Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishment of communism. The function of the Leninist vanguard party is to provide the working classes with the political consciousness and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism in the Russian Empire (1721–1917).
Socialism is a political philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic and social systems, which are characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can be public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. While no single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism, social ownership is the one common element, and is considered left-wing. Different types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, on the structure of management in organizations, and from below or from above approaches, with some socialists favouring a party, state, or technocratic-driven approach. Socialists disagree on whether government, particularly existing government, is the correct vehicle for change.
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an orthodox Marxist, a revolutionary Marxist, and Bolshevik–Leninist, a follower of Marx, Engels, and Vladimir Lenin, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg. He supported founding a vanguard party of the proletariat, proletarian internationalism, and a dictatorship of the proletariat based on working-class self-emancipation and mass democracy. Trotskyists are critical of Stalinism as they oppose Joseph Stalin's theory of socialism in one country in favour of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. Trotskyists criticize the bureaucracy and anti-democratic current developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin.
Bolshevism is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, focused on overthrowing the existing capitalist state system, seizing power and establishing the "dictatorship of the proletariat".
Socialist Studies is the name of a quarterly socialist periodical and of the group which publishes it. The group was founded in 1991 by sixteen expelled members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) who claim that their expulsions were the result of an anti-socialist conspiracy. Though small, the group has remained an active and vocal critic of the SPGB since its inception.
The Workers' Socialist Federation was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom, led by Sylvia Pankhurst. Under many different names, it gradually broadened its politics from a focus on women's suffrage to eventually become a left communist grouping.
The Socialist Propaganda League was a tiny socialist group active in London from about 1911 to 1951.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain has weathered a number of internal disputes since its foundation in 1904, some of which have led to organisational breakaways.
Edgar Richard "Hardy" Hardcastle was a theoretician of Marxist economics.
The Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) is a socialist political party in Canada, affiliated with the World Socialist Movement.
Solidarity was a small libertarian socialist organisation from 1960 to 1992 in the United Kingdom. It published a magazine of the same name. Solidarity was close to council communism in its prescriptions and was known for its emphasis on workers' self-organisation and for its radical anti-Leninism.
The Mensheviks were a left-wing socialist faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) within the Russian socialist movement. The other significant faction were the Bolsheviks.
Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for transitioning from a capitalist to a socialist mode of production. Revolution is not necessarily defined as a violent insurrection; it is defined as a seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the state is directly controlled or abolished by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) is a socialist political party in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1904 as a split from the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), it advocates using the ballot box for revolutionary purposes and opposes both Leninism and reformism. It holds that countries which claimed to have established socialism had only established "state capitalism" and was one of the first to describe the Soviet Union as state capitalist. The party's political position has been described as a form of impossibilism.
The World Socialist Movement (WSM) is an international organisation of socialist parties created in 1904 with the founding of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB).
Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged after the death of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and which became the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the First World War in 1914. Orthodox Marxism aims to simplify, codify and systematize Marxist method and theory by clarifying the perceived ambiguities and contradictions of classical Marxism.
The Western Clarion was a newspaper launched in January 1903 that became the official organ of the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC). At one time it was the leading left-wing newspaper in Canada. It lost influence after 1910–11 when various groups broke away from the SPC. The editors were unsympathetic to women's demands for the vote and the right to work for pay. During World War I (1914–14) the Western Clarion was internationalist and denounced a war in which workers fought while others profited. Following the Russian Revolution it adopted a pro-Bolshevik stance, The paper was banned in 1918, but allowed to resume publication in 1920. Its circulation dwindled as SPC membership dwindled, and the last issue appeared in 1925.
The history of socialism has its origins in the Age of Enlightenment and the 1789 French Revolution along with the changes that it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-48 just before the Revolutions of 1848 swept Europe, expressing what they termed scientific socialism. In the last third of the 19th century parties dedicated to Democratic socialism arose in Europe, drawing mainly from Marxism. The Australian Labor Party was the world's first elected socialist party when it formed government in the Colony of Queensland for a week in 1899.
Moses Baritz was a British music journalist and socialist activist.
