Towards the end of the 19th century, the industrial revolution left its mark on society: capitalism in crisis and the working masses plunged into misery. The ideological consequence of this context resulted in the rapid diffusion of thought streams such as socialism and anarchism. The workers' movement would, in fact, identify itself with such tendencies. But on this occasion we are interested in establishing some historical and ideological differences in these three concepts.
socialism could be defined as a doctrine (or social practice) that postulates (or exercises) the possession and public administration of the means of production, with the aim of promoting the welfare of society in general and not in favour of a particular sector.
Historically, socialism emerged in the early 19th century, as a result of events triggered by the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution. This period was known as utopian socialism. At this stage, acute criticism of the contradictions of capitalism was made. Its main trends were:
1. Saintsimonism: whose representatives were Saint-Simon, Enfantin, Bazard and Leroux;
Fourierism: represented by Fourier and Considérant;
And the line of Robert Owen and Thomson
The utopian period would end with the theoretical contributions of Marx and Engels and their transformation into a mass political movement from the development of the proletariat. The scientific socialism sought to understand social and economic facts by postulating as a central thesis that socialism would be born within capitalist society since its development was a spontaneous consequence of the very contradictions of the social economic process.
In this new phase, the objective would be the conquest of power by the proletariat organized into parties and the establishment of a new State, the dictatorship of the proletariat, conceived by Marx as the parliamentary form of the Paris Commune, based on political pluralism, which would bring about the socialist transformation of society. According to the Marxist conception, socialism corresponds to the first stage of communism, where only the means of production are collectively owned and each one works according to his ability or ability and receives consumption according to his or her work. During the communist phase, however, this conception would be modified: each one will receive according to his needs.
Today, European parties with a socialist roots are called social democracy. They promote the achievement of social reforms through parliamentary media.
The rose with a fist is the symbol of European socialist parties, such as the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), the English Labour Party.
communism refers to a social state in which the means of production cannot belong to private owners. It is, therefore, a classless society where no human group could exploit another, nor can individuals do so among themselves.
Communism is thus a political, economic and social system based on the community of property in which all private property has been abolished.
Among the antecedents of communism are Greek philosophers of the 4th century such as Diogenes and Antistenes and then Plato. Later, during the Renaissance, ideas in this line can be seen in the work of Tomás Moro y Campanella. But it was in the 18th century that Babuef linked to communist theory, revolutionary practice. Utopian socialism enriched these aspects, but I finally went to Marx and Engels when communism was nourished by a materialist ideology that identified it for the end of the class struggle that would be reached through an intermediate class struggle, with a dictatorship of the proletariat, which would build a society in which every individual would contribute according to his ability and receive according to his needs.
Communist ideology became entrenched at the end of the 19th century and was reflected in the Russian revolution of 1917. The victory of totalitarian regimes during the Second World War favored the expansion of the communist system that would come to power in several Central American countries. In 1949 communism came to China.
But the internal confrontations of the communist bloc, especially the Chinese-Soviet controversy and the Soviet army's crushing of the protest movements that emerged in Eastern Europe (Hungary and Poland in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968) provoked a profound crisis in the international communist movement. The changes in the USSR and Eastern Europe since Gorvachov's accession to power in 1985 have represented a turning point where the communist system no longer appears as a possible alternative (both on a practical and theoretical level) to the capitalist system.
anarchism is a doctrine that holds that any political authority is unnecessary and even harmful. It also questions other forms of authority such as legal and religious, because it argues that a just society could only be achieved through an abolition of authority that would give rise to man's innate goodness to cooperate in solidarity with others.
Thus, for anarchy, a utopian form of social organization is possible that excludes the state so that it can maintain it without coercion. It is based on individual freedoms and promotes the absolute freedom of the individual. Anarchism was first postulated by W. Godwin and his work continued by Bakunin, Kroptkin, Malatesta and others.
It was 1872, in the 1st. International, when a schism occurs between the supporters of Marx and those of Bakunin and the anarchists decided to use terrorism as a method of struggle.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the anarchists joined revolutionary workers' unions, thus the emergence of anarcho-syndicalism.
Anarcho-syndicalism gave the trade unions a fundamental role in the struggle for the emancipation of the working class and proclaimed apolitism, direct negotiation between the workers and their employers, and the revolutionary general strike. It emerged especially in Spain at the beginning of the 20th century and its entity was consolidated in the National Confederation of Labour (CGT). In Argentina, it formed in 1905 as the Regional Workers' Federation, extending its influence to other Latin American countries.
When the Bolsheviks took power in Russia in 1917, the penetration of communism into trade unions promoted the decline of anarcho-syndicalism. The exception is Spain, which remained in force until 1939.
In the United States, individualist anarchism emerged with Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker or Henry David Thoreau, but, towards the end of the century with European immigration, anarcho-syndicalism also gained importance, taking place the famous eight-hour strike on May 1, 1886, which took three days later to the Haymarket Revolt, an event that gave rise to the celebration of May 1 as International Workers' Day.
After the Second World War, anarchism has gained some boom among some intellectual sectors. Personalities such as Noam Chomsky, Ursula K, Le Guin, Howard Zinn, Nicolás Roselló and Hans Alfredsson, or Alan Moore. Today, and in part, as a result of the media coverage surrounding some of these celebrities, anarchism is often an ingredient of popular culture, becoming the flagship that identifies certain groups currently known as “urban tribes” (e.g. Punks).
