Chartist Movement

The world's first broad, truly mass, political proletarian revolutionary movement that took place in England 1838–1848. The Chartists formed during the movement was the first workers' political party in modern times.

In 1832, Britain carried out some reforms in respect to parliamentary elections, which enabled the bourgeoisie to establish a more important position in the Parliament, but the proletariat, which had played an important role in the struggle for parliamentary reforms in the past, had gained nothing. In 1834, the Parliament passed the new “Poor Relief Act”, which required admission to the almshouse, which in fact deprived the unemployed and the poor of their right to social relief. Workers felt that this was the result of workers’ lack of voice in parliament, so they thought that without winning the right to vote, they could not improve their situation. In order to improve their economic and political status and win political rights such as universal suffrage, advanced British workers were determined to continue the struggle for a parliamentary reform. The London Workingmen’s Association, established in June 1836, became the organizational center of this struggle. In May 1838, it issued a petition for promulgated, also known as the People’s Charter, which included six specific demands, including the implementation of universal suffrage, the Chartist Movement was named after it. In February 1839, the first congress of Chartists was held in London, under the title “The General Convention of the Industrious Classes”. In July 1840, the National Charter Association was established in Manchester to lead the nation-wide Chartist movement. The Chartist movement held rallies and demonstrations in the form of “People’s Charter” to solicit signatures, this struggle had culminated in three stages, successively.

In May 1839, there were already 1.25 million signatures; in May 1842, they were more than 3.3 million signatures; and in spring 1848, reached to more than 5 million. But their petitions were rejected by Parliament. During the three stages and climaxes during the struggle, a series of local workers’ uprisings also took place. Due to the suppression and heinous attacks by the ruling class, disintegration and divisions among the workers’ ranks and due the lack of correct theoretical guidance, these struggles were lost one after another. After the revolutions in the European countries in 1848 entered a low ebb, the British ruling class stepped up its efforts to suppress the struggle of workers, and the Chartist movement which had lasted for 12 years, encountered a setback.