ABSTRACT
The contrast between the labour movement at the dawn of the twentieth century and its condition at the onset of the new millennium is stark indeed. The European labour movement was then in an expansionary phase, with its leading sections determined to win political power and assert working class interests. Marxism was the dominant ideology. The works of Kautsky and Bebel, which popularized Marxism, attracted the leaders of the working-class movement and the activists who followed them. Theory was condensed into three simple propositions (Sassoon 1996: 6). Firstly, the capitalist system is unfair. Juridical equality between parties disguises a real inequality: the capitalists ‘cheat’ workers by appropriating far more than they pay in wages and other necessary production costs. This appropriation is the source of the disproportionate wealth, power and influence of this class. Secondly, history proceeds through stages. The present stage is transient. Thirdly, workers are a fundamentally homogeneous class, despite the obvious differences that exist. All workers are united by the struggle to improve their conditions and achieve real rather than mere formal equality. To realize this, workers need to organize into political parties and unions that seek to attain these goals.
