socialist League (1898). ) and the "Southern Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries" (1900), whose representatives in the fall of 1901 agreed to create a single Central Committee, which included V.M. Chernov, M.R. Gotz, G.A. Gershuni and others.

Figure: 6. Group photo of members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party ()

In the first years of their existence, before the Constituent Congress, which took place only in the winter of 1905-1906, the SRs did not have a generally accepted program and charter. Their views and basic program guidelines were reflected in two printed organs - the newspaper Revolutionary Russia and the journal Vestnik Russian Revolution.

From the populists, the Socialist-Revolutionaries adopted not only the basic ideological principles and attitudes, but also the tactics of fighting the existing autocratic regime - terror. In the fall of 1901, Grigory Andreevich Gershuni, Yevno Fishelevich Azef and Boris Viktorovich Savinkov created within the party a strictly conspiratorial, virtually independent of the Central Committee, "The Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party". In 1901-1906. members of this blatantly terrorist organization have carried out over 200 terrorist attacks that shook the entire country. During these years, the Minister of Public Education Nikolai Pavlovich Bogolepov (1901), the Ministers of Internal Affairs Dmitry Sergeevich Sipyagin (1902) and Vyacheslav Konstantinovich Pleve (1904), the Ufa Governor-General Nikolai Modestovich Bogdanovich (1903) were killed by terrorists. , Moscow Governor-General Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (1905) and many other high dignitaries of the empire. In August 1906, the SR militants made an attempt on the life of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia P.A. Stolypin, as a result of which several dozen innocent people were killed and crippled, including his seventeen-year-old daughter Natalya, who had both legs blown off.

2.3. Liberal movement

In the mid-1890s. the liberal movement in opposition to the autocracy revived noticeably, the main sphere of activity of which was the zemstvos. In Russian liberalism of that period, there were two main ideological centers.

Some of the leaders of the zemstvo-liberal movement, in particular Dmitry Nikolaevich Shipov, Petr Aleksandrovich Geiden and Nikolai Nikolaevich Lvov, who denied radicalism in politics and, respecting the Slavophil tradition, sought to combine the liberal concept of the relationship between the individual and the state with conservatism. Thus, they tried to reconcile the theory of "unlimited freedom of the individual" with the recognition of historical traditions as universal national values. Subsequently, on this ideological basis, several large political parties of the liberal-conservative persuasion will arise, including the famous "Union of October 17", or the Octobrist party.

Another part of the liberal leaders, in particular Pavel Dmitrievich Dolgorukov, Petr Dmitrievich Dolgorukov, Vasily Alekseevich Maklakov and Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov, who were the direct heirs of the Westernizing tradition, more consistently acted from purely liberal positions.

In domestic historical science (N. Pirumova, V. Shelokhaev), the first stage in the organizational design of the zemstvo-liberal movement in Russia is traditionally associated with the beginning of the activities in Moscow of the famous circle of zemstvo leaders "Beseda" (1899-1905), whose members were brothers Peter and Pavel Dolgorukovs, Evgeny and Sergey Trubetskoy, Vasily Maklakov, Dmitry Shipov, Alexander Bobrinsky and others.

The second stage in the formation of the liberal movement was associated with the publication in June 1902 in Stuttgart, Germany, of the first issue of the Osvobozhdeniye magazine, edited by Peter Struve. The name of this magazine was already clearly associated with the demarcation among liberals into "conservatives" and "constitutionalists". In the well-known program statement "From Russian Constitutionalists," authored by Pavel Milyukov, the basic requirements of the liberal opposition were quite clearly stated: the adoption of a constitution, the creation of an all-Russian elected body of representative power, legislative consolidation of fundamental political rights and freedoms, etc.

In February 1903, the journal "Osvobozhdeniye" published a new programmatic article by P. Milyukov "On the next questions", which declared the final break with the Slavophil tradition in the liberal movement.

The third stage in the development of the liberal movement began in the second half of 1903, when the first semi-legal and competing organizations of liberals emerged: the Moscow Union of Zemstvo Constitutionalists (November 1903) and the St. Petersburg Union of Liberation (January 1904) headed by I. Petrunkevich and P. Struve. Later, in his memoirs, P. Milyukov noted that such a situation in the liberal movement arose because the liberal intelligentsia did not want to unite with the Zemstvo constitutionalists, and they, in turn, did not want to make concessions to intellectual radicalism.

In November 1904, with the "highest permission" in the capital, the First Zemsky Congress was held, at which the liberal opposition for the first time openly called on the authorities to begin reforms in the country and establish a supreme body of "people's representation". Some of the members of the Russian government, including the new Minister of Internal Affairs, Prince Pyotr Dmitrievich Svyatopolk-Mirsky, appointed to this post at the suggestion of the Tsar's mother Maria Feodorovna, supported the demands of the liberals, and at the end of November 1904 he presented a report on the political program to the Emperor government, which proposed to include "elected representatives of the zemstvos" in the State Council. The discussion of this report at a special meeting chaired by Nicholas II caused a sharp demarcation among the country's ruling elite. A number of influential members of the State Council, including D.A. Solsky, A.S. Ermolov and E.M. Frisch supported this program. However, due to the sharply negative position of the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, K. Pobedonostsev, S. Witte, V. Kokovtsev and N. Muravyov, the proposal of the Minister of Internal Affairs was rejected. Moreover, on December 12, 1904, an imperial decree "On measures to improve the state order" and "Government communication" were issued, in which it was stated in a rather harsh form that "noisy gatherings" of liberals and their unacceptable demands for the government were inadmissible.

In January 1905 P. Svyatopolk-Mirsky was dismissed and replaced by General Alexander Grigorievich Bulygin, who was not inclined to any compromises with the liberals. After the collapse of the so-called "era of confidence of P. Svyatopolk-Mirsky", the liberals moved into a tougher opposition to the autocratic regime and began to create a full-fledged political party.

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7. Pirumova NM Zemskoe Liberal Movement: Social Roots and Evolution before the Beginning of the 20th Century. M., 1977

8. Tyutyukin S. G. Menshevism: pages of history. M., 2002

9. Shatsillo KF Russian liberalism on the eve of the revolution of 1905-1907: organization, programs, tactics. M., 1985.

10. Shelokhaev VV Ideology and political organization of the Russian liberal bourgeoisie. M., 1991

1. Publishing house "Russian idea" ().

5. Socialist-Revolutionaries, Socialist-Revolutionaries ().

Working class: changes in composition, position, consciousness.
By the beginning of the XX century. the formation of a class of wage laborers went far beyond the original geographical boundaries of Western Europe and the United States. This process covered countries located in different parts of the world and having different political status, including some colonies. Canada, Australia, New Zealand passed through its various stages, from Asian countries - Turkey, Japan, China, India, from Latin American countries - primarily Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico. On the African continent, then almost completely divided between the European colonialists, the indigenous population of the interior regions lived in a traditional economy and pre-capitalist relations. But in Egypt and in the extreme south of Africa, capitalist enterprises arose using hired labor.
In the development of capitalist production in most of these countries, foreign capital played an important role. Wage laborers were employed predominantly in agriculture (on farms and plantations), in loading and earthworks, in the extractive industry, and in the smallest part in manufacturing enterprises, usually small and using manual labor. The working class (especially in Latin America) was ethnically variegated: in addition to local natives, it was widely replenished by immigrants from Europe. The working conditions of the workers resembled those that existed in Europe at the dawn of factory production (as a rule, the length of the working day was not limited by law, the wages were not higher than the level of physical survival), professional organizations were just beginning to be created or were not officially recognized, manifestations of collective protest were severely suppressed.
But the number of the working class on a global scale grew not only due to its new units that arose as a result of the development of capitalism in breadth. It also rapidly increased where capitalist relations had long prevailed. In the eight main capitalist countries, the total number of people in wage labor increased during the first decade of the 20th century. from 89.6 million to 114 million, of which about 100 million (45-46% of the working population) accounted for the working class in the proper sense of the word.
The face of the working class in this region was changing; differentiation took place in its ranks. Similar to what was noted earlier in England, also in other leading capitalist countries such a layer of workers appeared, which began to be called the "labor aristocracy." In England, its share at the end of the XIX century. fluctuated within 10-15% of the total number of workers in Germany by 1907-1908. amounted to about 9%, but its absolute number during 1898-1910. has grown 5 times.
This stratum included workers in skilled, better paid professions. But what put them in a privileged position in relation to the bulk of the workers did not come down to the natural higher level of earnings, given the differences in qualifications. Until the beginning of the XX century. almost exclusively skilled workers had access to membership in trade unions, which were the first to take root in their environment and were guided by them in determining the amount of contributions. This means that in fact only the upper stratum of workers benefited from the social gains achieved by that time thanks to the professional organization (the practice of collective labor agreements, a system of benefits that supplemented insurance in the forms established by law). Salaried trade union functionaries of various ranks were also part of the "labor aristocracy" and in many ways shaped its characteristic style of social behavior. She was characterized by a tendency to defend only her own narrow group interests, avoiding conflicts with entrepreneurs whenever possible, adherence to the values \u200b\u200band way of thinking of the ruling class. For example, the leaders of the American Federation of Labor in the early XX century. sought to enlist the support of “friendly employers” in the struggle to preserve the principle of “closed shop” (hiring only workers who were members of the respective trade union) and opposed solidarity strikes. Two annual congresses of the British trade unions (1900 and 1901) overwhelmingly rejected the proposal to condemn the Boer War. In the face of the “labor aristocracy,” part of the working class thus began to integrate into capitalist society.
But this part cannot be fully equated with skilled workers as such. The latter did not always and not everywhere show the tendency characteristic of the "labor aristocracy" towards corporate isolation, separation from the proletarian environment proper and cooperation with entrepreneurs. In countries such as France or Italy, skilled workers at the beginning of the 20th century. were distinguished, on the contrary, by a developed sense of class solidarity and active participation in the strike movement.
In those industries where the technology of continuous production was introduced, the proportion of skilled workers was declining. To maintain a conveyor or automatic lines of machine tools, only a small number of highly qualified workers (adjusters, mechanics for equipment repair) were required, and mostly workers intended to perform a few, simple, strictly defined operations.
The standard of living of workers within the group of leading countries was uneven. This depended on the different purchasing power of wages and the structure of the budget of working families (in the United States, housing and industrial goods consumed by workers were more expensive, and food was cheaper than in Europe). Taking into account these differences, the real hourly wages of a worker of the same qualifications were 70% higher in the United States in the early 900s, and 32% and 38% lower in Germany and France, respectively, than in England.
Celebrated in the last third of the 19th century. in developed countries, the growth of real wages has slowed down or stopped since the mid-1990s, while in the United States and England it has slightly decreased at the beginning of the new century. The issues of wages remained at this time a burning acuteness for the bulk of the workers: because of them, the absolute majority of strikes arose in England, France, Belgium, Italy, and in some years also in Germany.
A distinctive feature of the labor market in the United States was a massive and continued growing flow of immigrants - especially from Eastern Europe (in 1906-1914 - 2 million people versus 455 thousand in 1881-1895) and Mediterranean countries (respectively, 2320 thousand . against 640 thousand). For the most part, they stayed in the United States permanently. Newly arrived immigrants "without language" agreed to any job for the lowest wages. The constant surplus of cheap labor of immigrants also compelled local workers of unskilled professions to be more compliant in the face of the master's pressure and harbored hostility towards newcomers in their midst. This was beneficial to entrepreneurs, but, on the other hand, they were interested in the early assimilation of immigrants in order to more effectively include the latter in the mechanism of large-scale industrial production, which requires precise and coordinated actions from workers. During the First World War, the United States began to take special measures in this direction (the creation of schools and classes for "Americanization" at enterprises, etc.).
On the eve and during the war, immigrant workers in the United States were no longer the self-contained, most disadvantaged and submissive part of the working class. Among them, the agitation of the left currents of the American labor movement (Industrial workers of the world, socialists) found a response, they began to participate in the strike struggle.
In European countries, the relationship between workers of different nationalities evolved unevenly. In Hungary, which was part of the twin monarchy of the Habsburgs, the working class was originally formed as a multinational. At the beginning of the XX century. at the level of the mass consciousness of the workers, no significant nationalist tendencies were observed here. About a quarter of all industrial workers in Hungary were concentrated in Budapest, where many of them, in addition to their native language, could speak in others (sometimes several), so that communication was not hampered by the "language barrier". The situation was different in countries with permanent immigration of foreign workers - for example, in France, where many Italians (in the south) and Belgians (in the north) were employed in industry. Back at the end of the 19th century. on the part of French workers, xenophobia was often manifested, up to the outbreak of violence against Italian immigrants. The immigrants were blamed for the fact that because of them the owners paid less to everyone else, they were considered strikebreakers (they, fearing losing their jobs and being sent home, were reluctant to join the strikes). But gradually sympathy for immigrants, understanding of their specific problems and motives of behavior, and a desire to help them made their way. Thus, in 1906, during a strike at a silk-weaving factory in the vicinity of Grenoble, where out of 500 workers there were 350 Italians, the trade union stood up for them before an entrepreneur who grossly deceived them in hiring them. As a result, they (as promised) were paid their travel expenses, were given the amount allocated by the company for their training, and those who kept the documents left by the recruiter were given a salary that had not been received for three years.
Before the First World War, the activities carried out from the end of the 19th century became famous. the experiments of the American engineer F.W. Taylor in the field of so-called scientific production management. For these experiments, among those employed in a certain type of labor (including unskilled labor), the most hardy and skillful workers were selected. The time spent by them on individual labor operations and on pauses in work was recorded using a chronometer. Various movements in the labor process were evaluated in terms of their rationality. The effectiveness of the working tools used in this production was studied to standardize their weight, shape and other qualities at the optimal level. On the basis of all these data, specialists, speaking on behalf of the enterprise administration, offered recommendations that were supposed to ensure maximum output with the least employee fatigue. Each worker received from them a daily personal task (lesson) corresponding to these recommendations, the fulfillment of which was rewarded with a significant increase in earnings in comparison with the previous one.
Despite the seemingly obvious benefits that the Taylor system provided not only to entrepreneurs, but also to workers, it was implemented with stubborn opposition from the latter. Previously, the administration did not interfere in the production process as such: within the framework of the established general routine, the workers performed their work as prompted by their inherited and accumulated professional experience. Taylor's system deprived them of any independence in the labor process, making them completely dependent on the "scientifically grounded" tasks of the administration and under the constant control of a large staff of inspectors. On the other hand, the Taylor system encouraged among workers the desire for personal advancement, the spirit of individualism, which came into conflict with collectivist values. Taylor himself spoke about a typical case in this sense: female workers who performed one of the operations in the production of bicycles, in individual conversations about the new system spoke of it with approval, but unanimously spoke out against it in a general vote. Resistance to Taylorism and other methods of labor intensification was expressed in the desire of workers to put production under their own control, in the first attempts to create institutions of such control in enterprises (election of commissions or delegates), and sometimes in large mass demonstrations such as the strikes of 1912-1913. at Renault car factories in France, against the introduction of timekeeping.
The workers also resisted the master's dictates in a passive manner, leaving the enterprise at the slightest opportunity to find another job. The composition of the employees did not remain constant and sometimes changed very quickly. In the United States, in 1907, the composition of workers in the textile industry of the South (mainly from rural areas) was renewed by 176%, and in 1913 at Ford automobile plants in Detroit with their exhausting rhythm of work - by 370%.
In European countries at the beginning of the XX century. the system of legislative measures in the field of labor protection and social insurance of workers continued to expand. In Spain, which took this path later than other countries, the first laws were introduced to restrict the use of female and child labor, as well as the length of the working day of metallurgists, miners, and textile workers. The law established a weekly Sunday rest for workers (Italy, Spain). In Belgium, England, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, workers began to receive old-age pensions. England, as well as Norway and Switzerland have passed laws on insurance of workers in case of illness or disability (in Germany, France and several other countries, similar laws were passed earlier). From 1911 in England, unemployment benefits began to be paid at the expense of the state (before that, unemployment insurance with the participation of the state existed, but was not mandatory in France, Norway, Denmark).
The legislation on workers' organizations and strikes became more liberal. The 1901 law on associations finally legalized the existence of trade unions in France. In Italy, freedom to strike was recognized and the principle of non-interference of the state in labor conflicts was proclaimed, which meant that police and military forces should not be used against strikers. In England, the trade unions received the right to conduct peaceful agitation for the strike within the enterprise, and entrepreneurs were prohibited from demanding compensation in court for damages caused by the strikes. In Spain, economic strikes were authorized by a special law of 1909. In the United States, the Clayton Act of 1914 did away with the antitrust law of trade unions and farmers' organizations.
Meanwhile, the scope of the strike movement continued to expand. The average annual number of strikes and their participants in 1901-1913
compared to the 90s of the XIX century. increased in Italy - more than five and more than four times, respectively, in the USA - more than two and more than one and a half times, in France - more than twice in both indicators. In England, the average annual number of workers affected by strikes increased by more than 1.4 times as compared with the previous decade, despite a simultaneous decrease by almost 1.7 times in the average annual number of strikes themselves (in other words, they occurred less frequently, but became much more widespread).
In the vast majority of cases, strikes arose for reasons such as the level of wages, the length of the working day, and working conditions at enterprises. But where the activities of workers' organizations still faced some kind of restrictions, a considerable number of strikes arose in connection with so-called trade union issues, i.e. was aimed at protecting and expanding trade union rights. For example, in Spain between 1905 and 1913. the share of such strikes ranged from 24% to almost 42% of the total number of those whose causes are taken into account by statistics.
With a well-known tendency to soften the legislation on labor conflicts, the power of the entrepreneurial class over production remained unlimited and was protected at the non-state level using the most stringent methods. Mass layoffs for participation in a strike began to be practiced (as at Renault factories in France, from where 400 workers were dismissed in 1913), sometimes they were combined with a lockout - a temporary closure of an enterprise in order to force workers to obey (again they were allowed to work far not all). In the United States, entrepreneurs widely used private investigation, their own police, and the services of gangsters against workers.
Where the mass actions of the workers acquired a political coloring (in France in 1905-1906, in Spain in 1909, in Germany in 1910, in Italy in 1914), armed force of the state.
Trade unions and other mass organizations. At the beginning of the XX century. the level of professional organization of the working class in Western countries has changed qualitatively. Along with the numerically small trade unions of the traditional type, closed within a narrow workshop framework, new ones began to appear, designed to involve unskilled workers (in the USA, the IRM trade unions, as opposed to the AFL trade unions) or uniting workers of different specialties on the scale of an entire industry (industrial trade union federations in Italy) ... By 1912-1914. in comparison with the end of the 80s - the beginning of the 90s, the percentage of trade union members of the total number of people employed in industry increased more than six times in Germany and France, and more than threefold in England and the United States.
There were various streams in the trade union movement. The most significant of them were the trade unions, one way or another connected with the workers' parties. They had their own international association, originally called the International Secretariat of Trade Unions, and then - the International Trade Union Federation (by 1913, it included 19 national trade union centers with a total number of 7.7 million members). Until 1909, anarcho-syndicalist trade unions also joined the International Secretariat of Trade Unions, which later left it with the intention of organizing their own international center, but until the First World War they could not do this. In the 80-90s of the XIX century. Christian trade unions began to emerge (Catholic - in France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, Catholic and Evangelical - in Germany). The Catholic trade union movement began to develop especially after the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII Rerum novarum (1891), which proclaimed the basic principles of the social doctrine of Catholicism. The total number of Christian trade unions by 1914 was a little over 0.5 million members. Some spread (for example, in France) and the so-called "yellow" trade unions, specially created by entrepreneurs to distract workers from class trade union organizations.
Trade unions dealt primarily with issues that made up the content of the economic struggle of workers (wages, working hours, internal regulations and sanitary conditions at enterprises, etc.). They supported strikes with economic demands, and on behalf of the workers negotiated these demands with the employers, both during labor conflicts and when concluding "collective bargains" with business associations. The practice of "collective bargaining" before the beginning of the XX century. known mainly in England, now began to spread to other European countries. In Germany, for example, by 1914 they covered about 1,400 thousand workers, but the German trade unions did not achieve legal recognition as a contracting party to such agreements until the First World War. During this period, the British trade unions began to actively seek the regulation of labor relations by law (earlier they recognized state intervention only in the protection of women and children). Before the war in England, the first laws were passed on guaranteed minimum wages in certain industries.
For their members, trade unions were also a kind of social insurance service, providing them with sickness benefits, in case of loss of work, for housing or other urgent needs, if necessary. Often, trade union branches became centers of workers' cultural life - libraries, clubs, courses of various kinds, etc. were created under them.
At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. in some countries (USA, England, France, Italy), workers began to grope for new forms of organization that would correspond to their desire to control production. For this, workers' delegates or bodies such as factory commissions began to be elected at enterprises. Entrepreneurs saw in such institutions of workers 'democracy an attempt on their own undivided power in the sphere of production, but sometimes they found themselves forced to put up with their existence and during strikes even preferred to deal with "their" workers' delegates, rather than trade unions (trade unions could more successfully resist the master's pressure since they acted outside the enterprises).
Elected representative institutions at enterprises contained opportunities for development in different directions, their essence was interpreted and comprehended in different ways. Reformist-minded bourgeois politicians and socialist-reformists viewed them as a tool for amicable resolution of labor disputes, i.e. sought to direct their activities in the direction of class cooperation. This approach was reflected, for example, in the draft law on the regulation of strikes proposed in 1900 by A. Millerand, then minister in the Waldeck-Rousseau government in France. The left wing of the labor movement, on the other hand, was close to the idea of \u200b\u200bworkers' control, vaguely expressed by such institutions, and, more broadly, to the real power of producers over production in the new system of economic relations, which would replace capitalism (the American socialist theorist D. De Leon formalized it in the concept of the industrial organization of the working class). Later, during the World War and especially in the first years after it, the revolutionary potential of workers' self-organization at the place of production was clearly revealed in the experience of the committees of factory chiefs (shop stewards) in England, internal commissions and the factory councils that developed from them in Italy.
Organizations such as cooperatives involved not only workers, but acted with their active and massive participation. Workers entered primarily consumer cooperatives

society. Cooperatives led by socialists (which included mainly workers), before the World War, had about 9 million members in Europe.
Since the end of the XIX century. A wide variety of voluntary associations, sometimes with a social democratic or confessional tinge, sometimes ideologically neutral, were widely developed in the working environment, especially in Germany. These were all kinds of associations “according to their interests,” which became a form of organizing the non-productive social life of workers, promoted the manifestation of their independent activity in the field of culture, art, sports, and gave an outlet to their needs for rest and entertainment.
Mass workers' organizations of various kinds, neither in their methods nor in the functions they performed, were not only an instrument of the class struggle, although the defense of the specific interests of the working class served as the most important impetus for their emergence. Since they were created on the workers' own initiative, they themselves developed the norms of their inner life and controlled it, insofar as they acted as institutions of civil society at the beginning of the 20th century. already played a significant role in this capacity.
Socialist movement (organizational aspects). By the time the Second International was founded, the already established socialist parties existed almost exclusively in Western Europe. At the end of the XIX century. and in the years before the First World War the process of creating such parties continued, covering more and more new countries and regions - Russia, Japan, Turkey, the Balkan states, Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Uruguay, Chile). By the end of 1912, the Second International included 27 parties from 22 sarans. For one and a half pre-war decades, he held five general congresses (1900 - Paris, 1904 - Amsterdam, 1907 - Stuttgart, 1910 - Copenhagen, 1912 - Basel).
In countries with a political system that gave a fairly wide scope for the legal activities of socialists, social democracy became at the beginning of the 20th century. significant force. The total number of social democratic, socialist, workers' parties in 1900-1914 increased 14 times - from 300 thousand to 4200 thousand members, and the number of voters who voted for them in the last parliamentary elections before the war, in total, reached about 12 million (almost doubled compared to 1904). In the parliaments of 24 countries, by 1914, there were about 700 socialist deputies.
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The largest and most influential of the parties of the Second International was the Social Democratic Party of Germany - the SPD (the name was adopted in 1890): on the eve of the war, it had 1,085 thousand members and gathered 38.5% of all votes cast in the 1912 elections to the Reichstag ... Among French socialists, due to differences over A. Millerand's entry into the government ("Millerand case") at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. two parties were formed: the French Socialist Party, headed by J. Jaures and the Socialist Party of France, headed by J. Guesde. In 1905, in accordance with the decision of the Amsterdam Congress of the Second International, which recommended that there be only one socialist party in each country, the two parties merged into the French Section of the Workers' International (Section frangaise de / "Internationale ouvriere - SFIO). On the same recommendation, the RSDLP, which split into the Bolshevik and Menshevik wings in 1903, held its own unification congress in 1906. Apart from the RSDLP, the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which was formed in 1902, was represented in the Second International.
In the United States, in addition to the Socialist Workers' Party, of which D. De Leon became its leader in the 90s, since 1901 the Socialist Party headed by J. Debs existed. In the two-pronged Austria-Hungary, the Social Democrats of Cisleitania and Tranolisitania were organized into two separate parties. The Social Democratic Labor Party of Austria (SDRPA) in 1897 was transformed into a federation of six national parties (Austro-German, Czech, Polish, Ukrainian, South Slavic, Italian). The tendency towards division along ethnic lines was also manifested within the Social Democratic Party of Hungary (SDPV), but more weakly.
The first attempt to create a political workers 'party in England was the founding in 1893 of the Independent Workers' Party (IWP), which began to participate in international socialist congresses convened by the Second International. In the early 900s, a turn in the attitude towards the political activity of the British trade unions was marked, expressed in the creation of a Committee for the struggle for workers' representation in parliament. In 1905 it was reorganized into the Workers' (Labor) Party. This party was built on the basis of a collective membership, including trade unions, CHP, and also some social dietetic organizations. Joining the Labor Party of Trade Unions gave it a massive character. It was distinguished from the workers' parties of other countries by the absence of socialist principles in its platform and the uncertainty of its position in relation to

nii class struggle. Therefore, the question of whether the Labor Party could be admitted to the Second International caused controversy in the International Socialist Bureau (a body created in 1900 by the decision of the Paris Congress for communication between the parties of individual countries in the intervals between congresses), but was ultimately resolved positively.
The International Socialist Bureau (IBB) was based in Brussels. It consisted of representatives of individual national sections, had an executive committee and a secretariat, met (usually once a year) in plenary sessions, and was initially endowed mainly with correspondent functions. But gradually the scope of his activities expanded. The IBU declared the position of the socialist movement on the most important political events (in particular, during 1905-1906 it supported the revolution in Russia 14 times, and also organized a fundraiser to help Russian revolutionaries), developed a draft adopted in 1907. of the charter of the Second International, resolved issues related to the admission of new organizations to it, preliminary discussed the agenda of general congresses. In 1911-1913. in the context of the growing explosiveness of the international situation, the SME supported and coordinated the actions of the European Social Democratic parties to organize mass anti-war protests. An emergency meeting of the IBU took place just before the outbreak of World War II - July 29-30, 1914.
In one way or another, the parties of the I International were faced with the question of the nature of their relationship with mass organizations, primarily trade unions and cooperatives. It was also discussed at international socialist congresses (Stuttgart and Copenhagen).
In relations between socialist parties and trade unions of some Western European countries, there was (albeit in different ways) a tendency not so much to interact as to delimitation of the respective spheres of activity: political struggle for parties, economic struggle for trade unions. In France, the socialists of the Guedist trend, when the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) was formed in 1905, withdrew from any participation in the trade union movement, which led to the predominant influence of anarcho-syndicalists in the CGT. In Germany, the leaders of the most powerful trade unions were the reformist Social Democrats, who themselves weighed down the control of the party and insisted on the neutrality of the trade unions, i.e. their complete autonomy and non-participation in any political actions.
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However, at the Stuttgart Congress of the Second International, the idea of \u200b\u200btrade union neutrality did not meet with the support of the majority of the delegates and was not included in the adopted resolution. This resolution pointed to the need for close ties between parties and trade unions and stressed that trade unions "can fulfill their duty in the liberation struggle of the working class only if they are guided by the socialist spirit in all their actions."
Likewise, at the Copenhagen Congress, the demand for the neutrality of cooperatives, advanced by German and some French delegates, was rejected. In the adopted decision, the Congress declared: "... The interests of the working class fighting against capitalism require that relations between political, trade union and cooperative organizations become closer and closer - without violating their independence." The Social Democrats were charged with the responsibility of being active members of consumer cooperative societies and acting within them in a socialist spirit.
So, from the point of view of the organizational socialist movement at the beginning of the XX century. has achieved great success. It began to penetrate beyond the most developed capitalist countries, and in many of these countries it won the support of a significant part of the electorate and strong positions in parliaments and municipal bodies. In the Second International, there was no system of strictly regulated ties between socialist parties and mass workers' organizations, but in a number of countries the socialists actively participated in their activities and exerted a significant influence on them.
But the socialist movement entered the new century with serious internal problems associated with the state of its ideological equipment.
Bernsteinism and revision of Marxism. In the half century since the emergence of Marxism, the world has changed significantly. Social democratic leaders could not help but wonder to what extent these changes were taken into account by the founders of the Marxist doctrine and responded to their forecasts. On the other hand, in the interpretation of Marxism, certain stereotypes managed to take shape and gain circulation, which gave certain theoretical positions an imprint of simplification and vulgarization. Soon after the death of Engels (1895), a heated debate on programmatic and tactical issues began in the socialist movement, the initiator of which was the German Social Democrat Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932), who was then living in exile in England.
Bernstein was known in socialist circles as one of Engels's closest friends and his literary executor, i.e. the person responsible for the subsequent publication of the works of both Engels himself and Marx. His voice sounded weighty and authoritative, and this contributed to the widespread resonance of his first articles, which appeared in 1896 and 1898. in the theoretical journal of the SPD, and then written on their basis in the book "Preconditions of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy" (1899).
The main idea of \u200b\u200bthese and other publications of Bernstein was that historical experience did not confirm the cardinal provisions of Marx's teachings that underlie the SPD program (it was about the program adopted in 1891 at the Congress in Erfurt to replace the Gotha program of 1875). He considered it necessary to criticize these provisions, and revise the party program (revisions; hence the term “revisionism” that arose in connection with Bernstein's speeches).
Bernstein believed that the understanding of social development characteristic of Marx was based on the idea of \u200b\u200ba rigid predetermination of the entire course of history by the action of the economic factor, while the role of "iron historical necessity" is becoming increasingly limited. The future transition to socialism should not be based on the “coercive power of the economy”: “Why belittle the importance of reason, sense of justice, the will of people? ... Even now society is doing a lot, not because it is absolutely necessary, but because it is better. And in the socialist movement, the sense of justice, the desire for an even more just system is at least as effective and important factor as material necessity. "
The so-called "theory of collapse" became the object of criticism of Bernstein. With this concept, he denoted the idea widespread in the social democratic movement, according to which capitalism will collapse as a result of an imminently impending gigantic economic crisis.
Referring to data on economic development at the end of the 19th century, Bernstein insisted that its real course does not agree with Marx's expectations and refutes the "theory of collapse": the concentration of capital is far from the level that allows socializing production, many small enterprises continue to exist, the number of owners it has not decreased, but has grown, and the thesis of the progressive deterioration of the position of the working class ("the theory of impoverishment") is not confirmed. Taken together, we got a picture of a gradual softening of the contradictions inherent in capitalism. From these premises, Bernstein concluded that social democracy should abandon tactics "based on the expectation of catastrophes", discard revolutionary phraseology and openly become what it essentially is: the democratic-socialist reform party.
Bernstein recommended social democracy to moderate hostility towards liberalism, believing that socialism in its ideological content is its legitimate successor. On the other hand, he disputed the position of the Erfurt Program, based on the well-known thought of Marx, according to which the socialist transformation of society can only be the work of the working class. With such a formulation of the question, the existence of Social Democracy as a class proletarian party lost its meaning: it had to turn into a broad association of all supporters of democratic reforms.
In a democracy, as Bernstein believed, classes as such will not cease to exist, but class rule will disappear, since no class will enjoy political privileges over the whole of society. This view of democracy essentially ruled out the idea of \u200b\u200bthe working class gaining political power. Moreover, Bernstein believed that the working class had not matured and would not mature for this for a very long time. All the more pointless, from his point of view, was the question of under what conditions and how exactly the reorganization of the entire system of social relations on socialist principles would take place. He wrote: “I am firmly convinced that the current generation will see a lot of socialism realized - if not in its patented form, then in practice ... I openly admit that I do not see much sense and have very little interest in , which is usually understood as the "ultimate goal of socialism." This goal - whatever it means - is nothing to me, movement is everything. And by movement I mean the general movement of society, i.e. social progress, and political and economic agitation and organization for the implementation of this progress. "
Thus, Bernstein did not reject the idea of \u200b\u200bthe socialist reorganization of society altogether, but conceived of socialism as the result of a gradual, very long evolution and a too distant prospect to draw on it an impetus for the real practical activity of social democrats. This political position in itself was not new in the socialist movement and in many respects resembled the reformist ideas that had been circulating since the late 70s - early 80s. But in Bernstein it relied on criticism of Marxism as a theory, and this criticism did not come from the bourgeois camp, but from a Social Democrat who had a reputation as a Marxist and considered himself to be such.
Bernstein's publications immediately evoked an active response, primarily because the social democracy felt an urgent need to re-check its ideological baggage with the changed historical realities. Bernstein found many like-minded people both in the SPD and other workers' parties, and in the circles of the liberal intelligentsia, who spoke in connection with his speeches about the crisis of Marxism (B. Croce in Italy, T. Masaryk in Austria-Hungary, "legal Marxists" in Russia) ... But in the social democratic environment, disagreement prevailed with the way Bernstein answered the questions posed by the time. Socialist leaders and theoreticians of both the older and younger generations criticized his ideas in the press or at party congresses: A. Bebel, V. Liebknecht, K. Kautsky, K. Zetkin, R. Luxemburg (Germany), J. Guesde , P. LaFargue (France), Antonio Labriola (Italy), G.V. Plekhanov and V.I. Lenin (Russia). The SPD reaffirmed its adherence to the principles of the Erfurt Program and refused to revise it in the direction proposed by Bernstein. Of the parties of the Second International, this revision was carried out (in 1901) only by the Austrian Social Democracy.
Bernstein's opponents rightly drew attention to the fragility of many of the arguments with which he substantiated his position. In criticizing Marxism, Bernstein often did not distinguish between the views of Marx himself and their later vulgar interpretations. The assertion that, according to Marx, the position of the working class in capitalist society is only invariably worsening did not correspond to the truth - Marx also always took into account that the working class by its struggle opposes this tendency. The validity of the statistical data with which Bernstein supported his considerations about the direction in which his contemporary economy was developing was also challenged.
But the subtleties of the theoretical polemic with Bernstein were hardly perceived by those who formed the mass base of the socialist movement in Germany and other European countries. For rank-and-file Social Democrats, the main thing was whether their party would retain its independent political role or abandon it. Therefore, at the grassroots level, the calls of social democratic leaders (such as Bebel) to be faithful to party traditions and the principles of the class struggle were primarily supported.
The positions of both sides in the debate between revisionists and their opponents should be assessed taking into account both the conditions of the time and later historical experience. Both were based on real, but oppositely directed tendencies that began to appear at the turn of the century.
Thus, the changes in the position of the working class were ambiguous: its upper stratum was integrated into the capitalist system, while the bulk of the workers still had to strive to improve their working and living conditions in a stubborn struggle with the owners, to meet the increased needs, and to experience the painful consequences of capitalist rationalization of production deprivation associated with unemployment, etc. In the Western countries, progress was observed in the implementation of reforms and the development of democratic institutions, but it was at least premature to consider it irreversible and to draw purely evolutionist conclusions from this (the 90s were marked in Germany by the threat of a new exceptional law against the socialists, in France by attacks by clerical monarchist forces against the republican system, in Italy - by the authoritarian actions of the Crispi and Pella cabinets). The fate of small-scale production in agriculture, to which the revisionists attributed stability not foreseen by Marx, developed in different ways in different countries. Similarly, on other issues that turned out to be on the threshold of the XX century. in the center of disputes in the socialist movement, each of the parties could find in the then reality arguments in favor of their own point of view.
Only in a longer historical perspective could it become clear which of the emerging tendencies would prevail and gain a foothold. Many of Bernstein's statements had a controversial justification and were not adequate to the reality of the beginning of the 20th century, but in some way they were ahead of the times, anticipating certain features of another, later era. The evolutionary path of social development, which Bernstein considered to be the main one for the countries of the West, as such will be established in Western Europe mainly in the second half of the 20th century. And this will happen after the huge historical upheavals that have also affected the West, which did not fit into evolutionary forecasts.

The most important qualitative changes took place in the development of the socialist and workers' movement, in the forms of political organization and struggle, in its ideology and politics. The international socialist movement went through two main periods in its development. The first of them covers the time from the emergence of Marxism and the first proletarian party - the "Union of Communists" - to the First International. This was the time of the birth of socialist ideas and the entry of the working class on an independent historical path of development. The new era demanded new forms of proletarian unification, new forms of the movement itself. The second period began, which was the time of the formation and maturation of the socialist parties, the growth of class, proletarian consciousness on a Marxist basis. The socialist movement entered a period of preparation and gathering of the forces of the working class, which, according to Lenin, “constitutes in all countries a necessary stage in the development of the world liberation struggle of the proletariat.” This period spanned a little more than three decades. It lasted from 1871 to 1904.

The school of class struggle, which the proletariat has gone through since the rise of scientific communism, gave its results after the Paris Commune. F. Engels noted that it was with the Paris Commune that the "most powerful upsurge" of the struggling proletariat began. In 1887, shortly before the emergence of the Second International, he wrote about the gigantic progress of the "international labor movement in the last fourteen years." The hallmarks of the socialist and workers' movement during the period of the growth of capitalism into imperialism were:

first, the collapse of pre-Marx unscientific socialist doctrines. The dominant ideology and politics in the labor movement at the turn of the 90s. becomes Marxism;

secondly, by the end of the 60s - the beginning of the 70s. there is a process of separation of the proletariat from the general democratic mass of the population. The labor movement is gradually freed from the ideological influence and political leadership of the liberal bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois democracy and is embarking on the path of an independent class policy. This was one of the most important reasons for the transformation of the labor movement into a mass class-conscious political movement, openly opposing its class interests to the interests of the bourgeoisie;

thirdly, the formation, growth and maturation of mass socialist parties and organizations is taking place in vast areas from the United States to Australia; the ideas of scientific socialism are combined with a spontaneous mass labor movement;

fourthly, there is a tremendous growth of professional, cooperative, educational and other organizations of the proletariat, which, along with the political party, have become an all-round school of preparation for it to fulfill its world-wide historical role;

fifth, the center of the international labor movement, as a result of the defeat of the Paris Commune, moved temporarily from France to Germany. During this period the German proletariat became at the forefront of the revolutionary movement. At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. this center of the revolutionary movement moves further east, to Russia. This powerful upsurge in the workers' movement was the great historical merit of K. Marx and F. Engels.

The socialist and workers' movement after the Paris Commune did not develop in a straight line, but took place in conditions of an intensifying class struggle. It came under increasing attacks from both sides. From the outside, the ruling classes constantly waged a struggle with him, striving with the help of the carrot and the carrot - both crude violence and the special bourgeois labor policy of social reformism - to turn the workers' movement off the revolutionary path, to establish "class cooperation." From within it was constantly attacked by various opportunists on the right and "left", reflecting bourgeois social reformist policies and petty-bourgeois revolutionism in the workers' movement itself. The development of bourgeois society at the end of the XIX century. showed, wrote VI Lenin, that this period differs from the preceding one by its “peaceful” character, the absence of revolutions. The West has done away with bourgeois revolutions. The East has not yet matured to them.

The West is entering a phase of "peaceful" preparation for the era of future transformations ... Slowly but steadily the process of picking up and gathering the forces of the proletariat, preparing it for the coming battles is moving forward "1. Objective conditions of the last third of the 19th century Thus, they did not put forward the struggle for the immediate conquest of political domination before the labor movement as the immediate task, but posed before the young socialist parties and other proletarian organizations a number of major theoretical and practical questions about the further fate of the socialist movement, the tasks of the proletariat and its party.


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  1. II. The emergence of national identity. Reformation movement, establishment of the Indian National Congress
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