Italian Industrialists from Liberalism to Fascism: The Political Development of the Industrial Bourgeoisie, 1906–34 by Franklin Hugh Adler

Abstract

348 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE role, attracting some engineers as effectively as the promise ofsocial­ ism attracted others. The 1920s were probably the high point of American influence on European industrialization. The mantras of “Fordism” and “Tay­ lorism” flowed from the lips of engineers, technocrats, and politi­ cians who sought to rationalize their countries’ industry. The Soviet Union, with its technological optimism, was no exception. The Sovi­ ets’ problem, however, was in adopting all aspects of Frederick Tay­ lor’s scientific management, including his complicated functional division ofmanagement. The resultant administrative morass proved incredibly messy, graphically demonstrating why that aspect of Tay­ lor’s theories had been dropped by his American advocates. Soviet industrialization was hindered further by major planning mistakes, both variations of “the best is the enemy of the good.” Decision makers had to decide what machine tools to import. Should they choose the most advanced tools, thus necessitating highly skilled machinists but implying first-world status? Or should they choose less-advanced machines, which better matched the real­ ity of poorly skilled workers but implied second-tier status? In the end they chose the more expensive, advanced equipment, and it was poorly used. Equally important, the lack of auxiliary equipment meant that imported steelmaking machinery was also poorly used. Soviet factories actually demanded more, not less, unskilled labor to move materials and machines about. Humans substituted for the cranes and other equipment not ordered. The paradoxes of Soviet industrialization would be amusing had they not been so cosdy. In a sense, the miracle is not that Soviet industrialization accomplished so little but that it accomplished any­ thing at all! Shearer has contributed significantly to our understand­ ing of the processes of industrialization in the Soviet Union. His nuanced interpretation may upset ideologues who prefer black-andwhite perspectives, but historians of technology and of the Soviet Union will be glad to have this well-written tale. Jonathan Coopersmith Dr. Coopersmith teaches at Texas A&M University. He has written about the elec­ trification of Russia and the Soviet Union. Italian Industrialistsfrom Liberalism to Fascism: The PoliticalDevelopment oftheIndustrialBourgeoisie, 1906-34. By Franklin Hugh Adler. Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv+458; notes, in­ dex. $64.95 (cloth). Reading this study of Italian industrialists in the first third of the twentieth century is a bit like entering a time warp. Franklin Hugh Adler’s book really belongs to the historiographical agenda of the TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 349 1970s, a period that marked the high point of scholarly interest in the links between socioeconomic backwardness and Fascism and, more specifically, in the role played by elites in the rise and triumph of Mussolini’s movement. Since the early 1980s, however, there has been a fundamental reorientation in historical studies of modern Italy. The crisis of Marxism and the waning of the Cold War helped fuel a body of revisionist scholarship that has attacked the teleologi­ cal assumptions and sociological abstractions underlying the con­ nection between flawed modernization and failed liberal democ­ racy. In particular, new research has called into question Antonio Gramsci’s notion of a “weak bourgeoisie,” replacing it with one that emphasizes the diversity and vitality of the Italian middle classes. Adler’s interpretation attempts to combine structural and conjunctural analyses in order to challenge those orthodox Marxist “in­ strumentalist” interpretations that blamed big business for Fascism. Focusing on the new industries and employer associations in the city of Turin, he argues that Italian industrialists did not embrace antiliberal, corporatist, or explicitly authoritarian positions in the first third of this century. On the contrary, he insists, they remained steadfastly committed to a “liberal-technocratic” productivism, which aimed at rationalizing syndical relations and guaranteeing the free development of industry with a minimum of state intervention. Accordingly, they were not unsympathetic to moderate unions, kept their distance from the early nationalist movement, and opposed colonial adventures as well as Italian intervention in World War I. In the same vein, Adler asserts that industrialists both opposed and suffered from the initiatives of the wartime command economy and “precorporatist” mobilization. Reflecting the limits of traditional Italian liberalism, the postwar crisis that led to Fascism, in Adler’s account, was largely...