Socialism: A Very Short Introduction Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide. The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology. Very Short Introductions available now: ANARCHISM Colin Ward CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw CLASSICS Mary Beard and ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY John Henderson Julia Annas CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard ANCIENT WARFARE THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon Harry Sidebottom CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE Continental Philosophy John Blair Simon Critchley ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia COSMOLOGY Peter Coles ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn CRYPTOGRAPHY ARCHITECTURE Fred Piper and Sean Murphy Andrew Ballantyne DADA AND SURREALISM ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes David Hopkins ART HISTORY Dana Arnold Darwin Jonathan Howard ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland Democracy Bernard Crick THE HISTORY OF DESCARTES Tom Sorell ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin DINOSAURS David Norman Atheism Julian Baggini DREAMING J. Allan Hobson Augustine Henry Chadwick DRUGS Leslie Iversen BARTHES Jonathan Culler THE EARTH Martin Redfern THE BIBLE John Riches EGYPTIAN MYTH BRITISH POLITICS Geraldine Pinch Anthony Wright EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY Buddha Michael Carrithers BRITAIN Paul Langford BUDDHISM Damien Keown THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown EMOTION Dylan Evans CAPITALISM James Fulcher EMPIRE Stephen Howe THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe ENGELS Terrell Carver CHOICE THEORY Ethics Simon Blackburn Michael Allingham The European Union CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson John Pinder EVOLUTION MEDIEVAL BRITAIN Brian and Deborah Charlesworth John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths FASCISM Kevin Passmore MODERN ART David Cottington FOUCAULT Gary Gutting MODERN IRELAND Senia Pasˇe t a THE FRENCH REVOLUTION MOLECULES Philip Ball William Doyle MUSIC Nicholas Cook FREE WILL Thomas Pink Myth Robert A. Segal Freud Anthony Storr NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner Galileo Stillman Drake NINETEENTH-CENTURY Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and GLOBALIZATION H. C. G. Matthew Manfred Steger NORTHERN IRELAND GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin Marc Mulholland HABERMAS PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close James Gordon Finlayson paul E. P. Sanders HEGEL Peter Singer Philosophy Edward Craig HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson Samir Okasha HINDUISM Kim Knott PLATO Julia Annas HISTORY John H. Arnold POLITICS Kenneth Minogue HOBBES Richard Tuck POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY HUME A. J. Ayer David Miller IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden POSTCOLONIALISM Indian Philosophy Robert Young Sue Hamilton POSTMODERNISM Intelligence Ian J. Deary Christopher Butler ISLAM Malise Ruthven POSTSTRUCTURALISM JUDAISM Norman Solomon Catherine Belsey Jung Anthony Stevens PREHISTORY Chris Gosden KAFKA Ritchie Robertson PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY KANT Roger Scruton Catherine Osborne KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner Psychology Gillian Butler and THE KORAN Michael Cook Freda McManus LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews QUANTUM THEORY LITERARY THEORY John Polkinghorne Jonathan Culler RENAISSANCE ART LOCKE John Dunn Geraldine A. Johnson LOGIC Graham Priest ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler THE MARQUIS DE SADE RUSSELL A. C. Grayling John Phillips RUSSIAN LITERATURE MARX Peter Singer Catriona Kelly MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope S. A. Smith SCHIZOPHRENIA SPINOZA Roger Scruton Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone STUART BRITAIN SCHOPENHAUER John Morrill Christopher Janaway TERRORISM Charles Townshend SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer THEOLOGY David F. Ford SOCIAL AND CULTURAL THE TUDORS John Guy ANTHROPOLOGY TWENTIETH-CENTURY John Monaghan and Peter Just BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan SOCIALISM Michael Newman Wittgenstein A. C. Grayling SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman Socrates C. C. W. Taylor THE WORLD TRADE THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR ORGANIZATION Helen Graham Amrita Narlikar Available soon: AFRICAN HISTORY HUMAN EVOLUTION John Parker and Richard Rathbone Bernard Wood THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CHAOS Leonard Smith Paul Wilkinson CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy JAZZ Brian Morton CONTEMPORARY ART JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves Julian Stallabrass MANDELA Tom Lodge THE CRUSADES THE MIND Martin Davies Christopher Tyerman NATIONALISM Steven Grosby THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS PERCEPTION Richard Gregory Timothy Lim PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Derrida Simon Glendinning Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot DESIGN John Heskett PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta RACISM Ali Rattansi THE END OF THE WORLD THE RAJ Denis Judd Bill McGuire THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn ROMAN EMPIRE FEMINISM Margaret Walters Christopher Kelly THE FIRST WORLD WAR SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt Michael Howard A HISTORY OF TIME FOSSILS Keith Thomson Leofranc Holford-Strevens FUNDAMENTALISM TRAGEDY Adrian Poole Malise Ruthven THE VIKINGS Julian Richards For more information visit our web site www.oup.co.uk/vsi/ Michael Newman Socialism A Very Short Introduction 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Michael Newman 2005 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as a Very Short Introduction 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0–19–280431–6 EAN 978–0–19–280431–0 13579108642 Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall Contents Acknowledgements ix List of illustrations xi Introduction 1 1 Socialist traditions 6 2 Cuban communism and Swedish social democracy 47 3 New Lefts – enrichment and fragmentation 84 4 Socialism today and tomorrow 117 References 155 Further reading 159 Index 163 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgements Writing a very short book on a vast subject has been a great challenge, and I am grateful to all those at Oxford University Press who have given me this opportunity. In particular, I would like to thank Marsha Filion for her helpful suggestions and Alyson Lacewing for her skilful copy- editing. I very much appreciate the comments on earlier drafts by Kate Soper, Richard Kuper, Marjorie Mayo, my daughter Kate, and an anonymous referee. I am also conscious of many people who have influenced my thinking about socialism, particularly the late Peter Seltman, an inspiring colleague to whose memory I would like to dedicate this work. But as always, I owe most of all to Ines for her constant encouragement and support, our ongoing dialogue on the subject matter, and her cogent criticisms. My aims have been to provide an accessible introduction while simultaneously providing food for thought on a controversial topic. I hope not to cause those who disagree with my interpretation too much indigestion! This page intentionally left blank List of illustrations 1 Plan for New 7 Leon Trotsky 43 Harmony, Indiana 13 © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/ © Corbis Corbis 2 Notification of a meeting 8 Lenin at the Second of the International Congress of the Working Men’s Communist Association 18 International 45 © Corbis Marx Memorial Library 9 Children in a daycare 3 Women leading a march centre in Sweden 57 during the Paris © Jonathan Blair/Corbis Commune, 1871 20 © Corbis 10 Fidel Castro 66 © Bettmann/Corbis 4 Cartoon showing Otto von Bismarck keeping down 11 Protests in Paris, May socialism 31 1968 86 © Bettmann/Corbis © Corbis Sygma 5 L’Internationale 12 Alexandra Kollontai 93 lithograph 33 SCR Photo Library © Bettmann/Corbis 13 Simone de Beauvoir 96 6 Rosa Luxemburg 42 © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/ © Mary Evans/Weimar Archive Corbis 14 Environmental protest, 17 The Berlin Wall 131 1986 103 © STR/Reuters © Bettmann/Corbis 18 ‘Drop the Debt’, Jubilee 15 Pledge on the Tree 2000 protest 134 of Life 108 © Hugo Philpott/AFP/Getty © Mark Edwards/Still Pictures Images 16 Beyond the 19 IMF/World Bank Fragments 114