LIBERALISM could be considered as the first expression of the left-center-right political spectrum. the left-right notion first emerged during the French revolution, in which the national body, the directory, was organized in the room by having progressives gather on the left and the conservatives gather on the right. the French revolution, like the American revolution, was a revolt against the old ways of MONARCHISM, holdover from the past thousand or so years of feudal economic relations, and a move toward republican government. republican government was and still is a key element of the liberal ideology--freedom from the tyranny of monarchy and nobility, freedom for the commoner to develop their own economic wellbeing, freedom for the people to determine their national goals. the republican revolution didn't last in France, but it did in America, and the spirit of liberalism spread across Europe, culminating in the 1848 "spring of nations," a series of liberal minded revolts throughout Europe, which was largely monarchist at the time. guiding principles of liberalism were found in the enlightenment, probably considered by most to be the philosophical culmination of the renaissance. such political philosophers include Hobbes and Locke--the former, asserting that humanity is a cruel and violent thing that requires government to maintain civil society, and the latter, positing that a social contract exists between the people and their rulers to ensure the maintenance of civil society as a safeguard against ANARCHY, mayhem, war, death, and destruction.
coincidentally, in 1848 Marx and Engels published their treatise on political economy, the Communist Manifesto. critical observers of the mode of economic production before this had noticed some unfairness. Adam Smith, one of the first prominent political economists, detailed what provided a nation with wealth, but David Ricardo was one of the first to posit that it was ultimately labor which created wealth despite laborers usually being the least wealthy. some of these wealthier critics--Robert Owen and Charles Fourier, for instance--had attempted to create utopian societies based around their interpretation of how an equitable society ought to look. John Humphrey Noyes incorporated his radical interpretation of Christian scripture into this concept. these short lived social experiments were the first iterations of COMMUNISM. Marx and Engels, supporters of communism, asserted that creating isolated pockets of utopian communal society was not an effective methodology. Engels, specifically, "scientifically" outlined the mode of socialized production, i.e. single factories providing many workers with the tools to create wealth, being inherently incompatible with individualist profit by a capitalizing owner of the means of production. the resolution to this contradiction inherent to CAPITALISM was not to be granted peacefully by the owners, who had the protection of their right to property by liberal minded governments and their armies. instead, the workers, whose labor created the wealth to be extracted, had to group together to demand ownership of the means of production. the government, by that point deeply intertwined with the capitalists, would not acquiesce to this demand, and so a workers revolution would be necessary to take control of the government to enforce SOCIALISM, ensuring that the value created by labor would be socialized in turn.
socialism as a stepping stone on the path to communism was not universally agreed upon by communists. some argued that the use of state authority would never effectively allow the workers to own the wealth of their labor--in their eyes, a state mechanism is inherently exploitative and prone to corruption. their solution to the contradictions of capitalism lie in revolution, just like socialists, but they saw that as a chance to dismantle the state, rather than expand it, and allow smaller community organizations to move toward socialized production and communal living. among these proponents of ANARCHISM in the late 19th century were Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin, Errico Malatesta, and Mikhail Bakunin. the latter on this list, especially, was wary of a centralized seat of power in the Marxist ideology specifically because of a distrust of Jews. here is perhaps the beginning of merging anti-socialism with anti-semitism. for over a thousand years of European history, Jews were employed commonly as bankers by high ranking Christian nobles due to the bible's restriction on usury--Christians charging interest on other Christians. Jews could do this with no issue and, although they were looked at by Christian Europeans with distrust and often hatred, many became very influential by this path. Marx was, although not a banker, a Jew, and Bakunin visualized a Marxist future of a centralized world government controlled by wealthy Jewish bankers that did not have the interests of the workers at heart. it was this wariness of the Jewish connection to socialism that also fuelled skepticism of the emergent bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party led by Vladimir Lenin. as the bolsheviks led the revolution that would overthrow the newly born republican Russian government, they purged anarchists from their ranks.
the leftist notion of POPULISM had emerged and taken hold in Europe--many revolts, even if not communist or socialist in name, were aimed at increasing the power of the commoners, the workers, and decreasing the power of the wealthy. some, however, did not appreciate the leftist ideal of a communist world without states or ruling classes. while many anti-capitalist political parties emerged, quite a few of them also adopted anti-communist ideologies as well, preferring a third position on this political spectrum. Germany, recently stripped of a monarchy following defeat in the first world war, saw a communist uprising, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht of the Spartakusbund, crushed with the help of anti-communist militias. in Italy, especially, socialist demonstrations, specifically general strikes, had become commonplace and had threatened the economy of the newly united nation. one particular anti-communist party, the National Fascist Party, united in the early 20th century under disillusioned former socialist Benito Mussolini. their stated goal was the removal of socialists from the political scene and strengthening the empire with the power of the people. this manifested symbolically in their insignia--the fascio, a bundle of sticks with an axehead tied into it--and materially as a militia of violent strikebreakers. they revolted against the liberal minded prime minister, who was removed by the king and replaced by Mussolini, creating the first instance of FASCISM. anti-communist, anti-capitalist elements in Germany soon followed suit, and the National Socialist Party eventually began revolting with the endgame of creating a similarly fascist state. economic policy was not at the heart of this movement away from the socialist left and rejection of the liberal status quo, and so, despite radical changes to policy and governmental structure, the wealth of capitalists not only went largely unchallenged but was contrarily bolstered by the removal of socialist agitators. the same story played out in the Spanish civil war around the same time; republicanism was new to the country and, as leftist elements seemed poised to enter power peacefully, infighting between the conservative right wing and the left-center coalition of anarchists and liberals consumed the country for three years. the right wing prevailed under the leadership of a general, Francisco Franco, who became the leader of the country through the next four decades.
a curious power also emerged in Portugal as Antonio Salazar, an anti-communist politician who also opposed liberalism, was appointed prime minister before radically reshaping government under an extensive authority. unlike contemporary anti-communist leaders, Salazar was economy minded, and his primary goal was modernizing the weak Portuguese economy. although friendly with fascists and instituting similar economic policy, Salazar opposed fascist parties in Portugal alongside communist parties. unlike the communist ideal of the left, the right had no semblance of a unifying ideal--the endgame of fascist leaders was often a strong empire that incorporated the power of the people in a way that did not threaten a traditional hierarchical class structure led by a dictator. Salazar's regime, though not fascist in name, followed this model. long removed from Lenin and the bolsheviks by the time fascism had emerged, Russia's Soviet Union also saw the development of class hierarchy, imperialism, and autocratic dictatorship.
the troubling aspect of the notion of left-center-right spectrum politics is the often blurred boundaries demarcating left and right, and where specifically the center lies in relation to them. Italian fascism had its roots in socialist party politics; German fascism not only emerged from a "workers' party" but had the word socialism in its party's name and included a socialist faction before being purged. Russian socialism, despite its communist ideology, removed leftist elements and exercised a dictatorial authority over an impoverished working class. even more troubling is that centrist regimes often managed to maintain power in this shifting political landscape by exploiting the antagonism that existed between these two opposed wings, allying with whichever side was less threatening to a liberal, capitalist order.
