Socialism in Europe

on the World Today

TO MANY people in the United States, European socialists seem dangerously close to communism, and a menace to the American way of life. American officials abroad, however, have reason to know better. They have found European socialist leaders among the most valuable supporters of American policies in the cold war against communism.

If one judged by appearances, there might indeed be cause for alarm. The bushy beard of Karl Marx still dominates the Paris headquarters of the French Socialist Party, and most Continental parties continue to profess themselves Marxist. However, these ferocious Marxist facades need not be taken too much in earnest. Nearly all those who seriously intended to transform society by revolution have long since gone over to communism. The modern Continental socialist may still profess Marxism, but there is no risk that he will practice it. Among the non-Marxist parties, such as the British and Scandinavian, the enthusiasm for public ownership is no longer great. It was only after a severe internal struggle that the Labor Party decided to go through with the nationalization of the steel industry, and it is unlikely to do much more. As for the Scandinavians, they are even more cautious than the British in this respect.

In fact, socialists nowadays are chiefly interested in social welfare and a degree of economic planning. Even this moderate program makes severe demands upon a democratic community. People must get used to paying the high taxes which the modern welfare state requires. Businessmen must be reasonably willing to abide by the regulations needed to establish some control in the economy. There must be an honest and efficient civil service to collect (he taxes and administer the controls. Over much of the Continent, these conditions do not exist and will take a long while to achieve. Continental socialists themselves are beginning to acknowledge that such programs cannot be successfully carried out in most countries.

Such conditions, however, do prevail in Britain and Scandinavia. Here democratic socialism does work, and even nonsocialist parties have come to accept most of what has been done. Solidly based on highly organized trade-union movements, AngloScandinavian socialism has and probably will retain the support of almost half the voters. With the opposition divided, this is often enough to secure a parliamentary majority. In Britain, Sweden, and Norway such majorities now exist, and socialist parties have full government power.

Even these most fortunate of socialist parties now feel somewhat at sea. They grew up as a movement of protest against the harshness and inhumanity of capitalism in its youth. Now that their aims in terms of social welfare have been realized, they are uncertain where to go next. A conservative party can stand still and yet survive. But socialist parties draw their vigor from the crusading zeal of their enthusiasts. Like bicyclists, they must go forward or topple.

On the Continent the socialist parties face a more urgent problem — that of rallying enough voters to their support to secure a parliamentary majority, for most of them, this now looks next to impossible. Everywhere the Catholic Church is a major force in politics, and Catholic parties draw off a portion of the working-class support the socialists might otherwise receive.

Although the communist parties are generally in decline, they also draw their votes from the same source. In France and Italy most industrial workers still vote communist, and the situation of the socialists is therefore grim. The French Socialist Party has found its only reliable base in civil servants and oilier white-collar workers. Italian socialism is split three ways — the fellow travelers under Nenni, the moderates under Romita and Silone, and the right-wingers under Saragat. Taken together, they are only a minor force in Italian politics.

Socialism in Germany

The one Continental socialist party which has some prospect of electoral success is the German. Recent elections in Western Germany have shown striking socialist gains. But here the reason is to be found clearly outside Marxism or even socialism.

While Chancellor Adenauer has seemed willing to conciliate the Western powers and consider their ideas on rearmament, Herr Schumacher has led the socialists in beating the nationalist drum. If there is to be German rearmament, he demands the highest possible price for it. He begins with complete equality for Germany, as if World War II were a century rather than five years ago. Even more, he says: “The German military contribution makes sense only if the world democracies will defend Germany offensively to the east.”

An appeal of this sort is directly contrary to the moral and pacifist traditions of democratic socialism: it is, in fact, further than most nonsocialist. leaders in Western Europe would be willing to go. Herr Schumacher looks like the Pilsudski rather than the Attlee of Germany.

Herr Schumacher does, however, enjoy one advantage which other Continental socialist leaders have often envied him — that of being in opposition, and thus enjoying full freedom of attack. The other parties have all taken part, at one time or another, in the coalition governments of the post-war years.

In France, Italy, Holland, Austria, and Switzerland the cabinets contain socialist ministers today. Their experience has been an increasingly unhappy one. So long as there were communists in the governments, as there were generally in the first year or two after the war, the socialists held a central position which gave them a certain freedom of action.

But with the communists gone, they find themselves reduced lo the role of junior partners in predominantly conservative coalitions. Their names are associated with decisions which are the very reverse of socialism, as Europe’s businessmen increasingly control government and set their course for a form of free enterprise so rugged that Senator Taft might well find it too extreme.

Where the socialists hold power

Even where socialists hold actual power, as in Britain and Scandinavia, they must sometimes make unpopular decisions. Wage freezing, conscription, increased expenditures on armament — all these run counter to traditional socialist ideas. But they are forced upon cabinets by the facts of the post-war situation. There is no scapegoat to whom the responsibility can be shifted.

Reluctantly, but on the whole successfully, both leaders and rank and file learn that power is not an unmixed blessing, that it brings burdens as well as rewards. They learn that things said from the soapbox in the carefree days of agitation cannot always be repeated from the throne. For a political party, as well as for an individual, the transition from adolescence to adulthood is not easy.

Continental socialist parties too often give the impression of being in a state of perpetual adolescence. To be sure, some leaders who take part in coalition governments are capable of learning from the facts. Said one Austrian cabinet minister: “I used to think like a Marxist. Now I think like a Brivy Councillor.”

Coalition is much harder on socialist parties than on parties which represent special-interest groups, such as farmers or shopkeepers. For them, it is easy to realize that the same sort of give-and-take must occur in cabinets as in everyday business. Knowing they cannot have it all their own way, they are content with what they can get, and blame their leaders only if they have not bargained strongh enough.

But rank-and-file enthusiasts of parties with moral and ideological bases are likely to feel that something of their soul has been betrayed. Hence there arises, for instance, the breach between the party and its cabinet ministers which has constantly plagued French socialism. Many Continental socialists seem happier with 1 he oratory of opposition than with burdens of responsibility. Only thus can they keep their dreams untarnished by contact with reality.

Across frontiers

Frustrated or uncertain of their destination within their own countries, many socialists have felt that they could recover their initiative by joining hands across frontiers. This cherished dream first took shape in 1864, with the foundation of the First International. The third such effort, the Labor and Socialist International, collapsed in 1939. Some socialists wanted to make another try after the war. But it soon became evident that the British and Scandinavian parties, in particular, strongly opposed any centralized International which would give their poor relations on the Continent an opportunity to interfere in their affairs.

Only the loosest form of association could be achieved. It did make possible regular meetings of European socialist leaders, which have had some real value in enabling them to understand each other’s viewpoints and problems. But as one of its leaders has frankly acknowledged, “The International Socialist Conference so far has failed to produce a detailed and coherent socialist policy for the great problems of t he modern world.”

Many socialists hoped that a socialist Europe could become a sort of “third force” between American capitalism and Russian communism. This idea, once widely held, lost something of its charm when the dust of the war had settled and it was clear that Europe, far from going socialist, was once more becoming its old conservative self. It was finally buried by the practical politicians of socialism, who saw that Europe could not survive in the shadow of the Red Army without American economic and military aid.

The split within the socialists

In view of their strong international traditions, one might have thought that socialists would take the leadership in the various efforts being made to bring about European unity. Here, however, they were badly split. The British Labor Party fought shy of the European movement itself because of its association with Winston Churchill, while socialists like Paul-Henri Spaak of Belgium plunged into it with enthusiasm.

When the Council of Europe met at Strasbourg, the socialists, much in the minority anyway, promptly disagreed among themselves. The British and the Scandinavians would have nothing to do with European federation. Even among the federalists there were divided counsels. M. Philip was so keen on federation that he wanted it even without Britain, but to another French socialist leader, M, Mollet, this was unthinkable.

Both within their countries and on the European scene as a whole, the socialist parties seem in the unhappy state of being “all dressed up with no place to go. The modest AngloSeandinavian programs have been all but exhausted. The Marxist armor of the Continentals seems as out of date as that with which Don Quixote sallied forth. The old dream of internationalism has been punctured by conflicting national interests.

Nevertheless, European socialism retains very considerable assets. With all their faults, its leaders and followers are well above the European average in good will and public spirit. As a competitor with communism for the allegiance of the workers, it has prevailed everywhere in free Europe except France and Italy.

Above all, the name of socialism still has great prestige, both in Europe and overseas. So hardened a conservative as Tsaldaris, the leader of the Greek Royalists, has seen lit more than once to describe himself as a socialist. Vargas of Brazil has said that he wants to become the Attlee of the Amazon. Many democratic leaders of Africa and Asia consider themselves socialists.

America and the socialists

In the common cause of the free world, can the prestige and great inherited assets of socialism be married to the power, energy, and creative ideas of America — giving birth, in due course, 1o a sort of international New Deal?

It is less improbable than it seems. Indeed, something very like it is taking place. There have been serious obstacles to overcome. The prejudices are not all on the American side. Many Europeans still think that America is dominated by Wall Street, and form their picture of il from Jack London and the early novels of Upton Sinclair. Their ignorance of contemporary America is profound, and they follow the ancient geographers in filling the blank spaces on the map with imaginary monsters.

Those European socialists, like Haakon Lie of Norway, who have lived in America and really know it, took the first essential steps in bringing the facts home to Europe. Since the beginning of Marshall Aid, there has been a steady flow of American trade-unionists to Europe, and an even greater flow the other way.

The part played by American socialists should not be neglected. A handful of very able ones have been placed in strategic posts in the various American embassies in Europe, where they can maintain close contact with their fellow socialists. Vehement opponents of communism, they are among the most effective spokesmen for American foreign policy.

America has had little reason to complain recently of Europe’s socialists. They have supported every major initiative of American policy, from the European Recovery Urogram through the North Atlantic Pact to the UN action in Korea. Where some socialists have appeared to oppose American policy, it has usually been for national rather than socialist reasons. Thus, Britain’s caution about the Schuman Plan is common to Conservatives and Laborites alike, and the attitudes of M. Moeh and Herr Schumacher towards German rearmament arise from reasons. respectively, of French and German patriotism.

Not content with mere passive support of American policies, Europe’s socialists are developing and exlending them. President Truman’s Point Four proposals were echoed two years later in British Labor’s World Plan for Mutual Aid. European socialists have played a useful part in convincing their less enlightened comrades overseas of the merits of American policy.

When John Strachey visited Burma, he found its socialist cabinet troubled by the close alliance between Britain and “capitalist” America, He had time to give them a short but valuable lecture on the strength of American trade-unions, the extent of welfare legislation in effect, and the degree to which government, through such programs as the support of farm prices, had modified the traditional practices of free enterprise.

As in any marriage between persons with differing backgrounds and temperaments, the relations between Europe’s socialists and the United States may not always be free of strain. But with Joseph Stalin holding the shotgun, the two have a powerful incentive to get along together.