Narrow vision

John Grigg

Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilisation in France, Germany and Italy in the Decade after World War I Charles S. Maier (Princeton University Press £16.00) Socio-economic history is all the rage and Mr Maier's book is a good example of the genre, illustrating both its limited strengths and its almost unlimited weaknesses. As the title and subtitle imply, Mr Maier seeks to give an account of French, German and Italian affairs between the end of the Great War and the onset of the Great Depression; and he has chosen to do so within a schematic framework which restricts his field of vision and therefore exaggerates the significance of what he actually does see. Yet his knowledge is impressively detailed, his writing is often distinguished, and he shows now and then a saving uneasiness about his own conceptual categories.

Thus he admits that "bourgeois" is a dangerously imprecise term, and that anyway the "bourgeoisie" was far from having an identical character in the three countries he has studied. He also admits that in none of them was it monolithic, but in all of them, on the contrary, fragmented and diverse.

Nevertheless, he argues that by the latter part of his period "stabilisation" had occurred through the "recasting" of bourgeois power in a "corporatist" form, which he defines as "dealing with unions (or pseudo-unions as in Italy), giving state agencies control over the market, building interest-group spokesmen into the structure of the state." International and social conflict had been replaced by a "discernible equilibrium among economic interests, classes and nations," which, "although brief," had "the same architecture as the stability achieved again after World War II and extending into our own times." But Mr Maier has to concede that the new stability was "certainly hostage to continuing American prosperity and the control of German national resentments".

The second point vitiates the whole argument, because the key to any understand

ing of Western Europe in the 'twenties is a clear recognition of the fact that Germany did not accept the verdict of the war or the conditions of the peace settlement. Whatever the -differences of method and diplomatic style, the central aim of German policy was the same under Weimar as under Hitler — to rebuild German power and destroy the Treaty of Versailles. The relative stability following the Dawes Plan and Locarno was superficial, indeed illusory, because it contributed to the revival of a Germany whose "resentments" were unappeased and whose territory was substantially intact.

The natural tendency of a socio-economic historian to underrate patriotism and armed force as determinants of history is particularly marked in Mr Maier's treatment of Weimar Germany. There are only a few casual references to General von Seeckt, whose role during the period was, surely, crucial. Moreover, the book gives a false emphasis to the failure of the German Left, Germany broke the threat of Communist revolution — and it was the only country of the three whIch was in serious danger of going Communist — not because bourgeois forceS prevailed, but rather because national feeling proved much stronger than class feeling. International Communism, like the internationalism of the League, was seen by Germans primarily as a threat to their nation.

As for the suggestion that the "architecture" of stability in Western Europe was the same after the second World War as after the first, one can only say that this is just about the opposite of the truth. Whereas in 1918 Germany was defeated but not divided, and the Soviet Union a weak, struggling state, in 1945 Germany and Europe itself were partitioned, with the east of the continent subjected to the hegemony of a Soviet Union already, or soon to become, a 'super-power.' Compared with such a vast and fundamental difference, a few analogies on the economic side should hardly persuade anyone that the "architecture" was the same.

Religion is another vital factor in human affairs which socio-economic historians are very apt to play down, and Mr Maier plays it down with a vengeance in his account of Italian politics in the 'twenties. He does not even mention Mussolini's concordat with the Papacy in 1929, and one has to look hard for any indication that Vatican support was a cause of the Fascists' triumph earlier in the decade, though in fact it was the most important cause. To the extent that the Church's help is acknowledged, it is acknowledged only in a socio-economic context:

. . . the Vatican was sensitive to the defections among the Catholic business elites, concerned with squadrist pressure on its peasantry, and, finally, grateful to Mussolini for his assistance in keeping afloat the over-extended Banco di Roma, the keystone of a national Catholic banking and credit network.

One does not have to be naively unaware of the Church's worldly interests to regard such a statement of its motives for backing Mussolini as absurdly inadequate and one-sided. Even from a materialist point of view, it had more reason to fear the collapse of faith than the collapse of a bank, and its opposition to the Marxist Left, as to the liberalism of the Risorgimento, was primarily inspired by the need to defend its theocratic position. Though it could not expect Mussolini to restore the Papal States, it looked to him — and not in vain — to maintain its privileged status in the life of the country and to keep the forces of Godlessness at bay.

Mr Maier's treatment of Mussolini as an individual is revealing, because it shows that he has a grudging sense of the importance _ of personality in history without, however, being prepared to give it more than cursory attention. In a footnote he says:

There is yet no adequate psychological or psychoanalytical study of Mussolini ... Some inquiry into early psychological formation would be fruitful, however; for the periodic oscillations in Mussolini's career — his wistful attraction to political community . and his violent rejection of gradualism — recapitulate the conflict present in early upbringing; the clash between combative, radical, Romagnol father and pious, disciplined mother. Mussolini would smash through -the constraints of the political milieu . . . Yet there were often regretful glances at the bridges he had burnt, especially the breach with the Major working-class movement. The behaviour reflected successively the unresolved parental styles; but while for his parents' generation socialism had itself represented rebellion, throughout Mussolini's career the Socialist Party appeared as a conservative life option, as the Church had for his mother.

This passage tells us almost as much about Mr Maier as about Mussolini. The fact that he has relegated it to a footnote — in a book running to nearly six hundred pages of main text — suggests that he is half-ashamed of himself for betraying an interest in anything so trivial as Mussolini's character. Yet it also enables us to see what a good historian he might be if he could only "smash through the constraints" of his own historical method; or rather, if he could evolve one that is really his own, instead of conforming to the socio-economic fashion.

The book contains a few more tantalising glimpses of the same sort, but they are all too few. (Keynes, for instance, is referred to as a "bitter and sometimes irresponsible critic" of the Versailles Treaty, but the nature of his irresponsibility is not explained or discussed, though it is well worth discussing.) In general Mr Maier treats personalities as incidental and seldom bothers to describe them at all.

The passage on Mussolini was quoted for yet another reason. It demonstrates, unwittingly, that narrative rather than analysis is the true stuff of history. We have to know what happened before we can even begin to understand why. And if we are to know what happened we have to know, among other things, a good deal about the people who helped to determine the course of events. Behind the jargon phrases and the crudely dialectical psychology in Mr Maier's Mussolini footnote — "unresolved parental styles" and all that — there is at least an intimation of the strange, unique, unclassifiable story of a human being. Had he not existed, there might have been no Fascist regime in Italy. His story is part of the narrative framework within which any theorising about Italy in the 'twenties should be conducted. Unfortunately in Mr Maier's book the framework is theory, not fact.

Anyone who attempts to study France, Germany and Italy should begin by recognising their uniqueness. The cardinal fact about France is that it is a particular piece of ground, inhabited by Frenchmen, and with a history largely peculiar to itself. The same, mutatis mutandis, is true of Germany and Italy. Arbitrary unifying concepts such as "bourgeois Europe" can only lead to error, while depriving history of much of its fascination.