§ Karl Marx, and the ideas of socialism and communism

• Karl Marx (1818–1883) articulated a view of human history that likewise emphasized change and struggle.

  • • Conflicting social classes—slave owners and slaves, nobles and peasants, capitalists and workers—successively drove the process of historical transformation

    • Although he was describing the evolution of human civilization, Marx saw himself as a scientist.

      • • He based his theories on extensive historical research

        • like Newton and Darwin, he sought to formulate general laws that would explain events in a rational way.

• he did not believe in heavenly intervention, chance, or the divinely endowed powers of kings

• The coming of socialism, in this view, was not simply a good idea; it was inscribed in the laws of historical development

• Marx believed strongly in progress, but in their thinking, conflict and struggle rather than reason and education were the motors of progress.

• Beliefs of Marxism:

  • • abolition of private property

    • the institution of a radically egalitarian society

    • workers to seize control of the state, confiscate the means of production, and distribute wealth equitably throughout society.

    • a socialist revolution would result in a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which would abolish private property and destroy the capitalist order

    • Coercive institutions would also disappear, since there would no longer be an exploiting class

    • socialism would lead to a fair, just, and egalitarian society infinitely more humane than the capitalist order

§ Workers’ movements and labor unions

Social Reform

• conservatives and liberals—persuaded government authorities to attack the abuses of early industrialization and provide security for the working classes

• England

  • • Beginning in 1832, a series of parliamentary acts expanded the franchise for men by reducing property qualifications, preparing the way for universal male suffrage.

    • The same reform acts also removed the glaring inequalities in representation between rural areas and the growing cities of industrial society.

• Germany (under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck)

  • • introduced medical insurance, unemployment compensation, and retirement pensions to provide social security for working people in industrial society

Trade unions

• sought to advance the quest for a just and equitable society.

• As governments regulated businesses and enhanced social security, trade unions struggled to eliminate abuses of early industrial society and improve workers’ lives by seeking higher wages and better working conditions for their members.

• Tensions ran high when union members went on strike, especially when employers sought to keep their businesses going by hiring replacement workers

  • • violence frequently broke out, prompting government authorities to send in police or military forces to maintain order

    • trade unions gradually improved the lives of working people

• trade unions became an integral part of industrial society because they did not seek to destroy capitalism but rather to make employers more responsive to their employees’ needs and interests.

§ Ottoman Empire reform and modernize their economies and militaries

Sultan Selim III (reigned 1789–1807)

• embarked on a program to remodel his army along the lines of European forces

• the establishment of a new crack fighting force, trained by European instructors and equipped with modern weapons, threatened the elite Janissary corps, which reacted violently by rising in revolt, killing the new troops, and locking up the sultan.

• Selim’s successor tried to revive the new military force, rampaging Janissaries killed all male members of the dynasty save one, Selim’s cousin Mahmud II, who became sultan.

Mahmud II (reigned 1808–1839)

• his reforms were perceived as a restoration of the traditional Ottoman military

• his proposal for a new European-style army in 1826 brought him into conflict with the Janissaries

  • • the Janissaries mutinied in protest, Mahmud had them massacred by troops loyal to the sultan

• reforms:

  • • effective army -- European drill masters dressed Ottoman soldiers in European-style uniforms and instructed them in European weapons and tactics

    • military and engineering schools -- taught European curricula

    • system of secondary education -- for boys to facilitate the transition from mosque schools, which provided most primary education, to newly established scientific, technical, and military academies

    • abolishing the system of military land grants

      • • transferred power from traditional elites to the sultan and his cabinet by taxing rural landlords

• undermed the ulama -- the Islamic leadership

• established European-style ministries

• constructed new roads

• built telegraph lines

• inaugurated a postal service

Tanzimat (“reorganization”) era (1839–1876)

• the army was a principal target of reform efforts

• legal reforms

  • • Europeans had capitulations lifted and recover Ottoman sovereignty.

    • adopted French Napoleonic Code

      • • Commercial Code (1850)

        • a penal code (1858)

        • a maritime code (1863)

        • a new civil code (1870–1876)

    • guaranteed public trials

    • rights of privacy

    • equality before the law for all Ottoman subjects, whether Muslim or not.

    • Matters pertaining to marriage and divorce still fell under religious law

      • • state courts administered the new laws, legal reform undermined the ulama and enhanced the authority of the Ottoman state

• educational reforms

  • • undermined the ulama, who controlled religious education for Muslims

    • comprehensive plan for educational reform, introduced in 1846, provided for a complete system of primary and secondary schools leading to university-level instruction

      • • all under the supervision of the state ministry of education

    • 1869 -- provided for free and compulsory primary education

Resistance

• religious conservatives

  • • Harsh criticism came from religious conservatives, who argued that reformers posed a threat to the empire’s Islamic foundation

    • Many devout Muslims viewed the extension of legal equality to Jews and Christians as an act contrary to the basic principles of Islamic law

• Christian and Jewish minority leaders

  • • Even some minority leaders opposed legal equality, fearing that it would diminish their own position as intermediaries between their communities and the Ottoman state

• Young Ottomans

  • • views ranged from secular revolution to uncompromising Islam

    • agitated for individual freedom, local autonomy, and political decentralization

    • desired the establishment of a constitutional government along the lines of the British system

• Ottoman bureaucracy

  • • high-level bureaucrats were determined to impose checks on the sultan’s power by forcing him to accept a constitution and, if necessary, even to depose the ruler

Young Turk Era

• 1876 a group of radical dissidents from the Ottoman bureaucracy seized power in a coup, formed a cabinet that included partisans of reform, and installed Abdül Hamid II as sultan (reigned 1876–1909).

• Abdül Hamid to accept a constitution that limited his authority and established a representative government.

  • • Within a year, however, the sultan suspended the constitution, dissolved parliament, exiled many liberals, and executed others.

    • For thirty years he ruled autocratically in an effort to rescue the empire from dismemberment by European powers

• 1908 the Young Turks inspired an army coup that forced Abdül Hamid to restore parliament and the constitution of 1876

• 1909 they dethroned him and established Mehmed V Rashid (reigned 1909–1918) as a puppet sultan.

  • • Young Turk era (1908–1918), Ottoman sultans reigned but no longer ruled.

    • worked to make Turkish the official language of the empire, even though many subjects spoke Arabic or a Slavic language as their native tongue

      • • policies aggravated tensions between Turkish rulers and subject peoples outside the Anatolian heartland of the Ottoman empire. Syria and Iraq were especially active regions of Arab resistance to Ottoman rule.

By the early twentieth century, the Ottoman empire survived principally because European diplomats could not agree on how to dispose of the empire without upsetting the European balance of power

§ Qing China reform and modernize their economies and militaries

Qianlong emperor

• 1759 -- restricted the European commercial presence in China to the waterfront at Guangzhou, where European merchants could establish warehouses.

• cohongs system -- Foreign merchants could deal only with specially licensed Chinese firms

  • • European merchants had to cope with a market that had little demand for European products

    • European merchants paid for Chinese silk, porcelain, lacquer-ware, and tea largely with silver bullion

The Opium War

• Origins

  • • British East India Company sought alternatives to bullion to exchange for Chinese goods

    • turned to trade in a product that was as profitable as it was criminal—opium

    • East India Company grew opium in India and shipped it to China, where company officials exchanged it for Chinese silver coin

    • used silver coins to buy Chinese products in Guangzhou

    • by 1839 some 40,000 chests of opium entered China annually

• 1838 -- Qing government authorities took steps to halt the illicit trade

  • • Qing officials confiscated and destroyed some 20,000 chests of opium

• British Response

  • • British commercial agents pressed their government into a military retaliation designed to reopen the opium trade

    • British naval vessels easily demonstrated their superiority on the seas

    • Qing military equipped only with swords, knives, spears, and occasionally muskets

      • • the defenders of Chinese coastal towns were no match for the controlled firepower of well-drilled British infantry armed with rifles

    • May 1842 -- a British armada of seventy ships—led by the gunboat Nemesis—advanced up the Yangzi River

      • • British fleet encountered little resistance

        • by the time it reached the intersection of the river and the Grand Canal, the Chinese government had sued for peace

• The Treaty of Nanjing (1842)

  • • ceded Hong Kong Island in perpetuity to Britain

    • opened five Chinese ports—including Guangzhou and Shanghai—to commerce and residence

    • compelled the Qing government to extend most-favored-nation status to Britain

    • granted extraterritoriality to British subjects (not subject to Chinese law)

    • legalized the opium trade

    • permitted the establishment of Christian missions throughout China

    • prevented the Qing government from levying tariffs on imports to protect domestic industries

Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864)

• schoolteacher Hong Xiuquan called for the:

  • • destruction of the Qing dynasty

    • the abolition of private property

    • creation of communal wealth to be shared according to needs

    • the prohibition of foot-binding and concubinage

    • free public education

    • simplification of the written language

    • literacy for the masses

    • decreed the equality of men and women

    • democratic political institutions and the building of an industrial society

    • prohibited sexual intercourse among their followers, including married couples

• 1853 -- Society of God Worshipers took Nanjing and made it the capital of their Taiping (“Great Peace”) kingdom

• 1855 -- a million Taipings were poised to attack Beijing

  • • Qing forces repelled them

• 1860 -- firmly entrenched in the Yangzi River valley, the Taipings threatened Shanghai

• 1864 -- Nanjing fell, and government forces slaughtered some one hundred thousand Taipings

  • • aided by European advisors and weapons

    • Qing government created regional armies staffed by Chinese instead of Manchu soldiers and commanded by members of the scholar-gentry class

• Overall, twenty million to thirty million lives lost

The Self Strengthening Movement (1860–1895)

• slogan “Chinese learning at the base, Western learning for use”

• Goals

  • • blend Chinese cultural traditions with European industrial technology

    • held onto Confucian values and seeking to reestablish a stable agrarian society

    • movement leaders built modern shipyards, constructed railroads, established weapons industries, opened steel foundries with blast furnaces, and founded academies to develop scientific expertise

    • brought only superficial change to the Chinese economy and society

• Opposition

  • • empress dowager Cixi (1835–1908)

    • diverted funds intended for the navy to instead build a magnificent marble boat to grace a lake in the imperial gardens at the Summer Palace

    • viewed the movement as foundered on a contradiction

      • • industrialization would bring fundamental social change to an agrarian land

        • education in European curricula would undermine the commitment to Confucian values

Spheres of Influence

• 1886 Great Britain detached Burma from Chinese control

• 1895 Japan forced China to recognize the independence of Korea and cede the island of Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula in southern Manchuria

• By 1898 foreign powers had carved China into spheres of economic influence

  • • Powerless to resist foreign demands, the Qing government granted exclusive rights for railway and mineral development to Germany in Shandong Province

    • France in the southern border provinces

    • Great Britain in the Yangzi River valley

    • Japan in the southeastern coastal provinces

    • Russia in Manchuria.

The Boxer Rebellion (1899-1900)

• The Hundred Days Reforms (1898) goals:

  • • turn China into a powerful modern industrial society

    • transform China into a constitutional monarchy

    • guarantee civil liberties

    • root out corruption

    • remodel the educational system

    • encourage foreign influence in China

    • modernize military forces

    • stimulate economic development

• Empress Dowager Cixi nullified the reform decrees, imprisoned the emperor (Emperor Guangxu) in the Forbidden City, and executed six leading reformers

  • • Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, the spiritual guides of the reform movement, escaped to Japan.

• Empress Dowager Cixi threw her support behind an anti-foreign uprising known as the Boxer rebellion

• a violent movement spearheaded by militia units calling themselves the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists.

• 1899 -- Boxers organized to rid China of “foreign devils” and their influences

  • • went on a rampage in northern China

    • killing foreigners and Chinese Christians as well as Chinese who had ties to foreigners

• summer of 1900 -- Confident that foreign weapons could not harm them, some 140,000 Boxers besieged foreign embassies in Beijing

• British, French, Russian, U.S., German, and Japanese troops quickly crushed the Boxer movement in bloody retaliation for the assault

• Result

  • • Chinese government had to pay a punitive indemnity

    • allow foreign powers to station troops in Beijing at their embassies and along the route to the sea