history
The New Power Balance, 1850-1900
Lecture 18
Socialism and Labor Movements
How did the social consequences of industrialization lead to the rise of socialist and labor movements?
“Socialism was an ideology developed by radical thinkers who believed that inequality and injustice were the consequences of industrialization and that only strong government regulations, even direct control of industries in some case, could protect industrial workers from the predatory actions of their employers.”
Socialism and Labor Movements
Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin expected a workers’ revolution, but later socialists hoped to gain influence through election.
1. Marx and socialism began as an intellectual movement. The best-known socialist was Karl Marx (1818–1883) who, along with Friedrich Engles (1820–1895) wrote the Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital (1867). Marx saw history as a long series of clashes between social classes, and he identified his revolutionary ideal as “scientific socialism.” He believed social division between a wealthy powerful few and a mass of industrial workers would inevitable lead to revolutions that would end capitalism and create a dictatorship of the proletariat (industrial workers). With private property abolished, the resources of government and industry could be harnessed to end poverty and injustice;
2. Marx’s theories provided an intellectual framework for general dissatisfaction with unregulated industrial capitalism. In addition, Marx took steps to translate his intellectual efforts into political action;
Socialism and Labor Movements
Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin expected a workers’ revolution, but later socialists hoped to gain influence through election.
Karl Marx (1818–1883)
Friedrich Engles (1820–1895)
Socialism and Labor Movements
Labor movements and unions worked to improve workers’ pay and working conditions.
3. Labor unions were organizations formed by industrial workers to defend their interests in negotiations with employers. Labor unions developed from the workers’ “friendly societies” of the early nineteenth century and sought better wages, improved working conditions, and insurance for workers;
Social Democrats believed that political action within electoral politics could improve the conditions of the working class.
4. During the nineteenth century workers were brought into electoral politics, as the right to vote was extended to all adult males in Europe and North America. Instead of seeking the violent overthrow of the bourgeois class, socialists used their voting power in order to force concessions from the government and even to win elections. The classic case of socialist electoral politics is the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Nationalism and the Rise of Italy, Germany, and Japan
How was nationalism transformed from a revolutionary to a conservative ideology?
“Eighteenth-century revolutionaries redefined individuals as the citizens of nations-a concept identified with a territory, the state that ruled it, and the culture of its people.”
Nationalism and the Rise of Italy, Germany, and Japan
Nationalism, the most powerful new ideology of the nineteenth century, defined nations primarily on the basis of language.
1.Language was usually the crucial element in creating a feeling of national unity, but language and citizenship rarely coincided. The idea of redrawing the boundaries of states to accommodate linguistic, religious, and cultural differences led to the forging of larger states from the many German and Italian small states, but it threatened to break large multiethnic empires like Austria-Hungary into smaller states;
2. Until the 1860s, nationalism was associated with liberalism. After 1848 conservative political leaders learned how to preserve the social status quo by using public education, universal military service, and colonial conquests to build a sense of national identity that focused loyalty on the state;
Nationalism and the Rise of Italy, Germany, and Japan
Cavour and Garibaldi unify Italy between 1860 and 1870, and Bismarck unified Germany from 1866 to 1871.
3. By the mid-nineteenth century, popular sentiment favored Italian unification. Unification was opposed by Pope Pius IX and Austria. However, Cavour, the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, used the rivalry between France and Austria to gain the help of France in pushing the Austrians out of northern Italy. Meanwhile, in the south, Giuseppe Garibaldi led a revolutionary army in 1860 that defeated the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. A new Kingdom of Italy, headed by Victor Emmanuel (the former king of Piedmont- Sardinia) was formed in 1860. In time, Venetia (1866) and the Papal States (1870) were added to Italy;
Nationalism and the Rise of Italy, Germany, and Japan
Cavour and Garibaldi unify Italy between 1860 and 1870, and Bismarck unified Germany from 1866 to 1871.
4. Until the 1860s the German-speaking people were divided among Prussia, the western half of the Austrian Empire, and numerous smaller states. Prussia took the lead in the movement for German unity because it had a strong industrial base in the Rhineland and an army that was equipped with the latest military, transportation, and communications technology. During the reign of Wilhelm I (1861–1888) the Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck achieved the unification of Germany through a combination of diplomacy and the Franco- Prussian War. Victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War completed the unification of Germany, but it also resulted in German control over the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and thus in the long-term enmity between France and Germany;
Nationalism and the Rise of Italy, Germany, and Japan
In response to Western intrusion, provincial Japanese lords launched the Meiji Restoration and quickly transformed Japan into a modern industrial nation.
5. In the early nineteenth century, Japan was ruled by the Tokugawa Shogunate, and local lords had significant autonomy. This system made it hard for Japan to coordinate its response to outside threats and some local nobles had begun to believe that Japan was at a distinct disadvantage militarily. In 1853, the American commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived in Japan with a fleet of steam-powered warships and demanded that the Japanese open their ports to trade and American ships. Dissatisfaction with the shogunate’s capitulation to American and European demands led to a civil war;
Nationalism and the Rise of Italy, Germany, and Japan
In response to Western intrusion, provincial Japanese lords launched the Meiji Restoration and quickly transformed Japan into a modern industrial nation.
6. The civil war was short-lived and led to the overthrow of the shogunate in 1868. The emperor was “restored” to power but he was controlled closely by the alliance that had overthrown the shogun. The young emperor Mutsuhito called his reign the Meiji, or “Enlightened Rule.” The new rulers of Japan were known as the Meiji emperor.
Nationalism and the Rise of Italy, Germany, and Japan
In response to Western intrusion, provincial Japanese lords launched the Meiji Restoration and quickly transformed Japan into a modern industrial nation.
7. The Meiji oligarchs were willing to change their institutions and their society to help transform their country into a world-class industrial and military power. The Japanese learned industrial and military technology, science, engineering, and new educational systems from the Western powers. The Japanese also sent students to be educated in the West to learn western culture and practices, while in Japan itself western fashion and other markers of that culture became popular. The Japanese government encouraged industrialization, funding industrial development in cloth industries, then selling them to private investors.
Nationalism and the Rise of Italy, Germany, and Japan
During this era, the privileged few often misinterpreted Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to justify their control of wealth and power.
8. After the Franco-Prussian War all politicians tried to manipulate public opinion in order to bolster their governments by using the press and public education in order to foster nationalistic loyalties. In many countries the dominant group used nationalism to justify the imposition of its language, religion, or customs on minority populations, as in the attempts of Russia to “Russify” its diverse ethnic populations;
9. Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) and others took up Charles Darwin’s ideas of “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest” and applied them to human societies in such a way as to justify European conquest of foreign nations and the social and gender hierarchies of Western society.
The Great Powers of Europe, 1871-1900
How did the forces of nationalism affect the major powers of Europe?
“Minor incidents involving foreigners could be used to stir up popular indignation against neighboring counties, and military officers began to think their weapons were invincible.”
The Great Powers of Europe, 1871-1900
A united Germany, the most powerful state in Europe, became a threat to peace under Wilhelm II.
1. International relations revolved around a united Germany, which, under Bismarck’s leadership, isolated France and forged a loose coalition with Austria-Hungary and Russia. At home, Bismarck used mass politics and social legislation to gain popular support and to develop a strong sense of national unity and pride amongst the German people. However, Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck and initiated a German foreign policy that placed emphasis on the acquisition of colonies, which led to the world toward World War I;
The Great Powers of Europe, 1871-1900
France and Great Britain, though liberal democracies, faced difficulties at home and overseas.
2. France was now a second-rate power in Europe, its population and army being smaller than those of Germany, and its rate of industrial growth lower than that of the Germans. French society seemed divided between monarchist Catholics and republicans with anticlerical views. In fact, popular participation in politics, a strong sense of nationhood, and a system of universal education gave the French people a deeper cohesion than appeared on the surface;
3. In Britain, a stable government and a narrowing in the disparity of wealth were accompanied by a number of problems. Particularly notable were Irish resentment of English rule, an economy that was lagging behind those of the United States and Germany, and an enormous empire that was very expensive to administer and to defend. For most of the nineteenth century Britain pursued a policy of “splendid isolation” toward Europe, and preoccupation with India led the British to exaggerate the Russian threat to the Ottoman Empire and to the Central Asian approaches to India, while they ignored the rise of Germany;
The Great Powers of Europe, 1871-1900
Russia and Austria-Hungary, two conservative empires, failed to adapt their politics to the modernization of their societies.
4. The forces of nationalism weakened Russia and Austria-Hungary, where many different language groups lived in close proximity. In addition, ethnic diversity also contributed to instability in Russia. Attempts to foster Russian nationalism and to impose the Russian language on a diverse population proved to be divisive. Russian industrialization was carried out by the state, and thus the middle-class remained small and weak while the land-owning aristocracy dominated the court and administration. Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904– 1905) and the Revolution of 1905 demonstrated Russia’s weakness and caused Tsar Nicholas to introduce a constitution and a parliament (the Duma), but he soon reverted to the traditional despotism of his forefathers as soon as he was able to rebuilt the army and the police.
17
The Great Powers of Europe, 1871-1900
Russia and Austria-Hungary, two conservative empires, failed to adapt their politics to the modernization of their societies.
18
China, Japan, and the Western Powers
What were the responses of Japan and China to expansion of western economic and military power?
China, Japan, and the Western Powers
China was weakened by the Taiping Rebellion, a reactionary government under Empress Dowager Cixi, and the demands of the West.
1. In the late nineteenth century China resisted Western influence and became weaker, and Japan transformed itself into a major industrial and military power. The difference can be explained partly by the difference between Chinese and Japanese elites and their attitudes toward foreign cultures;
2. In China a “self-strengthening movement” tried to bring about reforms, but the Empress Dowager Cixi and other officials opposed railways or other technologies that would carry foreign influences into the interior. They were able to slow down foreign intrusion, but in doing so, they denied themselves the best means of defense against foreign pressure;
China, Japan, and the Western Powers
Japan, in contrast, built up its military and industrial strength and became another imperial power, taking advantage of China’s weakness to seize Korea, Taiwan, and southern Manchuria.
3. The Japanese had a long history of adopting ideas and culture from China and Korea. In the same spirit, the Japanese learned industrial and military technology, science, engineering, and even clothing styles and pastimes from the West. Japan’s leader of the Meiji oligarchs, Yamagata Aritomo, led Japan into a program of military industrialization to expand their sphere of influence as well as help them compete with European economic power;
4. As Japan grew stronger, China grew weaker until Japan defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. Later Japan helped western forces put down the Boxer Rebellion in China, then showed even more strength by defeating Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Despite efforts by European nations to limit Japan’s growing influence, it gained control of southern Manchuria and then annexed Korea in 1910, making Japan an imperial power.
Conclusion:
1. Industrialization combined with the introduction of electricity, steel, new chemicals, and global communication served to increase the economic power of western nations and parts of East Asia;
2.The problems of pollution were somewhat relieved. Working women entered the factories as elite women became protected within separate spheres;
3. Socialism became an intellectual movement, labor unions gained recognition, and universal manhood suffrage became the law in the United States and parts of Europe;
4.Conservatives made use of nationalism to unify nations such as Germany and Italy, while the Meiji Restoration gave regained power to the emperor in Japan;
5.The number of “great powers” in the world expanded to include Germany, Japan and the United States;
6. New wealth due to new technologies and science advances was enjoyed only by a small minority of the human race.