The first PSOE before universal suffrage (1879-1891): the labour movement as a democratizing agent in the Restoration system

Abstract

The beginnings of the labour movement in contemporary history that addresses the nineteenth century, both internationally and in its national histories, are usually linked, in practical terms, to the economic struggle in the class society shaped by the Industrial Revolution and, in theoretical terms, to the ideological evolution of its different organized currents. It is already in the studies dedicated to the twentieth century where we find the greatest incidence of the role played by the labour movement in the democratisation of contemporary societies. Taking into account the key influence that socialism would have on this process in Spain, this paper analyses the most remote origins of its democratizing political practice around the question of universal suffrage in the systemic context of the Restoration with the aim of understanding the foundations of a subject that would bring thousands of people into the political society of the period for the first time.