Bourgeois Parties Research Articles

Rudi Dutschke and György Lukács on the Problems of the Bolshevik Type Socialism

The study examines the original work An Attempt to Get Lenin Back on His Feet (Berlin, 1974) by Rudi Dutschke, the well-known German political philosopher and leader of the youth movement in 1968, as well as the influence of the famous Hungarian philosopher György Lukács on the ideas of Dutschke. Dutschke revealed the reasons for the impossibility of socialist ideals being feasible in the 20th century, despite the heroic attempts of the Bolsheviks and Western radical socialists to realize them. The revolution occurred in a country of semi-Asian stagnating capitalism and was not supported by the European anti-capitalist revolution. As a result, after the victory of the Bolsheviks in Russia, the social system was revived with the dominance of the state bureaucracy (the fused party-state apparatus) over society. There were no universal forms of social movement (Verkehr), which led to the fact that socialism became local, up to the danger of its abolition. At the same time, according to Dutschke, it is precisely an equal alliance between the progressive intelligentsia and the working masses that can open up new ways for the transition from a society of necessity to a society of freedom, provided that the intelligentsia renounces leaderism (which was the mistake the Bolsheviks fell into). Therefore, the figure of György Lukács is most important for Dutschke since studying his creative path makes it possible to realize the basic principles of such an equal union. The study shows that the creative path of Lukács before he entered the Comintern as one of the leaders of the section of the Hungarian Communists is characterized by the desire to find a way to solve the fundamental dilemma of the revolutionary, as he believed: either, like the Bolsheviks, strive for an uncompromising victory and the implementation of their program at the cost of violence; or to make compromises with the social democratic and even bourgeois parties, at the same time being in danger of defeat and the impossibility of implementing their ideas, primarily because the socialist intellectuals fail to establish strong ties with the working masses, and the latter may not be thoroughly imbued with anti-capitalist consciousness. Thus, Lukács can survey a spokesperson for the views of the intelligentsia, and through the criticism of these views, it will be possible to comprehend how educated people can better understand the actual needs and interests of the working people in order to pursue policies that would be more in line with them and learn how to lead the masses indeed.

MIDDLE CLASS IN UKRAINE: GOVERNMENT OR OPPOSITION?

MIDDLE CLASS IN UKRAINE: GOVERNMENT OR OPPOSITION?

Long-Term Strategic Thinking, Cost Considerations, and the Partisan Politics of Ghent

It has long been established that the presence of the so-called “Ghent systems” of unemployment insurance greatly enhances unionization rates. This paper investigates the political determinants of the choice for and against the introduction and continuation of these systems. Based on a diachronic analysis of three paradigmatic cases, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden, and two shadow cases, Germany and Britain, it shows that all major actors were well aware of their organizational effect during the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, it shows that long-term strategic thinking only played a major role in shaping party attitudes toward “Ghent” in countries where the prevailing party system ensured that its introduction produced clear partisan “winners” and “losers.” In all other countries, cost considerations were central in shaping party views on Ghent. The analysis shows how cost considerations can explain both bourgeois party support for its introduction and left-party support for its discontinuation.

SWEDEN-2022: THE EVOLUTION OF THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

The article is devoted to the analysis of the results of the elections to the Swedish parliament in September 2022. It shows the significance of these elections, which confirmed the transformation of the party-political system in this country, when stable inter-party unions were replaced by temporary coalitions of changing partners. The consequences of the significant strengthening of the nationalist Sweden Democrats party against the background of the weakening or stagnation of the old parliamentary parties are revealed. The discussed options and combinations of political parties applying for participation in the government are shown. The main features of the settlement of the current political crisis in Sweden are revealed, an explanation is given why exactly the renewed union of bourgeois parties gained an advantage and what is the role of the Swedish Democrats in the formation of the government. The author sees in the found formula for overcoming the political crisis only an intermediate stage in its resolution due to the complexity of the growing domestic and foreign policy problems.

Датская народная партия и трансформации иммиграционной политики Дании

The author explores the history of the Danish People’s Party and its effect on Danish immigration policy. The DPP was founded in 1995. It successfully continued the anti-immigration course of the Danish Progress Party fallen into disrepair. The Danish People’s Party represented a synthesis of several political currents: the Lutheran movement Tidehverv and its journal, intellectual nationalists from the Danish Association, and conservative populists from the Progress Party. The DPP seeks to drastically reduce non-Western immigration, opposes Islamization and favors cultural assimilation of immigrants. For 25 years, the Danish People’s Party has managed to maneuver between establishment parties and their small partners in the complicated multi-party political system of Denmark. Dissociated from radical elements, the DPP has occupied a stable position on the right of the traditional bourgeois parties. It has broken the long-term influence of centrist parties, and especially radical left-wing parties, on Danish policy. Collaboration with liberal-conservative forces from 2001 to 2011 and from 2015 to 2019 was the most productive for the Party. The DPP played a key role in writing the rules and conditions for immigration in the immigration law that was established by the government in May 2002. Most importantly, the document provided for strong restrictions in immigration policies, which resulted in what is often described as Europe’s strictest immigration laws. The 24-year rule has drawn a lot of attention. Thanks to European migrant crisis, the 2015 general election was historic for the Danish People’s Party. It got unprecedented electoral support and became Denmark’s second largest political party. However, the Party suffered a major defeat in the 2019 general election, recording its worst result since the establishment by wining 8.7% of votes – down from 21% in 2015, for the following reasons: depletion of anti-immigrant rhetoric and seizing the traditional DPP initiative by the establishment, increased political competition and party’s collaboration with the Social Democrats, unexpected for the DPP voters.

Латышские «активные националисты» и Латвийская консерватория

In Latvia, as in several other Eastern European countries, nationalism remains an influential force that sets the agenda. Understanding the ideology and practice of modern nationalism involves studying its origin and evolution. The article uses an interdisciplinary approach and briefly outlines the prehistory and prerequisites for the emergence of Latvian “active nationalism” and, for the first time in historiography, examines in detail the relationship between the largest fascist organization in the first half of the 1920s – the Latvian National Club with the Latvian Conservatory, as well as the indirect influence of the ideas of “active nationalists” and reveals its close connection with the respectable circles of the Latvian bourgeoisie and with the leading Lat-vian bourgeois party Peasant Union. We conclude that a significant part of the Latvian artistic in-tellectuals, including pupils and graduates of the Latvian Conservatory, joined the Latvian fascism, which largely explains both the active cooperation of the Latvian intelligentsia with the Nazis during World War II, and the mass emigration of people of artistic professions from Latvia, in particular musicians, during the retreat of the German army.

Small State Strategies: Sweden from Olof Palme to Ann Linde

After a background on the formation of Swedish foreign policy after the Second World War, this article focusses on two phases of the development. One is the dynamic foreign policy of Olof Palme, which brought Sweden into the limelight of international media. The other is the struggle during the following decades between cautious keeping to a tradition, and a few bolder efforts of social democratic foreign ministers to form partly new strategies. These efforts have taken their starting points in the United Nations or in the European Union and have led Sweden on some new tracks. When they have been in government, the bourgeois parties have kept a low profile in foreign policy, but they have constantly called for a closer cooperation with or membership in NATO, when they were in opposition.

A Cautionary Tale

This article examines how the Swedish idea of collective wage-earner funds was received and discussed in Finland in the 1970s and 1980s, especially by the Social Democrats and the trade union movement. The initial proposal entailed profit-sharing with workers and would have made the trade unions co-owners of private enterprise. The Finnish Social Democrats were influenced by the proposal but devised a more moderate idea for company-specific ‘cooperation funds’. The Swedish debate was interpreted in Finland as a cautionary tale of too radical demands causing severe political and labour market conflicts. In negotiations with Finnish employers and bourgeois parties, the idea was further modified into voluntary ‘personnel funds,’ which in effect meant a possibility for personal bonus payments and stock-saving for employees in profitable firms. The outcome was closer to traditional bourgeois and employer ideas of people’s capitalism than to social democratic ideas of ‘economic democracy,’ which had justified the wage-earner fund proposal.

Yrjö Mäkelin’s Choice

The division of the Finnish labour movement is studied in this article through the choice of Yrjo Makelin, one of the prominent members of the Finnish labour movement since its foundation. Yrjo Makelin made his choice in the beginning of 1922, when he was released from the prison where he had spent almost four years. During that time the Finnish labour movement had been divided, and Makelin had to ponder on which party to choose. Makelin’s earlier career, especially his wish to get the labour movement to work together with the bourgeois parties in order to achieve independence for Finland, would have suggested that he join the Social Democratic Party; but he decided to enter the ranks of the Socialist Workers’ Party which had contacts with the underground Communist Party. Although Makelin was not a very active participant in the abortive revolution and in the civil war in the winter and spring of 1918, it was an important factor in his decision. The stance of his family and the whole labour movement in the northern Finland also had an influence on Makelin’s choice. He, however, emphasised that he would join the Socialist Workers’ Party while following his own programme, which expressed doubts about the ideas of centralisation and strict discipline the communist movement had launched. He stayed within the party, although the leaders of the Communist Party wanted to expel him.

Contested Welfare Institutions - The Conservative Attack on the Swedish Ghent System

The Swedish unemployment insurance was for a long time one of the most generous in Europe and, furthermore, marked by exceptionally low employee contributions. At the end of 2013, things looked quite different. Generosity had strongly declined, less than one-third of the unemployed were eligible for unemployment benefits and the once solidarity-oriented insurance system had deteriorated into a highly differentiated one, in which low-wage workers had to pay the highest contributions. What can explain this degeneration of Swedish unemployment insurance? The main thesis of the paper is that it was not so much structural factors but the special institutional design of the insurance scheme, more precisely the strong position of trade unions within the so-called Ghent system, which provoked attacks by the bourgeois parties and, after the end of social democratic hegemony, ultimately led to the system’s erosion. Thus, in a sense, the generosity of the unemployment insurance became a victim of a more fundamental conflict about union strength. To understand the political conflicts surrounding the Ghent system and the different reform strategies chosen by the rightist parties it is necessary to take a historical as well as conflict-based perspective on the welfare state, which stresses the contentious character of welfare institutions as well as their structuring impact on political power struggles.

Fascism—National Socialism—Arab “Fascism”: Terminologies, Definitions and Distinctions

Because certain movements in the Arab world of the 1930s and 1940s showed similarities to Mussolini’s and Hitler’s regimes, historians have drawn comparisons with the fascist and National Socialist dictatorships. But not even those arguing for the concept of a “generic fascism” are able to wholeheartedly subsume these movements under their fascist rubric. Fascism and National Socialism evolved in Europe, were shaped by the mood at the fin de siècle, became effective after the First World War in a unique political, social, economic and cultural atmosphere, and only lost their appeal in 1945 at the conclusion of the Second World War. They flourished in industrialized societies and aimed—in novel and twisted ways—at reversing the liberalization of 19th-century Europe. They emphasized power, national rebirth, military order and efficiency; and they were, in the case of Germany, driven by anti-Semitism and racism, resulting in totalitarian rule with genocidal consequences. National-socialist and fascist movements and regimes required the atmosphere and culture of liberal democracy as a foil—and liberal democracy was virtually nonexistent in the Near and Middle East. The preconditions for fascism were thus lacking. Colonial rule was still in place, traditional culture still prevailed in these mainly rural societies, and their small bourgeois parties showed greater allegiance to their clans than to liberal and secular ideologies.

1965–1969: Banatul între liberalism şi tendinţe autoritariste / The Banat Between Liberalism and Authoritarian Tendencies

1965–1969: Banatul între liberalism şi tendinţe autoritariste / The Banat Between Liberalism and Authoritarian Tendencies

Karl Polanyi in Budapest: On his Political and Intellectual Formation

AbstractA major thinker and inspiring teacher, Karl Polanyi's contributions have long been influential in a variety of disciplines, notably economic sociology and economic history. Two of his innovations, substantivist economic anthropology and the “double movement thesis,” are recognized as seminal. All of the works for which he is known, however, were written late in life, when in exile, and very little is known of his Hungarian writings, virtually none of which had, until now, been translated. Despite his fame, the biographical literature on Polanyi remains modest: some studies provide invaluable insights, yet all are brief. This article attempts to make some headway in remedying these lacunae. It sketches the contours of that extraordinary historical-geographical conjuncture in which he was formed, and explores his intellectual and political engagements in the Galilei Circle and the Radical Bourgeois Party. It seeks in particular to elucidate the complex roles played by questions of nation, ethnicity and class in the life of the young Karl Polanyi.

NATIONAL REBIRTH OUT OF YOUNG BLOOD

This paper deals with anthropological and psychological explanations of war as a sacrificial ritual enhancing individual or group cohesion during the Finnish Civil war 1917–1918. Analysis of both bourgeois and Social Democrat press and party archives show how fantasies of a bloody solution appeared as early as the summer of 1917. Sacrifice of young men was seen as a national renewal, removing the suffocating atmosphere of the political stalemate and mutual suspicions. Individual self‐sacrifice was praised as a proof to build a nation, not due to its instrumental value. Both parties were able to deny the consequences of their war preparations and aired relief as the war began. The war was experienced as a purity crusade of younger generations against the vices of elder men, whose egoism had endangered the national existence.

Winning women's votes: propaganda and politics in Weimar Germany

Sneeringer, julia. Winning Women's Votes: Propaganda and Politics in Weimar Germany. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. xiii, 365 pp. $27.50 paperback. julia Sneeringer's excellent book presents a well-organized, richly documented, and absorbing narrative of campaign literature produced by the major political parties toward the aim of winning support from German women after they gained the vote in 1918. It traces continuity and change in political language about women throughout the life of a crisis-ridden republic, while also charting similarity and difference in this discourse across a craggy political landscape. In doing so, it fills a conspicuous hole in the voluminous literature on the Weimar Republic. Women participated in the Weimar electoral system at a high rate. They preferred parties with a religious affiliation and moderate political profile. In contrast, they shied away from parties perceived as radical, whether of the Left or Right. The Social Democrats (SPD) and, especially, Communists (KPD) and National Socialists (NSDAP) had wide gaps. During the Depression, voting patterns shifted-in some ways toward men's, but in others further away. Like men, though later, they abandoned the (Protestant) bourgeois parties, contributing to the virtual collapse of these parties and the rise of the NSDAP By mid-1932, women voted for the NSDAP at about the same rate as men. The SPD too was able to close its gender gap by, Sneeringer hypothesizes, emphasizing its support for social policies. In this case, female voters bucked the SPD's relative and absolute decline (though not collapse). Women remained loyal to the (Catholic) Center party-here too, bucking a (slight) losing trend and making its voting base more lopsideclly female. Sneeringer's book elucidates these voting patterns, though, as she notes, she cannot not fully explain them, given the lack of data on what motivated women to vote. She approaches the problem of what women wanted, obliquely, by examining how the parties adjusted propaganda for women. The tools of political history and of discourse analysis are applied to newspapers, politicians' personal papers, transcripts of party meetings, and campaign materials such as fliers, posters, and pamphlets. Every party, Sneeringer finds, aimed a lot of material at women, almost all of it produced by women. The SPD outdid everyone else in sheer amount of output, while the Center came up last. Certain constant motifs arise in Sneeringer's chronologically arranged chapters: rights and civic roles; economy and employment; and family, morality, community/nation, and religion. Particular chapters discuss specific to one or several elections such as the meaning of suffrage, regulation of abortion, and challenge of the NSDAP Sneeringer discusses these women's themes in the context of the election's general themes, the party's overall program and strategy, and the efforts of women party activists to forge a message that would touch female voters. Women's suffrage, she shows effectively, prompted changes in party platforms, if not ideology. For example, the propaganda and policies of the SPD and Center became more similar after 1918 as the SPD toned down its anti-clericalism, while the Center came to support state-run (as opposed to faith-based) welfare programs. …

Sandinista: Carlos Fonseca and the Nicaraguan Revolution

Sandinista: Carlos Fonseca and the Nicaraguan Revolution

Party Politics and the Organization of the Danish Welfare State, 1890–1920: The Bourgeois Roots of the Modern Welfare State

The role of the Social Democrats in the establishment of the Scandinavian welfare state has been challenged in recent years. Institutional legacies have conditioned post‐war Social Democratic reforms, and the bourgeois parties have played a larger role than so far acknowledged. By exploring the origin of five core policies of the early Danish welfare state, it is shown that policy legacy theses cannot account for the pattern of policy organization. Focusing on party and class dynamics, it is demonstrated that the bourgeois parties, and in particular the Liberals, had a crucial influence on the choice of funding model and administrative structure. The distributional and administrative interests of core constituencies shaped the preferences of the bourgeois parties decisively.

Do Structural Contexts Matter? Macro-sociological Factors and Popular Attitudes towards Public Welfare Services

In various earlier studies focusing on support for the welfare state, attitudinal differences have been explained by factors linked to individual social characteristics of respondents. This study focuses mainly on how macro-sociological variables influence attitudes towards the public service system in Finland. An attempt is made to investigate whether differences between municipalities in public-policy measures, political climate and the economic situation have effects on ordinary citizens' support for the service system or whether such support is only related to the individual-level factors, such as socio-economic position and gender, that are traditionally used in studies of attitudes. A focus on attitudes towards economy measures makes it possible simultaneously to investigate the kinds of municipal-level circumstances that affect the acceptance of a retrenchment of the 'service state'. The analyses are based on individual-level data (n = 1,024) and municipal-level Finnish data. The results show that different indicators of macro-sociological factors do have an impact on people's attitudes towards public services. Individuals in municipalities where economic conditions are relatively poor, where the level of social and health expenditure is low and, on some issues, where bourgeois parties are the dominating political bloc, show a lower level of support for the welfare services. However, the impact of tax policies is not that significant on any of the questions studied. The interpretation of the results includes a discussion of specific problems associated with this type of analysis.

The Danish Welfare State under Bourgeois Reign: The Dilemma of Popular Entrenchment and Economic Constraints

From 1982 to 1993, a decade of tight economic constraints, the Danish welfare state was governed by bourgeois parties. The expectation of the power resources model, the most prevalent theory about the Scandinavian welfare states, was that the Danish welfare state would be turned further in a residual direction. Those expectations were, however, never fulfilled – on the contrary, the Danish welfare state was further expanded in a social democratic direction. A focus on how the bourgeois governments, often in a difficult parliamentary situation, tried to adapt the popular Danish welfare state to less favorable economic conditions accounts for important aspects of this development. The bourgeois governments relied on a combination of increased benefits to large groups of voters and well‐hidden measures to strengthen public finances.

The Second Party System in Lincoln's Springfield

The Second Party System in Lincoln's Springfield Kenneth J. Winkle Before the presidential election of 1848, Democrats in Springfield, Illinois, drew on long experience to remind their supporters of the double face of Illinois Whiggery, warning that "where the whigs have a majority, they have nominated full tickets, and are urging their followers to their support, while in democratic districts, they preach the doctrine of no-party, and urge a splitting of tickets." This nation-wide Whig ambivalence toward organization served the party well in Springfield, winning them a majority within a traditionally Democratic state. Such a calculated ambivalence toward party was in fact fundamental to Whig organization there. As Democrats pointed out, 'This has ever been the practice of Illinois whigery—overbearing tyrants when in the majority, and cringing suppliants in the minority."1 If this judgement was correct, then most Illinois Whigs were indeed "cringing suppliants," while the Whigs of Abraham Lincoln's Springfield, including the future president himself, could afford to be "overbearing tyrants." Springfield was long regarded as an anomalous Whig stronghold, in Democratic eyes "the foul 'spot' upon the state" and to Whig thinking "a green spot in the great desert of Locofocoism." Springfield Whigs typically counted on majorities of 60 percent in presidential elections, while even the neighboring precincts in Sangamon County routinely went Democratic. Yet despite Springfield's—and Lincoln's—importance in keeping Whiggery alive in IlUnois, historians have never systematically asked why such an ordinary city became a Whig "spot" upon otherwise Democratic soil.2 1 Springfield, Illinois State Register, IuIy 21, 1848. Ronald P. Formisano, "Political Character, Antipartyism and the Second Party System," American Quarterly 21 (Winter 1969): 683-709, provides a classic examination of the sources and implications of Whig "antipartyism." 2 Springfield, Sangamo Journal, Iune 4, 1846; Illinois State Register, IuIy 28, 1848. As one Lincoln scholar put it, "Why central Illinois became Whig is a question that has long troubled historians. The subject invites investigation via modern techniques." G. S. Boritt, Lincoln and the Economics ofthe American Dream (Memphis: Memphis State Univ. Press, 1978), 314, n. 2. Civil War History, Vol. xliv No. 4 © 1998 by The Kent State University Press 268CIVIL war history An exploratory examination of party development in Lincoln's Springfield offers important clues to the community foundations of local politics during the mid-nineteenth century. Overall, the historiography of Illinois's Second Party System is a study in miniature of the controversy at the national level. The Progressive tradition, which dominated the first half of this century, emphasized the economic origins of Jacksonian party divisions. Embodied in Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s Age of Jackson, the Progressive interpretation posed class struggle and sectional conflict as the foundation of the Second Party System. Democrats, the popular party, championed the cause of the "common man" and therefore worked to extend political democracy and economic opportunity. Whigs were the established elite, who opposed suffrage reforms and defended entrenched monopolies such as the Bank of the United States against a swelling Jacksonian egaUtarian ethos. According to IlUnois historian Theodore Pease, Democrats championed "equal rights" and indeed "human rights," whileWhigs were "essentially a bourgeois party in their beUefs." The Whigs were a "business man's party," cynical and sentimental, murky in principle and philosophy. Pease considered the convention system, which Democrats introduced to Illinois , truly democratic: "It divested a candidate for office of the advantages his wealth and social position might give him." Whigs were, by contrast, "Men with great personal influence in their localities due to their abilities or to their wealth." 3 During the 1950s, "consensus" historians began to challenge this Progressive image of conflict, and especially economic conflict, at the heart ofJacksonian political debate.They pointed to ideological similarities between Democrats and Whigs, challenged notions of increasing democracy and opportunity during the Second Party Period, and emphasized the quest for office and division of spoils rather than the shaping ofpublic policy as a fundamental goal ofparty organization. Richard Hofstadter argued that mainstream Jacksonian leaders all shared a commitment to capitalism, Democrats and Whigs jointly imbibing an "entrepreneurial ethos" that committed them all to growth, opportunity, and economic expansion. Edward Pessen turned to collective biography to...