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Hendrik de Man and the ideology of Planism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Dick Pels
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On 26 December 1933 the front page of the socialist daily Vooruit (Forward) carries a lyrical description of the Christmas Congress of the Belgian Labour Party, already glorified by its old patron Emile Vandervelde as “the most wonderful socialist convention of the past 25 years”. In a long speech on the first day of session “comrade Rik de Man” has elaborated the Plan of Labour. When he leaves the rostrum he is embraced by Vandervelde and flooded by the acclamations of the delegates.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , December 1987 , pp. 206 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1987

Footnotes

*

This translation was prepared at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University, Fall 1986. I am indebted to its associates, staff, and students for some vivid interest shown in my subject and for offering an atmosphere of exciting intellectual companionship.

References

1 Désiré Bouchery at a pianist meeting in Mechelen, , introducing a speech by Hendrik de Man, as reported by De Volksgazet, 1–2 12 1934.Google Scholar

2 Vooruit, , 26 12. 1933.Google Scholar

3 See the much-cited passus in de Man's memoirs which evidences his uneasiness about the ”personality cult’ which accompanied pianist agitation: “The more the people treated me as a kind of saviour, the heavier did this burden my conscience. I recall a typical winter night's scene when I arrived in a small Flemish industrial town, where I was expected to address a meeting. From the railway station to the meeting hall I was surrounded and almost carried along by a crowd which shouted: There he is. There he is! Women kissed the lines of my overcoat, others held up their children for me to touch. Far from relishing in it I trembled, and when my travelling companion wondered why I was so dismayed by this impassioned reception, I answered him: But it is awful! I am no miracle doctor! And how difficult will it be not to disappoint these poor folk!” (Hendrik de Man. Persoon en ideeën, I, Standaard Uitgeverij, Wetenschappelijke, Antwerpen/Amsterdam, 1975, p. 287).Google Scholar

4 Cf. for a fuller exposition of the economic and political background of planism (which is touched on very briefly here) Dodge, Peter, Beyond Marxism. The Faith and Works of Hendrik de Man, Nijhoff, The Hague, 1966,CrossRefGoogle Scholar ch. 6; Hansen, Enk, “Depression Decade Crisis: Social Democracy and Planism in Belgium and the Netherlands 1929–39”, Journal of Contemporary History, 16, 1981;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Brélaz, Michel, de Man, Henri. Une autre idée du socialisme, Genève, 1985, chs. 19–21. On the Dutch Plan see John Jansen van Galen et. al., Het moet, het kan! Op voor het Plan! Vijftig jaar Plan van de Arbeid, Bakker, Bert, Amsterdam, , 1985. Ch. 3 is an earlier Dutch version of the present article.Google Scholar

5 Haegendoren, M. Claeys-van, de Man, Hendrik. Een biografie, Uitg. De Neder landsche Boekhandel, Antwerpen/Utrecht, 1972;Google Scholar and by the same author, 25 Jaar Belgisch socialisme, Standaard, Antwerpen, 1967, pp. 286ff.

6 Claeys, , de Man, Hendrik, p. 166.Google Scholar

7 For further details, see Brélaz, Michel, op. cit., pp. 157–61.Google Scholar

8 For a broader perspective on the ”socialist front generation’ see White, Dan S., “The Shaping of the Socialist Front Generation” unpubl. paper, 1982.Google Scholar

9 Claeys, , p. 151.Google Scholar

10 See Blum's similar reaction at the SFIO Congress to the speeches by Marquet, Montagnon and Déat. On this, extensively, Goodman, Emily, The Socialism of Marcel Délat, Stanford University Ph.D., 1973, pp. 182ff.Google Scholar

11 Sternhell, Zeev, gauche, Ni droite ni. L'idéologie fasciste en France, Seuil, Paris, 1983.Google Scholar For an extended critique see Pels, Dick, “De zelfkant van het socialisme”, Socialisme en Democratie, no 11, 11 1984.Google Scholar

12 See Pels, Dick, “De redelijkheid van het fascisme”, Socialisme en Democratie, 2, 02. 1982.Google Scholar Also de Man, Hendrik, “Oude en nieuwe democratie,” Leiding, in Persoon en ideeën, V, pp. 341–42.Google Scholar

13 Herinneringen, , p. 259; Hendrik de Man, Voor een Plan van Actie, De Wilde Roos, Brussel, n.d., pp. 22–23.Google Scholar

14 de Man, Hendrik, “Socialisme en Planism” in Persoon en ideeën, IV, p. 304.Google Scholar

15 de Man, Hendrik, De socialistische idee, in Persoon en ideeën, III, pp. 422, 429.Google Scholar

16 Idem, p. 427.

17 Idem, pp. 418–21.

18 de Man, Hendrik, “Socialisme en Planisme”, p. 318.Google Scholar

19 de Man, Hendrik, “De Technici en de Crisis”, address pronounced in Liège, 10 11 1934, p. 33.Google Scholar

20 De socialistische idee, p. 409.Google Scholar

21 “Socialisme en Planisme”, p. 319.Google Scholar

22 “De Technicj en de Crisis”, p. 32;Google Scholar also de Man, Hendrik, “Klassenstrijd en Kiassepartij”, Leiding, in Persoon en ideeën, V, p. 330.Google Scholar

23 “De Technici en de Crisis”, pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

24 See de Man, Hendrik, “Overwegingen over de geleide economie”, Persoon en ideeen, IV, p. 51.Google Scholar

25 “Socialisme en Planisme”, p. 313.Google Scholar See also Dodge, Peter, A Documentary Study of Hendrik de Man, Socialist Critic of Marxism, Princeton U.P., 1979, p. 303 (translation changed).Google Scholar

26 De socialistische idee, p. 434; also “Socialisme en Planisme”, p. 318. For a further elaboration of this traditional dilemma see Pels, Dick, “Socialism Between State and Society”, paper for the Symposium on “Socialist Theory at the End of the 20th Century”, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 03 1987.Google Scholar

27 Sternhell, , p. 211.Google Scholar

28 However, in “Overwegingen over de geleide economie” de Man stipulates that one will never be able to establish a “directed capitalism” if one shies away from “radical modifications in the system of property” (p. 72). The verbal hassle over the priority of Power or Property also confuses the issue of the disposition over “cultural goods”. Indeed, the specificity of cultural capital is that it represents something ”in between’ power and property, or recombines elements of both into a new whole. The managers are perhaps less owners of physical or financial capital than ”private possessors’ of cultural capital, and therefore come to resemble the political intelligentsia as far as their structural or ”class’ position is concerned. For a perspective on this issue see Pels, Dick, Property or Power? A Study in Intellectual Rivalry, University of Amsterdam, 1986.Google Scholar

29 de Man, Hendrik, Corporatisme en socialisme, Brussel, 1934, pp. 35–36.Google Scholar

30 “Plan van de Arbei”, in Persoon en ideeën, IV, p. 295; “Socialisme en Planisme”, p. 314. Here cited from Dodge, Peter, A Documentary Study, pp. 299, 303 (but translation changed).Google Scholar

31 de Man, Hendrik, Wende des Sozialismus (Ende des Reformismus), KPOD, Zürich, 1933, p. 12(brochure form of article series in Hamburger Echo, 12 1932–01 1933).Google Scholar

32 Cf., for example, Claeys, , pp. 255–61.Google Scholar

33 Verbruggen, Freddy, “Terug naar het Plan van den Arbeid ”, Bulletin de l'Association pour I'étude de l'oeuvre d'Henri de Man, no 12, 12. 1984, which is a special issue on planism. Cf. also the different statements by Piet Frantzen, Ernest Mandel, Marc Eyskens and Willy Claes in Hendrik de Man. Een portret 1885–1953, AMVC, Antwerpen, 1985.Google Scholar

34 Cf. for a more extended interpretation Pels, Dick, “Hendrik de Man en de psychologie van het socialisme”, Het Vijfde Jaarboek voor het Democratisch Socialisme, WBS/De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam, 1984.Google Scholar A more general sociological background is provided by Gouldner, Alvin, The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class, Continuum, New York, 1979.CrossRefGoogle Scholar