Political Ideologies In The Film Germinal, By Émile Zola

Throughout history there have been many changes that we 've incorporated into our daily lives that, and if those events and changes did not occur as they did, we would not know life as it is today. Changes ranging from political ideologies and economic reform to equality rights and fair social justice are only a small portion of the economic, political freedoms and human rights that people fought for in the past for us to enjoy today. In the movie version of the novel; Germinal, author Émile Zola presents to us the struggle experienced by French miners in the 19th century. In the movie three distinct groups of people have chosen to live by three extremely different political ideologies and Zola portrays where these ideologies get each group
The three prominent economic - political ideologies in the movie are Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism.

Communism is portrayed by a quiet yet clever and eccentric character called Souvarine. Having Karl Marx as a partner, they created the first Workingman 's Association - an illegal union to be run by French coalmine workers in order to gain support with numbers and put forth their demands to mine owners. Souvarine introduced the idea of violent revolution and terrorist acts of assassination and destruction against the government to join groups of people together and create a communist society. Hearing this, Karl Marx immediately disagreed and withdrew from the Workingman 's Association which collapsed thereafter. Marx rejected secret conspiratorial activities because he believed that only open movements would join people together for a cause, for a true communist revolution. Communism demands total equality and economical distribution amongst the population to create a classless society which is totally controlled by the government and provides
Socialism is a system where every member of society has political, social and economical freedoms and equalities. Society owns the land collectively in Socialism. Lanier and the majority of the workers wanted a better life, and for a better life they demanded more money. Families of the coalmine workers live in poverty, where there isn 't enough food to go around and living conditions are filthy and hard to come by. Fathers, mothers, children and grandfathers work in the mines to attain enough money to survive through day to day. Lanier and most of the coalmine workers favored socialism where all are taken care of and no one is left behind to struggle for existence. In order to gain justice, Lanier and most of the coalmine workers peacefully demanded better wages from one of the coalmine operators. The coalmine owner and operators rejected the workers ' plea for better wages explaining " Before you make a living I must make a living first. The smallest increase will bankrupt me." After hearing this, Lanier and his followers were hopeless and infuriated and threatened to strike until the coalmine owner decided to obey their demands. "A strike is a disaster for everyone. Within a week you 'll all starve. Then what will you do?" the owner replied and left them. The workers chose to go on strike for week after week. There was no evidence of reform and hope