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Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, socialism is considered as the standard left-wing ideology in most countries. Types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, and the structure of management in organizations.

The socialist political movement includes political philosophies that originated in the revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 18th century and out of concern for the social problems that socialists associated with capitalism. By the late 19th century, after the work of Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels, socialism had come to signify anti-capitalism and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production. By the early 1920s, communism and social democracy had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement, with socialism itself becoming the most influential secular movement of the 20th century. Many socialists also adopted the causes of other social movements, such as feminism, environmentalism, and progressivism. (Full article...)

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The World Socialist Movement (WSM) is an international organisation of socialist parties created in 1904 with the founding of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. The member parties share a common classical Marxist worldview and an adherence to socialism defined as a distinct economic system from capitalism. As a result, the parties of the World Socialist Movement are held in sharp contrast to social democratic political parties and Marxist–Leninist movements. In contrast to social democratic parties, the World Socialist parties do not pursue social and economic reforms to capitalism, nor do they seek political office in electoral politics, and they do not focus on "progressive" causes, believing such actions to be irrelevant to their fundamental goal of socialism. In contrast to Marxist–Leninist Communist parties, they do not subscribe to the theories of imperialism, vanguardism and democratic centralism, believing such practices to be antithetical to the realisation of socialism.

The World Socialist Party of the United States (WSPUS) defines socialism as a moneyless society based on common ownership of the means of production, production for use, and social relations based on cooperative and democratic associations as opposed to bureaucratic hierarchies. Additionally, the WSPUS includes statelessness, classlessness and the abolition of wage labor as characteristics of a socialist society—characteristics that are usually reserved to describe a communist society.

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Official portrait, 1970

Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 1970 until his death in 1973. As a socialist committed to democracy, he has been described as the first Marxist to be elected president in a liberal democracy in Latin America. Allende's involvement in Chilean politics spanned a period of nearly forty years, during which he held various positions including senator, deputy, and cabinet minister. As a life-long committed member of the Socialist Party of Chile, whose foundation he had actively contributed to, he unsuccessfully ran for the national presidency in the 1952, 1958, and 1964 elections. In 1970, he won the presidency as the candidate of the Popular Unity coalition in a close three-way race. He was elected in a run-off by Congress, as no candidate had gained a majority. In office, Allende pursued a policy he called "The Chilean Path to Socialism". The coalition government was far from unanimous. Allende said that he was committed to democracy and represented the more moderate faction of the Socialist Party, while the radical wing sought a more radical course. Instead, the Communist Party of Chile favored a gradual and cautious approach that sought cooperation with Christian democrats, which proved influential for the Italian Communist Party and the Historic Compromise.

As president, Allende sought to nationalize major industries, expand education, and improve the living standards of the working class. He clashed with the right-wing parties that controlled Congress and with the judiciary. On 11 September 1973, the military moved to oust Allende in a coup d'état supported by the CIA, which initially denied the allegations. In 2000, the CIA admitted its role in the 1970 kidnapping of General René Schneider who had refused to use the army to stop Allende's inauguration. Declassified documents released in 2023 showed that US president Richard Nixon, his national security advisor Henry Kissinger, and the United States government, which had branded Allende as a dangerous communist, were aware of the military's plans to overthrow Allende's democratically elected government in the days before the coup d'état. As troops surrounded La Moneda Palace, Allende gave his last speech vowing not to resign. Later that day, Allende died by suicide in his office; the exact circumstances of his death are still disputed. (Full article...)

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General images

The following are images from various socialism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Project Cybersyn was an early form of computational economic planning (from Socialism)
Image 2Statue of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in Alexanderplatz, Berlin (from History of socialism)
Image 3Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, early French socialist (from Socialism)
Image 4Noam Chomsky, an American libertarian socialist (from History of socialism)
Image 5Mikhail Bakunin speaking to members of the IWA at the Basel Congress in 1869 (from History of socialism)
Image 6Socialist feminist Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg in 1910 (from Socialism)
Image 7Albert Einstein advocated for a socialist planned economy with his 1949 article "Why Socialism?" (from History of socialism)
Image 8World Map of Socialist countries in 1985 (from History of socialism)
Image 9Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana and theorist of African socialism, on a Soviet Union commemorative postage stamp (from History of socialism)
Image 10Edward Carpenter, philosopher and activist who was instrumental in the foundation of the Fabian Society and the Labour Party as well as in the early LGBTI western movements (from Socialism)
Image 11The Soviet of Workers' Deputies of St. Petersburg in 1905, Trotsky in the center. The soviets were an early example of a workers council. (from Socialism)
Image 12Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, founder of French socialism (from History of socialism)
Image 13The first anarchist journal to use the term libertarian was Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social, published in New York City between 1858 and 1861 by French libertarian communist Joseph Déjacque, the first recorded person to describe himself as libertarian. (from Socialism)
Image 14New Harmony, a utopian attempt as proposed by Robert Owen (from Socialism)
Image 15R. H. Tawney, founder of ethical socialism (from Socialism)
Image 16Socialists in Union Square, New York City on May Day 1912 (from Socialism)
Image 17Pierre Leroux founder of the Parisian newspaper Le Globe in which the term socialism first appeared (from History of socialism)
Image 18Barricades Boulevard Voltaire, Paris during the uprising known as the Paris Commune (from History of socialism)
Image 19Alexis Tsipras, socialist Prime Minister of Greece who led the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) through a victory in the January 2015 Greek legislative election (from History of socialism)
Image 20Presidents Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela in World Social Forum for Latin America (from History of socialism)
Image 21The writings of Karl Marx provided the basis for the development of Marxist political theory and Marxian economics. (from Socialism)
Image 22Mao Zedong in 1959 (from History of socialism)
Image 23Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, main theorist of mutualism and influential French socialist thinker (from Socialism)
Image 24The Soviet of Workers' Deputies of St. Petersburg in 1905, Trotsky in the center. The soviets were an early example of a workers council. (from History of socialism)
Image 25Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin opposed the Marxist aim of dictatorship of the proletariat in favour of universal rebellion and allied himself with the federalists in the First International before his expulsion by the Marxists (from History of socialism)
Image 26Albert Einstein advocated for a socialist planned economy with his 1949 article "Why Socialism?" (from Socialism)
Image 27New Harmony, a utopian attempt as proposed by Robert Owen (from History of socialism)
Image 28Encounter between Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Che Guevara in Cuba, three radical icons of the 1960s (from History of socialism)
Image 29Arabic letters "Lam" and "Alif" reading "Lā" (Arabic for "No!") are a symbol of Islamic Socialism in Turkey. (from Socialism)
Image 30Eduard Bernstein
Image 31Leonid Brezhnev (from History of socialism)
Image 32Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist Vladimir Lenin in 1920 (from Socialism)
Image 33Man, Controller of the Universe produced by Mexican artist Diego Rivera (from Socialism)

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that a priest refused to perform the wedding ceremony for Austrian socialist Josef Peskoller and his fiancée Maria Griel on political grounds in 1928?
... that in 1968, actor Ludovic Antal recited a Romanian nationalist poem in front of tourists from Soviet Moldavia, causing them to flee for their bus for fear of a "provocation"?
... that Bill Shearer, a leader of the segregationist George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign, also advocated for ballot access for the Socialist Workers Party?
... that by mid-1920, hundreds of German and Austrian communists fought in Red Army units in Turkestan?
... that Marcela Revollo's pragmatic approach to legislating led her to cooperate with both neoliberal and socialist governments on women's rights legislation?
... that although the 1950 Mexican film Un día de vida (pamphlet pictured) bombed with domestic audiences, it became a classic in Yugoslavia?
... that Left Socialist-Revolutionary leader Maria Spiridonova addressed her party's fourth congress in October 1918 by letter as she was in jail?

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“

There are many people who call themselves socialists, although they care only about the first, who fervently believe in those ultimate aims of socialism but neither care nor understand how they can be achieved, and who are merely certain that they must be achieved, and who are merely certain that they must be achieved, whatever the cost. But to nearly all those to whom socialism is not merely a hope but an object of practical politics, the characteristic methods of modern socialism are as essential as the ends themselves. Many people, on the other hand, who value the ultimate ends of socialism no less than the socialists refuse to support socialism because of the dangers to other values they see in the methods proposed by the socialists. The dispute about socialism has thus become largely a dispute about means and not about ends-although the question whether the different ends of socialism can be simultaneously achieved is also involved.

This would be enough to create confusion. And the confusion has been further increased by the common practice of denying that those who repudiate the means value the ends. But this is not all. The situation is still more complicated by the fact that the same means, the "economic planning" which is the prime instrument of socialist reform, can be used for many other purposes. We must centrally direct economic activity if we want to make distribution of income conform to current ideas of social justice. "Planning," therefore, is wanted by all those who demand that "production for use" be substituted for production for profit. But such planning is no less indispensable if the distribution of income is to be regulated in a way which to us appears to be the opposite of just. Whether we should wish that more of the good things of this world should go to some racial élite, the Nordic men, or the members of a party or an aristocracy, the methods which we shall have to employ are the same as those which could insure an equalitarian distribution.

”

— Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 1944

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