POLITICAL AND

CULTURAL RESPONSES

TO A RAPIDLY

CHANGING WORLD

As European economies were being transformed by the Sec­
ond Industrial Revolution, states faced organized challenges from political
movements that rejected the economic, social, and political bases of those
states and demanded sweeping changes. Government officials, social reform­
ers, and politicians had to confront the difficult conditions of many workers
and their families—“the problem of problems,” as it was called in Britain.
Some states began to enact social reforms to improve the quality of life for
workers and other poor people.
At the same time, the growth of large socialist parties that wanted to
capture control of the state was one of the salient signs of the advent of
mass political life. Marxist socialists believed that inevitably a working-class
revolution would bring down capitalism. Reform socialists, in contrast,
believed that electoral victories could lead to a socialist state, and that

along the way to ultimate victory socialists could exert pressure on states
to improve conditions of life for ordinary people. Anarchists did not want
to seize the state, but rather to abolish it. Believing that violent acts would
provide a spark that would unleash a social revolution, a number of anar­
chists launched a campaign of terrorism at the turn of the century, carry­
ing out political assassinations. In parts of Europe, trade unionists known
as syndicalists (from the French word syndicats, trade unions) believed
that trade unions would provide not only the means by which workers
could take control of the state but also a blueprint of how society would be
organized after a successful revolution.

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CHAPTER 20