401

The Development of Capitalism
in Western Europe and the United States

p The desperate efforts of the forces of feudal reaction in Europe to stifle emergent social forces and entrench feudal absolutism for ever were to prove vain. Neither the Holy Alliance, nor the restored monarchies of Europe, nor Nicholas I, the allpowerful ruler of the Russian Empire, were in a’position to hold back the deep-rooted processes of capitalist development which were moving forward at an ever faster pace.

p The industrial revolution which had begun in the second half of the eighteenth century in Britain and then at the beginning of the nineteenth century had rapidly spread to the rest of Europe—France, the German and Italian states, Austria and Russia—had also made great strides in the young republic on the other side of the Atlantic—the United States. Machines were ousting manual labour everywhere. New inventions and improvements in the textile and metal-working industries and in the construction of engines, and the emergence of the engineering industry (i.e., the construction of machines to produce other machines) brought about a rapid acceleration in production processes. The technological revolution in the sphere of transport which began in the nineteenth century was also to make an enormous impact on all branches of industry.

p In 1814 George Stephenson, an English self-taught engineer from a working-class background, built the first steam engine. It was able to move at a speed of 4 miles an hour, and even after a number of improvements had been introduced it was still a common practice 15 years later to organise races between steam engines and horses. Yet this clumsy, formidable-looking contraption with its great boiler and enormous funnel had a great future 402 before it. In 1829 the first railway worked purely by steam was opened over a forty-mile distance between Manchester and Liverpool. In 1831 railway construction began in the United States, in 1832 in France, and in 1837 in Russia. In 1840 the world’s railways already had a total length of six thousand miles and the next few decades saw extraordinarily rapid growth: 30,000 miles in 1850, 70,000 by 1860 and 140,000 by 1870.

p This amazing expansion of rail transport was of tremendous significance: it furthered the growth of internal and foreign trade, greatly increased the demand for metal and fuel thereby promoting the development of the corresponding industries, and finally served to accelerate the industrialisation of a large number of countries.

p At almost the same time the invention of the steamship was to cause another revolution in transport. The first steamship, the Clermont, was built in 1807 by Robert Fulton. It made its maiden voyage down the river Hudson at a speed of five miles an hour. However, the steamship was soon to be perfected and made more powerful to enable it to undertake long voyages. The first steamship crossing of the Atlantic was made in 1818 by the Savannah which made the voyage from the United States to Liverpool in twenty-seven days. Twenty years later, in 1838, the Great Western made the crossing in a mere 14 days. Later this time was to be halved again.

As technological innovations were improved and refined, in particular the steamship, the large stretches of water which had formerly presented major barriers to communications gradually came to facilitate the same.

The Social Consequences
of the Industrial Revolution

The rapid development of capitalism in the nineteenth century led to the growth of large industrial towns in Europe and the United States. The mass of the workers began to concentrate in the towns where the large factories were. In England, where industrialisation had been particularly rapid and was completed in the main by the first half of the nineteenth century, the accompanying changes were most clear-cut and unambiguous. Two main classes emerged, the industrial bourgeoisie and the industrial proletariat, while the remaining classes—the peasantry, the nobility, and the petty bourgeoisie—soon came to play a minor role. The bourgeoisie and the proletariat were soon to emerge as the two main social classes in other countries where capitalism was taking shape—such as France, Germany and the United States. 403 However, in such countries the peasantry was still numerically superior to the industrial proletariat and power remained in the hands of the pre-capitalist class groups, the nobility and the landowners.

The Bourgeois Revolutions
and Reforms of the 1830s

p The rapid development of capitalism in the nineteenth century had served to consolidate the wealth and power of the bourgeoisie. With enormous capital and funds at its disposal, the bourgeoisie was unwilling to reconcile itself with its relative lack of rights in the majority of the European monarchies, and began to aspire either to a decisive political role or at least to participation in state administration.

p The bourgeoisie was still employing cautious tactics at this stage. While subjecting the working class to ruthless exploitation and profiting at the expense of underpaid workers, the bourgeoisie had already come to fear the working people. The monarchy, despite its presumptuous arrogance, already appeared less dangerous to the bourgeoisie than the workers, since with the former they could always reach some sort of agreement while there was no hope of them ever being able to come to terms with the workers, whom they bled dry, for the two classes of exploiters and exploited were quite irreconcilable in their enmity, that of conflicting class interests.

This was why in its striving to achieve state power at this period the bourgeoisie sought to avoid revolution and concentrated instead on reforms introduced from above without the participation of the people.

The July Revolution in France—1830

p The bourgeoisie was not always successful in its efforts to avoid open revolution, as was witnessed by events in France in July 1830. Charles X, who was reputed to have said: "I would rather chop wood than reign after the fashion of the King of England”, disregarding all opposition went out of his way to restore the unlimited autocracy of the past, with a whole series of reactionary laws which aroused the people’s indignation. The bourgeoisie was not eager for revolution but the people took to the streets and started setting up barricades. Realising that he was powerless to deal with the situation, Charles X fled to England, the country on which he had but shortly before poured such bitter scorn. 404

p As soon as the old order had been overthrown, bourgeois politicians came out into the open after lying low during the three days of barricade fighting, and hastened to take power into their own hands. Before the people had had time to realise what was happening, a new regime had been forced on the country—yet another monarchy, but this time with a new King of a new dynasty—Louis Philippe of Orleans.

This new King, "the king of barricades" as the people nicknamed him or the "royal bourgeois" as he was referred to in wealthy circles, was a former duke and a close relative of Charles X. He was held to be the richest and most miserly man in the whole of France and his wealth defied the imagination. Nevertheless, after coming to the throne, Louis Philippe disregarded the old custom by which the King put his private means into the Royal treasury as a symbol of the “marriage” between the King and his realm, and made haste to ensure that his fortune remained in safe hands, by dividing part of it amongst his sons and placing the rest in a bank. Such traits of his were to meet with the approval of the big bourgeoisie. The July monarchy (as Louis Philippe’s reign came to be called) was to become a bourgeois monarchy. However, it was not the whole of the bourgeoisie that was dominant and not even the industrial section of that class but the financial aristocracy—the financiers, bankers and magnates, men 405 with vast fortunes. This was a time when ready cash held sway, when gold ruled supreme. In his famous Comedie Humaine the great French writer Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) was to paint a superb picture of the life and moeurs of this society where everything was subordinated to the power of money.

The English Reform Bill of 1832

In England, where the ruling classes were particularly experienced in political manoeuvring they made sure that no revolution took place. At the end of the 1820s and in particular after the 1830 revolution in France, when the democratic and revolutionary movement became particularly active, the ruling party—the Tories—which represented the most powerful landowning interests, realised that some kind of compromise solution was required. In 1832 a parliamentary reform was introduced. It was widely acclaimed as a great boon to the whole English people, but in actual fact it merely served to permit members of the industrial bourgeoisie to play a direct part in parliamentary affairs. It was only the bourgeoisie and the party which shared its views—the Whigs—which benefitted from this reform. The working class which had fought for this reform was to gain nothing.

A New Wave of Colonial Expansion

p The rapid development of capitalism and the growing role of the bourgeoisie in the political affairs of the country led to a new wave of colonial expansion. The bourgeoisie needed new cheap sources of raw materials and new markets. Colonial wars were regarded as highly profitable undertakings.

The most developed of the capitalist countries started a new expansion drive with Britain in the forefront. In 1829, after a war with Burma, the British colonialists succeeded in capturing Assam. In 1839 they seized Aden. During the ’thirties colonial wars were waged in Afghanistan and parts of India: in 1843 Sind was captured and in 1846 Kashmir and a large part of the Punjab. From 1839 to 1842 Britain engaged in the notorious Opium War, during which she succeeded in gaining a strong foothold in China. Hongkong was seized and China was obliged to import opium which brought enormous profits to British traders and sign a onesided trade agreement. In 1840 Britain annexed New Zealand and in 1842-1843 Sarawak on Borneo, and Natal in South Africa. In 1830 France embarked on the occupation of Algeria and then 406 joined in the colonial wars of plunder against China. In 1846 the United States instigated a war against its virtually defenceless neighbour, Mexico, and robbed it of the sizable territories of New Mexico and California. By this time colonialism had become the familiar companion of capitalism.

The Position of the Working Class

While the bourgeoisie was gaining fabulous riches and profiteering from colonial wars of plunder and its predatory exploitation of the working class, the position of the working class at that early stage of capitalism was one of extreme hardship. The ranks of the working class by this time had swelled considerably, but as yet it had no experience of political struggle, and was still unorganised and only dimly aware of its position and historical role. The entrepreneurs of that period who exploited the defencelessness of the workers and the surplus of cheap labour went out of their way to squeeze the absolute maximum out of those in their employ within the shortest possible time. Exploitation reached unbelievable lengths. The workers worked for 16-18 hours a day, and wide use was also made of female and child labour. Backbreaking toil, inhuman living conditions, chronic undernourishment and poverty—all threatened the workers of that time with physical and spiritual destruction.

The Beginning
of an Independent Working-Class Movement

The instinct of self-preservation spurred the workers on to take up the struggle against their masters. However, the first generations of nineteenth-century workers lacked the experience which subsequent generations were to turn to good use. They were as yet unaware of the source of the evil they were faced with, of who was responsible for their sufferings and hardship. At first they were under the illusion that their intolerable position stemmed from the introduction of machinery. The first spontaneous manifestation of the class struggle took the form of the destruction of machinery. The first two decades of the nineteenth century saw the development in England of what was known- as the Luddite movement—so called because it was supposed to have been started by a young apprentice named Ned Ludd—whose adherents set about destroying machines. However, the workers soon came to realise that machines were not the source of their suffering, and that destroying them did not make life any easier.

407

The Lyons Revolts of 1831 and 1834

p In France the position of the workers was just as intolerable as in England. In 1831 in Lyons, the centre of the silk industry, the local weavers driven to despair by their appalling poverty rose up in protest and captured the town. They marched along with black banners bearing the words: "We are prepared to die fighting for the right to live and work!" This banner showed just how modest and limited were the demands of the workers at that early stage. This uprising was savagely crushed by government troops.

In 1834 the Lyons weavers came out into the streets again, but this time they were better organised and demanded not merely better working conditions but a republic as well. This uprising was also suppressed.

The Chartist Movement

p In England many workers supported the bourgeois democrats in their campaign for parliamentary reform. But when the 1832 Reform Bill brought no improvement in their living and working conditions, which, on the contrary, started to deteriorate as time went on, deep disillusionment set in.

p While losing their faith in the bourgeoisie which had deceived them, the workers still had faith in Parliament. In 1836-1837 first in London and then in other towns a campaign for universal suffrage developed. The workers hoped that if universal suffrage was introduced they would gain a majority in Parliament and then the whole situation would change. Such hopes were however quite illusory. Yet the British workers who at that time still had little experience of politics believed in these illusions and they were concerned above all with how to persuade Parliament to adopt laws introducing universal suffrage. In 1837 the workers’ leaders drew up a Charter containing the main demands they were planning to put before Parliament. Then they started to collect signatures for this Charter. On three separate occasions in 1839, 1842 and 1848 this Charter was presented to Parliament, each time with a still larger number of signatures. The first time 1,200,000 signatures were collected, the second 3,300,000 and the third time almost five million. The sheets of signatures were so large and heavy that in 1842, for example, they were carried into Parliament in an enormous crate by more than twenty people.

p The collection of signatures and the discussion of the political and social issues involved brought about an unprecedented 408 advance in the workers’ movement. In the evenings, by torchlight, the workers gathered to hear political addresses and to discuss the situation. Enormous Chartist demonstrations made their wav down the quiet streets of English towns at night. For the first time the workers came to realise what a mighty force they represented when they acted together in an organised way. In 1840 there was even an attempt to found a united Chartist party, the first ever working-class party.

p As the Chartist movement grew and gained ever wider support drawing lessons from its successes and failures, the workers came to a clearer understanding of the world around them and lost many of their former illusions. The second Charter included social as well as political demands—"knife and fork" questions, as they were then called. Hopes were voiced that it might be possible to gain the desired objectives by means of a general strike. The Chartist movement was led by capable, dedicated champions of the working-class cause: O’Brien, Feargus O’Connor, G. J. Harney and Ernest Jones. However, even these outstanding workers’ leaders failed to lead their followers along the correct path. The Chartists had not yet reached a clear understanding of the role of the working class and the need for coherent organisation.

The Chartist movement, which reached its peak in the spring of 1848, proved unable to make full use of its wide influence and 409 soon began to decline. However, the first independent mass political movement of the proletariat was to serve as an inspiring example. After the Chartist movement, the struggle for workingclass emancipation was to enter a new, more advanced stage.

Utopian Socialism

p The writers of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution had held out promises of the dawn of the "golden age”, a reign of reason, freedom and justice. In practice, however, feudal oppression was replaced by merciless capitalist exploitation and the absolute rule of money. The marked contrast between alluring promises and grim reality gave food for thought to many progressive individuals of those times.

p Even at that early stage of capitalist development there were already a number of enlightened minds who had grasped the vices of the capitalist system and announced the dawn of a new, better and more just social order. Later they were to be referred to as Utopian Socialists.

Among these men three great thinkers take pride of place—Saint-Simon (1760-1825), Fourier (1772-1837) and Robert Owen (1771-1858). Saint-Simon was from an aristocratic family and had been educated accordingly; during the revolution he had been engaged in commerce and had then become an inventory clerk in a pawnshop. He was thus able to gain experience of the living and working conditions of all sections of society and see at close quarters all the horrors of the new order. Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen, who all lived in advanced capitalist countries, subjected the capitalist world to harsh and utterly justified criticism and described their concept of a just society of the future. The great significance of their works lies in the fact that they called upon people to free themselves from the fetters of capitalist bondage. However, they failed to grasp the right ways to go about this and to attain a better society. All that they proposed was naive and impracticable. They were not even aware of which class, which social force was in a position to transform the world, to do away with oppression and liberate mankind from exploitation and the concomitant social evils.

German Classical Philosophy

In the German states, where economic development was advancing slowly and class contradictions had not yet brought about an open revolutionary struggle, far-reaching social processes and the 410 mounting tide of social discontent were to find their expression first and foremost in philosophy and literature. The Golden Age of German literature at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century was linked above all with the names of two great writers—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) and Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). The most prominent figures among the German philosophers of that period were Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854) and Georg Hegel (1770-1831). While Hegel himself remained an idealist, he introduced the dialectical method into philosophical thought and his influence on the intellectual life of his age was immense.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.
The Birth of Scientific Communism

p Only after the workers’ movement had gained considerable experience and the working class had become more organised, was it possible for a genuinely scientific theory to come into being which would prove compatible with the historic mission of the proletariat. This theory was to provide a systematic exposition of the laws of social development and the ways in which the transition to a superior classless social order, that of communism, could be achieved. The authors of this theory were the great leaders of the working class Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

p Karl Marx, the son of a lawyer, was born on May 5, 1818, in the German town of Trier. While still at school and during his student years Marx was to reveal striking gifts. The path to illustrious scholarship, which would have brought him honour, fame and riches, was open to him, but this was not the path Marx chose: from an early age he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the revolutionary struggle and turned his great mind to the study of the laws of social development. At the age of 25 he left Germany and went to live first in Paris and Brussels, before finally settling in England. His friendship with Frederick Engels (1820-1895) dates from the year 1844; Engels was the son of a factory owner who instead of complying with his father’s wishes and devoting his energies to the pursuit of wealth, dedicated himself like Marx to the revolutionary struggle. Marx and Engels read and studied many of the works that had been written on the social science by their predecessors, subjecting them to critical analysis. They also made a study of the history of the revolutionary movement and the theory of socialism with particular reference to the French Revolution, German classical philosophy and English political economy. After critically analysing former 411 achievements in the social sciences, with direct reference to the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, Marx and Engels created a qualitatively completely new theory, that of scientific socialism, and elaborated tactics for the proletarian struggle. Progressive bourgeois scholars before them had already revealed the class struggle in social development but it was Marx and Engels who—after arriving at a materialist interpretation of history and formulating the inherent economic laws of capitalist society—were the first to understand and substantiate the fact that the class destined to transform the world and the only truly revolutionary class, free from all self-interested and egoistic goals, was the proletariat. "’The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.” Being the most revolutionary class, the proletariat was destined to become the leader and champion of all the oppressed and exploited, of all the working masses, to lead them in the struggle to destroy the capitalist order.

Marxism was to demonstrate that the proletariat was the only class which would make use of the power it gained not only to promote its own class interests but also the interests of mankind, of society as a whole. After overthrowing the bourgeoisie, the working class would establish its own dictatorship, the dictatorship of the proletariat, which would hold sway until the transition to a classless society, to communism, had been effected. This new social theory elaborated on a scientific basis by Marx and Engels was to possess immeasurable significance for mankind’s future; this theory was to become a powerful force once it gripped the imagination of the masses.

The Communist League

p Before Marx and Engels the labour movement and socialism had been developing different paths. In 1847 the first international proletarian organisation, the Communist League, was set up with the active participation of Marx and Engels. Side by side with the then popular slogan of one of the Utopian Socialist organisations "All Men Are Brothers" a new slogan was held aloft: ”Workers of the World, Unite!" At first sight it may have seemed that the Utopian Socialist slogan was of a broader and more humanistic nature—but could factory owners be regarded as brothers of the workers? Could landowners be regarded as brothers of the peasants or colonialists as brothers of the oppressed Africans and mestizos? "All Men Are Brothers" is a slogan that serves to embellish the real situation, to sow dangerous illusions. The new slogan adopted by the Communist League demonstrated unmistakably that the solution of the tasks of the future was 412 inextricably linked with the class of the proletariat, united on a world-wide scale.

At the Second Congress of the Communist League, held in London in 1847, Marx and Engels were allotted the task of drawing up a programme for the League. At the beginning of the next year, Manifesto of the Communist Party was printed, a slim volume in which Marx and Engels outlined the basic principles of scientific communism. This book had a great future before it: since it was first published over a hundred years ago, more than a hundred different editions have been brought out and it has been translated into almost every language. Yet even in those far-off days when it first appeared, it was to produce an enormous impact. Manifesto of the Communist Party meant that henceforward the labour movement and socialism were no longer two separate currents; they merged together and thus came to constitute an invincible force.