Portal:Socialism

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The Socialism portal

Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, socialism is considered as the standard left-wing ideology in most countries. Types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, and the structure of management in organizations.

The socialist political movement includes political philosophies that originated in the revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 18th century and out of concern for the social problems that socialists associated with capitalism. By the late 19th century, after the work of Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels, socialism had come to signify anti-capitalism and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production. By the early 1920s, communism and social democracy had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement, with socialism itself becoming the most influential secular movement of the 20th century. Many socialists also adopted the causes of other social movements, such as feminism, environmentalism, and progressivism. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article

The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. As one of the founding organisations of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, and as an important influence upon the Labour Party which grew from it, the Fabian Society has had a powerful influence on British politics. Other members of the Fabian Society have included political leaders from countries formerly part of the British Empire, such as Jawaharlal Nehru, who adopted Fabian principles as part of their own political ideologies.

Today, the society functions primarily as a think tank and is one of 15 socialist societies affiliated with the Labour Party. Similar societies exist in Australia (the Australian Fabian Society), in Canada (the Douglas–Coldwell Foundation and the now disbanded League for Social Reconstruction), in Sicily (Sicilian Fabian Society) and in New Zealand (The NZ Fabian Society).

More selected articles

Read more...

Selected biography - show another

Official portrait, 1970

Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 1970 until his death in 1973. As a socialist committed to democracy, he has been described as the first Marxist to be elected president in a liberal democracy in Latin America. Allende's involvement in Chilean politics spanned a period of nearly forty years, during which he held various positions including senator, deputy, and cabinet minister. As a life-long committed member of the Socialist Party of Chile, whose foundation he had actively contributed to, he unsuccessfully ran for the national presidency in the 1952, 1958, and 1964 elections. In 1970, he won the presidency as the candidate of the Popular Unity coalition in a close three-way race. He was elected in a run-off by Congress, as no candidate had gained a majority. In office, Allende pursued a policy he called "The Chilean Path to Socialism". The coalition government was far from unanimous. Allende said that he was committed to democracy and represented the more moderate faction of the Socialist Party, while the radical wing sought a more radical course. Instead, the Communist Party of Chile favored a gradual and cautious approach that sought cooperation with Christian democrats, which proved influential for the Italian Communist Party and the Historic Compromise.

As president, Allende sought to nationalize major industries, expand education, and improve the living standards of the working class. He clashed with the right-wing parties that controlled Congress and with the judiciary. On 11 September 1973, the military moved to oust Allende in a coup d'état supported by the CIA, which initially denied the allegations. In 2000, the CIA admitted its role in the 1970 kidnapping of General René Schneider who had refused to use the army to stop Allende's inauguration. Declassified documents released in 2023 showed that US president Richard Nixon, his national security advisor Henry Kissinger, and the United States government, which had branded Allende as a dangerous communist, were aware of the military's plans to overthrow Allende's democratically elected government in the days before the coup d'état. As troops surrounded La Moneda Palace, Allende gave his last speech vowing not to resign. Later that day, Allende died by suicide in his office; the exact circumstances of his death are still disputed. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

General images

The following are images from various socialism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1New Harmony, a utopian attempt as proposed by Robert Owen (from History of socialism)
Image 2Project Cybersyn was an early form of computational economic planning (from Socialism)
Image 3Encounter between Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Che Guevara in Cuba, three radical icons of the 1960s (from History of socialism)
Image 4Arabic letters "Lam" and "Alif" reading "Lā" (Arabic for "No!") are a symbol of Islamic Socialism in Turkey. (from Socialism)
Image 5Pierre Leroux founder of the Parisian newspaper Le Globe in which the term socialism first appeared (from History of socialism)
Image 6Socialists in Union Square, New York City on May Day 1912 (from Socialism)
Image 7World Map of Socialist countries in 1985 (from History of socialism)
Image 8Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana and theorist of African socialism, on a Soviet Union commemorative postage stamp (from History of socialism)
Image 9Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist Vladimir Lenin in 1920 (from Socialism)
Image 10Leonid Brezhnev (from History of socialism)
Image 11Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, main theorist of mutualism and influential French socialist thinker (from Socialism)
Image 12Man, Controller of the Universe produced by Mexican artist Diego Rivera (from Socialism)
Image 13Statue of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in Alexanderplatz, Berlin (from History of socialism)
Image 14Presidents Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela in World Social Forum for Latin America (from History of socialism)
Image 15Edward Carpenter, philosopher and activist who was instrumental in the foundation of the Fabian Society and the Labour Party as well as in the early LGBTI western movements (from Socialism)
Image 16Eduard Bernstein
Image 17Mikhail Bakunin speaking to members of the IWA at the Basel Congress in 1869 (from History of socialism)
Image 18Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin opposed the Marxist aim of dictatorship of the proletariat in favour of universal rebellion and allied himself with the federalists in the First International before his expulsion by the Marxists (from History of socialism)
Image 19Barricades Boulevard Voltaire, Paris during the uprising known as the Paris Commune (from History of socialism)
Image 20New Harmony, a utopian attempt as proposed by Robert Owen (from Socialism)
Image 21Noam Chomsky, an American libertarian socialist (from History of socialism)
Image 22Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, founder of French socialism (from History of socialism)
Image 23Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, early French socialist (from Socialism)
Image 24The Soviet of Workers' Deputies of St. Petersburg in 1905, Trotsky in the center. The soviets were an early example of a workers council. (from Socialism)
Image 25R. H. Tawney, founder of ethical socialism (from Socialism)
Image 26Albert Einstein advocated for a socialist planned economy with his 1949 article "Why Socialism?" (from History of socialism)
Image 27Albert Einstein advocated for a socialist planned economy with his 1949 article "Why Socialism?" (from Socialism)
Image 28Mao Zedong in 1959 (from History of socialism)
Image 29The Soviet of Workers' Deputies of St. Petersburg in 1905, Trotsky in the center. The soviets were an early example of a workers council. (from History of socialism)
Image 30The writings of Karl Marx provided the basis for the development of Marxist political theory and Marxian economics. (from Socialism)
Image 31Socialist feminist Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg in 1910 (from Socialism)
Image 32The first anarchist journal to use the term libertarian was Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social, published in New York City between 1858 and 1861 by French libertarian communist Joseph Déjacque, the first recorded person to describe himself as libertarian. (from Socialism)
Image 33Alexis Tsipras, socialist Prime Minister of Greece who led the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) through a victory in the January 2015 Greek legislative election (from History of socialism)

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that by mid-1920, hundreds of German and Austrian communists fought in Red Army units in Turkestan?
... that Martine Froger was elected to the National Assembly of France without the support of the national leadership of her party?
... that the Eurovision Song Contest 1990, held in Yugoslavia, was the first Eurovision Song Contest to be held in the Balkans or in a socialist state?
... that following the ban of its labour unions in 1934, the Romanian United Socialist Party would rely on its youth and women's wings for political action?
... that although the 1950 Mexican film Un día de vida (pamphlet pictured) bombed with domestic audiences, it became a classic in Yugoslavia?
... that Julia Dawson's first Clarion Van was named for Scottish socialist Caroline Martyn?
... that the Lithuanian-Belorussian Soviet Republic exchanged 13 detained German diplomats for 24 jailed leaders of the Kaunas Soviet of Workers Deputies?

Related portals

Topics

Subcategories

Category puzzle

Want to find an article related to socialism? Try browsing through any of the main categories below:

Select [►] to view subcategories

Selected quotation

“

The National Health Service and the Welfare State have come to be used as interchangeable terms, and in the mouths of some people as terms of reproach. Why this is so it is not difficult to understand, if you view everything from the angle of a strictly individualistic competitive society. A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society. To call it something for nothing is absurd because everything has to be paid for in some way or another.

”

— Aneurin Bevan, sixteenth U.K. Minister of Health, In Place of Fear, 1952

...Archive