Transnational Consciousness Within the European Left

Abstract

Abstract Since its inception, social democracy has been an international phenomenon, organized in national sections but with multiple links and avenues of exchange connecting the varied strands across political frontiers. Regular international congresses were held to coordinate the political responses to the challenges of the day, although, in practice, it remains to be determined what, if any, impact the decisions reached at the international gatherings had on the daily practice of national parties. Certainly by the 1930s the social democratic International was little more than an empty shell. Yet some form of international center continued to exist, and regular meetings of the LSI executive and bureau were held in frequent succession. The memoirs of Adolf Sturmthal, a key employee of the LSI in Zurich and, later, Brussels, are a fascinating reminder of the impressive international contacts maintained between social demo crats in Europe up to the outbreak of World War 11.1 Personal contacts were, however, only one dimension facilitating potential intellectual cross-fertilization and exchange. A well-developed network of social democratic publications reinforced the public committrnent to an internationalist perspective. In each of the five countries under review, social democrats controlled a plentiful and generally lively party press with, in each case, one national daily newspaper as the informational backbone, at least for as long as conditions of legality prevailed. A network of foreign correspondents kept each national section abreast of information from abroad. German, Austrian and Spanish social democracy furthermore published important theoretical journals with significant attention to international events. Rudolf Hilferding’s Zeitschrift für Sozialismus (ZfS) provided a much-needed forum for reflections on the tragedy of German labor. As much of its readership was dispersed among the few remaining democracies in Europe, there existed more than purely intellectual reasons for heightened attention to what used to be considered “foreign affairs.” Theoretical analyses of fascism, the changing nature of the state and the strategies of united and popular fronts stood side by side with up-to-date assessments of the latest Comintern twists, politics in Spain and the most recent programmatic in novations of the British Labor Party.