An American Looks at Karl Marx

William J. Blake: An American Looks at Karl Marx

A Socialist Chronology

1776	Adam Smith (1723-1790), Wealth of Nations.
	Declaration of Independence (U. S. A.).
1789	Declaration of the Rights of Man.
1796	Conspiracy of Babeuf, Conspiracy of the Equals.
1811-12	The Luddite Riots and Lord Byron's Discourse.
1817	Ricardo.
1825	Labor-unionism legalized (England).
1829	Workingmen's parties (U. S. A.).
1832	First proletarian insurrection, at Lyons (silk-weavers) "Live as worker and die as fighters."
	Middle classes triumph in England; the Reform Bill.
1832-33	Phalanstery movement of Fourier gains.
1834	Grand National Consolidated Trade Union (England).
1836	Victor Considérant; beginning of economic co-operatives.
1837 and after Chartism in England; rise of Bronterre O'Brien, radical.
1844	The Rochdale experiment.
	Rising of the Silesian weavers (subject of Hauptmann's play).
1846	Free Trade in England.
1847	League of the Just becomes the Communist League, led by Karl Marx, who (with Engels) issues the Communist Manifesto: "Workers of the world, unite! You have a world to gain, you have nothing to lose but your chains!"
1848	European revolution.
	June Civil War in France; crushing of the working class in Paris by Cavaignac.
1848-49	Failure of Karl Marx and other revolutionists in Prussia.
1850	First great upswing in business and first sign of improvement in condition of workers since beginning of the factory system; inflation in prices due to Californian and Australian gold discoveries.
1861	N. G. Tschernischewsky, What's To Be Done?
	Abraham Lincoln, "Labor is prior to capital."
	Freedom of the serfs decreed in Russia.
1862	British workers support the North, British governing class the South: first class division in England on foreign policy.
1863	Lasalle (1825-1864) calls for formation of general German Trade Union.
1864	Beginning of Nihilist and Populist movements in Russia.
	Founding of the First International, Karl Marx, leader.
1865	Bakunin (1814-1876) founds Italian section of the Interna- tional on an anarchistic basis against the co-operative basis of Mazzini.
	Negro slavery abolished in America; free labor and farming triumph; the South is reduced from a competitor to a colony of the Northern capitalists.
1867	First strike wave in the world (England).
	Marx's Das Kapital appears in Hamburg.
	Triumph of the direct, equal, secret, universal ballot (Ger- many).
	British working class given the right to vote.
1869	Founding of the great German Social-Democratic party under Bebel (1840-1912) and Liebknecht (1826-1900).
1871	THE PARIS COMMUNE: FIRST PROLETARIAN-DIRECTED STATE.
	Garibaldi, Italy's liberator, states his unity with the Workers' International.
	First meeting of the International sections in the U. S. A. (mostly German immigrant artisans).
1872	Split in the International between Socialists under Marx and Anarchists under Bakunin.
1873	Beginning of the six-year economic crisis (world-wide).
1877	Strikes of rail-workers in the United States; the "Molly Maguires"; rise of the private industrial detective agency, the Pinkertons.
	Foundation of a Socialist Labor Party among German workers.
1879	Henry George's (1839-1897) Progress and Poverty creates a great rent-nationalization movement on a scientific basis.
	Prohibition of the Socialists in Germany by Bismarck.
1880	Formation of mass socialist parties in France on a generally Marxian basis.
1881	Formation of the S. D. F. in England under H. M. Hyndman; Marxian inspiration, but dogmatic and confused.
	State socialism in Germany as demagogic policy.
	Formation of the American Federation of Labor under Samuel Gompers.
1883	Death of KARL MARX in London.
1884	Founding of the Fabian Society in England (Sidney Webb, Bernard Shaw).
1885	Formation of the British Socialist League, pure Marxians, headed by the poet William Morris (News from Nowhere, Dream of John Ball, Rebel Poems).
1886	GREATEST YEAR IN HISTORY OF LABOR: Foundation of general trades union in France; mass demonstrations against govern- ment in England; mass rallies in Austria; Scandinavian Union of workers under Marxian direction; Haymarket bomb epi- sode, Chicago; breakup of Anarchist hegemony; dynamic development of the "Knights of Labor"; candidacy of Henry George on Labor ticket for Mayor of New York; beginning of the gigantic houses of the Workers' Socialist co-operatives in Brussels.
1887	Beginning of New Unionism in England under leadership of Keir Hardie, John Burns, Tom Mann, the latter still (1939) Communist leader.
	Opening of the Bourse du Travail or Labor-Exchange governed by workers in Paris.
	Workers shot in Trafalgar Square, London.
1888	Daniel de Leon, political scientist and an editor of the Political Science Quarterly, deserts "bourgeois" economics for So- cialism. Laurence Gronlund, native American Socialist writer.
	May Day founded by Americans, spreads over world after 1889.
	Edward Bellamy, elegant Beacon Hill (Boston) writer, em- braces equalitarian utopian Socialism in his book, Looking Backward.
1889	Docks strike, London.
	Founding of the Second International, Paris; mass Socialist parties of the world unite.
1891	ENCYCLICAL OF LEO XIII, Rerum Novarum, in which the Catholic Church espouses the cause of labor but denounces Socialism; not a matter of faith but of policy.
1893	Foundation of the Western Federation of Miners (U. S. A.), prototype of industrial unionism throughout the world, and nursery of practical Syndicalist ideas.
	Panic in the United States; Populist ideas dominant among farmers of prairie states.
	Foundation of Independent Labor Party by Keir Hardie (England).
1894	Foundation of Marxian Socialist parties (illegally) in Russia.
1895	Death of FREDERICK ENGELS.
1896	Last fight of the American middle classes for power, under W. J. Bryan; complete victory of large capitalists under leadership of Mark A. Hanna, steelmaker of Ohio.
1897	Workmen's Compensation Act (England).
	Death of Henry George.
	Foundation of the Social Democratic party of the United States under the rail-union leader, Eugene V. Debs of Indiana.
1898	The Social Democratic Party of Germany polls two million votes and elects 56 parliament members.
	Socialism becomes a major political movement in Europe.
	Russian Social Democratic Party founded, on a strict party basis and absolute Marxian doctrine; appearance of Lenin as an important writer.
1899	Bernstein splits the Socialist theoretical position by Revisionism.
	Split between de Leon and Debs (U. S. A.); Debs rejects de Leon's organization of Socialist unions only.
1900	Socialists become an important Italian parliamentary party.
1901	House of Lords declares all trades unionists liable for damage in strikes: labor loses confidence in the bourgeois state and its justice (Taff Vale case); brings about mass rejection of old Liberal and Conservative parties by workers.
	Iskra becomes Marxian Russian organ of Plechanoff, with Lenin an editorial writer.
1902	Great anthracite coal strike in U. S. A.; appearance of President Theodore Roosevelt as arbitrator; affirmation of George F. Baer, head of Reading Railroad, that God Almighty has given the rich men their money. Rise of John D. Rockefeller to largest personal fortune; sale by Andrew Carnegie of his steel interest to new formation of world's biggest trust, the U. S. Steel Corporation.
1903	Beginning of Syndicalism in Italy; soon spreads to Spain, where it fuses with Anarchism.
	Split of Bolshevik-Menshevik at London convention of Russian Socialists.
1904	Debs polls 400,000 votes in U. S. A. Socialism becomes a fashionable doctrine among wealthy intellectuals.
1905	Formation of the I. W. W., most celebrated Syndicalist or- ganization, denounced by de Leon as perverting Marxism into "bummery"; Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, shocks U. S. and is first Socialist "best seller"; conversion of Jack London; Robert Hunter's book on Poverty has wide sale.
	Uprising of the people in Russia, the first Russian Revolution; nearly three million workers in a general strike; constitution granted by Tsar.
1906	Counter-revolution and terror in Russia.
	Fifty-four laborites elected to British House of Commons.
1907	Guild Socialist agitation begins in England with Orage and Penty.
	Trial of Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone in Boise, Idaho, for alleged murder of Governor Steunenberg; Borah, the prose- cutor, uses perjurer, Harry Orchard; failure of state's case; Haywood acquitted, becomes hero of the left-wing labor movement in the United States.
1908	I. W. W. split between Marxians and Syndicalists.
	Reaction triumphant in Russia; labor crushed.
1909	The Lloyd-George Budget, high point of radicalism in En- gland; House of Lords, first time in two centuries, vetoes will of the people.
	Briand forces postal and rail strikers to join the army in France and breaks their strike.
1910	FIRST GREAT INTERNATIONAL VICTORIES OF SOCIALISM:
	In France party wins important parliamentary elections.
	Milwaukee first large American city to go Socialist.
	Two millions now in German socialist-run trades unions.
	In England formation of triple alliance of coal and transport workers threatens general strike.
	The police spy, Azeff, unmasked; power of Russian secret police broken.
	American Federation of Labor abandons isolation and joins International Trades Union Federation.
	Socialist organizations have eight million members.
1912	Great coal strike in England. Deep social unrest.
	American radicalism now a solvent; Roosevelt splits Repub- lican Party to assimilate up-to-date Populism; Debs polls 900,000 votes in U. S. A.
	Socialists poll 4½ million votes in Germany, elect 110 members of parliament.
	Socialism now a mass movement.
1913	Socialists poll a fifth of all Italian votes; German socialists more than a third. Fear grips European governing class.
1914	The World War: Socialist parties split; Jaurès, French leader, assassinated; British Independent Labor Party goes pacifist; German party split; Lenin in Switzerland rallies broken Inter- national; great majority of socialists follow their gov- ernments.
1915	Russian Bolsheviks demand peace without victory.
	Lenin becomes world's leading socialist pamphleteer.
	Zimmerwald conference of seven socialist parties in warring countries shows vitality of the International.
1916	Kienthal conference lays foundations for a third International.
1917	Whitley Councils in England give workers representation in the factories.
	United States Socialist party denounces the War and refuses to follow patriotic faction, who split; Debs arrested and imprisoned.
	Bolsheviks seize power in Russia through Workers' and Sol- diers' Councils led by the Communist Party; Lenin becomes head of the state.
1918	Brest-Litovsk peace humiliates Soviet Russia but gives her time to organize her defense; epoch of civil wars in Russia begins, aided first by Germans and then by the Allies; collaboration of warring states against the Revolutionists.
	German revolution, beginning with sailors' mutiny, ends the War and the German monarchy.
	Austrian monarchy tumbles.
	Three antique social orders crack for good (Romanoff, Haps- burg, Hohenzollern).
1919	Formation of the Third International.
	Social Democrats in Germany refuse to institute Socialism on the ground that they have 45.5 per cent but not 51 per cent of the voters.
	Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg murdered.
	Immature Soviet states established for a few weeks in Bavaria and Hungary.
	Socialist movement split between Communists and Socialists.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE NEXT FEW YEARS

1920	Congress of Tours in France; Bolsheviks in majority.
	Socialist vote in Germany sinks to 41.8 per cent; defeat of Kapp putsch of reactionaries.
	Formation of the American Communist Party (several factions).
	End of the civil war and the Polish war finds Russian economy at lowest level in a century; Lenin takes cognizance of wreck and famine and institutes recovery policy as antecedent to Socialism.
1922	Development of the New Economic Policy in Russia: permis- sion of minor capitalist activities to spur on production, as an interim policy dictated by war losses.
	Ex-Socialist Mussolini organizes Fascism in Italy.
1923	Inflation in Germany consummates ruin of the middle class.
1924	MacDonald, Prime Minister in England; Labor Party nominally in power though not in possession of a majority; overthrown in general election in which a forged document figured largely.
	Death of Lenin.
1926	General strike in England.
1927	Trotsky excluded from Communist Party.
1928	Institution of the Five-Year Plan in Russia.
	Socialist parties breed apologists for capitalism based on Ameri- can prosperity.
1929	Collapse of American prosperity.
1930-33	World crisis: deepest decline of production, trade, and em- ployment, as well as of nominal wealth, ever recorded; wholesale devaluations of currency and great gains in state intervention.
1933	Fascist triumph in Germany.
	Socialism enters a dark period.
1934-36	Epoch of reaction in Europe; attack on Spain.
	End of State Liberalism in the United States; New Deal under F. D. Roosevelt.
1936	Emergence of Popular Front in several countries as barrier to Fascism; growing strain of armaments.