socialism

• Lenin held similar views to Luxembourg as he believed socialism could come about before capitalism. The 10 stages of history were not as rigid as Marx suggested
• In opposition to Luxembourg, Lenin believed class consciousness would come about as the result of a revolution rather than causing it. He saw himself as an educator
• Democratic centralism is Lenin's idea of having a one party state but allowing widespread discussion and dissent within that party
• Trotsky's permanent revolution theory said that a socialist state couldn't survive unless other states around it were also socialist. Stalin disagreed with this
• Stalin was isolationist rather than internationalist
• Stalin collectivised agriculture so it became state owned. This led to the 1932 Great Famine and dissenters being sent to prison camps
• Chairman Mao believed in a cultural revolution to eradicate anti-socialist ideas prevailing in society. He persecuted anyone practicing traditional Chinese religions.
• Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista regime and created the first communist state in the Western hemisphere
• Tony Benn argued the Labour party should reinvent itself as a socialist party as the failures of the Wilson and Callaghan governments showed that socialism cannot work within a capitalist system
• The Winter of Discontent (1978) was a period of strikes which occured when the UK Labour government took a loan from the IMF (1976) that then forced them to cut public spending. This meant public sector workers went underfunded.
• Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital
• Giddens wrote Beyond left and right
• Crosland wrote the Future of Socialism
• Luxembourg wrote Reform or Revolution
• revolutionary socialists criticize gradualists for 'humanising' capitalism
• socialists believe humans are naturally fraternal and that human nature is malleable
• socialists believe that human nature is corrupted by capitalism which forces individuals to compete
• communism is when all wealth is owned by all individuals and the state controls the means of production
• collectivism supports people working together for the common good which is prioritised and has a higher worth than individual actions
• crosland criticised 11+ examinations for dividing children into grammar schools, state technicals and state moderns based on their abilities. Some schools prepared children for academia while others for unskilled labour.
• as education secretary crosland created a comprehensive system of education where there was a mix of skills and classes
• socialists believe that human nature must be viewed in the context of the society that they live in as we are shaped by socio-economic forces outside of our control
• socialists believe in common humanity which is the idea that people inherently want to work together to create a better, more just society
• utopian socialists, Fourier and Owen, created collectivist societies with common ownership but ones that only worked on a small scale
• dialectic change causes a change in the stage of history and is normally driven by economic factors
• it is claimed that common ownership allows for a much more efficient, equitable and organised allocation of goods by the state
• historical materialism is the idea that the next stage of history comes about due to a clash of economic ideas
• collectivism is the idea that society should work together for the common good. Cooperation is more efficient than individual competition
• Marx believes humans are naturally altruistic which is when they place the well-being/happiness of others or the common good above their own interests
• luxembourg thought revolution would arise from spontaneous strike action and there would be no dictatorship of the proletariat, just the emergence of socialism
• embourgeoisement is the increasingly middle class society
• Peter Mandelson said that 'we are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy stinking rich... just as long as they pay their taxes'
• Ralph Miliband was a neo-Marxist and believed that state sponsored anti-socialist forces were out to get Labour governments and force them to dilute their agendas. He therefore wanted a revolution
• Euro-communists like Gramsci wanted to create a socialist cultural vanguard to counter capitalism's cultural domination. They were fundamentalist but not revolutionary.
• George Napolitano of the Italian Communist Party was Italian President from 2006-2015
• Luxembourg reacted to WW1 which she was against because she is an internationalist and wanted solidarity of workers across borders to bring about socialism, not for a war to be fought between them.
• Luxemburg also reacted to the existence of pre-industrial under-developed countries that could become socialist before having to go through the horrors of capitalism
• Beatrice Webb said revolutions are 'chaotic, inefficient and counter-productive'
• in 1909 Webb produced a minority report while on Royal Commission which influenced the Beveridge Report
• Crosland believed society had become more complex since Marx's time with it no longer just being the proletariat and the bourgeoise but new classes of managers and technocrats