Various branches of socialism

[ComTom]

I am very aware of the beliefs of trotskyist, maoist, and etc. But before, during, and shortly after Marx's life, I have been very confused with the beliefs of other socialist at that time. I heard Marx talking about the utopian socialist, and I didn't understand it! I read Utopia by Thomas Moore or whoever wrote it, and I didn't understand it! I also have read about Lasalle, and how he competed with Marx at time, what was his beliefs in Socialism? What about Kautusky? Who was he, what is Kautauskyism or however you spell his name?

[Morpheus]

The phrase "utopian socialist" is a perjorative term applied to a trend common among socialists in the early 19th century. They didn't call themselves that, that's what their opponets eventually started calling them. Sometimes it is also applied (usually by Marxist-Leninists) against rival forms of socialism as a kind of name-calling (eg. some call anarchists "utopian socialists" even though anarchists don't have much in common with them).

Utopian socialism arose as a reaction against the ravages brought about by capitalism & the industrial revolution, which were newly ascendant in this time period. Although some of them eventually gained signifigant working class followings, it started as more of an intellectual thing. They saw all the poverty & problems brought about by capitalism and sought to fix those problems using the same rational enlightenment methodology which had recently been employed to overthrow the old regime.

They often sketched out the future socialist society they sought to establish in extreme detail. Things like the design of buildings or what people would drink were sometimes laid out. Sometimes this included really strange things, like transforming lakes into lemonade. Most weren't all that fond of freedom or individuality, either. Their visions & communes could be very authoritarian and paternialistic. Fourier was a partial exception to this, IIRC.

Most shied away from class struggle, often favoring the setting up of intentional communities instead. Basically people would separate themselves from society, get together and build their own little micro-society organized the way they wanted to organize all of society. Some supporters of these intentional communities hope that they will eventually spread and convert all of society to their way, but most eventually collapsed because they were trying to build socialism within a capitalist context. Some also hoped that they could convince rich people to support their socialist schemes (which would lead to the rich implementing socialism) and that these intentional communities would prove that socialism could work.

You can find more about them at http://www.marxists.org/subject/utopian/index.htm or http://www.marxists.org/reference/index.htm

LaSalle was a German socialist and a rival of Marx. In his lifetime LaSalle was probably more popular than Marx, actually. LaSalle basically worshipped the state and saw it as the vehicle through which socialism should be implemented. His views of the state were similar to Hegels, IIRC. He didn't think revolution was necessary to achieve socialism and was constantly trying to get german governments to implement socialism. The German Social Democratic party was originally a coalition of LaSallists & Marxists, though the latter eventually became dominant.

Karl Kautsky was the most famous & respected Marxist leader from the time of Engel's death until the first world war. He was a leader in the German Social Democratic party and gravitated more towards the revolutionary left-wing of the party. Kautsky was eventually elected to the German parliament, and voted in favor of World War Won, which he later came to regret. On the Russian revolution he basically agreed with the Mensheviks that it should be bourgeois, and clashed with Lenin over how a proletarian state should be organized. You could consider him half menshevik, half bolsehvik I guess.

[Morpheus]

Also, you can find some of Kautsky's writings at http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/index.htm