History of Socialism Part 1: From Equality to Dictatorship【Modern History】#383

The Industrial Revolution served as the starting point for socialism.

The background behind the birth of socialism lies in the 19th-century Industrial Revolution. As mechanization progressed, factory owners grew wealthy while many workers remained poor, leading to a widening economic gap. The ideal of socialism was to resolve this injustice by sharing the means of production and achieving true equality.

There was a gap between Marx's vision and the actual revolution.

The thinker Marx argued that society would naturally transition to socialism after capitalism matured. However, in reality, the revolution occurred in Russia, an agrarian nation with slow industrialization. In the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, seized power, but they faced a fatal miscalculation: they could not gain sufficient support from the working class.

The pursuit of ideals led to the concentration of power.

While socialism was meant to be governed by the workers, in reality, it began to be ruled by a small group of leaders. In the middle section, we discuss how a certain figure rose to power and began to eliminate political opponents one by one. Why did a nation striving for equality become so authoritarian? The historical turning points are explained in detail in this episode.