Socialism and Education

From 1870, European governments were becoming increasingly anxious at what they perceived as the growing threat of socialism and working class movements. Reasons for this fear derived from the myth and example of the 1871 Paris Commune, the growth in International Working Men’s Associations, universal suffrage and the growth of an industrial workforce. The urban working class had begin organising themselves in an attempt to achieve better conditions.

There were two methods by which they organised themselves. Firstly, parliamentary seats were sought and won and reforms were achieved in the political arena. Secondly, improvements were sought by strikes or revolution. Many people become confused by the concepts of communism and socialism. Both political philosophies aim to create a classless society where the means of production, distribution and exchange are owned by the community. They differ in that socialists maintain that they can achieve such an objective through democracy while communists insist that this is impossible. In Marxist terminology the terms have a further difference where socialism is regarded as a transitional phase between capitalism and communism when society is governed by the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’.

Marx advocated the abolition of private property and the establishment of a society where the community owned all the means of production. He believed that a working class revolt against its capitalist masters would be the means to effect this transformation. The German philosopher, Hegel was a major influence on Marx. Hegel contended that events evolved dialectically, to explain this concept he employed the terms thesis, antithesis and synthesis.