What do we know about early left-wing (socialist and communist) parties?

by Cohacq

Which were the first parties? Did they gain any ground? Were they reformist or revolutionary?

prtzn

You should be more specific on what "early" and "socialist and communist" means in your question. For example, the socialist movement was one thing before the Zimmerwald Conference of 1915 and a completely different one after that. The communist movement was one thing before the Bolshevik Revolution, another one after that and yet one thing before the 1919 Congress of the Comintern and another one after that.