Socialism in Russia Essay Example for Free

Socialism in Russia Essay Socialism has its origins in the French Revolution of 1789 and the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848 just before the Revolutions of 1848 swept Europe, expressing what they termed scientific socialism. In the last third of the 19th century in Europe social democratic parties arose in Europe drawing mainly from Marxism. The Australian Labor Party was the worlds first elected socialist party. In 1903, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party began to split on ideological and organizational questions into Bolshevik (Majority) and Menshevik (Minority) factions, with Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin leading the more radical Bolsheviks. Both wings accepted that Russia was an economically backward country unripe for socialism. The Mensheviks awaited the capitalist revolution in Russia. But Lenin argued that a revolution of the workers and peasants would achieve this task. After the Russian revolution of 1905, Leon Trotsky argued that unlike the French revolution of 1789 and the European Revolutions of 1848 against absolutism, the capitalist class would never organize a revolution in Russia to overthrow absolutism, and that this task fell to the working class who, liberating the peasantry from their feudal yoke, would then immediately pass on to the socialist tasks and seek a permanent revolution to achieve international socialism. Nationalist tried to create regional self-government for the Assyrian people with the socialist ideology. He even wrote the Uremia Manifesto of the United Free Assyria. However, his attempt was put to an end