Since at least the end of the last century, ‘political culture’ has become a key concept in political history. However, its adoption has not always resulted in real methodological innovation, as it has frequently been used to ‘rebrand’ the traditional examination of ideological debates, party congresses, and the political struggle between the élites – thus running the risk of losing much of its heuristic potential. Cirefice's work is the proof that, if properly used, the idea of political culture can still enable the historian to carry out an original and innovative analysis.
‘L'espoir quotidien’ is a rich and in-depth investigation into the collective identities, imaginary, and behaviour of Italian and French socialists, at a turning point in their history, during the first years after the Second World War (1944–9). It adopts a comparative and case-study approach, identifying three Italian and three French federations of different geographical, political, and sociological backgrounds and studying them through a wide variety of sources.
This variety is, indeed, a remarkable aspect of the book: starting from the assumption that the political culture of militants and supporters is not only a complex and multi-dimensional subject, but also one for which there is little direct evidence, Cirefice chooses to integrate traditional sources (party archives, political press, police records) with others of a different kind: correspondence, photographs, films, vignettes, songs, diaries, medals, and banners. What is innovative here is not so much the wide range of documents (as each type has already been the subject of historical research), but their connection and integration. Moreover, the author clearly focuses on the ‘lower’ ranks of the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI) and the Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière (SFIO), using the documents produced by the top echelon solely to detect the attitudes and behaviours of those under them: ‘à la manière des médiévistes’, he attempts to deduct ‘la persistence d'une pratique de la réitération de textes normatifs la prohibant’ (‘the persistence of a practice from the reiteration of the normative texts forbidding it’, p. 138).
The result is a ‘total history’ (as far as possible) of the socialist parties from the grassroots, providing the reader with an in-depth picture of what being a socialist militant meant at the time. In the central part of the work (chapters 3–6), through the adoption of a thematic approach that focuses on spatial, social, and national differences rather than on chronological ones, the author analyses the main elements that constituted the socialist identity: the cultural background, made up of ‘worldviews’ that were often binary (rich-poor, producer-parasite, worker-exploited) and that resulted in a dichotomous approach to politics; the morality of the militants, which frequently oscillated between criticisms of ‘bourgeois’ standards and the demand for irreproachable behaviour, intended to demonstrate the superiority of the party members; the relationship with religion, which was both rejected (the socialist tradition being characterised by ‘un anticléricalisme ancien’, p. 272) and imitated (‘Le socialisme a fait un large emploi du sacré’ [‘Socialism has made extensive use of the sacred’, p. 204]); the daily life of the militant, punctuated by activities such as campaigning, organising and attending rallies, and selling the party newspapers, and centred around symbolic places like the section (in Italy), the ‘café’ (in France) or the city hall (wherever the party carried out the city's administration).
In the first and last part of the book (chapters 1–2 and 7–8), the author focuses more on diachronicity, and analyses the parallel evolution of the PSI and the SFIO from 1944 to 1949 – the turning point being 1947, when the Cold War began, Communist parties were expelled from governments, and, in Italy, the Socialist party broke up.
The first two chapters describe the set of values with which the two parties emerged from the war and the worst defeat in their history. They underline the ‘conscience aigüe de la continuité historique’ (‘acute awareness of historical continuity’, p. 36) that characterised the socialist movement, but also the novelties of the postwar context, when both parties had to rebuild their organisation and doctrine. In fact, the socialists appeared to be torn by different fundamental choices in the early postwar years – republic and revolution – which is to say, antifascism and classism; integration and opposition; ‘antagonist’ and ‘humanist’ socialism; and, above all, pro-communism and anticommunism.
This latter aspect gradually emerges as the decisive one in determining both the evolution of the two parties and their progressive separation. In fact, the affinities between the PSIUP and the SFIO seem to have been greater than their differences between 1944–6, not least because of the many links established in the preceding years: to give just one example, the rejection of the social democratic model was widely shared at grassroots level on both sides. From 1947 onwards, however, the communist issue dug a deeper and deeper chasm between them, which resulted in opposing choices – the SFIO became a pivot for the ‘third-force’ anticommunist coalition, while the PSI entered into a close alliance with the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) – and in the definitive rupture of political, intellectual, and even personal relations. The story of this estrangement and separation from 1947 to 1949, which is also the story of the impact of the Cold War on the two parties, is reconstructed in chapters 7 and 8, which bring the book to a close.
In conclusion, Cirefice's work provides the reader with a rich, extensive, and in-depth investigation into one of the most important turning points for two key components of the ‘Latin socialist’ family: it is an investigation that confirms the all-encompassing nature of political militancy, especially of socialist and communist militancy, in the twentieth century – which is also one of the main reasons why the concept of political culture is particularly suited to it.
Naturally, some minor shortcomings can be noted. For example, the predominantly French perspective of the author often makes him take knowledge of French political history for granted, while by contrast the Italian one is appropriately explained: a more balanced approach, providing comprehensive details of French history as well, would have made the book more easily accessible to non-French readers. Furthermore, the short time span is sometimes a limitation, especially when dealing with cultural elements, which are usually long-term features. However, this latter is not so much a problem as a valuable suggestion for further studies.
