Popular Socialism

Popular Socialism, the cool kids of the International.

Proponents and subideologies

Note: People marked with an asterisk are their countries' starting leaders.

Subideology	Description	Adherents
Folk Socialism	Karl Marx, with his model of historical materialism, theorized an evolutionary process from the feudal and capitalist modes of production toward communism. While he cautioned against using it as an iron law of history, the first successful Marxist revolution occurred in a country at the peak of capitalist development, ostensibly vindicating him. So what, then, do we say to the parts of the world groaning under a less sophisticated capitalist or feudal mode of production when they seek liberation? Surely the existing socialist movement in the urban centers, however much Marx and Engels they read, is not going to wait for ideal conditions to emerge. The concept of Folk Socialism is not an explicit tendency within the international socialist movement, but instead describes attempts to adapt the Second International's line to places not as industrialized as Western Europe. While they still pursue a socialist republic, the lack of an industrial proletariat and the dominance of rural producers - especially agriculturalists - defies repeating the path of the German social democrats. The Orthodox Marxist approach practiced in Europe, of creating a working class party that will tie itself intimately to the urban workers' movements, must adjust its remit to entrench itself in a landscape that does not remotely resemble the Germany of 1918. For this reason, the umbrella of movements under Folk Socialism tends to occupy countries outside of Western Europe or the capitalist core of North America. While maintaining their connection to the official socialist orthodoxy, they have adapted themselves to local circumstances with the tacit consent of the Second International. Though the ultimate objective is to create a socialist system, the road there takes many twists and turns. In places where capitalism has not yet fully destabilized the pre-capitalist modes of production, these socialists seek a path to the future via the peasant class, sometimes through skipping the bloodshed and exploitation of the capitalist period entirely.	C.C.R.M.* Shripad Amrit Dange* Mao Zedong Maria Spiridonova
National Syndicalism	While the term "syndicalism" is sometimes used interchangeably with its more leftist school, it would ignore the other tendency which has gone on to have an enduring effect: National Syndicalism. Like its sibling, it originated in France before the Great War, then went on to have an outsized influence on the other Latin countries of Europe. Frustrated by the political limits of the legal socialist parties, the unions — syndicats, in French — were beginning to self-organize into non-parliamentary organizations capable of striking and agitating for their own goals. In fact, it was reasoned, the governance of the state could one day fall into the hands of the unions themselves should they unleash a suitably large general strike. However, in syndicalism's native France, the radicals on the left and right who opposed the Third Republic were beginning to cross-pollinate ideas with one another. Georges Sorel, perhaps the chief theoretician of syndicalism, was enamored with revolutionary violence against the perceived corruption of the liberal state, and this brought him close to the monarchist Action Française of Charles Maurras. The unintuitive alliance of the two currents, united largely by opposition to democracy, was exemplified by episodes like Maurras' appreciation of explicitly undemocratic socialism alongside Sorel's brief embrace of integral nationalism. They were not alone — in Italy, too, similar connections were being made between syndicalist leaders who embraced patriotism and nationalist anti-liberals such as the ANI. In practice, National Syndicalism has come to occupy a middle ground between the more leftist syndicalists and some of the syncretic accelerationist camp. While a number of anti-Marxist syndicalists have been siphoned off by the Fiumean example, it has left a core of fighters who believe in class struggle just as they believe in revolutionary nationalism. Motivated by more than naked materialism and lofty theories, they seek a new order of proletarian vitality, undoing the aimlessness of the liberal-bourgeois consensus and restoring meaning to life and work. Internally, however, National Syndicalist views on the specifics of government and economics can be eclectic, with some favouring the pure union-based model and others looking fondly on corporatism to unite the nation.	Ramiro Ledesma Ramos Dionisio Ridruejo Tran Quoc Buu
Spartakism	Spartakism, as it is referred to internationally, is the orthodox ideology of the German Socialist Räterepublik following the overthrow of the German Empire. It has been upheld as a model to emulate by revolutionaries around the world, and levied as a charge against opposition in the very same places. And yet, despite how widespread the terminology has become, and how influential the German social democrats have been to the evolution of world socialism since 1918, it can sometimes be difficult to separate the historical circumstances of the German Revolution from what Spartakism refers to now. The roots of the ideology are chiefly in the Orthodox Marxist tendency, which was already dominant in the Second International prior to the Great War. Its core tenets aim to establish Marxism as a total, scientific system for understanding the world — the interests of different classes being opposed, economic circumstances influencing the culture and politics of society, and inevitable revolution resulting from destabilization of capitalism. A political party and organized workers' movement would be cultivated in preparation for the coming crisis, fighting for economic and political reform in the meantime. While the German Revolution had its origins in a parliamentary party, Spartakism as a name comes from an unofficial grouping of far-left Social Democratic Party members in exile, known as the Spartacus League. This faction became the most prominent of the party wings during the Revolution, leading the state in the aftermath. Today, despite the many compromises made to establish the system in its native Germany, Spartakism refers to the same Second International socialist tendency it sprouted from: parliamentarian, but engaging in constant class struggle for when the time comes to overthrow capitalism and establish the socialist republic. Although it has been pressured from the right by anti-revolutionary reformists, from the left by the hardline revolutionaries, and orthogonally by the new accelerationist camp, it remains the primary standard-bearer of international socialism.	Gotfred Hølvold* Yamakawa Hitoshi Albert Einstein Ivan Maisky+
Revolutionary Syndicalism	Though the first socialist state would largely be led into reality by a parliamentary party, it was not a given that this would be the first model of revolutionary action to succeed. In the decades immediately before the Great War, chiefly in the Latin countries of Europe, the tendency of Revolutionary Syndicalism would shake the foundations of bourgeois states. In greater and greater numbers, the unions themselves were organizing to agitate for rights and concessions, even uniting into nationwide bodies independent of political parties. The question was raised: from there, could governance of a country pass into the hands of the unions themselves? The origins of political syndicalism lie somewhere in the orbit of anarchism. Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin laid out a plan of retreat from electoralism and the mobilization of worker organizations to take power in strike action. Further influenced by American industrial unionism, the wave of militant union organizing would crash back against European shores before the end of the 1800s, flooding into a rapidly shifting industrial landscape. In countries such as Italy, where the main parliamentary socialists were seen as timid reformists, men on the front lines of the labour struggle spurned party politics and theoretical argument for direct action. Atop their work, philosophers such as Georges Sorel began to outline higher-minded theories of anti-parliamentary socialism, or of class warfare and violence as creative, liberatory acts. Today, whatever the marching orders emanating from Berlin, the syndicalist current remains alive and well. It cannot not be forgotten that the unions breaking ranks with the government and launching a general strike was what forced France out of the Great War, both for the principle and the power it represents. As other leftist movements entrench themselves and compromise on their initial hopes, the stirring image of class struggle separate from bourgeois parliamentary corruption continues to inspire, even outside the traditional confines of socialism. With the old machinery of states and parties coming up against shortcomings both new and old, the workers themselves wait in the wings to begin the battle they alone are best suited for, without halfway-war or cowardly pity.	Aleksei Gastev Mohamed Ali el-Hammi Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Ngô Đình Nhu