Radicalism

The development of modern radicalism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The term “radicalism” always points to some analytical or revisionist function. It implies a concentration of the focus of relevance on a particular principle, at the expense of the traditionally sanctioned regard for the complexities of context. The element thus abstracted becomes the salient core on which inference and action are based. Radicalism tends to be comprehensive; no matter where it starts, it tends to assimilate all aspects of life to the initial principle. In its positive sense this tendency implies a projection of a completely new version of human life and enterprise. In its negative sense it implies a threat to all aspects of ongoing life. Although many forms of radicalism eschew violence, there is little doubt that the overthrow of the existing order is part of the radical agenda. The radical reduction and its extension into a comprehensive doctrine need not have the character of logically derived conclusions. Quite often the assertions are the result of directly intuited truth, and the forms of expression range from scholastic demonstrations to rhapsodic prophecy. Whatever the form, the impulse behind it is to announce the sovereignty of a principle and to render a principled, unified, and internally consistent interpretation of the cosmos and the meaning of human life. It is expected that the believer’s perception of and attitude toward reality will be synthesized accordingly into an internally coherent outlook and ultimately translated into a principled conduct of life.

Zealotry and rationality. There exists a close but somewhat misleading affinity between radicalism and zealotry, particularly in the areas of politics, morality, and religion. Zealotry, being a form of unquestioned and permanent obeisance, may, and often does, become the routinized pursuit of radical ideals. The zealot’s commitment to radical causes is accompanied by deep-seated emotional problems. The particular psychological structure of motives and attitudes that leads to or is compatible with expressions of zealous radicalism has been identified as the “authoritarian personality type” (Adorno et al. 1950).

However, even when the attitude of the radical is wholly immersed in feeling, its expression is not compatible with emotional impulsiveness but is always pervaded by its own peculiar rational discipline. The rational structure of radical thought and action is the expressive mold that fits the unconscious-need dispositions of many persons; to others it is a matter of deliberate moral choice and closely reasoned inference; and to some it may be no more than a mask they can plausibly and deliberately display while being motivated by considerations of momentary expediency.

The conception of radicalism as rational does not imply that it is ruled by logic, science, or economy but merely that the drive toward some sort of explicit intellectual generalization of the meaning of human action and experience is a constitutive property of radicalism. By methodically correlating its interpretive principles with its maxims of conduct, radicalism provides ultimate, permanent, and “objectively valid” grounds for moral choice. Radicalism usually attaches its single-minded emphasis to something that is already known and valued, albeit as one thing among many. What is new is not the tenet itself but the militant assertion of its sovereign and unqualified supremacy. However, while the banner of radicalism derives from the outlook of the society in which it occurs, its arguments turn against that society.

Although radicalism is characteristically rational or at least rationalized, it is clearly and implacably inconsistent with reasonableness. In principle, pure radical thought and action is entirely devoid of practical wisdom, of sensitivity for the occasion, of opportunistic economizing, of the capacity to learn from experience, of flexibility and looseness of interest. In sum, it lacks that bargaining side of intelligence that characterizes the conduct and thinking of “reasonable” persons. Indeed, the principal polemic adversary of the radical is the normally competent, fully franchised member of his society whose orientation to reality is governed by conventional standards of “reasonableness.” While the latter moves in a world of ambiguity and uncertainty with apparent ease and comfort, varying the perspective of his interest and judgment in accordance with practical considerations and changing circumstances, the radical finds in such behavior decadence and philistinism. Because of the radical’s dedication to the salience of his reduction, he is, qua radical, divested of realistic concern for the passing complexities of everyday life, and he views them with contempt. He scorns the demands that issue from “the way things are,” and eschews partaking in the respect that is accorded to persons and arrangements on purely conventional grounds.

The radical ideology. It has been shown that radicalism has its origins and permanent focus of appeal in the socially displaced strata of society (Lipset 1960). Although this phenomenon is probably not present in every form or instance of radicalism, it is immensely important for the understanding of the social structure of radicalism. The socially eccentric locus of origin of radicalism appears to be a particularly auspicious perspective for the deliberate appraisal of the ordinarily taken-for-granted texture of everyday life, and it may well be that man’s consciousness of himself and of the world around him is the assimilated aggregate of past and forgotten radicalizations.

When men of radical persuasion look into the past, one of two alternative views is obtained. In one, the tendencies contained in mundane history are disregarded entirely in favor of tracing some doctrinal claim to a distant and mythical past. All that happened between some golden age and the radical discernment in its modern setting is defined as an ironic departure from the intended direction of the original state. In the second and more common view, mundane history is seen as a script of a determined sequence of events. In the huge historical panoramas of Hegel and Marx, all that is truly historical is defined as accidental and insignificant, and all that matters is the permanently lawful sequence of general tendencies. What Hegel called die Tiicke des Geistes merely deludes man into thinking that what he does as a free agent matters historically. From either point of view, the polemic highlight of radical historiography is the announcement of an eternal truth. In either case, the image of the past urges that the full meaning of man’s misery and degradation cannot be fully grasped by beholding it now and that the proposed remedies cannot be fully justified without considering them as links in a process of cosmic proportion. Knowledge of the past has as its principal function the exemplification and the aggrandizement of the timeless truth contained in the radical doctrine and the demonstration of its compelling necessity.

The doctrine and the ethic of radicalism is inevitably invested with tensions. On the one hand, it is systematized by internal standards of warrant and sensibility; on the other hand, radical beliefs remain responsive to tests of everyday life experiences. Even while the great goals and the order of the future are within the grasp of the imagination, there remain the petty vexations and distractions of everyday life. Even while he holds steadfast to the grand scheme, the believer must resist temptations to suspend the relevance of the doctrine for considerations of momentary interest. Worse yet, his resoluteness is threatened continuously by counterevidence that tends to discredit the doctrine. In the long run radicals succumb to these worldly pressures; they pay their price in sacrifice, settle for partial gains, and become assimilated. Often when they surrender their totalitarian claims, they become selectively dogmatized and develop the art of casuistry. This process is best exemplified in the transformation of sects into churches. The alternative to the corruption of rational purity and consistency, i.e., the maintenance of radicalism in its pristine state, requires that radical movements impose upon their members a form of discipline that makes doctrinal impurity as difficult and unattractive as possible and that peremptorily discredits the relevance of all possible distraction and counterevidence.

Several well-recognized features of extreme radical movements have precisely this effect. Most noteworthy are the following: (1) The believers are organized into a charismatic fellowship. Within this collectivity the tenets of the faith can be exercised freely and, thus, are validated, i.e., the fellowship is “a living example.” (2) the distinctness of the radical creed and program from the rest of the world is symbolically emphasized. A common device to accomplish this is to associate it with the inspiration of a prophet. The particularistic access to truth discredits a variety of polemic opponents. (3) There is a sustained concern for the purity of belief and conduct. The state of permanent purge functions at the level of self-critique, as well as that of collective and authoritative discipline. (4) The manner in which the doctrine pertains to the lives of believers is diffusely comprehensive. All interest and activity is “normalized” through participation in the movement. Not only does the movement usurp enormous powers of restraint over its members; it also annuls the significance of all external sources of sanction. (5) The movement monopolizes the commitments of the believers. Loyalty to the movement requires that no personal interest or obligation may be admitted as legitimately contesting a demand issuing from participation in the movement. This condition is substantially satisfied by dissolving all possible human ties and by deindividualizing members in the direction of some heroic ideal. (6) Suffering and martyrdom must be made acceptable and be brought within the purview of immediate possibility. While members are desensitized to pain, their conception of the relationship between the assailant and the victim becomes impersonal, and brutality becomes morally neutral. (7) The movement exploits outside sentiments against it to its own organizational advantage. That is, members who are publicly compromised by participation in it are forced to burn their bridges behind them.

The development of modern radicalism

The original cause with which modern radicalism is associated is the attack on the traditionally inherited corporate structure of power, in the name of an equal and liberal distribution of political franchise—i.e., the ideals of democracy. Although movements of democratic reform and rebellion appear sporadically throughout history, radicalism in this sense became endemic only to the Western world, and only since the late eighteenth century. During the Reformation, the main Protestant denominations, notably the Evangelical Lutheran church and the Church of England, never lost their footing in the established political hierarchy and have settled their quarrels with temporal authority under the doctrine, Cuius regio eius religio. Other sectarian movements, however, have been sporadically involved in partisan warfare against traditional secular privilege. The opening and the closing of this period of complicated plebeian upheavals are marked by the Bauernkriege in sixteenth-century Germany and the Levellers’ movement of the Puritan revolution in England. In 1685, at the time of the suspension of the Edict of Nantes, the fight for religious and political freedom was largely exhausted, muzzled, or confined to insignificant enclaves, from which irreconcilable partisans embarked on their voyages to the New World. Even in eighteenth-century England the dissenting bodies in the Bunyan tradition became reconciled to the status quo.

Founded in part upon the largely academic discourses of Locke and Montesquieu, the doctrine of modern democratic radicalism was formulated, by Rousseau and a host of lesser writers, with full awareness of its seditious character. Their relentless argument urged that all existing conditions and customs are unnatural and must be destroyed and replaced by a new and rational order (Talmon 1952). In contrast to the religiously inspired radicalism of the Reformation period, the new formulation was wholly secular.

Foremost among the objects of attack was the belief, never seriously challenged in previous ages of Western civilization, that only a select few, an elite, had the wisdom and right and power to govern. In its place there was formulated a doctrine that proclaimed every man the patron of his own life and established the sovereign right of all the people to order their common affairs. The vision of individual liberty and popular sovereignty was made compelling by the endorsement of reason. Although it is now easily seen that this enlightenment of reason contained a strong admixture of romantic sentimentality, there is little doubt that the protagonists themselves perceived their arguments as appealing to discretion rather than feeling. Of course, the radicals did not invent or monopolize the use of reason as an instrument of politics. Other forms of governing and the opposition to radical innovation also had their rational apologists. None, however, depended to the extent the democratic radicals did on the persuasive power of reason and excluded so completely other considerations.

Early radical movements

The American and French revolutions in the closing decades of the eighteenth century were significant expressions of modern radicalism. They did not, however, express all existing radical tendencies, and they encompassed a great deal more than merely radical idealism. More specifically, five movements, all derived from ideals of the enlightenment, show the directions and development of modern radicalism.

Jacobinism. The most direct translation of enlightenment ideals into political action was Jacobinism, which had been effectively practiced primarily in France—although Jacobin clubs existed in most European countries and in the United States—and for only a relatively short period of time. Yet it made a permanent contribution to the subsequent organization of all radical agitation. The small, locally based Jacobin clubs were focal points for revolutionary propaganda campaigns and were employed to mobilize mass support whenever the small core of activists needed such support. Furthermore, the tight network of relations within the clubs and the efficient network of communications between clubs provided for a state of permanent purge that made Robespierre’s slogan about the tyranny of liberty a practical possibility. Jacobinism is an early model of a movement that requires for its perpetration a very high level of activist tension.

Populism. Populism assumed a variety of forms, depending on the place of its occurrence. In the United States it traces back to the ideals of Jeffersonian democracy. Despite Jefferson’s own cosmopolitan mind, these ideals contained physiocratic elements that in the hands of Jackson became a permanent radical trend in American politics. The core of strength of American Populism was always agrarian, but Populism directed some of its appeals to, and derived some of its support from, the urban masses. In Russia a variety of influences, most notably Slavophile sentiments, led to the formation of the Narodnik movement around the time of the emancipation of the serfs. Here imported enlightenment ideals combined with romantic nationalism in the revival of the concept of the mir, an ancient Slavic form of agricultural polity. In Germany, starting with Herder, scholars and writers with a romantic medievalist bent cultivated an interest in folklore, ethnic history, and ultimately, national sovereignty. Although the German development concentrated on the intellectual glorification of the concept of Volk and did not lead to the formation of a populist movement in Germany, it furnished the ideological underpinning for a number of populist-peasant parties in eastern and central Europe. The common element of all these trends was a strong belief in the rights and creative powers of the common man, living close to nature, whose interests are naturally opposed to the oligarchic tendencies of large central governments and to professional political administration.

Philosophical radicalism. The ideals of Jeffersonian democracy and those of the philosophical radicals of England are similar in that historically both are of Whig origin. The English reformers, however, were of distinctly bourgeois persuasion and appeal. Their idea of reconstructing government according to the principle of utility was an exercise in business rationality. Although the ideals of Bentham, the leading theoretician of this group, were close to the ideals of the Jacobins, and although he was in his own way as much a rationalistic simplifier as they were, the characteristic difference between them is that for the English reformer the fight for a rational social order did not admit the possibility of violence and chaos, even as a tactical instrument [SeeBentham].

Anarchism. The strongest and most systematically radical version of radicalism is to be found in anarchism. William Godwin first formulated the complete version of anarchism, teaching that to compel men to act according to reason is superfluous and to compel them to act against reason is unjust. On this basis, he called for the abolishment of all institutions. With Proudhon, anarchism

adopted a program of economic reform that far exceeded anything contained in other contemporary radical tendencies. Later the movement assumed the character of a quasi political party, always, however, refusing to participate in the affairs of government [see Anarchism].

German idealism. German idealism has been called “the theory of the French Revolution.” Starting with the powerful influence of Rousseau on Kant and continuing through Schelling and Fichte, this tendency culminated in the work of Hegel. Here the ideas of freedom and reason were wholly emancipated from man as a concrete being and were objectified in the modern state. Hegel’s statism is the perfect obverse of anarchism. Whereas for Godwin man in his natural state is the paradigm of reason and freedom, for Hegel reason and freedom are the attributes of a transcendental subjectivity whose only possible concrete manifestations are institutions. Although Hegel’s own thinking turned to the glorification of the existing Prussian state, the logic of his argument exerted a powerful influence on the formation of all subsequent radical doctrines.

From its beginning and through the first few decades of the nineteenth century, modern radicalism had a certain enthusiastic unity, expressed in the slogan, Pas d’ennemis a gauche! Even Fichte and the young Hegel stood on the left, in opposition to the conservative restoration forces of the post-Napoleonic era. From approximately the middle of the nineteenth century on, there appeared a split into what came to be known as right-wing radicalism and left-wing radicalism. The split was first manifest among the disciples of Hegel and ultimately led to the realignment of all radical forces.

Right-wing radicalism

By and large, right-wing radicalism is not readily discernible in nineteenth-century politics. The consolidation of the European states followed closely the Hegelian blueprint, and right-wing radicalism appeared mainly in the form of programs seeking to perfect an already existing state of affairs. Revisionist radical right-wing tendencies appear only at the close of the century, through the infusion of a new element. Statism achieved a new formulation, in a doctrine that based national sovereignty on historical missions of distinct races. The principal protagonists of this idea were Joseph Arthur de Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Although this movement explicitly repudiated the influence of Hegel, it drew heavily on the translation of the idea of Weltbiir-gerthum into the idea of the Nationalstaat, and there is little doubt that it absorbed the bulk of the forces that were earlier affiliated with the Hegelian right [SeeGobineau].

The association beween ethnic identity and territorial sovereignty became universally accepted during the nineteenth century and furnished the basis for the political division of Europe at Versailles. During the two decades following World War i, nationalism achieved its most radical expression in the totalitarian dictatorships of Italy, Japan, and Germany. The doctrinal underpinning of these systems varied, emphasizing alternatively race, cultural heritage, or a combination of both. Associated with them are attitudes of superpatriotism and a belief in the superiority of one’s ethnic group, and they encompassed policies of belligerent imperialism. Movements of this sort were active and continue to be active in virtually all nations of the world, and many autocrats have found in the rhetoric of radical nationalism the justification for claiming power [SeeFascism; National Socialism].

A number of phenomena of somewhat lesser significance deserve mention in the context of right-wing radicalism. In France the Radical Republicans stood in opposition to the “opportunist” left wing of the Parliament of 1875 and subsequently became allied with militarist, proclerical, and royalist groups. This alliance was consolidated during the Dreyfuss affair and remained a sporadically active extreme right-wing faction in French politics. Phenomena such as the Falange in Spain and the Black Guard in Rumania also belong to this category [SeeFalangism]. Standing apart from the above but related to them are anti-civil liberties tendencies in American politics. The latter include, among others, such heterogeneous elements as the radicalism of Thaddeus Stevens and his followers, certain nativist movements, and the outlook referred to as McCarthyism.

Left-wing radicalism

The structural affiliation of right-wing radicalism with established political power led to its development as the philosophy of the existing polity, i.e., as an apologia. Hence, the term “radicalism” came to mean left-wing radicalism. But from its very onset this movement was torn by schisms. The last left-wing synthesis, during the two decades following the revolution of 1848, encompassed some socialists of the Jacobin heritage, some English reformers of the labor-class movement, the anarchists under the leadership of Bakunin, disciples of Moses Hess and Ferdinand Lassalle, and, of course, Marxists. By the time of the Paris Commune, this shaky alliance was in shambles. Since then, left-wing radicalism has been divided into numerous factions, which have often fought each other with bitter hostility.

Anarchists have maintained their intransigent alienation from normal political processes. Occasionally they have displayed some strength in the organization of labor movements (e.g., the Industrial Workers of the World in the United States) or in Latin-European politics (e.g., in Spain during the 1930s). On the whole, however, anarchism has remained conspicuous mainly because of real or alleged acts of terrorism. Its occasional associations with criminal elements, i.e., forces inimical not only to the established order but to anarchist ideals themselves, have caused anarchism to be generally regarded as the most virulently destructive form of radicalism.

Marxist communism achieved a strong international party organization, maintaining an orthodox revolutionary line, and gained political ascendancy in several European states in the aftermath of World War I. Of these, the Soviet Union is the only one that remained stable. Following World War II a number of states within the traditional sphere of political influence of Russia came under the domination of the Communist party. These governments instituted nationwide collectivization of productive property and strong central organizations of power, in strict opposition to anarchist teachings.

Evolutionary socialism, which is in part a continuation of English philosophical radicalism and in part an offshoot of Marxism, worked toward the assimilation of elements of the radical doctrine into the mainstream of twentieth-century politics, thereby eliminating the very conditions that were the foundation for the Marxist prophecy. Some socialist parties include the word “radical” in their party designation with justification. Others, like the French Radical Socialists under the leadership of Paul Herriot, are more properly located in the center of the general political spectrum.

Of the many lesser schismatic left-wing radical movements, syndicalism is perhaps the most important. Although mainly a hybrid offshoot of Marxist and anarchist influences, it contained some original ideas and retained a distinct identity over a protracted period of time. Syndicalism exercised a strong influence in some Latin countries of Europe and the Americas, and contributed, inter alia, to the formulation of the doctrine of Italian fascism [SeeSyndicalism].

Radicalism is still very much alive everywhere, but particularly in those countries that recently became free of European domination. It is in the nature of the situation that those who are in this fight must share the forum and spotlight with others, who irresponsibly exploit vulgar frustrations. But even as the fight against the old tyrannies continues, the very polity that radicalism has built has become the focus of new discontents. The conscious and deliberate effort to bring the human community under the rule of reason has led to the development of complex institutions. Intended to insure and increase freedom, equality, and popular welfare, these institutions have recently been attacked as a new, dehumanized tyranny. The theme of alienation is heard again after a century of dormancy, and on the fringes of society there are groups that view the existing social order as their antagonist. Thus, radicalism, which started by abolishing all sanctions of history, has returned to the fold of history, partly by its triumph and partly by its own sins. While the incorporation of the ethics of political freedom and universal rational justice into human consciousness appears to be a permanent achievement, the shadow of new radical questions about the human condition is cast upon the stage of human life.

Radicalism is a part of the general theme of the growth of rationalistic ethics. To the extent that Western civilization has been the most fertile soil for this development, radicalism is native to the West. Of course, neither rationalism nor radicalism is an Occidental monopoly; nor is Western history the record of a sustained development of rational ethics. However, as Max Weber pointed out, the prophetic origin of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the development of a rational economy, the growth of rational science and philosophy, the organization of authority along legal-rational lines, together testify to the fact that reason is the guiding demon of Western man. But the search for an intellectual synthesis of the meaning of life forever transcends life. Reason, like myth, in attempting to grasp and express the roots of being, always idealizes the realities of everyday existence. In radicalism the ideal is the supreme taskmaster. The tension between the activist ethical principle and the exigencies of existence is the core of the radical dilemma.

Egon Bittner

[See alsoAnarchism; Conservatism; Marxism; Nationalism; Personality, Political; Social Movements; Socialism; Totalitarianism. Also related are the biographies ofBakunin; Fanon; Marx.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Radicalism. Radicalism in the United States owes its origins to the so‐called Radical Reformation of the sixteenth century and to civil rebellions and millenarian movements reaching far back in human memory. Indian rebellions against European colonizers and transplanted pietist communes offer the clearest precursors of American political radicalism. Thomas Paine's antimonarchical Common Sense (1776), the first widely read document with direct bearing upon the fate of the incipient nation, was characteristic in two ways. The revolution Paine helped inspire stopped well short of addressing social class, race, and gender inequities. Yet Paine's continuing attack on wrongful authority nevertheless gained him the enmity of ungrateful American conservatives, forcing him into postrevolutionary political exile. The burden of radicalism had already passed to the direct action of Shays's Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1786, which sought to redress economic privilege. Fifteen citizens received death sentences (two actually were hanged), a small figure compared to the vengeance visited upon the organizers of and participants in a long series of Indian and slave uprisings, real and potential.

Radicalism found new outlets in the early labor movements and the utopian and communitarian movements of the Antebellum Era. Urging shorter hours, free public schools, and free land in the West, early workers' movements ultimately failed, but they did make their mark upon public life and Democratic machine politics. The great reform movements of the mid–nineteenth century—women's rights, antislavery, and spiritualism—began from a different standpoint. Social class as such concerned them less than the vision of universal citizenship and multifaceted social improvement. Meeting in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, the first women's rights convention declared a new revolutionary principle for half the human race. Abolitionists likewise demanded the expropriation of wrongfully held human “property.” Spiritualism, an often misunderstood link between the various reform movements and a larger population of sympathizers, grew from a rejection of patriarchal Calvinism and a belief in the oneness of the human spirit with nature.

The outbreak of the Civil War eclipsed every movement but war itself—and emancipation of the slaves. African Americans abandoning the plantations helped speed the Union victory, but Republican party “Radicals” finally abandoned African Americans to what W.E.B. Du Bois called “a new capitalism and a new enslavement of labor,” establishing a model for global economic expansion. The first American followers of Karl Marx, mostly German immigrants, renewed efforts to create a radicalized labor movement. Swept away in the postwar conservative reaction, socialism arose in different forms following the national railroad strikes of 1877, and reemerged in the labor and populist movements of the 1880s and 1890s.

Intermittently for the next half‐century, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans would find a thin section of socialists and labor radicals ready to address race issues with special urgency. The Knights of Labor briefly mobilized a half‐million working people during the mid–1880s. Populism (and its constituent movements known as the Farmers' Alliance) revived multiracial radicalism in other forms, including cooperatives and third‐party politics. Socialists struggled in vain to halt the Spanish‐American War and the American slaughter of Filipino nationalists. A large and influential Socialist party found a constituency of working people early in the twentieth century, only to be crushed by the repression of the Woodrow Wilson administration after 1917.

Twentieth‐century intellectuals like Du Bois, labor activists such as A. Philip Randolph, and advanced figures within such labor movements as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) proposed drastic changes in society's racial orientation as well its economic‐political character. A thoroughgoing antiracism emerged in the 1920s when a defeated American Left, looked abroad to forces shaking the colonial world. American communists, altogether too closely tied to the Soviet Union but sometimes heroic in their own local circumstances, struggled to build an antiracist movement. In part, they achieved impressive success—at least until the Cold War—in building egalitarian industrial unions and a radical interracial culture.

The Cold War and its concomitant domestic repression chilled radicalism severely. Civil rights radicals, however, never quite as crushed as labor radicals had been, revived the direct‐action approach, from the Montgomery bus boycott to the lunch‐counter sit‐ins to the Black Power movement of the 1960s. The anti–Vietnam War movement; environmentalism; feminism; activism by Indian, Chicano, and Asian‐American groups; and, still later the gay‐rights movement, added new dimension to the American radical tradition. But by the 1980s, the hegemonic power of capitalism had overwhelmed resistance in most quarters. Radicalism again consisted, as it had during earlier low periods, largely of support for revolutionary movements abroad and antinuclear protest movements at home. The close of the twentieth century found American radicalism dispersed and institutionally weak. Nevertheless, the partial revival of a weakened and corrupted labor movement, and the appearance of new immigrant populations (most notably from the Dominican Republic and Haiti) with definite radical sentiments, showed signs of reawakening a radicalism damped down by defeat and disappointment.
See also Black Nationalism; Civil Rights Movement; Communist Party—USA; Debs, Eugene V.; Gay and Lesbian Rights Movement; Goldman, Emma; Indian Wars; Populist Era; Populist Party; Sixties, The; Slave Uprisings and Resistance; Socialist Party of America; Students for a Democratic Society; Women's Rights Movements.

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Paul Buhle

radicalism seeks a fundamental change in political structures through a programme of far-reaching but constitutional reform. Its features include some or all of individualism, democracy, minimal government, a market economy, freedom of speech and publication, and opposition to tradition, hereditary privilege, and religious influences.

There was never a single radical party in Britain, though three loose groupings may be identified. The philosophical radicals were the utilitarian followers of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) who formed a small but influential reforming group in the 1830s, including George Grote and Joseph Hume within the Commons, and Edwin Chadwick, Joseph Parkes, and James and John Stuart Mill outside Parliament. Their ideas were publicized through the Westminster Review. Secondly, from the later 1830s, the Manchester School radicals, led by Cobden and Bright, campaigned for free trade and against aristocratic privilege through organizations such as the Anti-Corn Law League. They were supported by nonconformist religious opinion opposed to the established church. Thirdly, outside Parliament, admirers of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man (1791–2) formed a loose alliance of democratic agitators which gave leadership to the chartist movement (1838–52). These extremists were often in conflict with the other, more middle-class radicals. To a large extent they coalesced in the later 1850s into the radical wing of the Liberal Party under Gladstone's leadership. Notable parliamentary radicals in the 1870s and 1880s were Charles Dilke, Joseph Chamberlain, and Charles Bradlaugh. Radicalism declined as the most advanced school of progressive political opinion with the rise of socialist ideas at the end of the 19th cent.

Edward Royle