Conclusion: Socialism in Our Time? The Prospects for Socialism in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

The history of social movements and revolutions surveyed in this Handbook provides ample evidence that an oppressed and exploited people who become conscious of their oppression and unite to overcome their predicament will persist in their struggle and prevail to set themselves free, as in the chant “¡el pueblo unido jamás será vencido!”—“the people united will never be defeated!”. This has become the slogan of millions of oppressed people throughout the world who have voiced these words in many languages, and the feeling has been the same—that for true human freedom to occur, people must come together and fight for their liberation. This process has evolved over the course of history through the formation and development of social movements and revolutions on a world scale.