Marxism, Women’s Rights, and Cold War Conflicts
Marxism (Scientific Socialism)
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the works: The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital (1867). Marxist theory is based on three foundations:
- Analysis of the past: The class struggle (oppressed against oppressors) is the engine of history.
- Review of the present: It analyzes the operation of the capitalist system, exploitation, injustice (surplus), and a tendency toward concentration of capital (stronger companies will absorb smaller ones), leading to an inevitable final crisis.
- Future projection: Communist society (equal) will be achieved through the seizure of political power by the workers. Workers have to destroy capitalist society by revolution and create a new society without classes where everything is owned by the state. To reach this ideal situation, there would first have to be a transitional period of “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Feminism and Women’s Suffrage
Industrial society and liberalism did not bring significant changes to the political, legal, and economic status of women. They continued to be discriminated against compared to men. The way towards women’s work in factories and mines was opened, but under conditions of extreme exploitation and wage discrimination.
Women were blocked from professional areas of greater responsibility and higher education, being relegated in the case of the bourgeoisie to domestic life. Liberalism further affected the status of men, who first achieved census-based suffrage and later universal suffrage. Women were excluded from both systems for a long time.
These circumstances led to the birth of the suffrage movement in the second half of the 19th century. This movement claimed the right to vote for women as a precursor to feminism, that is, to achieve full equality of rights with men. The suffrage movement was not formed in large masses and rooted more strongly in middle-class urban women who possessed a degree of education. Working-class women prioritized their class claims over their interests as women. Rural women, because of their lower education, full-time work, lack of free time, and isolation, were the last and most reluctant to join the emancipation movements.
The main bearers of suffrage and later feminism were British and American, followed by Scandinavian and Dutch women. A well-known figure of the female emancipation movement was the British activist Emmeline Pankhurst. Another well-known activist was Emily Davison. In Spain, Concepción Arenal was a prominent figure.
The decisive turning point in the social awareness of women was reached in the First World War. In 1920, all British women who had completed 20 years of age were authorized to vote.
The Policy of Blocs: From the Korean War to the Vietnam War
The World in Two Blocs
After the Second World War, the differences between the global superpowers were clearly reflected. The planet was divided into two very different blocs: the US allies, defenders of capitalism, and countries in the orbit of the Soviet Union, under communist regimes.
This distinction led to the Cold War, in which the predominant feature in international relations between the US and the USSR was mutual distrust, resulting in a climate of global tension. That policy of mutual accusations and fear affected most countries, forcing them to take part in two powerful military blocs: NATO (comprising the US and its allies) in 1949 and the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet Union and its allies) in 1955.
The Korean War (1950-1953)
The first victim of the Cold War was the Korean people. For the first time, the confrontation between the West and the communist bloc came to fruition in a “hot war.”
The Korean War has its origins in the division into two occupation zones of this ancient Japanese protectorate after the defeat of the Tokyo regime in 1945. Separated by the 38th parallel, the Soviet and US occupations gave rise to two radically different regimes: North Korea, a pro-Soviet communist dictatorship under the iron hand of Kim Il Sung, and South Korea, a pro-American right-wing dictatorship under the leadership of Syngman Rhee. When the occupying powers withdrew in 1948 (USSR) and 1949 (US), two antagonistic states stood face to face.
The conflict began with the North Korean aggression in June 1950, which was responded to by US intervention in September of that year. In October, Chinese troops entered the peninsula in support of North Korea, which eventually led to a stabilization of fronts since 1951.
To break this tactical tie, General MacArthur, head of US troops fighting under the UN flag in Korea, even proposed the use of the atomic bomb and an attack on China. These proposals precipitated the reaction of President Truman, and MacArthur was replaced by General Ridgway in April 1951. It was well understood again what had already been seen in the Berlin blockade: during the Cold War, the two superpowers were prudent when they glimpsed the possibility of a direct confrontation between them.
The Korean War gave a global dimension to the Cold War and made Asia one of its main stages. In future conflicts, such as the colonial war in Indochina that began in 1946, in which the Viet Minh guerrillas fought French colonial power, conflicts became embedded in the Cold War.
The Vietnam War
The conflict in Indochina took place between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s. It confronted the US and the government of South Vietnam on one side against North Vietnam and the communist guerrillas operating in South Vietnam on the other. The war also extended to Laos and Cambodia. The Vietnam War was the longest in American history. This country experienced failure and frustration; it is without a doubt the most serious US failure in the Cold War.
The beginning of American involvement dates back to the early 1950s when they supported France’s desperate attempts to maintain its colonial presence in Indochina against the Viet Minh communist forces. The French defeat and the 1954 Geneva Accords, which enshrined the partition of Vietnam in two, led Washington to support the anti-communist regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam, facing communist North Vietnam, supported by the USSR.
In 1964, the situation seemed desperate for South Vietnam. The US, citing as justification the Tonkin incident against the destroyer Maddox on August 2, 1964, launched an open operation. The number of US soldiers went from 4,000 in 1962 to almost 500,000 in 1967. The massive bombings, the use of chemical agents, and the cruelty of the war, first retransmitted by the media, made US policy hugely unpopular in the Third World, the communist bloc, and significant parts of Western public opinion. Within the country, opposition to the war spread among youth movements linked against the system, such as the hippie movement.