Socialism: From the Second International (1889) to Venezuela’s “21st Century Socialism”
HIS 3995/6000
Instructor: Ronald Aronson
Tuesdays, 6:00 - 8:45 p.m.
Whatever happened to socialism?
Its aim was “the emancipation of the workers, the abolition of wage-labor, and the creation of a society in which all women and men irrespective of sex or nationality will enjoy the wealth produced by the work of all workers.” How did it happen that—except in the fantasies of US Republicans and Tea Partiers and in a few countries in Latin America—socialism (and its communist offshoot) have been overwhelmed by the capitalist system they sought to overthrow? How did this take place despite the movement’s success in achieving many of its immediate goals, including political democracy, equality of women, the eight-hour day, and ending child labor? Despite socialist parties achieving political power time and again all over Europe (currently in Norway, Greece and Spain)? And despite the “Great Recession” that befell capitalism globally beginning in 2008?
Although fierce ideological, philosophical, moral, and political debate surrounds Marxism and socialism—especially in the U.S.—this course will attempt to answer these questions in the only way they can be answered: historically. In Winter, 2011, I began the first part of this inquiry with a course on Marxism and revolutionary Communism. This course will focus on socialism, past and present. It will discuss:
• the key ideas that propelled Marxist and socialist movements
• how after Marx’s death, and in the face of changing realities, socialism split into a democratic-reformist and a revolutionary wing
• the history of the democratic wing above all in Western Europe, and more recently in Latin America
• the main tasks facing socialist movements and governments over the last century—their changing goals, strengths, weaknesses, illusions, and achievements
• the decline of socialism during the last quarter of the 20th century
• the development of new socialist ideas and programs today, for example in the World Social Forum to Venezuela’s “21st century socialism"
The historical study ends in the present, assessing by way of conclusion, the prospects for socialism in this century and beyond. Texts will include: Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century.