The Failure of Socialism as an international Cause

The Failure of Socialism as an internationalist Cause Alfred Vierling A) Socialism has long harboured the promiss of ending slavery, racism, colonialism and nationalism. The presumed inevitable rise of the working classes would tear down the structure of... More

The Failure of Socialism as an internationalist Cause Alfred Vierling A) Socialism has long harboured the promiss of ending slavery, racism, colonialism and nationalism. The presumed inevitable rise of the working classes would tear down the structure of society and build a worldwide brotherhood of people. The reality is that socialism has hardly taken root and is seldom detached from nationalism. In this exposé I would like to sketch of brief history of socialism and the failure of its cause. Marx and Engels Many regard the Communist Manifesto of 1848, written by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx as the birth of modern socialism. Marx and Engels were revolutionary in their way of thinking about the future, but they were not insensitive to the widespread nationalism in their own time. Marx and Engels, who were Germans by culture, did not show a lot of sympathy for the struggle of the Slavs against the oppression by the Habsburg and Romanov monarchies. Engels wrote in Neue Rheinisch Less