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Working-Class Socialist Movements

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Working class Socialist movements in Europe did not fully succeed in creating a truly subversive and separate identity by the beginning of the First World War. They created fragments of what could be deemed as a radical ‘alternative’ culture, but ultimately the movements in Europe were too riven with ideological and personally conflicts. These pre-WW1 national labour movements encompassed revolutionaries and reformists, skilled and unskilled workers, the literate and illiterate. Consequently, inevitable divisions stopped the ‘working class mass’ from becoming one homogenous entity.

In the case of the Social Democratic Party in Germany and various social movements in Russia between 1870 and 1917, the attempt to forge a new ‘alternative culture’ …show more content…
By the end of the 19th century two thirds of the urban population were in industrial occupations. Forcing workers into the cities into a small space to live communally, work incredibly long hours by each others side and partake in after-work activities together brought about a significant unifying effect. As Eric Hobsbawm notes: the working classes were ‘bound together by the solidarity of work and community and the hardness of danger of their toil’ …show more content…
Women remained outside of the organised labour movement because of deeply engrained misogynistic attitudes. This is not to say that women were inactive in political rebellion. In Russia, many women momentarily stepped beyond their culturally imposed passivity and submissiveness in the wake of open rebellion. As Barbara Engel argues, they argued mainly as wives to defend traditional structures of family and community. The inability for socialist organisations to include women into the field of collective political activism was a huge factor in limiting the ‘success’ of creating an ‘alternative

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