Editing Left-wing politics (section)

== History ==
{{see also|American Left|French Left|Left–right political spectrum|History of political thought}}
[[File:Estatesgeneral.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|The 5 May 1789 opening of the [[Estates General of 1789]] in Versailles]]
In politics, the term ''Left'' derives from the [[French Revolution]] as the political groups opposed to the royal veto privilege ([[The Mountain|Montagnard]] and [[Jacobin (politics)|Jacobin]] deputies from the [[Estates-General of 1789|Third Estate]]) generally sat to the left of the presiding member's chair in parliament while the ones in favour of the royal veto privilege sat on its right.<ref>[[Michel Winock]], La Droite, hier et aujourd'hui, tempus, 2012, p. 12.</ref> That habit began in the original French [[National Constituent Assembly (France)|National Assembly]]. Throughout the 19th century, the main line dividing [[Politics of France|Left and Right]] was between supporters of the French [[republic]] and those of the [[monarchy]]'s privileges.<ref name="Knapp"/>{{rp|2}} The [[June Days uprising]] during the [[French Second Republic|Second Republic]] was an attempt by the Left to re-assert itself after the [[1848 Revolution (France)|1848 Revolution]], but only a small portion of the population supported this.

In the mid-19th century, [[nationalism]], [[socialism]], [[democracy]] and [[anti-clericalism]] became key features of the French Left. After [[Napoleon III]]'s [[French coup of 1851|1851 coup]] and the subsequent establishment of the [[Second French Empire|Second Empire]], [[Marxism]] began to rival radical republicanism and [[utopian socialism]] as a force within left-wing politics. The influential ''[[Communist Manifesto]]'' by [[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]], published amidst the wave of [[revolutions of 1848]] across Europe, asserted that all of human history is defined by [[class struggle]]. They predicted that a [[proletarian]] revolution would eventually overthrow [[bourgeois]] [[capitalism]] and create a [[Stateless society|stateless]], [[Post-capitalism|moneyless]] and [[classless]] [[communist society]]. It was in this period that the word ''wing'' was appended to both Left and Right.<ref name="oed.com">{{cite dictionary|title=Home: Oxford English Dictionary |dictionary=Oxford English Dictionary |url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/107000?redirectedFrom=left-wing#eid |access-date=3 June 2017}}</ref>

The [[International Workingmen's Association]] (1864–1876), sometimes called the First International, brought together delegates from many different countries, with many different views about how to reach a classless and stateless society. Following a split between supporters of Marx and [[Mikhail Bakunin]], anarchists formed the [[Saint-Imier International]] and later the [[International Workers' Association – Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores|International Workers' Association (IWA–AIT)]].<ref>{{cite book|author-last=Marshall |author-first=Peter |title=Demanding the Impossible — A History of Anarchism |title-link=Demanding the Impossible |publisher=[[Fontana Press]] |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-00-686245-1 |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/demandingimpossi00mars_782/page/n545 9]}}</ref> The [[Second International]] (1888–1916) became divided over the issue of [[World War I]]. Those who opposed the war, among them [[Vladimir Lenin]] and [[Rosa Luxemburg]], saw themselves as further to the left.

In the United States, leftists such as [[social liberals]], [[Progressivism in the United States|progressives]] and [[trade unionists]] were influenced by the works of [[Thomas Paine]], who introduced the concept of [[asset-based egalitarianism]] which theorises that [[social equality]] is possible by a redistribution of resources. After the [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]] era in the aftermath of the [[American Civil War]], the phrase "the Left" was used to describe those who supported trade unions, the [[civil rights movement]] and the [[anti-war movement]].<ref name="Van Gosse 2005">{{cite book|author-last=Van Gosse |title=The Movements of the New Left, 1950–1975: A Brief History with Documents |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-4039-6804-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author-last=Reuss |author-first=JoAnne C. |title=American Folk Music and Left-Wing Politics |publisher=[[The Scarecrow Press]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-8108-3684-6}}</ref> More recently, ''left-wing'' and ''right-wing'' have often been used as synonyms for the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] and [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] parties, or as synonyms for [[Modern liberalism in the United States|liberalism]] and [[Conservatism in the United States|conservatism]], respectively.<ref>{{cite magazine|date=3 March 2009 |title=Steel to gop fight for Coleman |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |url=http://thepage.time.com/2009/03/03/steele-to-gop-fight-for-coleman/?xid=rss-page |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722030847/http://thepage.time.com/2009/03/03/steele-to-gop-fight-for-coleman/?xid=rss-page |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 July 2011 |access-date=4 April 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |date=7 May 2009 |title=Is it Spain's place to investigate Gitmo? |url=http://www.theweek.com/article/index/96256/Is_it_Spains_place_to_investigate_Gitmo |magazine=The Week |access-date=3 June 2017 |archive-date=25 April 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140425012717/http://theweek.com/article/index/96256/Is_it_Spains_place_to_investigate_Gitmo |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Reported in ''Mother Jones'', 29 April 2009.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=June 2017}}<ref>{{cite news |author-last=Gellene |author-first=Denise |date=10 September 2007 |title=Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |url=http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-politics10sep10,0,5982337.story |access-date=2 May 2010 |archive-date=12 April 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100412144317/http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-politics10sep10,0,5982337.story |url-status=live }}</ref>

During the 20th century, war resulted in a dramatic intensification of the pace of social changes, and was a crucial catalyst for the growth of left-wing politics.<ref name = "Kolko 1994 xviitoxviii">{{Harvnb|Kolko|1994|p=xvii–xviii}}: "War in this century became an essential precondition for the emergence of a numerically powerful Left, moving it from the margins to the very center of European politics during 1917–18 and of all world affairs after 1941".</ref> Since the Right was populist, both in the [[Western Bloc|Western]] and the [[Eastern Bloc]], anything viewed as avant-garde art was called leftist across Europe, thus the identification of Picasso's ''[[Guernica (Picasso)|Guernica]]'' as "leftist" in Europe<ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Werckmeister |author-first1=Otto Karl |title=Icons of the Left: Benjamin and Eisenstein, Picasso and Kafka After the Fall of Communism |date=1999 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=978-0226893563 |location=Chicago}}</ref>{{page needed|date=January 2017}} and the condemnation of the Russian composer [[Shostakovich]]'s opera (''[[Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (opera)|The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District]]'') in ''[[Pravda]]'' as follows: "Here we have 'leftist' confusion instead of natural, human music".<ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Gutman |author-first1=David |title=Prokofiev |date=1996 |publisher=Omnibus Press |isbn=978-0711920835 |edition=New |location=London}}</ref>{{page needed|date=November 2016}}