At the end of the 19th century, socialist theories developed by Karl Marx (1818-1883) reached Spain alongside the process of industrialization and the increasing number of salaried workers in the proletariat. Marxism advocated for worker organization and improving the social conditions of the proletariat in the hopes of ultimately replacing capitalism with socialism, creating a society without social classes or inequality ruled instead though the collective management of the means of production, trade, and distribution.