A History of Labor Movements and Imperialism

What Was Chartism?

Chartism was the second stage of the labor movement. It consisted of participation in politics to improve workers' lives. Workers wrote a document called the People's Charter, which included some vindications such as:

• Male universal suffrage
• Yearly elections
• Secret ballots
• Wages for worker politicians

This movement happened between 1838 and 1848 but it failed as their vindications were not accepted and the protests became too radical. However, the revolutions of 1848 did not spread to the UK, as the government agreed to improve the working conditions of women and children.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the first and main thinkers of socialism.

Class Struggle

Class struggle is the fight between a social class that owns the means of production and another social class that doesn't own them. According to Marx, the first class is the oppressor and the second one is oppressed.

International Workingmen's Association

The International Workingmen's Association was the first workers' institution with an international character. It tried to make compatible the ideas of Marxism and anarchism. It was created in 1864 and dissolved in 1876, due to the differences between Marxists and anarchists.

Second International

The Second International was the second attempt to create an international organization to defend workers' rights and improve their living conditions. It existed between 1889 and 1923 and the headquarters was in Paris. It joined people who defended Marxism and social democracy, but it didn't try to generate a single ideology. It just coordinated the action of trade unions all over the world. One of those actions was setting an international date for celebrating their social conquests: Labor Day, May 1st.

Age of Imperialism

The Age of Imperialism was a period at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th when European powers set up colonies in Africa or Asia. It started in the 1870s and finished in 1914 with the beginning of World War I. The powers experiencing the second industrial revolution were:

• UK
• France
• Germany
• Belgium
• Italy
• The Netherlands
• Russia
• Spain

Jules Ferry

Jules Ferry was the Prime Minister of France between 1880-1881 and between 1883-1886. He was a Republican in favor of secularism and he passed a law to recognize divorce as a right.

Georges Clemenceau

Georges Clemenceau was a Republican politician and he became the Prime Minister of France between 1906-1909 and between 1917-1920.

Berlin Conference

The Berlin Conference was a meeting celebrated in the capital of Germany and summoned by Otto Von Bismarck. It took place between 1884-1885. European powers participated and elaborated a final act with the conditions for a colony to be internationally recognized:

• Effective control was indispensable for the recognition of a colony
• Free navigation of the rivers Congo and Niger
• Free trade in Central America