KSU/HIST 112
21 April 2009
Revolutionary Means of Modernization
Through the mid-19th century and into the early 20th century, people began to desire change in existing societal structures, which led to movements with revolutionary new ideas. These movements usually involved progressive change and eliminating repression, looking towards ideas established in the Enlightment period for guidance. The goals of the Marxist, Feminist, and Chinese Nationalist movements were similar in the fact that all desired equality, opportunity, and self government.
Marxism, Feminism, and Chinese Nationalism all express the belief that the government should represent the people governed. Marxism stresses the need to eliminate social hierarchies and the turning of power to the Proletariat working class. Feminists desired equal representation in their governments. The Chinese Nationalist movement stressed that the ethnic Han Chinese should be governing themselves. These points are readily proved through prominent readings of movement leaders.
Karl Marx believed that the populous, powerful Proletariat class needed to rise up and equalize the elite Bourgeois class, rather than an elite few to usurp all the benefits of industrialized life. Marx states that communists support every revolutionary movement against existing social structures.[1] He offers his communist call-to-action in the Communist Manifesto. “…their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!”[2] Marx believed that the working class should not be ruled by an elite capitalist class, but rather they should be in control. Another movement centered on one group in a society gaining their rights is the Feminist movement.
The Feminist movement in the