European Social Movements and National Unifications
European Social and Labor Movements
Key Political Parties and Organizations
- SPD (German Social Democratic Party): Founded in 1875, inspired by Marxism, the SPD promoted the creation of national unions.
- CNT (National Labor Confederation): A significant labor confederation.
- Labor Party: The standard-bearer of socialist thought in Great Britain, representing employment or employees.
- PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español): Held a radical stance against class collaboration with the bourgeoisie and was closely linked with the UGT.
- UGT (Unión General de Trabajadores): A major trade union in Spain.
Early Social Experiments and Worker Movements
- Falanserios: These were farming communities that developed in the United States, where property was collective, and tasks were shared by all.
- Mutual Aid Societies: These societies helped workers in case of sickness and unemployment, and they organized the first strikes.
- The Great Trade Union (GTU): Formed in 1834, it aimed to boost workers’ claims and promote production cooperatives, envisioning a new society (influenced by Owen and utopian socialism). However, the government arrested its leaders, and entrepreneurs would not employ their members.
- Chartism: The first movement with its own political project for workers. It emerged in Britain due to the persecution faced by members of the GTU.
National Unifications in 19th Century Europe
The Unification of Italy
Background and Early Attempts
In 1815, Italy was divided into states of unequal size and importance, with some areas under Austrian rule. In the 1830s, a national movement known as the Risorgimento emerged, which first articulated a political strategy for unification advocated by Giuseppe Mazzini and his organization, Young Italy. This envisioned the creation of a unitary, secular, democratic republic to be achieved through a popular uprising.
The failure of the revolutionary attempts of 1848-1849 resulted in continued Austrian domination, political fragmentation, and absolutist regimes. Only Piedmont consolidated into a constitutional state under the Savoy monarchy.
Strategies and Completion
Piedmont’s prime minister, Cavour, was the driver of a moderate strategy for unification. However, Italian unity resulted from the complementarity of both strategies, although the monarchy of Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy was the main beneficiary.
On the one hand, Cavour, with French help, defeated the Austrians in 1859, annexing Lombardy and the central states shortly after 1860. On the other hand, the republican Giuseppe Garibaldi (influenced by Mazzini) undertook the conquest of the south with a very small army, gaining popular support and liquidating the Bourbon regime.
The drive was completed with the annexation of Veneto after defeating the Austrians and the conquest of the Papal States, despite opposition from the Pope, who retained control only of the Vatican City State.
The Unification of Germany
Ideological Foundations and Early Steps
Since the late eighteenth century, the cultural components of German nationalism were laid down by philosophers Herder and Fichte and were refurbished with Romanticism. These ideological bases indicated a process leading to the formation of the German nation-state.
The first step toward unification was the creation of the Zollverein, or Customs Union, in 1834, which established a free-trade zone encompassing 26 million people. The Zollverein integrated Prussia, not Austria, and it began to highlight that Prussia would lead the unification process.
Bismarck’s Strategy and Military Victories
During the 1848 revolution, liberals succeeded in forming a democratic parliament in Frankfurt with representatives from different states elected by universal suffrage, which offered the crown of a possible united Germany to Prussian King Frederick William IV. However, the Prussian monarchy rejected the offer and any democratic path toward unification. Instead, it imposed the strategy of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who, from 1862, would direct Prussian unification through its military and economic supremacy.
This strategy comprised a first war with Denmark, which annexed the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, and another against Austria, which was defeated in 1866. Finally, a war against France allowed the Germanic states to unite against a common enemy, defeated at Sedan. The military victory led to the proclamation of the Second Reich and Emperor William I in 1871.