Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T04:07:34.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Long Fifties: The Politics of Socialist Programmatic Revision in Britain, France and Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Carl Cavanagh Hodge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

After 1945, the reordering of international affairs around the ideological polarities of Washington and Moscow initiated for European social democrats an extended period of self-examination. Accustomed to a place at the centre stage of ideas on the evolution of advanced capitalist economies, they suddenly found themselves in a smaller Europe, the principal theatre of the superpower confrontation. At the point when it seemed only reasonable to suppose that the crisis of industrial capitalism in the 1930s, followed by six years of war, would at last bring a durable electoral majority to the cause of reconstruction under democratic socialism, both domestic and international politics were full of new ambiguities. The hope of the immediate post-war years gave way to uncertainty. That uncertainty, however, could not be attributed to altered circumstances alone. The fact that the decade of the 1950s turned out to be ‘long’ – involving electoral defeats to which there appeared to be no obvious answers – was due in no small part to the nature of the social democratic tradition itself.1

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 1993 , pp. 17 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The title is derived from Abelshauser, Werner, Die langen fünfziger Jahre: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1949–1966 (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1987).Google Scholar

2Drucker, H. M., Doctrine and Ethos in the Labour Party (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1979), 25.Google Scholar

3 McKibbin, R., The Evolution of the Labour Party, 1910–1924 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 96Google Scholar; Durbin, E., New Jerusalems: The Labour Party and the Economics of Democratic Socialism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), 214–18, 263.Google Scholar

4 Beer, S. H., Modern British Politics: Parties and Pressure Groups in the Collectivist Age (London: Faber and Faber, 1965), 179.Google Scholar

5 Morgan, K. O., Labour People: Leaders and Lieutenants, Hardie to Kinnock (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 126–7129,Google Scholar; Pimlott, Ben, Hugh Dalton (London: Jonathan Cape, 1985), 450–75.Google Scholar

6 See Burnham, James, The Managerial Revolution (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1941)Google Scholar; Bell, D., The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties (New York: Free Press, 1960).Google Scholar

7 Labour Party, Report of the 52nd Annual Conference, 1953 (thereafter Report 1953), 117; C. A. R. Crosland, ‘The Transition from Capitalism’ (thereafter Crosland, ‘Transition’), in Crossman, R. H. S., ed., New Fabian Essays (London: Turnstile, 1952), 33–68.Google Scholar

8 Morgan, K. O., Labour in Power, 1945–1951 (thereafter Morgan, Labour) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 140.Google Scholar

9 Greenleaf, W. H., The British Political Tradition (London: Methuen, 1983)Google Scholar, ii. 466–75; Labour Party, Report of the 49th Annual Conference, 1950, 132.

10 Ibid., 474.

11 Crosland, C. A. R., The Future of Socialism (New York: Schocken, 1956), 355–6Google Scholar; also idem, ‘Transition’, 54–5, 68.

12 Middlemas, K., Power, Competition and the State: Britain in Search of Balance, 1940–1961 (London: Macmillan, 1986), 225CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hugh Gaitskell, ‘Public Ownership and Equality’, Socialist Commentary, 19 June 1955, 165–7.

13 The Economist, 10 Oct. 1959, 117.

14 Haseler, Stephen, The Gaitskellites: Revisionism in the British Labour Party, 1951–1964 (thereafter Haseler, Gaitskellites) (London: Macmillan, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 1975–6; Howell, David, British Social Democracy, A Study in Development and Decay (London: Croom Helm, 1980), 222–3.Google Scholar

15 Party, Labour, Report of the Annual Conference, 1959, 122, 131.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., 86; also Barbara Castle, ‘Still Socialist’, New Statesman, 17 Oct. 1959, 497–8.

17 Breitman, Richard, German Socialism and Weimar Democracy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 114–30Google Scholar; Heinrich, August Winkler, Der Schein der Normalität (Berlin/Bonn: J. H. W. Dietz, 1985), 319–27.Google Scholar

18 For an analysis of classical Zusammenbruchstheorie in the founding generation of German Social Democracy, see Walther, R., Aber nach der Sundflut kommen wir und nur wir: Zusammenbruchstheorie, Marxismus und politisches Defizit in der SPD. 1890–1914 (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1981).Google Scholar

19 Tenbruck, F. H., ‘Alltagsnormen und Lebensgefühl in der Bundesrepublik’, in Löwenthal, R. and Schwarz, H.-P., eds, Die Zweite Republik: 25 Jahre Bundesrepublik Deutschland – Eine Bilanz (thereafter Löwenthal and Schwartz, Die Zweite Republik) (Stuttgart: Seewald, 1974), 289–310.Google Scholar

20 Kitzinger, U. W., German Electoral Politics: A Study of the 1957 Campaign (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), 129–30.Google Scholar

21 Schellinger, H. K., The SPD and the Bonn Republic: A Socialist Party Modernizes (thereafter Schellinger, SPD) (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968), 72–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klotzbach, Kurt, Der Weg zur Staatspartei: Programmatik, praktische Politik und Organisation der deutschen Sozialdemokratie, 1945 bis 1965 (thereafter Klotzbach, Der Weg) (Berlin/Bonn: J. H. W. Dietz, 1982), 262–3.Google Scholar

22 Douglas, , Chalmers, A., The Social Democratic Party of Germany: From Working Class Movement to Modem Political Party (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), 59–60.Google Scholar

23 Protokoll der Verhandlungen des Parteitages der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, 1954, 149–69.Google Scholar

24 Schellinger, , SPD, 46.Google Scholar

25 Miller, Susanne, ‘Die SPD vor und nach Godesberg’, in Löwenthal, and Schwarz, , Die Zweite Republik, 394.Google Scholar

26 Schellinger, , SPD, 47–9; Basic Programme of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, 1959, 9.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., 11.

28 Deist, Heinrich, ‘Gemeineigentum in der freiheitlich geordneten Wirtschaft’ Neue Geseltschaft Vol. 6 (1959), 356.Google Scholar

29 Allen, Christopher S., ‘The Underdevelopment of Keynesianism in the Federal Republic of Germany’, in Hall, Peter A., ed., The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism Across Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 273–5.Google Scholar

30 Klotzbach, , Der Weg, 452.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., 447–8; also Lompe, Klaus, ‘Zwanzig Jahre Godesberger Programm der SPD’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Vol. B46, (11 Nov. 1979), 9.Google Scholar

32 Protokoll der Verhandlungen der Sozialdemokralischen Partei Deutschlaitds 1958, 218.Google Scholar

33 Morgan, , Labour, 188–231Google Scholar; Report 1953, 61–80.Google Scholar

34 ibid., 256; On Britain's rejection of the Schuman Plan see Bullock, Alan, Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary 1945–51 (London: W. W. Norton, 1983), 779–90Google Scholar, 818. On the ‘special relationship’ see Carlton, David, Britain and the Suez Crisis (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 5–6.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., 394–6; Haseler, , Caitskellites, 137.Google Scholar

36 Skidelsky, Robert, ‘Lessons of Suez’ in Skidelsky, R. and Bogdanor, V., eds, The Age of Affluence, 1951–1964 (London: Macmillan, 1970), 174,181–2Google Scholar; Epstein, Leon, British Politics in the Suez Crisis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964), 64.Google Scholar

37 Reuter, Ernst, ‘Flucht in die Selbsttäuschung’, Der Monat, Vol. 5, no. 50 (1952), 155–6Google Scholar; Vardys, Stanley V., ‘Germanya's Postwar Socialism: Nationalism and Kurt Schumacher’, Review of Politics, Vol. 27, no. 2 (1965), 237–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Hanrieder, Wolfram, Germany, America, Europe: Forty Years of German Foreign Policy (thereafter Hanrieder, Germany) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klotzbach, , Der Weg, 289Google Scholar; Paterson, W. E., The SPD and European Integration (thereafter Paterson, SPD and Integration) (Westmead: Saxon House, 1974), 49–58Google Scholar; Hrbek, Rudolf, Die SPD, Deutschland und Europa: Die Haltung der Sozialdemokratie zum Verhältnis von Deutschland und Westintegration (thereafter Hrbek, Die SPD, Deutschland) (Bonn: Europa, 1972), 109, 156–7Google Scholar; Wettig, G., Entmilitarisierung und Wiederbewaffnung in Deutschland, 1945–1955 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1967), 523–6Google Scholar; Drummond, G. D., The German Social Democrats in Opposition, 1949–1960: The Case Against Rearmament (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982), 44–8.Google Scholar

39 Federal Republic of Germany, Verhandlungen des Bundestags, Stenographische Berichte 14, 242 Sitzung, 5 Dec. 1952, 11455.

40 Schmid, Carlo, ‘Germany and Europe’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 3, no. 4 (July 1952), 531–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and idem, ‘Die Aussenpolitik des Machtlosen’, Aussenpolitik, Vol. 3, no. 1 (Jan. 1953), 11–19.

41 Hanrieder, , Germany, 99Google Scholar; Baring, Arnulf, Machtwechsel: Die Ära Brandt–Scheel (Munich: DTV, 1984), 431Google Scholar; Hrbek, , Die SPD, Deutschland, 288–9Google Scholar; Paterson, , SPD and Integration, 130–1.Google Scholar

42 Zeldin, Theodore, France 1848–1945, Politics and Anger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 422Google Scholar; Criddle, Byron, ‘The French Parti Socialiste’, in Paterson, William E., and Thomas, Alastair H., eds, Social Democratic Parties in Western Europe (London: Croom Helm, 1977), 25.Google Scholar

43 Criddle, Byron, ‘The French Socialist Party’, in Paterson, William E. and Thomas, Alastair H., eds, The Future of Social Democracy: Problems and Prospects for Social Democratic Parties in Western Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 223.Google Scholar

44 Alexander, Werth, France 1940–1955 (London: Robert Hale, 1956), 381.Google Scholar

45 Portelli, Hugues, Le socialisme français tel qu'il est (Paris: PUF, 1980), 83Google Scholar; SFIO, Congrès national 1951, Compte rendu sténographique, 64Google Scholar; Wall, Irwin, The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945–1954 (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1991), 52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; For a contemporary American appreciation of the SFIO's anti-Soviet credentials see Codding, George A. Jnr, ‘The French Socialist Party and the West’, Orbis, Vol. 4, no 4 (1961), 478–91.Google Scholar

46 Simmons, H. G., The French Socialists in Search of a Role, 1956–1967 (thereafter Simmons, French Socialists) (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970), 217–19Google Scholar; Codding, G. A. Jnr and Safran, W., Ideology and Politics: The Socialist Party of France (thereafter Codding and Safran, Ideology) (Boulder: Westview, 1979), 95–7.Google Scholar

47 Macridis, Roy C., ‘The Predicament of French Socialism’, Antioch Review, Vol. 20 (1960), 155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Guidoni, pierre, quoted by François Lafon, ‘Des principes du Molletisme’, in Menager, B., Ratte, P., Thiebault, J-L, Vandenbussche, R., eds, Guy Mollet, un camarade en république (thereafter Menager et al., Mollet) (Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1987), 86–8.Google Scholar

49 Codding, and Safran, , Ideology, 131–4Google Scholar; Criddle, Byron, Socialists and European Integration: A Study of the French Socialist Party (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 57–71Google Scholar; Mollet, Guy, ‘France and the Defence of Europe’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 32, no. 3 (1954), 365–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; On the defeat of the EDC see Lerner, Daniel and Aron, Raymond, eds, France Defeats EDC (New York: Praeger, 1957), 128–96.Google Scholar

50 Buffotot, patrice, ‘Guy Mollet et la defence’, in Menager et al., Mollet, 499–514.Google Scholar

51 Kahler, Miles, Decolonization in Britain and France: Domestic Consequences of International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 190.Google Scholar

52 Ibid., 204, 200–1.

53 Bell, D. S. and Criddle, Byron, The French Socialist Party: The Emergence of a Party of Government (thereafter Bell and Criddle, French Socialist Party) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 42–60Google Scholar; Simmons, French Socialists, 219–20, 240–1; Danièle Loschak, La convention des institutions Républicaines: François Mitterrand et le socialisme (Paris: PUF, 1971).

54 Duhamel, Olivier, La Gauche et la Cinquième République (Paris: PUF, 1980), 64–72.Google Scholar For Mitter rand's personal critique see idem, Le coup d'état permanent (Paris: PLON, 1964), and Cayrol, Roland, François Mitterrand, 1945–1967 (Paris: FNSP, 1967), 21–8.Google Scholar

55 Bell, and Criddle, , French Socialist Party, 70. Stefan Baron, Das Volksfrontbündnis und die Entwicklung des Parteiensystems in Frankreich (Cologne: Carl Heymanns, 1977).Google Scholar

56 Ibid., 252.

57 Duverger, Maurice, Bréviaire de la cohabitation (Paris: PUF, 1986), 42.Google Scholar

58 Portelli, Hughes, ‘L'integration du Parti Socialiste à la Cinquième République’, Revue Française de Science Politique, Vol. 34, no. 4–5 (Aug. 1984), 816–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and idem, ‘La présidentialisation des partis français’, Pouvoirs, Vol. 14 (1980), 97–106.