Utopians, Socialists, and Radicals in Europe

In Europe, political, social, cultural, and religious prophets rose in great numbers to challenge the dominance of monarchical-conservatives associated with the Congress of Vienna system.

Restoration and Resistance

After Napoleon, Europe hosted a wide variety of new ideologies. Those, plus a long tradition of religious radicalism, provided inspiring material from which to construct alternative visions of remaking European society. "Reactionaries," like the Slavophiles, moved to reverse all the democratic and secularizing influences introduced by the French Revolution and Napoleonic era. "Liberals," like John Stuart Mill, sought to preserve order by limiting state power while expanding that of the individual.

Radical Visions

"Radicals" wanted a total reconstruction of society in favor of one based on popular sovereignty, a prospect that frightened liberals and reactionaries into an uncomfortable alliance. "Nationalists," who sought national sovereignty from the Russian, Prussian, Austrian, and Ottoman empires that controlled them, proved to be the least offensive form of radicals. Greek nationalists succeeded, but most others failed under the heavy hand of anxious monarchs. Radicals such as communists and socialists pursued transformation of the economic order and dismantling of the free market economy as a means of rectifying social problems among the poor. Despite widespread popular support, Chartism failed to gain political sanction. Utopian socialism, such as that of Charles Fourier, who sought to eliminate market injustice, also failed to gain headway in spite of articulate planning and vision.

Fourier’s sharp critique of commercial society stimulated a generation of other radicals, including Karl Marx, who eventually did have an impact. The theories of Marx and Engels, which traced economic exploitation through history, hotly condemned capitalism and predicted the emergence of a socialist order featuring equality, liberty and fraternity under a dictatorship of the proletariat. Although unsuccessful in his personal quest to hasten the emergence of this new world order, Marx did produce a vision that remained vibrant and persuasive to many.

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