Assignment One
What were the character and ideology of left-wing politics in the years 1789 to 1848? How did this politics reflect changes in contemporary society?
This assignment looks at left-wing politics from the French Revolution to 1848. You can choose to range widely (looking at the politics of the Sans-Culottes, Utopian Socialism, and English working-class radicalism and/or Chartism) or you may prefer to focus on a more in-depth analysis on one or more of these topics.
Points to consider might include:
· Who were the personnel of the Left? How should they be characterised in social terms?
· In terms of their programme, to what extent did left-wing movements look back to a pre-industrial “Golden Age” and to what extent did their ideas reflect emergent capitalism and the needs and interests of a new working class?
· To what extent was their analysis political rather than economic?
How might it be argued that the ideology of left-wing politics limited its potential for realising major reform?
Your paper should be 4 to 5 pages in length (around 1000 words). It should include a bibliography of your reading. It should include citations to arguments or detail which emerge from your reading.
The Assignment Grading Rubric may clarify what I am looking for and the grading scheme used.
Note also: Advice on writing essays and Rules on Plagiarism
Reading:
Albert Lindemann, A History of European Socialism, pp25-34 (on Paine, Godwin, Bentham, Cobbett), pp64-66 (deal with origins of Chartism in the 1830s), pp70-71 (on Chartism)
On
the French Revolution:
Professor Gwynne Lewis, "The
'People' and the French Revolution" (a detailed analysis of the
personnel and ideals of the lower class participation in the Revolution)
Primary:
The Sans Culotte Programme, Section de Sans Culotte, 2 September 1793
What Is A Sans Culotte? (A contemporary view from a Sans Culotte)
Albert Fried and Ronald Sanders (eds), Socialist Thought. A Documentary History:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Discourse on the Origin of the Inequality of Man”, p33
“Gracchus” Babeuf, Letter to Dubois de Fosseux, July 8, 1787, pp46-51
Sylvain Marechal, “Manifesto of the Equals”, pp51-55
Analysis of the Doctrine of Babeuf by the Babouvists, pp55-56
John Boughton, "Working-Class Ideology" , from Working-Class Consciousness in Bolton, 1837-1842, BA Dissertation, University of Manchester, 1981 (Also on reserve in the library)
John Boughton, Working-Class
Radicalism, 1815-1820 and the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 (from the Encyclopedia of Labor History Worldwide,
St
James Press, 2003)
John Boughton, The Chartist Movement (from the Encyclopedia of Labor History Worldwide, St James Press, 2003)
E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, Preface (a Marxist account of the emergence of a distinct working class in England in the 1830s)
Eric Evans, "Chartism Revisited", History Review, March 1999
Gareth Stedman Jones, "The Language of Chartism" in The Chartist Experience, Studies in Working-Class Radicalism and Culture, 1830-60, James Epstein and Dorothy Thompson (eds) (On reserve in Library)
Causes of Chartism Information Sheet
Primary:
Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776) [Extracts]
Albert Fried
and Ronald Sanders (eds), Socialist Thought. A Documentary History
Chartist Petition, 1837, pp187-191
On Utopian Socialism:
Gareth Stedman Jones, "Utopian Socialism Reconsidered"
Barbara Taylor, "Socialist Feminism: Utopian Or Scientific?"
On the economic and social background:
Raphael Samuel, "Mechanisation and Hand Labour in Industrializing Britain", in Leonard R. Berlanstein, ed., The Industrial Revolution and Work in Nineteenth Century Europe (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 26-40