Marxism.—The French Socialism of 1848 was crushed out in the series of events which led up to the Coup d' etat and the proclamation of the Second Empire. English Owenism had already shrunk up into a tiny sect, of ter giving birth to the co-operative movement, which speedily lost its original Socialist policy. Chart ism was already on the way to dissolution before the failure of the demonstrations and petition of 1848. The Communist League, the international body with which Marx was associated, disappeared in the wave of reaction which spread over Europe as one by one the revolutionary movements of 1848 were liquidated. Socialism remained alive only as the creed of isolated sects, often of exiles. It did not again grow to any considerable stature until the coming, in 1864, of Karl Marx's International Working Men's Association, commonly known as the "First International." The First International had its headquarters in England through out its earlier and influential years of life. But this does not mean that Socialism was strong in Great Britain. After the collapse of Chartism, the British working-class movement played for some time little part in politics, but devoted itself to the building up on moderate lines of strong trade unions and co-operative societies. In the early '6os, the leaders of the movement began a vigorous agitation for the extension of the franchise and the fuller legal recognition of trade union rights. The country was very prosper ous, and, aided by the prosperity, working-class organizations grew apace. Marx was able to enlist the sympathies of the British leaders for the task of economic and political agitation among the workers abroad; but they were never brought to accept his Social ist ideas, or made really conscious of the revolutionary policy for which the First International stood on the Continent.
Gradually, in the later '6os, Marx and his colleagues built up the International, in one country of ter another, into a powerful organi zation of which Governments became deeply afraid. Especially did it take root in Germany, where it gave birth to the Social Democratic Labour Party, headed by Marx's followers, August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht. Here Ferdinand Lassalle (1825– 1864) had founded his General Workmen's Union in 1863, and after his death the division between his followers and those of Marx persisted until 1875, when the two parties united on the basis of the famous "Gotha Programme," strongly criticized by Marx himself for its concessions to the Lassallian standpoint. In France, the Marxists contended for influence with the secret societies organized by Blanqui and his colleague, Barbes, and with the followers of Proudhon ; but they played, in Blanqui's absence in prison, the leading part in the ill-starred Paris Commune of 1871. The defeat of the Commune, and the savage repression which followed it, wiped out French Socialism, for the time, as an effective force. But there was soon a revival; and the Parti Ouvrier founded by Jules Guesde in 1875-76 was a strictly Marxist body. French Socialism, however, long continued to be torn asunder by conflicting tendencies, and especially by the strength of Proudhonist and Anarchist influences, which were dominant in the trade unions and prevented any effective alliance between the political and industrial forces. Not until 19°5 was
unity achieved even among the rival political groups ; and even then the hostility between the Socialists and the trade unions remained unappeased.
In Italy and Russia, Marxism had to contend with the powerful influence of Michael Bakunin, which eventually helped to tear the First International asunder. Bakunin founded, in 1868, an International Social Democratic Alliance, which was rather Anar chist than Socialist in doctrine. Temporary compromises were patched up ; but in 1872 at the Hague conference the quarrel again reached breaking point. Bakunin and his followers were expelled by the Marxists from the First International, and, on Marx's mo tion, the seat of the International was moved from London to New York, where it expired four years later. Its period of influence had virtually ended with the fall of the Paris Commune in 1871, which had scared away most of its more moderate supporters. But it left its permanent mark on Europe, by laying the foundation for the national Socialist parties which sprang up during the following decade in almost every country.
Meanwhile, in Great Britain, the great outburst of labour and trade union activity in the '6os and early '7os had been brought to an end by the serious trade slump of the later '7os. Between 1864 and 1874, it looked as if the British trade union leaders were well on the way to create a separate Labour Party. But of ter the slump, Labour, seriously weakened, fell back on a dependant alliance with the Liberal Party. Such working-class candidates as entered parliament sat there as Liberals, and Socialism, never strong, was wiped out as an effective influence.