Much of the working class has been represented in the Communist International and the music of that movement. And much of the rural working class has been represented in Country and Western music. |
The Communist International
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Class Cuts Across Boundaries In recent history, socialists have traditionally believed social class to be the deepest and most politically significant division in society. Class is seen to cut across religious, ethnic, racial and national boundaries, and as such, socialists have often tried to foster international working class solidarity. For example, the First International Workingmen’s Association was established by Marx in 1864, a Second or `Socialist’ international was set up in 1889, and revived in 1951. A Third International or Comintern’ was formed by Lenin in 1919, while a rival `Trotskyite’ Fourth International came into existence in 1936.’ |
Russia
As we have seen, the link between socialism and the working class, however it is defined, has weakened during the 20th century. In backward countries, such as Russia, the industrial working class was small and the Bolsheviks forged an alliance between workers and peasants, reflected in what was to become the symbol of communism: the hammer and sickle. China However, in China in 1949 and in other parts of the Third World, the peasantry rather than the working class has been regarded as the `revolutionary class.’ In the industrialized West, material prosperity has made the working class progressively less radical, encouraging some socialists, like Andres Gorz, to predict `the death of the working class’. During the 1960s, the New Left increasingly abandoned any faith in the working class or proletariat and looked instead to the revolutionary potential of groups like students, women, ethnic minorities and the Third World. |
Woody Guthrie - This Land Is Your Land
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Leadbelly- Bourgeois Town
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Some musicians have made definite attempts to draw attention to the plight of many people living 'down and out' in cities, in what for some is sheer hopelessness. Let’s look at some of this. In the Kinks - 'Dead End Street' What is this song saying? - "We are strictly second class - we don’t stand a chance" This is a song basically about the poverty and hopelessness of the city - of those working class in dead end jobs - on 'Dead End Street'. It is for some, a song about the hopelessness of class. Take Billy Joel for a further example. 'Allentown' is about the impact of a collapsing economy - about the impact of a collapsing steel industry on a steel town like Allentown in the United States. |
The Kinks - Dead End Street
Billy Joel - Allentown
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Billy Bragg - Waiting For The Great Leap Forward
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Cat Stevens - Matthew & Son
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