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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. Traditionally, socialism is on the left wing of the political spectrum. 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 Socialist International (SI) is a worldwide association of political parties, most of which seek to establish democratic socialism. It consists mostly of democratic socialist, social-democratic and labour political parties and other organisations.

Although formed in 1951 as a successor to the Labour and Socialist International, it has antecedents to the late nineteenth century. The association has grown to include 153 member parties from over 100 countries. Its members have governed in many countries including most of Europe. The Party of European Socialists (PES), a major European political party, is an associated organisation of the SI.

The current secretary general of the SI is Luis Ayala (Chile), who has held the post since 1989. The current president of the SI is the former Prime Minister of Greece George Papandreou.

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Debs, c. 1912

Eugene Victor Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five-time candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States. Through his presidential candidacies as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States.

Early in his political career, Debs was a member of the Democratic Party. He was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana General Assembly in 1884. After working with several smaller unions, including the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Debs led his union in a major ten-month strike against the CB&Q Railroad in 1888. Debs was instrumental in the founding of the American Railway Union (ARU), one of the nation's first industrial unions. After workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company organized a wildcat strike over pay cuts in the summer of 1894, Debs signed many into the ARU. He led a boycott by the ARU against handling trains with Pullman cars in what became the nationwide Pullman Strike, affecting most lines west of Detroit and more than 250,000 workers in 27 states. Purportedly to keep the mail running, President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike. As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison. (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 2The writings of Karl Marx provided the basis for the development of Marxist political theory and Marxian economics. (from Socialism)
Image 3Eduard Bernstein
Image 4Antonio Gramsci, member of the Italian Socialist Party and later leader and theorist of the Communist Party of Italy (from Socialism)
Image 5The 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 6Alexis 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 7Rosa Luxemburg, prominent Marxist revolutionary and martyr of the German Spartacist uprising in 1919 (from Socialism)
Image 8Russian 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 9Mao Zedong in 1959 (from History of socialism)
Image 10Noam Chomsky, an American libertarian socialist (from History of socialism)
Image 11Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana and theorist of African socialism, on a Soviet Union commemorative postage stamp (from History of socialism)
Image 12Leonid Brezhnev (from History of socialism)
Image 13New Harmony, a utopian attempt as proposed by Robert Owen (from History of socialism)
Image 14Encounter between Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Che Guevara in Cuba, three radical icons of the 1960s (from History of socialism)
Image 15Mikhail Bakunin speaking to members of the International Workingmen's Association at the Basel Congress in 1869 (from Socialism)
Image 16Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, early French socialist (from Socialism)
Image 17Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, founder of French socialism (from History of socialism)
Image 18Albert Einstein advocated for a socialist planned economy with his 1949 article "Why Socialism?" (from History of socialism)
Image 19The 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 20Charles Fourier, influential early French socialist thinker (from Socialism)
Image 21Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden for the Swedish Social Democratic Party (from Socialism)
Image 22Albert Einstein advocated for a socialist planned economy with his 1949 article "Why Socialism?" (from Socialism)
Image 23Trotsky and members of the Left Opposition which supported Leninism but opposed Stalinism (circa 1927) (from Socialism)
Image 24FAI militia during the Spanish Revolution in 1936 (from Socialism)
Image 25The celebration of the election of the Commune on 28 March 1871—the Paris Commune was a major early implementation of socialist ideas. (from Socialism)
Image 26Pierre Leroux founder of the Parisian newspaper Le Globe in which the term socialism first appeared (from History of socialism)
Image 27Statue of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in Alexanderplatz, Berlin (from History of socialism)
Image 28Presidents 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 29Man, Controller of the Universe produced by Mexican artist Diego Rivera (from Socialism)
Image 30Salvador Allende, President of Chile and member of the Socialist Party of Chile, whose presidency and life were ended by a CIA-backed military coup (from Socialism)
Image 31Arabic letters "Lam" and "Alif" reading "Lā" (Arabic for "No!") are a symbol of Islamic Socialism in Turkey. (from Socialism)
Image 32Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, main theorist of mutualism and influential French socialist thinker (from Socialism)
Image 33Barricades Boulevard Voltaire, Paris during the uprising known as the Paris Commune (from History of socialism)
Image 34Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1985–1991) (from Socialism)
Image 35The 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 36Socialist feminist Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg in 1910 (from Socialism)
Image 37Einar Gerhardsen, Prime Minister of Norway for the Labour Party (from Socialism)
Image 38Karl Marx in 1875 (from Socialism)
Image 39Edward 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 40R. H. Tawney, founder of ethical socialism (from Socialism)
Image 41Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist Vladimir Lenin in 1920 (from Socialism)
Image 42Mikhail Bakunin speaking to members of the IWA at the Basel Congress in 1869 (from History of socialism)
Image 43Socialists in Union Square, New York City on May Day 1912 (from Socialism)

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

... that although the 1950 Mexican film Un día de vida (pamphlet pictured) bombed with domestic audiences, it became a classic in Yugoslavia?
... that British writer Adolphe Smith Headingley popularised the singing of the socialist anthem "The Red Flag" to the tune of "O Tannenbaum" against the wishes of its lyricist?
... 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 following the ban of its labour unions in 1934, the Romanian United Socialist Party would rely on its youth and women's wings for political action?
... that the Eurovision Song Contest 1990, held in Yugoslavia, was the first Eurovision Song Contest to be held in the Balkans or in a socialist state?
... 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 Western media treated Egyptian activist Gihan Ibrahim as a face of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, but rarely mentioned her revolutionary-socialist political views?

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“

The National Health Service and the Welfare State have come to be used as interchangeable terms, and in the mouths of some people as terms of reproach. Why this is so it is not difficult to understand, if you view everything from the angle of a strictly individualistic competitive society. A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society. To call it something for nothing is absurd because everything has to be paid for in some way or another.

”

— Aneurin Bevan, sixteenth U.K. Minister of Health, In Place of Fear, 1952

...Archive