(Dirk Kasler, Stephen Turner) Sociology Responds T (B-Ok - CC)

SOCIOLOGY RESPONDS TO FASCISM
Over recent years there has been growing interest in the relations between
academic intellectuals and professionals and the Nazi regime—several works on
Heidegger, Nazi doctors and Paul de Man have appeared. This book attempts to
do for sociology what has been done for other Fields: to demythologize the prewar
role of sociologists and provide a serious historical basis for reflection on it. The
myth is simple: that the noble and clear-sighted Frankfurt School was expelled by
Hitler and raised the consciousness of the West. The realities are considerably
more complex. During and after the war, a consensus account of fascism emerged,
but in the interwar years sociologists misanalysed, misunderstood or supported
fascism. The book examines the historical record in Germany, Austria, Italy,
Hungary, the USA and the UK to provide a rich and at times perplexing account
of sociologists and fascism.
Novel in its comparative framework and invigorating in its conclusions, the
book will occupy the centre of debate for many years to come. It will appeal to
sociologists with an interest in history, and historians with an interest in sociology.
‘Turner and Käsler have done professional social science a profoundly

necessary, if painful service. A major contribution to the history of
sociology as a discipline and institution. A refreshingly unsentimental
exposé of the collaboration and connivance between academic sociology
and fascism, it should be widely studied and debated.’
Professor Bryan S.Turner, Department of Sociology, Essex University
Stephen Turner is Distinguished Research Professor at the University of South

Florida, and Dirk Käsler is Professor of Sociology at Hamburg University.
SOCIOLOGY RESPONDS
TO FASCISM
Edited by
Stephen P.Turner and Dirk Käsler
London and New York

First published in 1992 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection
of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 1992 Selection and editorial matter, Stephen P.Turner and Dirk Käsler;
individual chapters, the contributors.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Turner, Stephen P., 1951–
Sociology Responds to Fascism/Stephen P.Turner and Dirk Käsler.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Sociology—United States—History–20th century.
2. Sociology—Europe—History–20th century. 3. Fascism—History. 4. Sociologists—
United States—History–20th century. 5 Sociologists—Europe–20th century. I. Käsler,
Dirk, 1944–. II. Title.
HM22.U5T873 1992 91–43900
301–dc20 CIP
ISBN 0-203-16907-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-26443-6 (Adobe eReader Format)

ISBN 0-415-04086-8 (Print Edition)
To the memory of Theo and Sasha Suess, and the son
whose mortal sacrifice enabled them to escape from
German fascism.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Notes on the contributors viii
1 SOCIOLOGY AND FASCISM IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD: THE 1

MYTH AND ITS FRAME
Stephen P.Turner
2 OUTSIDERS AND TRUE BELIEVERS: AUSTRIAN 15
SOCIOLOGISTS RESPOND TO FASCISM
Gerald Mozetič
3 AMBIGUOUS INFLUENCES: ITALIAN SOCIOLOGY AND THE 43
FASCIST REGIME
Marta Losito and Sandro Segre
4 ACADEMIC DISCUSSION OR POLITICAL GUIDANCE? 87
SOCIAL-SCIENTIFIC ANALYSES OF FASCISM AND
NATIONAL SOCIALISM IN GERMANY BEFORE 1933
Dirk Käsler and Thomas Steiner
5 SOCIAL-SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS—NO IDEOLOGUES: 125
SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE THIRD REICH
Carsten Klingemann
6 ‘SOCIOLOGISTS’, SOCIOGRAPHERS, AND ‘LIBERALS’: 151
HUNGARIAN INTELLECTUALS RESPOND TO FASCISM
Dénes Némedi
7 PRINCIPLE, POLITICS, PROFESSION: AMERICAN 167
SOCIOLOGISTS AND FASCISM, 1930–1950
Robert C.Bannister
8 RESPONSES TO FASCISM IN BRITAIN, 1930–1945: THE 207
EMERGENCE OF THE CONCEPT OF TOTALITARIANISM
Peter Lassman
Index 233
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Karen Kier and Ken Wilkinson typed many revisions of the chapters and
assembled the text for publication. For their patient effort I am grateful.
Stephen P.Turner
I would like to acknowledge the lively interest in the theme of this project from
the members of the Research Committee on the History of Sociology (RCHS) of
the International Sociological Association (ISA). During the TCHS conference in
Munich 1984 I had proposed to organize a session on the theme of ‘Sociologists
and Fascism’ at the following conference of the RCHS. Two such sessions on the
theme of this book were held during the XI World Congress of Sociology in New
Delhi, India, in 1986 where most of the authors of this volume had intended to
give first presentations of their papers. Because of the inability of some colleagues
to come to New Delhi, and on the basis of the very vivid discussions following
the presentations of some of the papers, the idea of the publication of a collection
of papers covering the theme of ‘Sociologists and Fascism’ in the variant national
sociological traditions developed. Without the encouraging support of the
scholarly community of the RCHS this project would never have been completed.
I would also like to acknowledge the encouragement and support of this work
from my students at the Institut für Soziologie of the University of Hamburg who
participated in my seminar on ‘Sociological Analyses of Fascism and National
Socialism’ during the summer semester 1989.
I furthermore thank the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Culture and
Society of the University of South Florida in St Petersburg for the invitation to
spend my sabbatical semester during the months of August 1989 to January 1990
there and to continue my work on this edition.
In order to make this stay possible I gratefully acknowledge the support of the
Universitä t Hamburg, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the German
Marshall Fund of the United States.
Dirk Käsler
NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS
Robert C.Bannister, b. 1935, Scheuer Professor, Dept. of History, Swarthmore

College, Swarthmore (USA). Publications on early twentieth-century American
reform and the history of American sociology.
Dirk Käsier, b. 1944, Professor, Institut für Soziologie, Universität Hamburg,
Hamburg (Germany). Publications on the history of sociology, sociological
theories, political sociology.
Carsten Klingemann, b. 1950, Akademischer Rat, Fachbereich
Sozialwissenschaften, Universitä t Osnabrück, Osnabrück (Germany).
Publications on the history of sociology.
Peter Lassman, b. 1943, Lecturer, Dept. of Political Science and International
Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham (UK). Publications on
political and social theory.
Marta Losito, b. 1944, Researcher, Dip. di Teoria, Storia e Ricerca Sociale,
Università di Trento, Trento (Italy). Publications on political sociology and
history of sociological thought
Gerald Mozetič, b. 1951, Professor, Institut für Soziologie, Universit t Graz,
Graz (Austria). Publications on the history of sociology, methodology of the
social sciences, sociology of culture.
Dénes Némedi, b. 1942, Assistant Professor, Institute of Sociology, Eōtvōs
University of Budapest, Budapest (Hungary). Works on modern Hungarian
history, on the history of Hungarian sociology, on classical and modern
sociological theory. Sandro Segre, b. 1945, Professor of Sociology, Dip. di
Economia Politica, Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milano (Italy).
Publications on the history of sociology and sociological theories.
Thomas Steiner, b. 1961, M.A. (Sociology), Institut für Soziologie, Universität
Hamburg, Hamburg (Germany).
Stephen P.Turner, b. 1951, Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy,
University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida (USA). Publications on the
philosophy of sciences, history of sociology, sociological theories.
1
SOCIOLOGY AND FASCISM IN THE
INTERWAR PERIOD
The myth and its frame
Stephen P.Turner
There is a well-entrenched belief that sociology is intrinsically an ‘oppositional

science’. The idea that distortions of sociological truth may aid reaction but
genuine science is a handmaiden to progress has deep roots in the sociological
tradition itself. One variant on this theme is the theme of betrayal: that true
sociology has been suppressed by the bourgeoisie or by academic servants of
power in favour of false, ‘legitimating’ sociology. Among the bases of the idea of
sociology’s oppositional essence are the supposed facts that sociology was
actively suppressed by the Nazi regime and that sociologists generally resisted
fascist regimes through emigration or inner migration. The idea that sociology in
the fascist era was nonexistent or trivial, and that consequently the period was a
blank, an episode of discontinuity, is closely connected to these supposed facts.1
Fascist regimes, one is to infer, were fearful of the power of the empirical
sociologist to reveal unpleasant facts about societies, facts that had been hidden
for propagandists and ideological reasons, and were similarly fearful of the power
of the theoretical sociologist to put the facts in a perspective that is threatening to
the ideological self-conceptions of power. This fits the idea of sociology’s
intrinsically oppositional character in a flattering way. In their own accounts of
their experience with fascism, many of the victims of Nazism cited evidence that
was consistent with these supposed facts about sociology under fascism and this
way of explaining them. Many of the sociologists whose careers had not prospered
under these regimes found the status of ‘Victim’ to be an appealing one, especially
under the circumstances of the postwar period.2 Sociologists who had prospered
sought to cover their tracks,3 and the story of discontinuity was useful for them
as well.
Recent historical studies have shown that analogous ‘victimization’ stories in
other fields are misleading. Biology (Weingart et al. 1988), physics (Beyerchen
1977), and Eastern European studies (Burleigh 1988) found ways to accommodate
the Nazi regime and thrive under it. Cooperation, or at least accommodation, was
the rule, not the exception, in scholarly life. Medical researchers engaged in
physical torture and abuse as well as ideological rationalization for the Nazis
(Proctor 1988). This was a perversion of the ‘healing science’. To this sort of
self-betrayal, sociology, or so it has been believed, was immune, if only because
2 SOCIOLOGY RESPONDS TO FASCISM
the Nazis were presumed to be so hostile to sociology that it could not have
occurred.
There is another aspect to this story. Fascism, as one of the great social
phenomena of the century, was part of the subject matter of sociology. If sociology
claims to be of value in educating the public and improving the capacity of citizens
to act, fascism is a subject which tests this claim. It is widely assumed that this
challenge was met. The evidence usually adduced to support this claim is part of
the same general picture of discontinuity, suppression, and emigration. It is taken
for granted that exiles on the left, such as Mannheim and the Frankfurt School,
were clear-sighted in their response to the developments from which they had
escaped. It is further assumed that they provided or at least contributed heavily to
the intellectual framework within which competent sociological and public
opinion in the non-fascist countries to which they escaped came to analyse and
respond to fascism. The standard evidence for this is the analysis of
authoritarianism by the Frankfurt School during the 1930s, which culminated in
The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al. 1950). The impression that this
represented a coherent and influential point of view during the era of fascism
perhaps rests primarily on an inference that the wide availability of the writings
of the critical theorists and the related works of Wilhelm Reich in the 1960s, and
the retrospective coherence that could be given these works, reflects the situation
of the 1930s.
SELECTIVITY AND MYTH

The specifically historical part of this image is false. Sociologists were not notably
successful in understanding fascism in the interwar era, much less in educating
the public about the subject, and sociologists served the Nazi regimes just as other
scholars did. The history of their service has been shrouded in misimpressions
which have gradually been dispelled. Many of the leading figures in postwar
German sociology who lived through the Nazi period knew a great deal about the
role of sociology under the Nazis and did nothing to correct the misimpressions.
But by the late 1970s, these misimpressions were a house of cards ready to fall:
the literature of victimization that had developed over the years was full of
inconsistencies resulting from the variety of occasions and circumstances under
which the story was told. It could not survive serious historical examination. The
larger story of sociology’s response to fascism, however, cannot be disposed of
so easily. The impression that sociologists in the non-fascist countries understood
fascism, and edified the public, for example, rests not so much on the suppression
of evidence as on its interpretation and presentation. This may be best understood
considering the historiographic role of certain cases presumed to represent the
truth about sociology’s relation to fascism. The Frankfurt School was opposed to
fascism and was also the source of analyses of fascism, was driven from Germany
and subsequently became famous in the United States for its accounts of the
SOCIOLOGY AND FASCISM IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD 3
authoritarian personality type. It apparently fits the myth perfectly. But the case
is not representative, nor is it unproblematic.
The Frankfurt School indeed provided part of the intellectual impetus for The
Authoritarian Personality, a major study sponsored by the American Jewish
Committee. Members of this school, notably Fromm, Neumann and Marcuse,
became influential authors in the postwar period, where they were noted especially
for their reflections on authority and freedom. But the impression produced by
these facts is that the sociologists who were part of the German left understood
and illuminated Nazism prior to the struggle against it, and influenced the struggle
itself. This impression is not accurate. The members of the Frankfurt School
scarcely discussed the topic of Nazism (or indeed Italian fascism) before their
departure from Germany. They had the most limited sort of edifying impact on
their non-fascist hosts prior to the war itself. The reason for this lack of impact,
apart from problems of language and difficulties in establishing themselves that
were shared with other emigrants, was that the framework in which they
understood fascism and their conviction that Germany represented the most
advanced form of the historical process was not shared by sociologists or the public
in the non-fascist countries.
When they arrived in the United States, the members of the Frankfurt School
held to their faith in the historical inevitability of revolution and the idea that
Germany represented the world-historical future. The rise of fascism was
interpreted by the Frankfurt School in terms of a problem that was theoretically
central to Marxism, namely the limited revolutionary capacity and inclination of
the German working class on which the hope of Marxist revolution had been
placed. Like other Marxists, the Frankfurt School simply added epicycles to the
theory of the inevitable revolution of the proletariat to correct for its predictive
failures: fascism became an additional ‘final stage’ in the development of
capitalism. To be sure, the members of the Institute added many dimensions to
this basic idea, and during the war some of them took positions that transcended
it But a serious development of these ideas did not occur in time to affect public
opinion in their host countries. The Authoritarian Personality was an extension
of the idea that Germany was a harbinger of the future: the possibility of fascism
was, the study claimed, latent in the American population. In the wake of the
Holocaust, a ready audience in the American Jewish community was found for
this thesis. Prior to the war and prior to the careful packaging of these ideas for
an American audience, the problematic itself was shared, in its specific terms,
only with other socialists.
But socialist opinion was not an unerring guide to fascism. The practical
political implications of the idea that fascism was simply an advanced form of
capitalism were deeply ambiguous. Many socialists who adhered to this idea were
acquiescent in the face of what they saw as an inevitable part of the historical
process. Another sociologist of the left, Hendrik de Man, went beyond
nonchalance to active encouragement (Pels 1987, 1991). De Man had concluded
that fascism, understood in its historical role, was an instrument for doing away
with the bourgeois state and creating a centralized power apparatus that could then
be used to create socialism. De Man represents an extreme case, but others on the
left were also ambivalent toward fascism: hostility to ‘bourgeois
parliamentarianism’ and the idea that fascism was a necessary cleansing also
supported acquiescence. As the chapter by Käsler and Steiner shows, the political
strategists of the socialist parties of Germany were placed in a horrendous dilemma
by these affinities to fascism. They could not defend liberal institutions without
abandoning the ideological premises of their parties. But they could not hope to
expand their electoral power without adopting tactics, such as the promotion of
nationalism, that would have made their parties more closely resemble, and thus
legitimate, the fascist movements. The members of the Frankfurt School did not
resolve this dilemma so much as erroneously interpret American life in terms of
it. And the oppositional character of the School’s response to fascism may be seen
to rest on their allegiance to socialism rather than on the oppositional character of
sociology.
Put differently, the case of the Frankfurt School does not test the ‘oppositional’
interpretation of the relation of sociology to fascist regimes. It is, rather, a case
that may be described to fit it. Its ‘importance’ depends on the frame in which it
is presented. The frame, which reads the fashions of the 1960s into the 1930s,
excludes most of what passed for sociology in the interwar era. The centrality of
the Frankfurt School story in the self-understanding of sociology stems from its
affinity to the myth, just as the marginalization of the de Man story reflects its
uncomfortable implications. It might be more precise to say that the myth depends
on presenting the Frankfurt School as representative or central and ignoring the
practical political ambiguities of socialist anti-fascism.
But ‘representative’ and ‘central’ are deeply problematic notions in historical
writing generally and in the history of sociology during the interwar years in
particular. The complexities of the historical problem of the relation of sociology
to fascism underscore the problems. Some of the problems are quite mundane.
Simply to classify persons as sociologists requires, in many cases, largely arbitrary
decisions. De Man held an academic appointment as a social psychologist. The
Frankfurt School stood apart from the institutional life of sociology, and
consequently to consider any members of the Frankfurt School to be ‘sociologists’
in the interwar period itself is controversial, as Klingemann observes in his chapter.
So even the apparently innocuous problem of the conventions one uses to
categorize a person as a sociologist turns out to shape interpretation, and to do so
crucially.
Conventional historiographical strategies serve to provide some protection
against selectivity. Biographical studies meet standards of completeness with
respect to the individual lives they consider; studies of the structure and
development of theoretical ideas meet other standards of completeness. In each
case there is some protection against taking particular utterances or acts out of
biographical or theoretical context. Biography focuses on intentions and actions,
and particularly on the evolution of an individual’s plans and aims in response to
circumstances. Analyses of theoretical positions stress the complexity and

individuality of a vision of the world. But both strategies have their own
limitations, limitations that have visible effects on interpretations in the case of
sociology’s response to fascism. Intellectuals are in the business of providing
complex intellectual rationales and distinctive personal interpretations of the
significance of their actions. Biographies and theoretical analysis focus on these.
But the effects of action are often more a matter of the surface than the intellectual
core, and this was the case in Germany. Surface acquiescence, however qualified
by arcane private reservations or by ‘inner migrations’, however deeply felt, had
the effect of public consent. These effects are more easily understood when they
are compared to the full range of responses to fascism. The conditions under which
sociologists acted and thought are better understood when they are compared to
conditions that gave rise to different responses.
THE STRATEGY OF THE VOLUME

Sociology Responds to Fascism has a historiographic strategy that is neither
biography nor a ‘history of ideas’. It is a comparative historical study of the range
and conditions of the intellectual and political response to fascism by sociologists
in six nations: two anti-fascist countries, Britain and the United States; two fascist
states, Germany and Italy; and two states in which fascism had an impact through
annexation and absorption, Austria and Hungary. Where fascists held power, the
conflicts and accommodations between fascism and sociology are part of the
‘response’; in all of these countries, fascism was a subject for ‘sociological’
discussion and interpretation. Each of these studies is itself necessarily selective
with respect to the sociological thinkers it considers. The chapters follow a general
design, with the exception of the two chapters on Germany. The authors attempted
to identify the widest possible range of representative and significant figures in
the sociologies and proto-sociologies of the interwar era of each nation and to
examine their analyses of fascism and role in supporting or opposing it. In the case
of nations without fully developed academic traditions, writers on sociological
topics were classified as sociologists for the purposes of the study. In countries
with established sociological traditions, contemporary importance was the
primary basis for inclusion. In the case of Germany, the questions of the
institutional involvement of sociologists in the Nazi regime were separated from
the problem of the analysis of fascism during the Weimar period: for a reason
intrinsic to the German situation, the sharp break produced by Hitler’s seizure of
power, the two sets of problems do not overlap significantly.
This ‘comparative’ approach is a strategy with its own limitations, a frame into
which many things do not fit. The elaboration and complexity of individual
responses captured by biographical research is necessarily lost.4 But certain broad
historical questions which might well be addressed by a study of sociology’s
relation to fascism are also largely excluded. For example, one contemporary
opinion was that fascism arose from the same intellectual context of
anti-rationalism and nostalgia for Gemeinschaft that was central to the sociologies
not only of Tōnnies but of Durkheim and many others as well (Ranulf 1939). The
framework of this study does not permit one to address this thesis directly. But
this and similar broad-gauge issues do not disappear entirely. One of the influential
figures in the German-speaking world, Othmar Spann, discussed at length in
Gerald Mozetič’s chapter on Austrian sociology, exemplifies the line of
development from sociological anti-individualism to fascism. The émigrés,
because they were, on the evidence, without influence in any of the national
sociologies discussed, are excluded by this design, and the limited group of
national sociologies considered excludes such problematic figures as de Man, a
Belgian. But here again, the underlying pattern is exemplified in other ways. De
Man was not the only figure on the left ambivalent about fascism. The disputes
between left-wing tacticians in Germany, discussed in Käsler and Steiner’s
chapter, are indicative of the ambiguous significance of fascism and the
intellectual difficulties it presented to the left. Némedi’s study of Hungary,
similarly, identifies preconditions for acquiescence to fascism that were
widespread among European intellectuals: the ambivalence toward fascism felt
by reformers of various political persuasions who saw fascism as a potential
catalyst for the changes they advocated. Némedi also points to other effects of
sociology that influenced responses to fascism, including cynicism toward politics
and reductionistic class analyses that sustained this cynicism.
THREE STAGES IN THE RELATIONSHIP

The cases discussed in this volume suggest a distinction between several stages
in sociology’s relation to fascism. The first is the stage of the making of climates
of opinion. Spann, and much of classical sociology, had a role in this stage. The
literature of the classical period was marked by overt expressions of revulsion
toward bourgeois parliamentarianism and capitalism, and the search for
fundamentally different alternatives. Marxists, such as Lukács and de Man, were
joined by the major classical sociologists in the belief in the possibility that radical
alternatives to these forms could be realized.
The list of affinities between sociology and fascist ideas is long. Durkheim,
whose Division of Labor in Society pronounced the existing industrial order to be
‘pathological’, in his introduction to the second edition (1933) sketched a model
of a ‘normal’ corporativist society. The idea, widely shared in various forms, was
to have a long history in the fascist regimes themselves, as Losito and Segre show
in their chapter on Italy, and K sler and Steiner in their chapter on Weimar-era
German commentary on fascism. There are many very direct connections between
fascist ideas and early sociology. Weber’s enthusiasm for the leadership state
presaged Michels’ embrace of Mussolini as the capo carismatico. Pareto’s and
Mosca’s theories of elites reflected related dissatisfactions with the existing order.
Holding these thinkers responsible for the climate of opinion that produced
fascism is nevertheless difficult. If their ‘influence’ had been absent, one suspects,
little would have changed: their views were merely visible symptoms of deeper
currents in opinion that they did little to alter.
The difficulties in assigning responsibility are evident when we consider a
second stage in the relation of sociology to fascism, the actual use of sociological
ideas to legitimate and criticize the emerging fascist movements. The case of
Spann, as discussed in detail by Mozetič, shows how a sociologist could position
himself as an intellectual leader of a fascist or proto-fascist political force. But
Spann’s experience also shows the ambiguity between ‘leading’ and anticipating
the movements of the one he pretends to control. When Spann sought to guide the
movement he contributed to, he was ignored.
The relatively long period of fascist rule in Italy, and the relative openness of
its intellectual life, made this country into a kind of laboratory for the study of
intellectual influence. Critics who have argued that sociology has routinely
betrayed its mission through its pro-establishment biases have generally assumed
that the discipline’s capacity for ideological service to established orders, notably
to capitalism, has been great, that the need and demand for legitimation has been
similarly great, and thus that the capitulation of sociology to these demands has
been consequential for the societies in which this has occurred. The cases of
Mosca and Michels indicate the complexities of legitimation. As Losito and Segre
show, Michels, by becoming a propagandist for Mussolini, lost his ‘influence’.
The ideas of Mosca, which no less an authority than David Beetham has
pronounced to have a ‘natural connectionto support for fascism’, were not used
to legitimate the regime because of Mosca’s personal opposition to Mussolini
(Beetham 1977:163). Like Spann, the German sociologists who sought to provide
ideological justifications for Nazism discovered that once in power the Nazis had
a strong interest in preserving the purity of their own doctrine and little or none
in ‘legitimation’. Nor did either major fascist regime exhibit much fear of
sociology: they regarded the subject as largely superfluous where it did not
coincide with their own programmatic ideas, and not as a threat to be suppressed.
A third stage was the period in which sociologists attempted to serve the regimes
technically rather than ideologically. One might regard this service as
opportunism, and, consistent with the belief in sociology’s progressive,
oppositional essence, regard it as betrayal. But the easy absorption of sociologists
and social researchers into the apparatus of the Nazi system of academic patronage,
documented by Klingemann, suggests otherwise. Sociologists participated in the
Nazi order in large numbers and for the same kinds of reasons as sociologists
participate in schemes of subsidized scholarship today. If anything, the Nazis were
modernizers of sociology: they brought the machinery of subsidized scholarship
and publication in empirical sociology and substantive research significantly
closer to present models of research subsidy and relations with the state.5 As
Klingemann shows, there was even a great deal of continuity in personnel in the
sociology of the Federal Republic.
Wartime sociology itself is beyond the limits of the studies presented here, but
the parallels between sociology in this third stage in Germany and the case of
American wartime sociology should be noticed. One might suppose that the
conditions which led sociologists into involvement with the Nazi regime described
by Klingemann were unique to Germany and the Nazi system. But in both
Germany and the United States, sociologists as experts and technicians attempted
to contribute to national purposes, and were so employed. The areas of work were
largely the same: studies of morale, aid in the administration of occupied territory,
and the training of officers. Many sociologists served in interdisciplinary survey
and research units for the War Department.6 Talcott Parsons himself tried to get
funds and legitimation for sociology by working in the area of national morale
and received funding for the training of officers in the Far East (Buxton and Turner
1992).
THE ROLE OF THE SOCIOLOGIST

These symmetries are suggestive. But the questions they raise about the
professional role of the sociologist or the ethics of sociology in service to the state
are not answerable by facile moralizing. Were these acts of service by sociologists,
which in no case had any great practical effect, immoral as such, immoral or moral
because of the immorality or morality of the causes they served, or a violation of
normative requirements of detachment intrinsic to the sociologist’s role? If they
were violations, precisely what was the role they violated? The studies may be
said to provide an answer of sorts to these questions, though it is a negative one:
none of the formulae that have purported to guide sociologists in their relations
to the state or political purposes proved themselves in the face of fascism to be
unerring guides. As Bannister shows, the ideal of scientific objectivity as practised
by certain quantitatively oriented American sociologists prevented them from
contributing to the understanding of fascism. Some German sociologists made
themselves into ‘objective’ technical instruments of the state; in their case,
adherence to the ‘objective’ did nothing to exculpate them from moral
responsibility for the consequences of their technical help. Nor did the supposed
inherent progressiveness of sociological truth cause the Nazis to refuse this aid.
The rain of government patronage for sociologists fell from just and unjust regimes
alike.
The idea of an edifying sociology, one that serves to instruct the public, fared
no better in the face of fascism. The romantic notion of reweaving a social order
destroyed by impersonality, shared by Tōnnies, Durkheim, and many others, such
as Spann, contributed, however indirectly, to the climate of opinion in which
fascism took hold. So did the elitism of Pareto and Mosca. It would be convenient
to excuse these thinkers on the ground that intellectuals ought not to be held
accountable for the consequences of their ideas or their use by others. But in each
of these cases, and in the case of sociologists generally, this defence fails. Ranulf
suggested that their efforts were the moral equivalent of Nazi propaganda. This
is perhaps harsh. But the differences in intent were matters of degree, not kind:
both the sociologists and the fascist propagandists sought to influence opinion and
for their opinions to have political effects. The scholarship was intended to edify:
these thinkers wanted their ideas to influence action and promoted their ideas
accordingly. And even those sociological purists whose idea of sociology was
farthest removed from these edifying intentions were financed because it was
believed by ministers of state or the public that the pursuit of sociology ultimately
served some practical purpose.
The ideal of an engaged sociology also fared poorly. As Weber says, to enter
into politics is to contract with diabolical powers. If the engagement of sociological
thinkers in ‘progressive’ political causes is to be judged on its consequences, the
consequences will rarely be unproblematic. One can err in choosing which ‘party
of progress’ to ally oneself with. And one may err in choosing principles. The
‘principles’ that some of the Marxists discussed by K sler and Steiner ‘preserved’
by their refusal to compromise ideological purity and the goal of revolution do
not look particularly progressive from today’s perspective. Instead, these
principled Marxists appear partly culpable for the weakness of the political
resistance to Nazism, which was at the time of the seizure of power a minority
movement made powerful by the divisions between its opponents. The Critical
Theorists, who held to the same theory of historical development, seem scarcely
less culpable. Intellectuals in Europe found within the sociological tradition many
reasons to be acquiescent or to support fascism, and few to reject it or inform a
political resistance to it.
One fundamental constraint on the conduct of sociologists is underscored by
the German case. Sociology and social research is a subsidized activity,
state-subsidized for the most part, and is thus morally bound to its patrons and
historically conditioned by the relations and forms of patronage that support it. In
practice, sociologists can escape the pact diabolique only by retirement or by exile
and a change of patrons. Several of the Italian sociologists discussed by Losito
and Segre chose this course. But exit is not a choice without moral implications
either.
THE CONDITIONS OF ANALYSIS

How well did sociologists do as analysts of fascism? The phenomenon of fascism
produced two kinds of interpretation: analyses that presented fascism as a novel
and distinctive form, and analyses that assimilated fascism to patterns that were
found elsewhere in more benign forms, such as administrative centralization, or
that subsumed fascism under such overarching trends as ‘anomia’, ‘materialism’,
or ‘the end of economic man’.7 The motivations for these interpretations were
local or specific to particular situations, and were largely ideological. The
American discussion largely reflected sociologists’ attitudes toward Roosevelt
and his programme of state intervention. Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler were all
construed as leaders who, like Roosevelt, had centralized state power and
introduced ‘planning’. These same equivalences were made by Europeans facing
their own expansions of state power. They led de Man to become a supporter of
the cause of centralization. In the United States, the effect of these analyses was
to ‘normalize’ these regimes. Treating them as similar political responses to the
world economic crisis, as sociologically analogous, undermined attempts to
differentiate them morally, such as Charles Ellwood’s warnings of the dangers of
Italian fascism.
The intellectually consequential analyses of fascism were not the product of
disinterested sociological reflection, but of sociology motivated by political
concerns. In Britain, where ‘sociological’ commentary on fascism was in the
hands of writers who were not part of a disciplinary tradition, there was a quite
different response, because there was a local political motive for making
distinctions. Fascism was problematic, especially for socialist writers, in a way
that it was not for academic theorists, whose views typically could be elaborated
or stretched to accommodate fascism as a special case of a previously understood
pattern. For British socialists, the equivalences raised uncomfortable questions
about their own political ideals, questions famously exploited by Orwell. Their
analyses of fascism and Nazism were in part attempts to find differentia between
the socialist programme of the expansion of state power and the fascist program.
As Lassman shows, they found the differentiating concept they sought in
‘totalitarianism’, a term originating in the propaganda of fascism itself. The
historical image of fascism cultivated by such figures as Mussolini and Carl
Schmitt was that fascism represented the replacement of the liberal system of
compromise between partial interests with a ‘total’ regime, with the
comprehensive incorporation of partial interests under the authority of the state.
Labour socialism, oriented to the mundane interests of an economic and moral
constituency within a parliamentary structure, was a different species of socialism,
and British socialists sought to articulate this difference. The circumstances of
reception, including the Cold War, favoured the interpretation. At the same time
the revelation of the dimensions of the Holocaust worked against the ‘normalizing’
analyses of Nazism which had competed with the concept of totalitarianism: the
abnormality of the Holocaust demanded an abnormal cause.
What was missing in academic sociologists’ discussions, even in the cases of
those who understood the dangers of fascism, was an account which connected
the destructive potential of fascism to sociological facts.8 The much disputed
theory that Nazism was the product of the ‘new middle classes’ is an apparent
exception to this. But it is an exception that proves the rule. The connection
between the cause and the relevant consequences was made only by conjoining it
with the Reichian idea of the degree of sexual repression unique to this class, and
the special consequences for mass psychology and aggression of repressed
sexuality. The idea of ‘class basis’ was itself merely the extension of a familiar
explanatory pattern, the determination of politics by class-interest, which
accounted for the novelty of the phenomenon by identifying a novel class to cause
it. But it and the question of the class basis of fascism was in its actual effect a
political sedative which misled the opponents of fascism about its potential
strength and potential future course. Contempt for the class led to an
underestimation of the movement which was based on it. The reduction of politics
to class interests and class-specific psychology proved largely irrelevant to fascism
in power.
The puzzle of fascism remains, half a century after the conclusion of the war
against the fascist regimes. This study does not pretend to shed much direct light
on this puzzle. But it does illuminate a little discussed and poorly understood
precondition for fascism: the intellectual confusion that this ‘bolt from the blue’
engendered. Sociologists were not immune to this confusion, just as they were not
immune to temptations of participation in the fascist regimes. Myths die hard. The
myth of sociology’s opposition to fascism and of the wisdom of sociology in the
face of fascism deserves to die. But with it some other myths ought also to be
undermined. The myth of sociology as a ‘legitimator’ whose services are much
in demand ought simply to be forgotten. The idea that sociologists can be freed
of responsibility for the consequences of their sociology ought also to be given
up. There is nothing that assures that the effects of sociology will be progressive
or constructive other than the definitional equation of ‘true’ sociology with the
good. No sociology of the interwar era grasped fascism fully or produced an
unambiguously ‘correct’ political recipe for dealing with it. The continuing dispute
over the character of fascism and the interwar ‘fascist’ regimes suggests that these
are inappropriately high standards for social science. But the failure to meet them
indicates that the pretensions to political wisdom of social science are
inappropriate as well.
NOTES
1 As Theodor Adorno once put it, Hitler was the sworn enemy of sociology (Lepenies
1988:336).
2 Lepenies speaks of the ‘strange consensus between émigré and Nazi collaborator’
on this version of events (Lepenies 1988:336).
3 E.g. Hans Freyer. Cf. Jerry Muller 1987:367.
4 Muller’s excellent study of Freyer shows how complex the intellectual and personal
response of individuals might become. What is difficult to see from such studies is
the larger prosographical pattern of which the life in question forms a part within a
given political order. It is also of course impossible to identify the specific conditions
that made these national patterns distinctive.
5 Something similar may be seen in the case of psychology. See U.Geuter 1984.
6 Indeed, sociologists were readily found who were willing to cross the Constitutional
line between morale surveys and political polling in support of Roosevelt (Converse
1987:152–53).
7 Analyses which subsume fascism under some other broad pattern have enjoyed a
kind of second life owing to the moral horror of the Holocaust. Today it is possible,
not to say fashionable, to attack some movement of thought or tendency, such as
modernity, technology, rationality, capitalism, irreligion, and the like, by associating
it with Nazism.
8 The ‘new middle class’ thesis did not do so; the analysts, contempt for the class and
its ‘psychology’ led to contempt for the party that presumably represented its
interests and was the expression of its psychology. The exception to this rule of
failing to connect the explanation of fascism to its destructive potential was Thorstein
Veblen’s analysis in his eerily prophetic Imperial Germany and the Industrial
Revolution of 1915, and his successor work of 1917, An Inquiry into the Nature of
Peace and the Terms of its Perpetuation. Joseph Dorfman’s claim for the former,
that ‘So well had Veblen caught the spirit of the Third Reich twenty years before
its birth that its accredited spokesmen sound as if they are merely obeying Veblen’s
logic not in broad outline but in specific detail’, no doubt grossly overstates the case.
Veblen had no inkling of Hitler or the specifics of the Nazi movement. But Veblen’s
analysis of what has come to be called the Deutsche Sonderweg showed in detail the
destructive potential of unbalanced German development in a system of democratic
states. Some of the virtues of this approach are retained in the work of Kirkpatrick
discussed by Bannister in his chapter on American sociology.
REFERENCES
Adorno, T.W. et al. (1950) The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper and Row.
Beetham, David (1977) ‘From Socialism to Fascism: The Relation Between Theory and
Practice in the Work of Robert Michels. Part II. The Fascist Ideologue.’ Political
Studies 25:161–81.
Beyerchen, Alan D. (1977) Scientists Under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community
in the Third Reich. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Burleigh, Michael (1988) Germany Turns Eastwards: A Study of ‘Ostforschung’ in the
Third Reich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Buxton, William and Stephen P.Turner (1992) ‘Edification and Expertise’, in Morris
Janowitz and Terry Halladay (eds) Sociology and Its Publics. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Converse, Jean M. (1987) Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence
1890–1960. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Durkheim, Emile (1933) The Division of Labor in Society. Translated by George
Simpson. New York: Macmillan.
Geuter, U. (1984) Die Professionalisierung der deutschen Psychologie im
Nationalisozialismus. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Lepenies, Wolf (1988) Between Literature and Science: The Rise of Sociology.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Muller, Jerry Z. (1987) The Other God That Failed: Hans Freyer and the
Deradicalization of German Conservatism. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press.
Pels, Dick (1987) ‘Hendrik de Man and the Ideology of Planism’, International Review
of Social History 3:206–229.
——(1991) ‘Treason of the Intellectuals: Paul de Man and Hendrik de Man’, Theory,
Culture & Society 8:21–56.
Proctor, Robert (1988) Racial Hygiene. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ranulf, Svend (1939) ‘Scholarly Forerunners of Fascism’, Ethics (50): 16–34.
Weingart, Peter, Jürgen Kroll, and Kurt Bayertz (1988) Rasse, Blut und Gene:
Geschichte der Eugenik und Rassenhygiene in Deutschland. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
14
2
OUTSIDERS AND TRUE BELIEVERS
Austrian sociologists respond to fascism
Gerald Mozetič
The view that national socialism brutally brought sociology to a standstill and
reduced it to silence, long promoted by René Kōnig and widely accepted, can no
longer be taken seriously. The evidence is that National Socialism promoted
certain forms of sociology, among them the efforts of those sociologists who said
that 1933 marked a new beginning for sociology. These ideologically ambitious
sociologists were generally disappointed in the opportunities the new order
afforded them. But the demand for certain kinds of empirical sociology increased
considerably, and in consequence during the Third Reich there was more sociology
than before (Rammstedt 1986). The historical ambiguities of the term ‘sociology’
make this a difficult conclusion to establish.
The image of the history of sociology in general depends on what is considered
to be ‘sociology’. In the special case of the relationship between sociology and
fascism this turns out to be crucial. The approach of this chapter will be to treat
as a ‘sociologist’ whoever thought of himself or herself as a sociologist, or wrote
what was then regarded as sociology. This means that some of what we might
today decline to call sociology will be included.
In the case of Austrian sociology, the ambiguities of the term ‘sociology’ are
matched by the variety of ‘fascisms’ to which it responded. Immediately after
Hitler’s seizure of power in Germany, Dollfuss’s government in Austria began to
abolish democratic institutions and human rights. The suppression of the
working-class movement, the prohibition of the Social Democratic Party, the free
trade unions, and eventually all political parties led to a system called
Austro-fascism or the authoritarian corporate state (Larsen et al 1980). Dollfuss
was killed in an unsuccessful Putsch carried out by the Nazis in 1934. Austria
allied itself to Italian fascism in this period, and Italian political interests kept
Austria and Hitler apart. This means that, for our purposes, we must take into
consideration these three distinct varieties of fascism.
The common situation of the defeated countries after the First World War is
part of the political and socio-economic prehistory of fascism. Revolutions of the
left and revolutions of the right were regarded as everyday events, and it was
widely and fervently believed that democracy promotes socialism. An
anti-democratic, authoritarian policy was seen to be the only solution to the
problem of social and political order. These convictions had developed over
16 AUSTRIAN SOCIOLOGISTS RESPOND TO FASCISM
decades, so one can say that the history of fascism reaches back to the nineteenth
century. These ideas came into currency during the processes of industrialization
and democratization in Austria. To some extent they represent a general
phenomenon which occurs in all developing countries. But some of the intellectual
manifestations of this kind of reaction were peculiar to Austria. Finally, the Austria
that came into being in 1918 was indeed a ‘rest’, something that had remained
after the dismembering of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Whether this ‘Austria’
could survive was a matter of dispute. The idea of Anschluss (annexation) thus
was co-equal with the establishment of the First Republic in Austria.1
BEGINNINGS AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

IN AUSTRIA
At the end of the nineteenth century several Austrians proposed ‘sociologies’.
They were academic outsiders, like Ludwig Gumplowicz (Mozetič 1985), or
private scholars, like the military officer Gustav Ratzenhofer. Both of these
thinkers were taken quite seriously in the USA and in France; but they were nearly
unanimously rejected in Austria and Germany. They neither founded a school nor
established sociology as a discipline at the universities. The private scholar Rudolf
Goldscheid played an important role in Austrian sociology on account of his
organizational talent and energy. He participated in the founding of the
Soziologische Gesellschaft (sociological society) at Vienna (1907) as well as the
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (1909). Another sociological society, whose
main activity was the organizing of lectures, was founded in Graz in 1908, the
year in which Gumplowicz ended his academic career. After 1918 this society
published a series of essays, including works of Joseph Schumpeter (1918) and
Ferdinand Tönnies (1918). Published contributions to sociology at the time came
from academics who worked in the field of philosophy (Wilhelm Jerusalem and
Rudolf Eisler), jurisprudence (apart from Gumplowicz, Eugen Ehrlich and Karl
Renner wrote on the sociology of law), and political economy (Joseph Schumpeter
and Friedrich von Wieser).2
The beginning of the First Republic was inauspicious for the development of
an academic sociology. There were only three universities in Austria: Vienna,
Graz, Innsbruck. The academic market for Austrian scholars had become much
smaller and the chances of making a career had decreased dramatically with the
end of the Habsburg empire. The University of Vienna remained the intellectual
centre of Austrian life. But the academic hinterland of the Empire, which had
supplied Vienna with geniuses and which offered many lecturers the opportunity
to obtain a professorial chair while they were still young, thus enabling them to
concentrate on their scientific work in safe positions, was absent. The universities
in Austria were public institutions. So the sorry financial situation of the state
during the First Republic had direct effects on the universities.
Under these circumstances the prospects of establishing new scientific subjects
and institutes—not to mention the difficulties and prejudices sociology was
SOCIOLOGY RESPONDS TO FASCISM 17
confronted with anyway—were rather poor, and successful steps forward were
few and feeble. When Hugo Spitzer in Graz established a Seminar für
Philosophische Soziologie in 1921, he reported at the end of 1924 that the library
of the seminar consisted of forty-five books. One can see from this how restricted
the possibilities were (Matthes 1973:222). The fact that ‘Gesellschaftslehre’ was
introduced into political science as an examination subject in 1926 and that it could
be chosen as a dissertation subject was celebrated as a major success at the Fifth
Convention of the German Sociological Society (which took place in Vienna)
(Käsler 1983). Sociology was still a marginal subject.
It is not easy to give a brief characterization of the sociological conceptions
which could be found in Austria at the beginning of the First Republic. Neither
Gumplowicz’s or Ratzenhofer’s naturalistic sociology had adherents. The spirit
of positivism appeared again within the Vienna Circle. But Otto Neurath’s later
attempt to develop a sociology based on behaviourism was without influence.3
The important ‘Austrian School’ in economics was responsible for some
interesting sociological analyses and could have contributed to the establishment
of a specific approach in sociology. But it lost ground at the university and
continued only in private circles.4 Wilhelm Jerusalem’s sociology of knowledge
remained only an episode, as did Max Adler’s rigorous but fruitless attempt to
present Marxism in the form of a positivistic sociology (Mozetič 1978, 1987). The
sociological approaches one thinks of today as the Austrian contribution to the
progress of sociology in the interwar years were formulated outside the university
or at best at the margin of academic life. This is true of Paul Lazarsfeld, Marie
Jahoda, Hans Zeisel and also of Alfred Schutz, Felix Kaufmann, and Edgar Zilsel.5
Those sociologists who began careers in this period and contributed to the
intellectual development of postwar sociology were correct in saying that they
developed their innovations in opposition to the mentality dominating at the
university at that time. All of them had to emigrate between 1934 and 1938.
The major exception to this pattern of marginality and failure was the
consequence of a decision made at the University of Vienna in 1919. Othmar
Spann was chosen to fill the late Eugen von Philippovich’s professorial chair in
political economy. In the previous years Spann had taught political economy at
the School of Technology in Brunn. He had announced that he did not want to
restrict himself to his nominal subject, but wished to teach sociology as well. The
professors of the Faculty of Law and Political Science agreed. Only the dean of
the faculty, Carl Grünberg— who in 1924 became the first director of the newly
founded Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt—expressed doubts. They were
rejected by the ministry. In the summer term of 1920 Spann gave a lecture in which
he roundly criticized the political basis of the young Austrian republic and
presented the programme of an authoritarian state. These expositions were first
published in 1921; by 1938 they had gone into a fourth edition (Spann 1921).
Spann welcomed efforts to eliminate democracy in Austria and replace it with a
‘corporative’ state. This declaration against parliamentary democracy was not the
private opinion of a scholar at his desk; it was a prominent expression of a
widespread aversion to or at least scepticism towards parliamentarism—a fact

which makes it easy to understand that Spann could publish his work unmolested
and unstigmatized.
From the beginning of his work as professor in Vienna, Spann took advantage
of his position to gather disciples and to spread as widely as possible his theory
of ‘universalism’. In addition to his official lectures Spann established a private
‘Sunday seminar’ to which only his students and disciples were admitted. His
consistency and resoluteness in establishing a following became evident through
the number of Habilitation dissertations written under his supervision: Jakob Baxa
in 1923, Wilhelm Andreae in 1925 (his previous attempt at the University of Berlin
had failed), Johann Sauter in 1927, Erich Voegelin (who had worked as the
assistant of Hans Kelsen) in 1928, Walter Heinrich in 1928, Ferdinand A.
Westphalen in 1932, Hermann Roeder in 1933, and August Maria Knoll in 1934.6
Spann’s followers were quickly promoted, and not only in Vienna. Andreae
became a professor at the University of Graz in 1926; in 1933 he went to Giessen
in Germany where he continued to teach Spann’s universalism (a fact which was
probably responsible for the loss of his professorship in 1942). Hans Riehl at the
University of Graz was another follower of Spann’s universalism: his habilitation
was supported by Andreae. Professor Theo Suranyi-Unger, who worked at the
law school in Miskolc (Hungary), was also influenced by Spann.7 In 1923 Adolf
Günther was appointed professor at the University of Innsbruck. Although he was
not a member of Spann’s school he was in agreement with many of its political
concepts. Ultimately, he became an admirer of National Socialism (Günther 1940).
In 1940 he was appointed professor at the University of Vienna, as successor to
Spann, who had been dismissed.
Spann and his students succeeded in permeating the universities, making his
theory the dominant one. His efforts to promote and encourage those people who
had adopted his concepts were relentless; the journal Nationalwirtschaft. Blätter
für organischen Wirtschaftsaufbau, of which he was the co-editor, not only
included contributions from Spann’s already mentioned students but also several
articles which were explicitly labelled as pieces from Professor Spann’s seminar
(Brandner 1928–29; Jander 1927–28). In this journal one can also find an article
by the Japanese Toyojiro Akabane, Spann’s student at the University of Vienna,
who was considered Spann’s representative in Japan.8
Most of Spann’s students acquired their venia legendi in ‘Gesellschaftslehre’
(Baxa, Andreae, Sauter and Voegelin). Gesellschaftslehre was synonymous with
sociology, and was not simply Spann’s special domain: the Austro-Marxist Max
Adler, for example, also acquired his venia legendi in Gesellschaftslehre. It was
a novelty when Voegelin was appointed Extraordinarius in political science and
sociology in 1935.9 But Spann and his students meant something very special by
Gesellschaftslehre. They traced the term back to the early period of romanticism
in Germany; Novalis was said to have been the first to use it. Romanticism was
considered to be the origin of German sociology—with Adam Müller as its most
important philosopher —indicating the complete rejection of any kind of
sociology influenced by positivism or naturalism. Spann completely agreed with

Georg von Below’s criticism of sociology. Below, a historian, regarded positivist
sociology as an aberrant development without scientific achievements and fought
against the institutionalization of sociology in Germany after the First World War.
Like Spann, Below saw the roots of a truly scientific understanding of state and
society in German romanticism and it was this romantic tradition, he argued, that
helped the Germans to resist the superficial positivism of the French and English.
OUTLINE OF OTHMAR SPANN’S SOCIOLOGY

A short summary of Spann’s fundamental sociological ideas will suffice to show
why Spann criticized modern capitalist-democratic society and why he placed
such great hope in the fascist movements.10 Spann held that there are only two
fundamental positions between which everybody who wants to study society must
choose: individualism and universalism. Individualism is a product of civil
society, along with the systems of rationalism and empiricism, and the philosophy
of the Enlightenment. Autonomous individuals, individuals who open
relationships with one another as free and equal citizens only on grounds of
utilitarian motives and calculations, are the basic social units. According to Spann
the most important conceptions making up individualism are the theories of natural
rights, the social-contract theory, Adam Smith’s and David Ricardo’s classical
political economy, as well as the theories advanced by the positivists. This set of
conceptions, which dominated the recent history of ideas, is the expression of a
social development which Spann considered altogether regrettable and harmful:
capitalism; political individualism was associated with the advance of democracy.
In the philosophy of science individualism expresses itself as a more or less strong
naturalism, in which individuals are treated as entities that follow causal
regularities.
Why does Spann consider this approach completely inadequate? His philosophy
is deeply rooted in idealism, and the idea that the essence of things may only be
appreciated through inner experience. Empiricism may have proved to be
successful with regard to external aspects of nature (although it does not have the
last word here, either), but with respect to society, which is not a natural fact but
a fact of ideas, it must fail. Idealistic philosophy, from Plato and Augustine to the
scholastics, and even mystics, can give us better information about society than
all of empirical and naturalistic sociology. Sociology is essentially a conceptual
science: those who want to know something about society must conceive the
essence of the Geist. The great achievement of German idealism and of the
romantic school—Spann calls special attention to Fichte and Adam M ller—lies
in the fact that they defended this fundamental stance against the doctrines of
individualism, which were then becoming more and more influential.
By interpreting Geist in the sense of idealism in general and of German idealism
and romanticism in particular, Spann arrives at the conception he calls
‘universalism’. A presupposition of universalism is the epistemological possibility
of forming the concept of a Ganzheit (whole) that does not come into being through
the mutual effects of its parts and that cannot be defined by them. When this is
done it may be shown that society is such a whole. The basic concept of
universalism is Gezweiung, i.e. that the human mind cannot be conceived of as
isolated Geist existing on its own and developing itself according to its own
principles, but always refers to spiritual community with others. This idealistic
and romantic idea, best formulated poetically by Novalis, shows the inadequacy
of individualism, which only knows complete, isolated people who have mutual
effects on each other. Geist can only be developed if it is connected with other
people’s Geist. Society is not something that comes into being because of
interaction, but exists through Gezweiung.11 Typical forms of Gezweiung are
friendship, love, family, and the relationship between student and teacher. Spann
considers the fact that society does not consist of the sum of all isolated individuals
—these individuals only exist because they are parts or members of society—a
presupposition of all authentic sociological science. By saying, as Aristotle already
had, that the whole is prior to the part, Spann affirmed not a temporal but a logical
priority. Society as a spiritual community is not a metaphysical entity that
independently lives a life of its own, any more than it would be possible for a
human body to exist independently of the organs. Society depends on its parts and
is expressed in its subtotalities.
Spann regards this finding as strictly logical and scientific. But the esoteric
philosophy and theory of categories have a political bias. Geist is something that
is hierarchically stratified. No Gezweiung can be based on equality. People cannot
participate in the common spiritual life to the same degree. All social
differentiations and hierarchies are or should be based on this stratification of
mind. That is the reason why all attempts to establish equality are doomed in
principle to failure. The universalistic characterization of the mind thus already
contains the principle of inequality which Spann made the norm in social and
political life. The solution to the problem of social order for the universalist is to
build up a stratified society according to the scale of spiritual values.
Starting from these presuppositions, Spann drafts a model of a perfect state, the
establishment of which would put an end to the age of individualism. Affection
in the community will take the place of atomism, utilitarianism will be replaced
by ethics of obligation, a sovereignty based on compulsion by the ‘whole’ will
supersede the sovereignty of the people, the delusion of equality will give way to
the organic relationship between leader and followers, and the time of capitalism
and democracy will be over. All the abuses and faults of capitalism and democracy
will be eliminated through the reconstruction of society on an estate basis.
Spann distinguishes between spiritual and acting ranks: all ranks are of the same
functional importance to the whole of society but they are not equivalent. Every
low rank is spiritually led by the rank above it. Inferior people can only participate
in the superior through adoration and devotion. The stratification of society is
based on a ranking of values. These values must be protected because the destiny
of society depends on the purity of values. The values can only be guaranteed
through power and the best form of government is the one in which the best come
into power. Who ‘the best’ are can only be decided from the top, not determined
by democracy, because the people lack spirituality and understanding.
However much Spann emphasizes the fact that the ranks live lives of their own
(‘vita propria’), a state is absolutely necessary. The state represents a top rank
(‘Hōchststand’) to the extent that, apart from its proper tasks, it acts as the referee
over all ranks. This means that in addition to the spiritual hierarchy there is, on a
different level, a hierarchy of action.
It is not necessary here to go into the details of the rank society envisioned by
Spann. Suffice it to say that Spann was one of those who regarded a ‘conservative
revolution’ as the solution to the problems of social and political order and
welcomed attempts to fight democracy and socialism. Before the relations of
Spann and his followers to the fascist movements are described, it will be useful
to understand Spann’s position in the sociology of the time.
Spann did not think much of his scientific colleagues and, when visited by the
American sociologist Earle Edward Eubank in 1934, spoke nearly exclusively of
himself and his works (K sler 1991:100–106). He criticized contemporary
sociology on the grounds that it concentrated on individualism and naturalism.
Spann considered Weber’s idea that sociology can arrive at a causal explanation
by interpretive understanding of social action an incomprehensible contradiction.
Weber’s concept of the ideal type was rejected because it is naturalistic and even
amateurish. Spann was particularly angry about Weber’s sociology of religion.
Had Weber been really serious about his method of understanding, he should have
entered into the spiritual content of religion, and taken into consideration the
specifically spiritual state of mind. But nothing of the kind can be found in Weber’s
works. On the contrary, his analysis is always concerned with the worldly
consequences of religious acting. He never tries to understand the metaphysical
secret of religion. Weber is an a-metaphysical man through and through: if such
a person turns to religion, then a caustic rage for devastating the Holy will appear.
Spann accused Weber of atheism, scepticism, materialism, individualism and
Marxism.12
The final consequence of his holistic universalism was metaphysical: God is
the highest form of mind and whole. From this Spann deduced that religion should
have a privileged position in the state and it must never be declared a private
matter. Since empiricist, individualistic and rationalistic sociology is not able to
distinguish and to acknowledge the Holy as Holy, it leads to moral relativism,
which has destructive effects on society. The fight for the reconstruction of society
thus does not permit relativism and pluralism in science, much less in culture.
From this point of view it is only consistent that Spann was enthusiastic about the
fact that certain books were thrown into bonfires by the Nazis in May 1933.13 He
celebrated these events as a triumph of the German mind. He never doubted that
the nation with the highest spiritual values was in the right and this nation was the
German one. Equally unequivocal is Spann’s verdict that the Jews never generated
a single creative talent of high degree and that their main characteristic is obduracy.
They repeatedly had the opportunity, Spann pointed out, to make themselves part
of a higher culture (i.e. become Christians). But they refused to do so. Thus they
refused to abandon the inferior sect for the superior faith and civilization (Spann
1934:281–284).
Nearly all the ideological convictions which paved the way for National
Socialism can be found in Spann’s works. In one respect, however, his ideology
was different from that of the Nazis. Since Spann started from the primacy of the
mind he could not agree to racism, which proceeded from the supposition of
biological determination. He thought this to be too naturalistic and even though
he did not deny completely the importance of racial characteristics, he considered
them to be at most only of secondary importance in relation to the sphere of the
mind.
Spann did not completely lose his scholarly reputation when he made his
political programme public. In 1926, when the Fifth Convention of the German
Sociological Society took place in Vienna, he was invited to give a lecture.
Naturally, his statements, in the section on methodology, all related to
universalism. They were discussed and, in part, vehemently criticized by Leopold
von Wiese, Max Adler, Franz Oppenheimer, Felix Kaufmann and Robert
Wilbrandt. The general topic of the convention was democracy. But the
participants succeeded in discussing this topic without referring explicitly to
Spann, the deadly enemy of democracy.14
SPANN’S CIRCLE AND FASCISM

As Spann thought he knew what the ‘true state’ was, and as the political reality in
Austria after 1918 did not correspond to his model at all, it was for him a moral
duty to strengthen the idea of the corporate state. In the university, his efforts were
successful. But although Spann’s influence on Catholic and pan-German students
was enormous, and Spann’s circle became mightier and mightier, in political terms
nothing was achieved. Therefore it was important for him to follow political
developments attentively and to take advantage of any opportunity to bring
universalism into play as an alternative to the destructive spirit of individualism.
When Italian fascism came into power in the 1920s, it was welcomed by Spann
and his followers who saw a chance of giving the movement, victorious through
deeds, a theoretical and ideological basis. In 1928–29 Walter Heinrich published
a series of articles about the political and economic constitution of fascism. In his
introduction he refers to the fact that his knowledge does not derive only from
written sources but was greatly enlarged by a stay in Italy and by personal
acquaintance with leading men of fascism (Heinrich 1928–29:275). Heinrich
judged the development of fascism from the point of view of universalism. He
acknowledged that the Duce had put Italy on the right road, but considered the
political and economic constitution deficient. In particular, he thought that the
fascist state interfered too much in the economy and prevented the creation of a
decentralized system. Heinrich (Heinrich 1928–29:762) concluded with the hope
that the organic idea of state, born out of the German Geist, will be realized in the
country of its origin.
On 9 June 1933 Spann gave a lecture in Rome for the ‘Confederazione
Nazionale Fascista del Commercio’. Here we again find the argument that
individualism and Marxism can only be completely destroyed if they are fought
with a theory of the ‘true state’. Spann offered his model of the corporate state as
this spiritual weapon (Spann 1933a). But just as the Carta del Lavoro of 1927,
which Heinrich had studied thoroughly, did not in the least correspond to Spann’s
ideas of the order of corporations neither did the reform of the corporate system
in 1934 lead to the separation of economy and state which Spann considered
essential. Thus in spite of their favourable reception in fascist Italy, Spann’s ideas
did not really exercise any influence and the hopes of Spann’s followers were not
fulfilled.
Spann’s followers became particularly active in Austria in the late 1920s. After
the burning of the Justizpalast in 1927, the political atmosphere was highly
charged. The anti-democratic forces in the Heimwehr, the united front consisting
of middle-class, rural and aristocratic representatives, became stronger.15 In 1928,
Ignaz Seipel, the leader of the Christian Socialist Party, confirmed its ‘longing for
true democracy’. The term implied the abolition of party rule, widely regarded as
the root of political evil. Still accepting ‘democracy’, Seipel supported those
whose aim it was to destroy democracy, the Heimwehr. He knew some of Spann’s
followers personally and might have encouraged them to support the Heimwehr
ideologically. Walter Heinrich and Hans Riehl assumed leading positions in the
Heimwehr in 1929, and organized the political training of the Heimwehr (Siegfried
1974:84). Several leaflets were written through which the members of the
Heimwehr became acquainted with Spann’s theory. In a programmatic lecture on
the spiritual basis of the Heimwehr movement Heinrich explained that Austria
was approaching a situation of decision in which the only choice was between
Bolshevism and the corporate state (Heinrich n.d.).
The aspirations of the Spannians to become the ideological leaders of the
Heimwehr were not fulfilled. When during the discussion about the reform of the
Austrian constitution in 1929 it became evident that the Heimwehr was not strong
enough to realize its ideas, the different interests of the individual factions within
the Heimwehr led to internal contests for power. In the autumn of 1930 the
aristocratic wing of the Heimwehr, represented by Starhemberg, was victorious;
those on whom Spann’s followers had set their hopes were defeated. This put an
end to Heinrich’s and Riehl’s position of influence in the Heimwehr.
A fresh impetus was given to the Spannians when in 1931 the Papal Encyclical
Quadragesimo anno, in which the establishment of corporate bodies was
demanded, was published. The ensuing discussion among Catholics, not only in
Austria, was important in disseminating Spann’s conceptions. The aims that were
realized by Dollfuss’s regime after the abolition of democracy in 1933–34 were
ideologically supported by Quadragesimo anno, and reflected its central ideas.
The reforms did not, however, win Spann’s approval. The new constitution
proclaimed on 1 May 1934 generated the corporate state, but, in Spann’s opinion,
only on paper. He protested that the constitution had made a caricature of the idea
of the ranks, and was still much too characterized by the democratic spirit of 1789
to pass as ‘corporative’! Above all, the state still retained too much power, power
that Spann thought should go to ranks (Spann 1933a). Thus, however much
Spann’s followers were satisfied with the abolition of party democracy and the
elimination of the Marxist-oriented working-class movement, they could not
identify themselves with the new system of Austro-fascism.
The Spannians found the Nazi movement congenial because, as they understood
matters, the Nazi programme contained many of their own political aims. In
Gottfried Feder’s commentary of 1927 on the programme of the NSDAP, Spann’s
universalistic conception of society was called ideal. Spann in turn supported the
Nationalsoziatistische Gesellschaft für deutsche Kultur, founded by Alfred
Rosenberg in 1927, which was designed to propagandize for National Socialism
among people with a university education. In 1929, in the Auditorium maximum
of the University of Munich, Spann gave a lecture on the cultural crisis of the
present, in which he complained about the enormous influence of the Jews,
especially in the field of philosophy. After the performance Hitler, who was
present, congratulated the lecturer (Siegfried 1974:253).
At the end of 1931, when the press agency Grossdeutscher Pressedienst
reported that Spann was in agreement with the newly founded German
Katholisch-Soziale Nationalpartei, Spann instructed his lawyer in Munich to
demand a retraction. The founder of this party had been one of his students, but
Spann himself had nothing to do with the party. After some weeks his lawyer
wrote Spann a letter informing him that it turned out that the Grossdeutscher
Pressedienst and the National Socialist Press Agency were one and the same. Thus
he was unable to continue to plead Spann’s cause and he suggested ‘an amicable
settlement’.16
This farcical episode was settled, in at least this sense: Spann became a member
of the NSDAP in 1933. A short time previously he published an essay presenting
the plan of a corporativist reconstruction of Germany. Spann’s views were
supported by the representatives of heavy industry, primarily because his model
did not provide for autonomous working-class organizations. He considered that
the workers should form a corporation with the employers, something that would
in practice have guaranteed the predominance of the industry. This kind of
arrangement was meant to compete with, and prevent the incorporation of the
workers into, the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, which after the abolition of the unions
was to control the workers. With the consent of Hitler, heavy industry, under Fritz
Thyssen, financed an Institut für Ständewesen. In June 1933 the institute was
opened in Dusseldorf, and Spann’s followers found a new outlet in the training of
leading managers and leaders of the working people. The director of the institute
was Spann’s student Josef Klein. The scientific director was, for a time, Walter
Heinrich.
When the NSDAP was banned in Austria in July 1934, after the National
Socialists’ riot (which failed but caused Chancellor Dollfuss’s death), Spann and
his followers found themselves in a difficult situation. As they did not distance
themselves from National Socialism, they were watched by the police. Early in
1934 Spann’s son Rafael published a daily paper which was clearly oriented
towards National Socialism and to which Spann’s wife also contributed. It was
banned in April 1934. Spann’s second son was arrested. When the Austrian
corporate state took measures against officials who declared themselves National
Socialists, and even dismissed several professors, Spann himself was placed in
danger. But he took the official oath of loyalty to the new state and was not
suspended. It was certainly to his advantage that he had good connections with
Catholic circles and that he had always favoured a Christian state.
The Spannians were soon not welcome even in National Socialist Germany.
The conflict with the Deutsche Arbeitsfront became worse. Moreover, those who
considered themselves the real guardians and defenders of the
Nazi-Weltanschauung rejected Spann’s claim to ideological leadership. Alfred
Rosenberg (Hitler’s agent for Weltanschauung) was especially hostile to the
Spannians and emphasized one remarkable difference between National Socialism
and universalism: Spann rejected biological racism and thus rejected a central
tenet of National Socialism. The result of this conflict was unequivocal: Spann’s
followers had to withdraw from the Institut für Ständewesen, which lost its
importance altogether, and Spann was stigmatized as a dangerous enemy of
National Socialism.
As he himself lamented in 1936, the political movement which he had always
supported turned against him—something he could not understand. Subsequently
the attacks against him in the National Socialist press became more violent. After
Austria’s annexation, Spann and some of his disciples were arrested by the
Gestapo. Spann himself was set free after some months, but Heinrich spent a year
and a half in a concentration camp. The Gau-Gericht of the district administration
in Styria rejected Spann’s application for membership in the NSDAP in 1939,
saying that Spann could not be considered a National Socialist because of his
glorification of theocracy and his rejection of the Rassenlehre. So his last attempt
to gain a footing in the NSDAP failed.17
After 1945 Spann and his followers presented themselves as victims of National
Socialism, enabling Spann’s school to survive National Socialism and to regain
some influence after 1945. This presentation was true in certain respects, but of
course the victimization was of a special kind.
CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGY AND FASCISM

Spann’s sociology was strongly influenced by the Catholic tradition, which had
resisted the rise of a capitalist and industrial economy and the liberal and
democratic state. Among the Catholics in nineteenth-century Austrian social
science, Adam M ller (1779–1829) and Karl von Vogelsang (1818–1890) are
probably the most prominent.18 For them the solution to the problem of the correct
Christian order and of the social problem was sought beyond the institutions
created by these social and economic developments. The close relationship
between Catholicism and the dynasty of the Habsburgs was embodied in the
Concordat of 1855, which granted the Church extraordinary privileges. This
relationship was not seriously endangered by the concessions made to the spirit
of liberalism in the Austrian constitution of 1867, or in subsequent legislation.
When the monarchy fell, however, the Catholic Church was confronted with a
completely new situation, in which its position was endangered both by political
liberalization and the threat of proletarian socialism. In self-defense, the Church
developed a highly aggressive counter-program, a fully political Catholicism. The
resolutely anti-democratic and anti-capitalist ideas of M ller and Vogelsang,
which had been pushed into the background in Austrian Catholicism after
Vogelsang’s death in 1890, were reborn. These ideas had originally served to bring
about a more receptive attitude to social policy within the existing state. So-called
solidarism, which seemed to be confirmed by the encyclical Rerum novarum of
1891, implied that a solution to the social problem was possible without a radical
reconstruction of society. Spann shared the anti-capitalist and antidemocratic
attitude of Vogelsang’s successors, but he was always at variance with the
representatives of solidarism, such as Heinrich Pesch, Gustav Gundlach and
Oswald von Nell-Breuning.19 Moreover, the Catholics disagreed on another
essential question of whether or not Austria should strive for annexation by
Germany. This became an important issue in the 1930s, when conflicts arose
between National Socialism and the Austrian corporate state.
Most of the Catholic theorists and journalists furthered fascism in the sense that
they rejected the republic established in 1918. When Ignaz Seipel stood up for the
republic at its beginning, it was not an expression of a support for democracy in
principle, but was motivated by the reflection that the new democratic forms
should not be left to the socialists. Only a few days before the proclamation of the
republic, the Christian socialists announced that they considered monarchy the
best of all forms of government. Vigorous attacks against the young republic by
the Catholics were an everyday occurrence. Even though Vogelsang’s supporters
did not have direct political influence at the time, his representatives criticized
democracy in a way that presaged the National Socialist criticisms. The leading
theorist of Vogelsang’s school, Anton Orel, declared democracy to be a disease
that had to be overcome. In democracy a plutocratic oligarchy reigns; under the
mask of a republican constitution a ‘republic of Jews’, unbearable for a Catholic,
established itself. Capitalism and Communism were both understood to be
incompatible with Christianity (Diamant 1960).
Catholic circles and groups in general declared themselves against democracy
and the republic and for an authoritarian, Christian order. The Catholics in the
First Austrian Republic did not accept the ‘liberal’ separation of society and state.
Their criterion for the evaluation of political programmes was the role of the
Church. Catholics agreed with anti-democratic solutions as long as the influence
of the Church was asserted. Consequently, the Church kept in the background
when it would have been important to defend democracy against fascism.
It is striking how often the term ‘sociology’ appears in Catholic discussion about
the correct social order. From 1925 on, a Katholische Wochenschrift für Religion,
Kultur, Soziologie und Volkswirtschaft was published. In it, Ernst Karl Winter
examined the sociological essence of Plato’s work, a ‘scholarly group of Catholic
sociologists’ elaborated a Catholic and social manifesto, and there was also a group
of ‘sociologists’ in Klagenfurt. This ‘sociology’ was nothing other than Catholic
social teaching. Ferdinand Frodl’s Gesettschaftslehre illustrates what such
‘sociologies’ consisted of Frodl concludes from the biblical report of Eve’s
creation out of Adam’s rib that with this event society was not only founded but
its nature determined (Frodl 1936). Without making fun of the religious, Leopold
von Wiese (1937:661), in a review article, complained about the blending of social
theory and theology which characterized many publications which were labelled
as ‘sociological’ by Catholic authors of that era. Yet the most important Catholic
sociologist to address fascism, Ernst Karl Winter (1895–1959), did not fit this
mould. Winter, atypically, supported a strictly methodological separation of
theology and sociology. Consequently he was regarded as an outsider by the
Catholics. Winter’s position was closely connected with neo-Kantianism, and
particularly Hans Kelsen’s dualism between law and sociology and between norm
and fact. Against a crude empiricism, he asserted the primacy of concepts in
sociology, though without denying the importance of experience as a corrective.
Winter wanted to protect the autonomy of sociology in the face of theology, in
contrast to ‘Catholic sociologists’. Although in the 1920s he was still a supporter
of the monarchy, he became one of the most rigorous critics of political
Catholicism, and, after the abolition of democracy in 1933–34, he became a
solitary Catholic fighter for democracy and for rapprochement with socialism.
Shocked at the Austrian and German developments of 1933–34, Winter
occupied himself more and more with fascism. He reproached his Catholic friends
—including Dollfuss, with whom he had become friends during the First World
War, when they were both in the same regiment—for their aim of establishing a
corporate state. For Winter, this was a metaphysical aim with heuristic function,
similar to the eschatology of the classless society (Heinz 1984:76). But in practice,
Winter argued, the ‘corporate state’ was merely a masked neo-capitalism, which
was far from bridging the class-contrasts between bourgeoisie and proletariat and
peasants. In order to stand up successfully to the mortal threat of National
Socialism, he believed, a coalition between conservativism and Austro-Marxism
needed to be established. His imploring appeals to establish a strong Austrian front
against National Socialism were, however, without effect. But by taking this
position Winter made himself a useful tool of the corporate state: as one of the
vice-mayors of Vienna he was used to winning over the working class to the
authoritarian regime. Winter fought futile fights everywhere. But when he dared
to demand the unification of Catholics and Bolshevists in the struggle against
National Socialism, he went too far, and had to give up his political role (Heinz
1984:335). Winter, who repeatedly called himself a sociologist, wanted to ally

Catholicism and conservatism with the modern, scientific and democratic way of
thinking (Leser 1986:114–137). But he did not succeed against the religious and
political fundamentalists. The aims he had set, in this climate of spiritual
indoctrination, proved unachievable. His application for Habilitation, which he
had put forward in 1929, was not dealt with for years. It was finally rejected by
the Faculty of Law and Political Science of the University of Vienna in 1935.
Winter reported that he was asked to embrace German nationalism, but refused
to do so (Preglau-H mmerle 1986:163).
Spann, whose universalism was classified as pure metaphysics by Winter, was
one of his opponents, as was August Maria Knoll, who was said to have
vehemently criticized Winter’s attacks against the corporate state (Heinz
1984:347ff and 385). In 1938 Winter was able to emigrate just in time and found
employment at the New School for Social Research in New York. After the Second
World War he tried to return to Austria, hoping to become a professor at the
University of Graz. From Winter’s correspondence with Kurt von Schuschnigg
(the last chancellor of the corporate state), it appears that the faculty in Graz, as a
result of political intervention, proposed him for a professorial chair in sociology
which at that time was occupied by Hans Riehl, who was serving as a substitute.
But Winter’s opponents from the time of the corporate state came together to
prevent his nomination. Winter mentioned that August Maria Knoll, in addition
to some politicians who were now members of the Austrian People’s Party, was
among the opponents (Heinz 1984:371, 374, 384ff).
Austria’s annexation by Hitler’s Germany in March 1938 ended the direct
ideological relevance of the Catholic theorists. Some, who had come politically
into prominence in the corporate state, emigrated. Among these were, apart from
Winter, the economist Josef Dobretsberger who for a short time was minister in
Schuschnigg’s government, the theologian Johannes Messner, and Johann Mokre,
who like Dobretsberger returned to the University of Graz after the Second World
War and taught sociology.
AUSTRO-MARXISM AND FASCISM

In view of the high intellectual level and large intellectual ambitions of
Austro-Marxism it is not surprising that it was in the forefront at the analysis and
criticism of fascism. But the Austro-Marxist who declared himself most
vehemently for a Marxist sociology, Max Adler, contributed least to this effort.
He was the only Austro-Marxist to teach at the university, and considered himself
Spann’s opponent at the University of Vienna. But his position as a Privatdozent
with the title of an Extraordinarius was marginal, and his way of thinking proved
to be insensitive to social and political change and unable to bring any analytical
sharpness to its discussion. Adler’s original achievements were in the field of
philosophy and methodology of social science. His central idea, of the
Sozialapriori, already present in his first important publication, was the theme of
his last book. Oddly, the idea is in a certain sense very similar to Spann’s basic
thesis of Gezweiung. Adler’s answer to the question of how society is possible is
free from empirical considerations: what is real and true is inaccessible to the
isolated individual; in thinking I am with others. A transcendental socialization
of the mind thus is the basis of all societies. When Max Adler announced that ‘We
are going to construct modern sociology with Kant and Marx’ during the
convention of the German Sociological Society in 1924, he meant that the
epistemological foundation of sociology can only be established in the spirit of a
transcendental philosophy, while Marxism embodies the most developed form of
empirical sociology. His interpretation of the materialistic conception of history
minimized the difference between economic basis and ideological superstructure
by ranking both with the Geist. Society is thus a spiritual fact. If Marxism examines
social regularities, it must account for them by applying the concept of psychic or
social causality (Mozetič 1978:286ff).
Adler did not succeed in demonstrating the fruitfulness of his approach in the
concrete analysis of social processes. His few incidental remarks about fascism
are not very original. The extent to which his thinking was considered esoteric is
shown in the fact that Adler was arrested as a prominent socialist in February
1934, but was soon allowed to continue his teaching at the University of Vienna,
with the restriction that he was not permitted to lecture on socialism or politics.
In 1936 the corporate state allowed the publication of a final book in which Adler
summarized his work (1936). It was published by a small publishing house in
Vienna, poorly distributed and produced no effects.
Austro-Marxist commentaries on the phenomenon of fascism began to appear
immediately after the Italian fascists’ march on Rome in 1922. For example, Julius
Braunthal, one of Otto Bauer’s closest collaborators, tried to analyse the
sociological causes and the political and ideological functions of fascism. He
explained that fascist forces come into being where the propertied classes, the
economic power of which is unquestioned, encounter the political opposition of
a strengthening working-class movement. Supported by parts of the bourgeoisie,
the rentiers organize themselves in military troops to be put into action against
socialism and democracy. Their anti-socialist and nationalist ideology especially
appealed to the petite bourgeoisie. He surmised that if fascism came into power,
it would destroy the organized working-class movement, make itself independent
of the bourgeoisie, and build up a new state. But the capitalist mode of production
would not be touched (Braunthal 1922).
The Austrian social democrats were convinced that they would soon gain a
parliamentary majority and would be able to realize their programme in a
democratic way. They considered the rise of Italian fascism a warning: it indicated
that if the working-class movement could not be defeated with democratic means,
at least one part of the bourgeoisie and other anti-socialist classes were willing to
use violence and to abolish democracy. But this was a perception which developed
slowly.
Wilhelm Ellenbogen, one of the leading social democrats in Austria’s First

Republic (who later was forced to emigrate and died in the United States), got to
know Mussolini personally at a time when the latter was still a socialist. His
comments in his numerous publications on fascism show his disappointment at
Mussolini’s subsequent political career. In a 1932 publication, Ellenbogen tried
to summarize the various fascist movements. His conclusion by then was that
fascism was a political movement which wanted to put an end to the power that
had been gained by the proletariat in the immediate postwar period by making use
of military organizations. Although it was typically a middle-class movement,
fascism also served the ruling classes of industry and agriculture. With the
establishment of a dictatorial regime, democracy is abolished. According to these
criteria there are genuine fascist movements in Germany, Italy, Austria, and
Finland. Fascism is not very popular in countries with an old democratic tradition
within which the smooth change of government from left to right and vice versa
seems normal. The forming of a fascist mentality was promoted by the violence
and devastation of the First World War, but also by the dictated peace of 1919,
which caused nationalism to escalate again in the defeated countries. The
supporters of fascism are drawn above all from the professional, rural and
intellectual middle classes. This accounts for the anti-capitalist sloganeering of
fascism which contradicts the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie.
The best strategy against fascism was to defeat it before it came to power.
Ellenbogen warned forcefully against the opinion that the fascists should be
allowed to come into power so that their incompetence would be revealed. Once
they had gained power, the fascists would stop at nothing to keep it. They would
not hesitate to commit any sort of crime, carry out mass executions, kill their own
supporters when they no longer fitted their plans, develop terrorism, eliminate
parliament, abolish the freedom of the press and by doing so preserve their tyranny
for years (Ellenbogen 1932; also Ellenbogen 1927 and 1928).
This prognosis was as realistic as Ellenbogen’s notion that social democracy
could effectively resist fascism was unrealistic. But at the time it was not easy for
reasonable, objective observers to see the danger of fascism realistically. The
Austro-Marxist Karl Renner, who sometimes was attributed the greatest powers
of realistic political analysis, free of dogmatic prejudices and ideologically fixed
ideas, made a quite favourable comment on the political situation in Germany,
principally on the basis of two considerations: first, that the economic, social and
cultural development of Germany is so advanced that the situation was completely
different from the situation in Italy—1932 is not 1922!; second, that because
National Socialism, although a thoroughly anti-democratic movement, had to
constitute itself as a party among others, it was forced to accept democracy and
submit to the rules of parliamentarism (Renner 1932). What Ellenbogen had
described as a feature of fascism—that it was the first political movement to make
use of democratic means in the fight against democracy—was regarded by Renner
as a proof that the danger of fascism had declined.
The most comprehensive and theoretically most pretentious analyses of fascism

on the part of the Austro-Marxists are those of Otto Bauer (1881– 1938). Julius
Braunthal’s description of Italian fascism might have been written under Bauer’s
influence. In subsequent years, and with increasing frequency and intensity in the
1930s, Bauer analysed the various types and forms of fascism (e.g. Bauer 1933a
and b, 1936, 1938; Botz 1976, 1985).
In his earlier writings on the subject, Bauer interpreted fascism as the
consequence of a balance of class power. He tried to analyse the situation in Austria
after the First World War, in which the social democrats had gained influence on
the state without, however, overcoming the bourgeois capitalist society, in these
terms. In 1924, Hans Kelsen had remarked that the concept of the balance of the
class power was not compatible with Marx’s theory of the state. Bauer responded
that there were two main forms in which a balance of class power is expressed
historically: in coalitions between proletarian and middle-class parties or other
forms of parliamentary cooperation, and in cases where the armed forces take
advantage of the balance of power between the classes to seize executive control
and establish a dictatorship independent of the parliamentary proportion of votes.
Remarkably, Bauer chose, as examples of this, Italian fascism and Bolshevism,
which under the pressure of economic necessity had become similar to fascism
inasmuch as it had consolidated the power of an elite superior to all classes and
groups. Fascism and Bolshevism may well be different in view of the objective
of their politics. In view of the applied means they are very similar to each other.
As for the conditions of its seizure of power, fascism is not something historically
completely new. Bauer calls the Italian fascism the contemporary counterpart of
the French Bonapartism of 1851.20
This interpretation of fascism was developed further only with the rise of
National Socialism. Bauer came to see fascism as the result of three closely
connected social processes. First, as a result of the First World War, many people
were unable to return to their original civil professions, and fell into circles in
which military, anti-democratic and nationalist views were dominant. The
members of the fascist militia and the pan-German defence leagues were recruited
from these circles. Second, many members of the petite bourgeoisie and peasants
had become impoverished. They blamed the new democracy and the workers’
organizations for the economic crises, and consequently were susceptible to the
anti-democratic and anti-socialist propaganda of the fascist organizations. Third,
the economic crises of the postwar period had weakened the bourgeoisie
economically. Fearing further losses, they sought to use the fascist associations
to keep the working class down, and consequently helped to finance fascist
organizations. After Bauer described the causes of the origin and the strengthening
of fascism he turned to the problem of the fascist seizure of power and
establishment of political control. Fascist control meant the establishment of a
dictatorship to which all social classes, including the bourgeoisie, were subjected.
The result was a remarkable restriction of civil rights. Economically, fascism acts
on behalf of the capitalists in as much as it entirely controls the workers, thus
increasing their exploitation. Within its own ranks, fascism eliminated all the
forces which pressed for fulfilment of the anti-capitalist aims which had been part
of the ideological and propagandistic reservoir of fascism during its rise to power.
At the end of his life, Bauer emphasized more heavily the economic aspects of
fascism, and interpreted fascism as a new phase in the development of capitalism.
The successes of fascism, the quick elimination of unemployment in the Third
Reich and the increase in productivity were said to be due to the superiority of a
command economy over the anarchy of liberal capitalism. But the successful
economic measures used by fascism, once in place, cannot be used to defuse new
economic crises. So in the face of new economic crises, fascism must either accept
them, with incalculable consequences, or choose the imperialistic strategy of war,
and build up, at great expense, a military machine.
Bauer, like other Austro-Marxists, realized the Austrian model of the corporate
state could only be called ‘semi-fascism’ and it never acquired the mass support
of National Socialism in Germany.
THE HELPLESSNESS OF SOCIOLOGISTS IN THE

FACE OF FASCISM
It should probably be said that the Austrian works in the interwar era that could
be considered to be serious analyses of fascism were written nearly exclusively
by the Austro-Marxists. Julius Deutsch published an omnibus volume by order of
the ‘Internationale Kommission zur Abwehr des Faschismus’ and a series of
articles was published in the theory-oriented monthly journal of the Austrian social
democrats, Der Kampf (Leichter 1929, Hirsch 1929). Immediately after 1945 there
was little academic discussion of fascism in Austria. Even the socialists lost
interest in the subject.
Many sociologists in the interwar era in addition to the supporters of fascism
discussed above showed sympathetic understanding of attacks on parliamentary
democracy. In 1923 the Sociological Society in Graz published a series of essays
with the assistance of Joseph Schumpeter, Hugo Spitzer and Ferdinand Tōnnies,
including an article by the editor of the series, Julius Bunzel. The article considered
it a fact that parliamentarism had broken down generally because it was not in
accordance with the nature of the state. If the state is controlled by the political
parties, Bunzel claimed, there is no authority to keep aloof from particular interests
and to look after the interests of the whole society and the state. Bunzel, who often
quoted Nietzsche in his statements, pleaded for a reduction of the sphere of the
state and a strengthening of the position of the president of the Republic (the latter
was indeed realized in the constitutional revision of 1929). In order to overcome
the crisis into which society and state have fallen, he held, it is necessary to make
the spheres more and more autonomous, and to develop, for the sphere of society,
a corporate structure (Bunzel 1923).
Similarly, Adolf Menzel, from the 1880s professor at the University of Vienna,
who was concerned with sociological topics, published an examination of the
fascist thinking on the state in 1935. In the preface he stressed that he was
presenting a purely scientific essay which had nothing to do with propaganda or
criticism. Menzel outlines the Weltanschauung of fascism and its roots in the
history of ideas going back to antiquity.21 Despite his announced objectivity,
Menzel suggests that he considers fascism a great innovation of the mind and
politics. He concludes his study by stating contentedly that the fascist idea of the
state continued much of what he had himself proposed as the ‘energetic theory of
the state’ in 1912 (Menzel 1935).
Those sociologists who emigrated from Austria, such as Paul Lazarsfeld, Alfred
Schutz and Felix Kaufmann, did not seem to concern themselves with fascism
after they emigrated. Karl Polanyi’s contributions, written in the mid-1930s in
Britain, concentrated on the theme that fascism was the enemy of both socialism
and Christianity (Polanyi 1935). Friedrich August von Hayek and Karl Popper
wrote books in which they criticized the totalitarian trends of their time. However,
they were directed primarily against Stalinism and socialist theory. The idea that
fascism had come into being as a product of the capitalist society was regarded as
completely absurd by the liberals. Ludwig von Mises’ view of fascism of 1927,
unfortunately a prognostic disaster, is worth mentioning in this connection.
Fascism, he claimed, had nothing to do with capitalism, but was rather a direct
reaction to Bolshevism (an interpretation with which the Austro-Marxists
concurred). However, von Mises thought, brutality and barbarism were not as
developed in fascism as in Bolshevism. Mises explains this by the fact that fascism
came into being in countries in which the memory of some 1,000 years of cultural
development cannot be stamped out at one blow, whereas on both sides of the
Ural Mountains there are barbarians who have never come into contact with
civilization. Mises therefore was optimistic that the fascists, who had been carried
away by their indignation at Bolshevism and had thus committed actions out of
emotional disturbance, would soon return to moderate politics.22 Mises shared this
opinion with Karl Renner, who also considered the advanced culture of the
Germans an insuperable obstacle to fascism, and with many other contemporaries.
They could not imagine the barbarities that became historical reality in the country
of poets and philosophers. Mises was even of the opinion that fascism had a certain
useful function.23
The survey of the Austrian sociologists’ relation to fascism given here does not
warrant much optimism about the ability of sociology to resist dominant political
and spiritual trends. The spectrum includes naiveté and self-deluded vanity,
familiarity and opportunism, eager participation and attempts at ideological
leadership. Those who were able to avoid this did so as a consequence of their
political commitments and the challenges posed to them by fascism rather than
through their rigorously ‘scientific’ sociological perspective.
NOTES
I am indebted to my sister Lydia for her help. The ‘Alfred Schachner
Ged chtnisfonds’ provided financial support for the translation of this paper.
1 For a short description of Austrian history in the twentieth century see Sweeney and
Weidenholzer (1988). Of course there is a large literature on this topic.
2 The beginnings of sociology in Austria are discussed by Torrance (1976). This article
must be used with care because of numerous minor errors. For a more comprehensive
description see Langer (1988), and the instructive article by Müller (1989) on the
Sociological Society in Graz.
3 Neurath (1931a and b). There is a large literature on the aims and history of the
Vienna Circle. For a short summary with respect to the political dimension see
Wartofsky (1982).
4 The most prominent was that of Ludwig Mises. Members of Mises’ private seminar
were inter alia Friedrich Hayek, Oskar Morgenstern, Fritz Machlup, Gottfried
Haberler, Felix Kaufmann, Alfred Schutz, and Erich Voegelin.
5 The works of Schutz (1932) and Kaufmann (1936) did not influence the development
of the social sciences in the 1930s, and the same is true with respect to the articles
of Zilsel (1992), and for that matter the study on the Arbeitslosen von Marienthal
(Jahoda et al. 1933) cf. the autobiographical notes by Lazarsfeld (1968).
6 Walter Heinrich may have been the most important contributor to the further
development and continuation of Spann’s school. In 1933 he was appointed
Extraordinarius for political economy at the Hochschule (university) for World
Trade. In 1938 he had to quit his professorship and was kept in a concentration camp
by the Nazis for eighteen months. He was able to resume academic work at the
Hochschule für Welthandel after 1945, where he served as full professor from 1949
to his retirement, gathering around him a circle of Spann’s followers. Heinrich was
one of the leaders in the foundation of a Gesellschaft für Ganzheitsforschungin 1956
and the editor of the Zeitschrift für Ganzheitsforschung. Between 1963 and 1979 a
complete edition of Spann’s works, comprising twenty-one volumes, was published.
The attention and care with which it was treated by editors and publishers is
indicative of the long-term influence of Spann’s school in Austria. That in a certain
sense Spann is still alive in Austria is evident in a recently published book (Pichler
1988).
7 Suranyi-Unger (1927–28), who later emigrated to the United States where he became
Professor of Economics at Syracuse University. In 1950 Suranyi-Unger contributed
an article for the Spann-Festschrift (Suranyi-Unger 1950).
8 In a foreword to this article the editor states (Akabane 1927–28:586f): ‘So ist diese
kleine Arbeit ein r hmliches Zeugnis daf r, dass der Siegeszug der deutschen
Wissenschaft auch durch die furchtbaren Schicksalsschl ge, die das deutsche Volk
im letzten Jahrzehnt über sich ergehen lassen musste, nicht gehemmt werden konnte.
Besonders zeigt sie uns, dass die philosophische Behandlung der wirtschaftlichen
Probleme, wie sie Othmar Spann lehrt, ferner dass sein gesellschaftstheoretischer
Universalismus selbst schon im Lande der aufgehenden Sonne festen Fuss zu fassen
beginnt.’ Among the contributors to the journal Nationalwirtschaft were Eugen
Kogon (1927–28) and Alfred Vierkandt (1928–29a and b).
9 In this context it should be mentioned that Alfred Peters, a German who had taught
journalism at the Hochschule für Welthandel in Vienna since 1931, was habilitated
in sociology with special regard to the sociology of print media in 1939–40. He was
appointed as a Dozent at the faculty of jurisprudence and political science.
10 For a more detailed description of Spann’s basic ideas see Landheer (1931 and 1948)
which contain additional references to articles dealing with Spann’s thinking. I am
aware of only one work of Spann’s in English, his History of Economic Thought,
translated by Eden and Cedar Paul, which appeared in 1929.
11 See Spann, 1930, p.130: ‘Dem Universalismus ist gerade und einzig der geistige
Zusammenhang der Einzelnen der Quellpunkt alles geistigen Lebens. Das wahre
Wesen der Gesellschaft liegt ihm in der geistigen Kr fteschōpfung, die im
Miteinander, in der geistigen Gegenseitigkeit der Menschen gegeben ist. Das
Geistige jedes Menschen, der Kern und das Wesenhafte seiner Individualit t, besteht
nur in und durch Gezweiung.’
12 Cf. Spann, 1923, p.200, where you can find the following judgement with respect
to Weber’s sociology of religion: ‘Es ist eine seltene Verst ndnisarmut, die sich hier
an ein ihr unerschwingliches Grundgebiet des sozialen Lebens, die Religiosit t,
heranwagt, es ist eine tzende Sucht, zu zersetzen und zu zerstören, die sich hier
kundtut. Und was bietet sie selber?—überall nur ein atheistisches Aufkl rertum
plattester Art Max Weber hat recht, es ist ein “Sein ohne Sollen”, ein Wertfreies
und Wertloses, das er uns hier zum besten gibt. Vor 20 Jahren noch hatte Max Webers
Atheismus, Skeptizismus, Materialismus, Individualismus, Marxismus und was
dieser Art mehr ist, sein “gross’ Publikum” gefunden. Heute ist seine Zeit vorbei,
heute ist seine Lehre tote Wissenschaft Max Weber war ein d monisch-ruheloser
Mann, der auf andere persōnlich zu wirken vermochte, dem es aber nicht beschieden
war, ein Lebenswerk zu hinterlassen, das dauern konnte.’
13 Spann, 1933b, p.181: ‘Es ist ein Ruhmesblatt der nationalsozialistischen
Umwälzung, ein Triumph des deutschen Wesens, dass man die B cher des
Unholdentums ōffentlich in das Feuer warf (10 May 1933).
14 How this abstinence, strange from today’s perspective, came about is not mentioned
in the printed report on the debates during the convention (Verhandlungen l927).
15 This was a ‘united front’ only in the sense of unity in the battle against the left. There
were different interests and ideas in this party. The Heimwehren had come into being
immediately after the end of the First World War when the borders of the new state
of Austria were not determined and the government in Vienna seemed too weak to
be able to stand up to claims for territory and trespass. In the 1920s the political
character of these associations changed. The Heimwehren did not have a clear,
concrete political programme apart from their struggle against the working class
movement, which was organized in the Social Democratic Party. The establishment
of an authoritarian state was a means by which the Social Democratic Party would
be prevented from acquiring power through parliamentary means. The counterpart
of the socialist working class was the Republikanische Schutzbund. Thus the political
forces of the First Republic knew that behind them in the case of escalating conflicts
were paramilitary associations. See also Pauley 1980.
16 This is based on documents in the Archiv zur Geschichte der Soziologie in
Osterreich, Graz.
17 Spann-documents, Archiv zur Geschichte der Soziologie in Osterreich, Graz.
18 For Spann and his disciples Adam M ller’s work was regarded as the starting-point
for modern social thinking. In a posthumously published edition of the papers of
Karl von Vogelsang, the editor (Klopp 1894:6) considers these articles an important
contribution to Christian sociology.
19 Ludwig von Mises also considered solidarism a threatening socialist doctrine.
20 Hans Kelsen (1924) and Otto Bauer (1924) are reprinted in G.Mozetič (ed.)
Austro-Marxistische Positionen, Vienna et al., Bōhlau, 1983, pp.205–215 and 216–
231.
21 Perhaps prudently, considering the year of publication.
22 Mises, 1927, p. 43: ‘Die Taten der Fascisten waren Reflex- und Affekthandlungen,
hervorgerufen durch die Empörung über die Taten der Bolschewiken und
Kommunisten. Sowie der erste Zorn verraucht war, lenkte ihre Politik in
gem ssigtere Bahnen ein und wird voraussichtlich immer mehr Mässigung an den
Tag legen.’
23 Mises, 1927, p. 45: ‘Es kann nicht geleugnet werden, dass der Faszismus und alle
hnlichen Diktaturbestrebungen voll von den besten Absichten sind und dass ihr
Eingreifen f r den Augenblick die europ ische Gesittung gerettet hat. Das Verdienst,
das sich der Faszismus damit erworben hat, wird in der Geschichte ewig fortleben.
Doch die Politik, die im Augenblick Rettung gebracht hat, ist nicht von der Art, dass
das dauernde Festhalten an ihr Erfolg versprechen konnte. Der Faszismus war ein
Notbehelf des Augenblicks; ihn als mehr anzusehen, ware ein verhängnisvoller
Irrtum.’
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42
3
AMBIGUOUS INFLUENCES
Italian sociology and the fascist regime
Marta Losito and Sandro Segre
This chapter will focus on two subjects: the history of Italian sociology during
fascism and the sociological analyses of fascism given by Italian social scientists
in the 1920s and 1930s. The two subjects are related: some of these social scientists
also produced works that were potentially relevant to the theoretical growth of the
discipline, even though most of this potential could not be fully exploited in Italy
under fascism. Few of these authors— perhaps only Roberto Michels and Corrado
Gini—called themselves sociologists. A great deal of what was regarded as
‘sociology’ in Italy up to the 1940s would probably have been labelled differently
afterwards—e.g. as social philosophy, political theory, demography. Sociology
as an autonomous discipline was just being institutionalized in Italy during the
1920s and 1930s.
THE INSTITUTIONAL AND THEORETICAL

DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY IN ITALY: AN
OVERVIEW
The development of Italian sociology occurred in three stages. From the 1870s to
the early 1920s there was a remarkable and growing interest in this new social
science. Academics from various quarters—philosophy, political economy and
law—attended sociological congresses in Italy and abroad, published a number
of works, and established scholarly reviews in the field. Extra-curricular courses
of sociology were created in many Italian universities. Yet, during this first stage
the discipline of sociology did not become part of the official curriculum anywhere
in the Italian academic system. In the second stage, from the early 1920s to the
mid 1940s, sociology gradually gained official recognition, but its theoretical
growth was hampered by several obstacles which originated in part in the cultural
policy of the fascist regime. The third stage, which will not be dealt with here, is
characterized by the gradual consolidation and recognition of the discipline
following the Second World War.
44 ITALIAN SOCIOLOGY AND THE FASCIST REGIME
Italian sociology before fascism

The last years of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth saw a
lively debate in Italy over sociology, its scientific status, and the question of
whether it should be included in the university curriculum. The discipline was
taught in Italian universities as an extra-curricular subject and, although there were
no official university chairs of sociology, private activity by specialized scholars
made up for this institutional deficit—as the abundant sociological output of those
years demonstrates. Also, the social sciences were taught in the università popolari
(‘people’s universities’) which opened in various Italian cities—first in Pisa,
Sassari and Turin, and then in Rome, Milan and Genoa—to provide education for
the lower classes and meet the need for research relevant to social reform.
At that time Gabriel Tarde was teaching sociology at the école libre des sciences
politiques in Paris, Georg Simmel was at the University of Berlin, and Paul Barth
at the University of Leipzig; in 1898 Emile Durkheim published the first volume
of Année sociologique and Lester F.Ward taught courses in pure and applied
sociology in the USA; at the same time there were numerous university lecturers,
some still well-known, others forgotten, teaching sociology as well as their official
university courses in Italy.1 Italian sociology was broadly similar to the sociology
taught by these scholars.
The first teacher of sociology as a discipline was Giuseppe Carle, professor of
law and, in his own words, ‘scholar from the birth of the sociology discipline’.2
Beginning in 1874 Carle taught ‘Social Sciences‘ on a temporary appointment,
and then from 1882 as a libero docente (lecturer) at Turin University (Castrilli
1941). He regarded sociology, or social science, as the study of the social
organism, and used a positive method deriving from the natural and biological
sciences, combined with the historical-comparative method drawn from the
philosophy of history, in which the concept of evolution was integrated with that
of increasing civilization and moral progress.
Names worth noting in the years that followed include Pietro Siciliani, a
professor of theoretical philosophy who in 1878 started a course in sociology at
the University of Bologna, Errico De Marinis, libero docente of jurisprudence,
who from 1898 onwards gave courses in sociology at the Law Faculty of the
University of Naples, Salvatore Cognetti de Martiis, professor of political
economy, who delivered a series of lectures on sociology in 1896–97 and was at
the same time director of Turin University’s Department of Political Economy,
which conducted research of a specifically sociological nature (De Marinis 1896,
De Martiis 1897, Siciliani 1879). A significant contribution to the subject’s growth
was made by Alfonso Asturaro, professor of moral philosophy, who from 1892
onwards taught courses in sociology at the University of Genoa (Asturaro 1893,
1896, 1897). Together with Enrico Morselli, Francesco Cosentini and others, he
founded an association for the study of the social sciences, the Circolo di studi
sociali, which was attached to the university and sought to promote the teaching
of the social sciences. The Circolo organized the first conference on sociology in
Italy, held in Genoa 23–29 October 1899.3 Filippo Virgili taught an

extra-curricular course in sociology at the University of Siena in 1898 (Virgili
1898). In 1900, Achille Loria, scientist of international repute and professor of
economics at the University of Padua, taught a course in sociology which attracted
a large audience of students from various faculties (Loria 1894, 1900).
Other lecturers giving courses in sociology at Italian universities included Icilio
Vanni at Perugia, Giovanni Cesca, who held a chair of theoretical philosophy at
Messina, Raffaele Schiattarella at Palermo, Alessandro Groppali at Ferrara,
Ferdinando Puglia at Messina, and Giuseppe Vadalà-Papale at Catania (Groppali
1902, 1937; Puglia 1900; Schiattarella 1891; Vadalà-Papale 1883; Vanni 1890).
In 1905 Vincenzo Miceli, professor of constitutional law, was appointed to a
lectureship in sociology at the University of Palermo, and Vilfredo Pareto was
invited to deliver a series of lectures on sociology at the University of Bologna
(Miceli 1890).
A major event in the history of Italian sociology was the founding, in 1897, of
the Rivista italiana di sociologia, edited by A.Bosco, G.Cavaglieri, S. Cognetti
de Martiis, G.Sergi, V.Tangorra and E.E.Tedeschi, a journal which was to become
the leading forum for debate among Italian sociologists. In 1899 the Rivista
published an article by Loria, ‘La sociologia ed il suo valore nell’odierno
movimento scientifico’. The editorial board described this article as the
starting-point for examination of the concept of sociology in terms of its role in
the progress of thought and of social reforms.4
The Rivista italiana di sociologia brought together scholars from different
disciplinary backgrounds who wished to engage in discussion of the social
sciences and to measure their work against the state of studies in the United States
and in the rest of Europe. The journal’s reputation was built by Guido Cavaglieri,
who took over as editor and dedicated all his energies to its success. As well as
publishing original articles and reviews, the journal also devoted ample space to
reviews of foreign publications. These it classified into more than fifteen sections,
the titles of which could have served as a teaching syllabus for a faculty of social
sciences. Although the Rivista italiana di sociologia was the most important
publication at the time, it was not alone: journals of penal law, of collective
psychology, and socialist journals such as Critica sociale also published articles
on sociology (the Catholic Rivista internazionale di scienze sociali mostly
concerned itself with economics) .5 The period also saw a proliferation of research
in the related sciences of ethnography and cultural anthropology.
In 1903 the first issue of Benedetto Croce’s neo-idealist journal La Critica was
published. Because of the subsequent influence of Croce’s thought, postwar critics
have generally agreed that this year also marks the beginning of the decay of
positivist sociological studies in Italy. This intellectual watershed was then
followed by the period of fascist dictatorship, from 1922 to 1945, during which
Italian sociology went into eclipse—both as regards teaching in the universities
and as regards research—until its ‘revival’ in the postwar period brought about
by the impact of American social science. Today, one may argue that this
deep-rooted image of the past of Italian sociology was part of the cultural climate
of an entire intellectual generation.6
In recent years, now that the cultural climate of the immediate postwar period
has faded, a re-examination of this interpretation—which was also taken up across
the Atlantic—has begun. There is increasing consensus that the stunted
development of sociology in Italy should not be attributed exclusively to the
influence of idealist and spiritualist philosophy but rather to the unequal and
intermittent development of positivist social culture from the middle years of the
nineteenth century onwards. Seen from this perspective, the limitations of Italian
positivist thought become apparent. The controversy that followed the first
Conference of Sociology at Genoa in 1899 and the principles set out by the Rivista
italiana di sociologia demonstrate that, although the many Italian sociologists of
the time realized that they had to give a clearly defined basis to their discipline,
they attempted to do so without the help of a solid theoretical framework. The
work of Auguste Comte was largely unknown in Italy, and there was considerable
reliance on the theories of Charles Darwin and of Herbert Spencer—not always
to the benefit of scientific progress (Barbano and Sola 1985).
Careful examination of the source material shows that Italian sociology
continued to develop—albeit unevenly—despite the opposition of Croce. On 17
February 1906 a circular letter signed by fifty-eight university lecturers was sent
to the Minister of Education petitioning for the establishment of university chairs
of sociology. The attempt was unsuccessful, and Croce, who had received the
letter, took the opportunity to give a clear statement of his views—something
which he never failed to do when he was in disagreement—in his journal:
Sociology considered in its historical sense, that is, as the effective modern
sociological movement, is nothing more than positivism; positivism which
treats especially of the facts and actions of man, and deals with morality and
law rather than with zoology and chemistry. As positivism, it is therefore
an implicit negation of freedom for determinism, of teleology for
mechanism; a more or less coherent, more or less disguised affirmation of
materialism. Such is sociology, in its historical genesis (Comte) and in its
living spirit; and this is why anyone of idealist conscience rejects, and must
necessarily reject, the presuppositions, the methods, the conclusions, and
even, I would say, the style of modern sociology.
(Croce 1906)
Despite Croce’s aggressive polemic and the failure to persuade the Minister of
Education to include sociology in the Italian university curriculum (a failure due
in part to the belief of some academics that, although valid, scientific subjects
without a history behind them should not be taught, and in part to the opposition
of those who feared that the teaching of sociology would spread advanced political
ideas in the universities), numerous Italian scholars persisted in their studies of
the subject and in their international activities (Garofalo 1906). These years saw
numerous efforts to give synthesis to the new discipline, most notably the
Dizionario di sociologia by Fausto Squillace, published in Palermo in 1905
(Squillace 1911).7 The institutionalization of sociology proceeded in close relation
to international developments.
The Institut International de Sociologie organized a conference in London on
the theme ‘Social Struggles’ for its members and associates, held 3–6 July 1906.
The conference was attended by Raffaele Garofalo, one of the leading exponents
of the positivist penal school, Giorgio Arcoleo and Alfredo Niceforo, professor
of statistics, noted for his research into poverty and social stratification. The
seventh conference of the Institut International, of which Raffaele Garofalo was
chairman, was held in Berne 20–24 July 1909 on the theme ‘Solidarity’. In 1910,
after a campaign by the Italian members of the International Institute, the Società
italiana di sociologia was founded. The creators of the society were twenty of the
most eminent sociologists at work in Italy. Raffaele Garofalo was appointed
chairman, and Giorgio Arcoleo, Errico De Marinis, Enrico Ferri and Giuseppe
Sergi vice-chairmen.
Public confirmation of the academic respectability of sociology in Italy was
given by the VIII Congress of the Institut International de Sociologie, held in
Rome 7–12 October 1912. The conference was inaugurated in Campidoglio, the
historic Roman city hall, with an audience that included Italian and foreign public
figures. The guests to the conference were welcomed by Guido Cavaglieri,
professor of administrative law at Rome University and co-director with Giuseppe
Sergi, professor of anthropology, of the Rivista italiana di sociologia.
In the years that followed, Italian sociology came to a standstill, but not because
of the ‘predominance of Italian idealism’. The ninth conference of the Institut
International de Sociologie, which was to have been held in Vienna in 1915 on
the theme of ‘Authority and the Social Hierarchy’, was cancelled. The community
of Italian scholars was swept up by the war.8 The death of Guido Cavaglieri in
1918 marked the beginning of the end for the Rivista italiana di sociologia. The
new editorial board, composed of Sante De Sanctis, Augusto Graziani, G.M.
Fiamingo, Alfredo Niceforo and Giuseppe Sergi, managed to keep the journal
going until 1921—its twenty-fifth year of publication—but then it finally folded.
But there were other, more promising developments.
During the early 1920s, Piero Gobetti and his associates on the journal
Rivoluzione liberals (1923–25) turned their attention to certain aspects of
sociology. In a few years of intense activity—which ended tragically with
Gobetti’s exile and death in 1926—this journal printed a debate on Italian
liberalism of the highest quality, including, in 1923, an article entitled ‘La
democrazia tedesca nel pensiero di Max Weber’ by Giovanni Ansaldo. Filippo
Burzio, an intellectual with scientific training and an associate of Gobetti despite
their divergent political positions, conducted detailed analysis of the work of
Vilfredo Pareto from the end of the 1920s onwards. However, Burzio’s
sociological writings were only published after the Second World War, in 1947
and 1948, and Gobetti’s journal did not survive the onset of fascism.
Sociology during fascism

The disciplines of political sciences and sociology have yet to achieve detailed
reconstruction of their relationship with the policies of the fascist state. The 1923
reform of the educational system—the so-called ‘Riforma Gentile’—produced
consequences that had been investigated to some extent by students of the Italian
social sciences. In keeping with the statutory norms enacted by this reform, some
new faculties, initially simply called ‘schools’, were created, first (1924–25) in
Padua, Pavia, Rome and at the Catholic University of Milan, and later (1927) in
Perugia. Degrees in ‘political sciences’ (Padua, Pavia, Rome, the Catholic
University of Milan, and Perugia), social sciences (Padua), economic and social
sciences (Pavia) were conferred, but sociology was not taught in all these new
faculties. The teaching of sociology was made compulsory in Rome (where
Corrado Gini held the Chair), at Milan’s Catholic University (with Professor
Francesco Vito), and in the social science courses at the University of Padua (with
Professor Filippo Carli), as well as in the Private Institute Cesare Alfieri of
Florence, where sociology remained compulsory until 1936. Sociology was,
however, offered only as an optional course at the Faculty of Political Sciences in
Padua (again, with Professor Filippo Carli), and was not included in the courses
of study provided by the faculties of Pavia and Perugia.
This process of limited and selective institutionalization of sociology was
somewhat modified in the 1930s, when the ‘schools’ of political sciences were
relabelled ‘faculties’ (1933). The Institute Cesare Alfieri became a faculty of
political sciences in 1938 (with Professor Lorenzoni in charge of the optional
course of sociology). Sociology was eventually introduced as an optional course
in Pavia. Eleven faculties of political sciences were created as new additions to
the already existing faculties of law in Bari, Cagliari, Catania, Genoa, Messina,
Naples, Palermo, Pisa, Siena, Turin and Trieste. Yet in only five of these new
faculties (Cagliari, Genoa, Palermo, Pisa, Trieste) was a course of sociology
included in the university statutes, and then only as an optional discipline.
Sociology was on the other hand made mandatory in the new ‘schools’ of statistics
in Padua, Florence and Milan (both at the state university and the Catholic
university), and in the recently constituted Faculty of Statistical, Demographic
and Actuarial Sciences in Rome (once more, with Professor Corrado Gini). In the
1920s and 1930s, furthermore, a course in criminal sociology was temporarily
taught at the law faculty of Milan’s state university.
Although sociology was established as an academic discipline in a number of
faculties or ‘schools’, such as political sciences, law and statistics, the
institutionalization of the discipline lagged behind the institutional development
of the social and political sciences in general. This latter development was
indicated not only by the creation throughout the country of faculties of political
sciences (by the early 1940s present in seventeen out of a total of twenty-six
universities) and statistics, but also by the creation of faculties of business and
economics at the Catholic University of Milan and in Perugia. Compared to the
considerable institutional development of the Italian social sciences in the interwar

period, one may legitimately speak, therefore, of the relative failure of sociology.
Three distinct factors, first, the widespread and deep-seated disagreement—both
within and outside the fold of the students of the discipline—on the proper field
of enquiry and the institutional location of sociology, second, its rejection as a
matter of principle by the then prevailing idealistic orientation of Italian
philosophy, especially by its most reputed and influential exponents, Benedetto
Croce and Giovanni Gentile, and, finally, the competition provided by the
corporatist ‘science’ of the state, which enjoyed the official support of the fascist
regime, combined to bring about this failure.
Those who attempted to establish sociology as a legitimate academic discipline
(e.g. Govi 1942:448–454) saw difficulties which originated from unresolved
epistemological and methodological problems as crucial. One epistemological
problem concerned the subject area of sociology: there was on the one hand the
tendency to encompass other disciplines, such as history, political sciences and
cognitive and moral philosophy; on the other hand to include only sociological
subfields, such as political and economic sociology and sociology of law. A second
and related problem was the conceptual and substantive relationship between
sociology and other disciplines, such as demography, statistics, economics, law
and the political sciences. There was also the problem of the proper sociological
method and, therefore, of which discipline—whether history or psychology or
social psychology or biology—should provide a methodological paradigm.
Finally, and as a consequence of all these epistemological and methodological
problems, there was the question of the location of sociology within the existing
institutions of higher learning, that is, the question of whether the teaching of
sociology should be done exclusively in the faculties of political sciences and
statistics, or in other faculties as well, such as philosophy, law, and history.
The principled critique of sociology did not, however, originate from the
specific problems affecting this discipline, but rather from the cognitive tenets of
philosophical idealism, as represented by Croce and Gentile, and their numerous
followers. Croce assigned to sociology only the preliminary and modest task of
providing a classification of phenomena, thereby helping philosophy and history
to formulate ‘pure concepts’, as opposed to the ‘pseudo concepts’ of sociology.
Idealism rejected the very possibility of making general, that is, theoretical
statements, on the grounds that all acts cannot be grasped and conceptualized
without referring them to the individuality of the thinking actors. These cognitive
critiques of sociology, accepted even by some students of the discipline, proved
to be an obstacle to its recognition and institutionalization in Italy (see Ferrarotti
1974:267; Govi 1942:451; Spirito 1936a:1020).
The fascist corporatist ‘science’ of the state claimed much of the domain of
sociology. Corporativist ‘science’ would draw freely on the disciplines of
economic theory, political science and law, without considering itself bound by
what were from its point of view obsolete distinctions between them (Ornaghi
1984). In spite of its slender achievements (Ornaghi 1984: 273–292), the
corporatist doctrine became quickly institutionalized, and a number of university

chairs were created, typically in the new faculties of political sciences. The model
was provided by the fascist faculty of political sciences of Perugia, established in
1927, in which a university chair was instituted in 1928 for the teaching of general
and corporative economy. Roberto Michels was called to hold this chair; he never
had a chance to teach sociology as such in an Italian institution of higher learning.
The other two leading Italian sociologists of the fascist period were Corrado Gini
and Filippo Carli (Sola 1988:759). Carli combined the teaching of sociology (in
Brescia, at a local school of social studies, and then at the State University of
Padua) with a scholarly production that, after 1928, was no longer sociological,
but rather focused on the historical and theoretical foundations of a corporative
economy (see the complete bibliography of his writings in Carli 1939:261–268).
Corrado Gini started teaching sociology at the University of Rome in 1927 and
became, perhaps unwittingly, a spokesman of fascism. He was himself never a
corporatist theoretician, as indicated by his appointment as the president of the
Italian Sociological Association (Società Italiana di Sociologia) (1937), (see
Castrilli 1941:277–279; Sola 1988:761; Lentini 1974:31). Still, Gini’s peculiar
version of sociology, as we shall see later in greater detail, borrowed its categories
from another social science, demography, and propounded an evolutionary
conception of biological, demographic, cultural and social change that openly lent
support to the regime.
The support which the so-called corporatist ‘science’ provided to the fascist
regime, and in turn received from it, made it imperative for all sociologists who,
like Michels, were sympathetic to Mussolini’s rule to come to terms with
corporatist doctrine, and seek to contribute to its development (Ornaghi 1984:142,
156, 174, 273–274). It is not accidental, then, that the new historiography has
recently interpreted the question of the relationship between culture and fascism
in terms of the existence of a fascist culture.
Recent studies of fascist cultural institutions have shown that these were not
limited to the management of traditional culture. They produced and circulated
new ways of thinking and subjects for study which were functional to the ideology
of the regime (Albertoni 1977:17–23). The most important among the cultural
institutions (both for the number of its participants—including numerous
anti-fascist intellectuals—and for the cultural project inspiring it) was the Italian
Encyclopedia edited by Giovanni Gentile. Through it, fascism tried to construct
its own historical legitimation (Albertoni 1977:20–23; Lentini 1974:37; Turi
1972:93–152). It is apparent that this attempt, and in general the attempt to
establish a new fascist culture, could not help but have a major negative impact
on sociology, if only because financial and intellectual resources were channelled
to purposes that were more directly relevant to the regime’s cultural policies.
An exception to this were the Italian faculties of political sciences. In the period
following the Second World War they were unfairly considered to have been just
an expression of the fascist party and regime propaganda (Leoni 1959). Yet these
faculties produced some valuable contributions, for instance in the history of
political thought, from authors who were not necessarily sympathetic to the party
and its ideology (Albertoni 1977:23). Similarly, they carried out interesting
investigations and, together with the Catholic University, were instrumental in the
postwar formation of modern management in postwar Italy (Lentini 1974:31–33).
What by today’s standards might be called ‘sociology’ was, when theoretically
oriented, to be found in elaborations of some of Pareto’s sociological categories,
in addition to some attempts to analyse social classes from a historical or
sociological viewpoint. As we shall see, when it was truly empirical, it consisted
largely in investigations of the adaptation of the working class to factory work.
The influence of Pareto on the economic sociology of the interwar period was
perhaps most evident in some of the works of Alfonso de Pietri-Tonelli and
Giuseppe Palomba, both professional economists with a strong interest in
sociologically relevant assumptions on economic behaviour. Both sought to
combine neoclassical economic theory with corporatist ‘theory’. De Pietri-Tonelli,
a professor of political economy in Venice, had himself been a pupil of Pareto and
had frequently corresponded with him in the years between 1909 and 1923 (de
Pietri-Tonelli 1961:109–154). His ‘General economic, political-economic and
corporatist theorem’ (1942) was an attempt to update his master’s economic and
sociological teaching and make it compatible with the new economic doctrine.
Giuseppe Palomba’s ‘Economic equilibrium and cyclical movements according
to the data of experimental sociology’ (1935) set out to establish, in Paretian
language, ‘the conditions of general economic equilibrium in a collectivity in
which people act under the influence of residues and derivations and are
accordingly movedby a mixture of argumentations and instincts’. The fact that
some social and political forces tend to alter this equilibrium was used to justify
government intervention, within the legal and economic framework of a
corporatist system, to restore it (1935:139–140).
Even if we disregard the special subfield of economic sociology, theoretically
oriented sociological enquiry (to the very limited extent to which it was pursued
in the 1920s and 1930s) was conducted with the explicit purpose, generally
speaking, of supporting and legitimating the existing political and social order.
Thus, Nello Quilici, a brilliant and cultivated student of social and economic
history and a Pareto expert, published in 1932 an interesting study of The origin,
development and inadequacy of the Italian bourgeoisie’, in which he advocated
the thesis— under the clear influence of Sombart—that the capitalist development
of Italy had not been the achievement of the bourgeoisie, whose ‘spirit’ was in his
opinion quite inadequate to this task, but rather of the Jewish minority, inspired
by a calculating, rationalistic mentality. As Quilici saw it, the final crisis and
degeneration of the Italian bourgeoisie in the 1920s was fortunately more than
offset by the new corporatist economy, where the conditions for a harmonious and
coordinated economic development were also conducive to economic freedom
(1932). In 1937, another economic historian, Antonio Fossati, published a number
of short articles which he subsequently (1938) collected into a single work
published in a journal (Commercio) directed by Filippo Carli. These articles
focused on the so-called ‘middle classes’, their definition, economic and social
functions, their historical development in Italy, their economic predicament in the
early twentieth century, and finally their deliverance from it by means of the fascist
corporatist political economy. In contrast to other contributions that came out in
Commercio during 1937 (such as those by G.Cesare Rossi (February 1937:3–6),
Luigi Rossi (May 1937:19–21), Attilio Racheli (July 1937:25–27; November
1937:49–52), Agostino degli Espinosa (July 1937: 28–30), and Vincenzo Ameri
(August-September 1937:22–23)), Fossati’s is comparatively scholarly and free
from propagandistic overtones, and also exhibits a good knowledge of economic
history (a field in which the author had special competence) and of economic
theory, as well as a passing knowledge of the international literature on social
classes, as evidenced by his quotation of A.Meusel’s entry ‘Middle Class’ in the
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Fossati however did not have a general theory
of social classes, nor did he refer to other such theories, and therefore the cultural,
economic and professional dimensions of the middle classes which he chose to
emphasize are somewhat arbitrary. Moreover, like the authors mentioned earlier,
he failed to distinguish clearly between sociological analysis and political
legitimation, especially in the final section of his work (see, for a critical appraisal,
Lentini 1974:56–58).
While Fossati was better known as an economic historian than as a sociologist,
Arrigo Serpieri (1877–1960) quickly established a reputation as an agricultural
expert and as a rural sociologist, which he upheld even after the demise of fascism.
Serpieri’s authority in this field was sanctioned by his appointment as the
influential director of the National Institute of Agrarian Economy in 1928. Serpieri
proposed a distinction between different rural strata according to whether they
were large landowners, small independent farmers, tenants and sharecroppers, or
wage-earning farm-workers with stable or unstable employment. But he also
emphasized the existence of a common cultural bond connecting all the strata that
(in his opinion) regarded agriculture as a way of life. Resorting to Pareto’s
categories, Serpieri maintained that those who pursue this activity are permeated
by the ‘persistence of aggregates’, that is, by conservative sentiments, but that
their way of life is threatened by the so-called ‘speculators’ (Serpieri (1925)
1974:63–80).
The combined influence of Pareto and Gini on the Italian sociology of the 1920s
and 1930s, especially on the sociology of social stratification and social change,
is shown in an interesting summary and evaluation of their contributions contained
in a short article written in 1935 by Giorgina Levi della Vida. This article focused
on Pareto’s and Gini’s explanations of social change, pointed to some similarities
(both theories consider the interchange of the individuals belonging to the ranks
of the ruling class as beneficial to society), but also emphasized their main
substantive and methodological differences.9 The prominence enjoyed within the
Italian social sciences of the late 1920s and the 1930s by Gini, even more than
Pareto, was achieved at the expense of other social scientists, who could not be
easily interpreted as ideological forerunners or supporters of fascism.
In other words, despite Gini’s international reputation and personal relations

with a number of prominent foreign scholars, Italian sociology was affected by
some parochialism, as indicated by the narrow scope of its theoretical interests
and its very limited number of influential figures. Filippo Carli’s initial interest
in sociological theory gave way, as mentioned, to other scholarly pursuits that
were more in line with the regime’s orientation in the social sciences. No doubt
this was a major loss for Italian sociology, since Carli, in two important works,
published in 1925 (Carli 1925a; 1925b), had shown a thorough knowledge of the
most significant authors and national sociological traditions, of which he provided
a description and classification (Sola 1988:759–760). The extent of this
parochialism was somewhat limited by the breadth of interests and information
sources of Benedetto Croce and Luigi Einaudi (1874–1961), two scholars whose
liberalism was tolerated by the authorities. Though they would have in no way
considered themselves sociologists (and Croce in fact advanced an intransigent
critique of sociology), the two scholars nevertheless conducted a prolonged debate
on a variety of themes, some of which were sociologically relevant: their
discussion of the historical (or cultural) and economic conceptions of the
bourgeoisie was a major case in point (Croce 1927; Einaudi 1928). Precisely
because of their suspect political orientation on the one hand, and their indifferent
or even hostile attitude toward sociology on the other, Croce and Einaudi could
not however counteract the limitations that characterized the scope of reference
and themes of Italian sociology, despite the great number of capable social
scientists of various ideological orientations. For instance, when in 1930 the
Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences began publication, edited by E.R.A.
Seligman and A.Johnson, advisory editors for Italy were L. Einaudi and A.
Graziani, and its Italian editorial consultants were: R.Bachi, R.Benini, E.Catellani,
E.Codignola, B.Croce, S.De Sanctis, G.Del Vecchio, G.Ferrero, G.Lombardo
Radice, R.Michels, M.Sarfatti. Entries were contributed by fifty Italian authors
writing mainly on 125 Italians of the past (Garzia and Losito 1990).
These limitations were in any case not overcome, notwithstanding some
attempts to this effect, by the only sociological journal published in Italy under
fascism, the Rivista Italiana di Sociologia (1927–1934, 1938–1940), for only a
few years after its establishment the journal moved its headquarters abroad, first
to Switzerland and then to Paris. After its ephemeral re-establishment in 1938 and
relocation to Milan, its founder and former director Sincero Rugarli entrusted the
editorship to a self-taught sociologist and professional army officer, Vittore
Marchi, whose editorial work had little positive impact on the journal, or on Italian
sociology as a whole. Rugarli was certainly not affected by any taint of
provincialism. During the Rivista’s first period (1927–1934), under his exclusive
direction (1927–1933, 1934) or for a short time (1933) in association with the
sociologist G.L.Duprat (Professor of Sociology at the University of Geneva,
former director of the Archives de Sociologie, and Chief Secretary of the Institut
International de Sociologie), some of the best reputed members of the international
sociological community, such as P.Fauconnet, L.von Wiese, and H.Becker,
contributed in French or English. Among the Italian contributors, Rugarli himself

was the most active, though he did not produce works of appreciable originality
or significance. Rugarli’s book-length article on delinquency is a case in point the
article (Rugarli 1939) is full of statistics and shows some grasp of the international
literature, but is extremely confused in its argument, to the effect that the number
of alleged ‘causes’ of crime, whether biological, psychological or social, do not
add up to a clear and comprehensive account of the phenomenon.
His two books (Rugarli 1944, 1945), published by a Centre for Sociological
Studies in the very last years of the war and fascism, lapsed quickly into oblivion.
Yet, although he was hardly an influential sociologist, Rugarli was able to secure
the collaboration of authors who had both competence and genuine interest in
sociological theory, as long of course as such competence and interest were not
discouraged by official cultural policy and could be freely expressed. Thus, the
Rivista di Sociologia published contributions on The Sociological Theory of
Finance by Emanuele Morselli (1928), an expert on fiscal policy and state finances
who had also published (1927) a favourable review of Gini’s ‘neo-organicist’
approach to sociology in the Rivista, and elsewhere published a sympathetic
appraisal of fascist cultural policy (1927, cf. Morselli 1930). In the same years,
the Rivista di Sociologia also published articles on ‘The Object and Task of History
and Sociology’ by Mario Govi (1928–1929), who taught at the University of Siena
and cultivated a lasting interest in the epistemology of the social sciences (Govi
1942); on criminology, in a review article by L. Serrani (1929); on Durkheim’s
social realism, in a study devoid of political or ideological implications contributed
by R.Campanini (1931); and finally on Political Sociology and the French
Revolution by Filippo Carli (1928), possibly his last sociological work (see Govi
1942:454; Sola 1988:764–765).
Besides Rugarli’s Rivista di Sociologia, some other periodicals, though not
exclusively sociological in character, did publish a few studies that were
sociologically relevant in one way or another. Among them were the Rivista
Internationale di Filosofia del Diritto, founded in 1921 by Giorgio Del Vecchio,
La Riforma Sociale, directed by Luigi Einaudi since 1908, the Rivista
Internazionale di Filosofia Politica e Sociale (1935), edited by F.Gramatica and
Lorenzo Caboara, Agostino Gemelli’s Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Socially
and especially Corrado Gini’s Metron, in addition to the statistically and
demographically oriented reviews Annali di Statistica and Genus. Neither of these
reviews was essentially different from Metron, in that their sociological
contributions were clearly inspired by Gini’s categories and theoretical interests,
and focused accordingly on such research themes as income distribution,
demographic characteristics of different economic and social strata, and the
interchange of individuals between these strata (Castrilli 1941:277–278; Govi
1942:454–455). A frequent contributor to Metron was Franco Savorgnan, a
demographer and economist who taught at the University of Modena. Though
Savorgnan shared with Gini a scholarly interest in such themes as the demographic
characteristics of the ruling classes, he had a broader background in the social
sciences, including sociology and social anthropology. His collected sociological

essays (Savorgnan 1927) displayed an excellent, firsthand knowledge of the
international literature on historically and sociologically oriented anthropology,
and especially of the work of Gumplowicz and Ratzel. In the 1930s, however,
Savorgnan chose to concentrate on demography and political economy. He thus
abandoned his sociological interests, which he had cultivated since the first decade
of the century, as indicated by his Sociological Fragments published in German
in 1908.
The hegemony exerted by Gini’s demographic-sociological school on the
Italian social sciences of the 1930s is also shown by the contents of the papers
produced by the Italian section of the Institut International de Sociologie at the
Brussels Convention (1935). The Italian section was composed of members
(including Gini himself) of the Comitato italiano per lo studio dei problemi della
popolazione, an association created with the purpose of conducting research on
demographic problems making use of information drawn from economic and
social history, and from studies of social stratification and social mobility. The
papers produced in Brussels were of course in line with the Comitato’s research
purpose. When the Italian section was dissolved, possibly as a consequence of the
regime’s growing nationalism and cultural provincialism, a new, wholly
autonomous association was formed, the Società Italiana di Sociologia (1937),
with Corrado Gini as the founder and chairman. Among its staff members there
was another professional sociologist with a background in statistics, E. Casanova,
the author (1941) of a brief work on the Italian contribution to sociology, in
addition to experts in statistics, economics, and juridical ethnology. The Società
convened a few times (1937, 1938, 1939, 1942, 1943) before disbanding (see
Castrilli 1941:277–279; Lentini 1974:36).
Italian sociology was virtually identified by foreign scholars, notably in the
United States, with Gini’s sociological school. But another major centre for
sociological studies was represented by Agostino Gemelli (1878–1959) and his
associates at the Catholic University of Milan. Gemelli directed this centre until
his death, and performed many other tasks: he was the editor of the Rivista
Internationale di Scienze Socially also Professor of Experimental Psychology,
director of a research institute operating in this field at the Catholic University,
director of a Catholic Union for the Social Sciences, and president of the Vatican’s
Pontifical Academy as well as of the Italian State Committee for Applied
Psychology of the National Research Council. A leading exponent of neo-Thomist
philosophy, Gemelli was also active, along with his collaborators, in promoting a
Catholic sociology consonant with his philosophical orientation as well as a
corporatist doctrine in line both with the fascist corporativism and with
neo-Thomism. He also published a great number of empirical investigations into
the psychology and physiology of industrial work. Gemelli was an intransigent
opponent of Croce and Gentile (whose works were proscribed by the Vatican) but
had good personal and scholarly relations with Gini and his school. Marcello
Boldrini, a member of this school and a demographer, a professor of statistics at
the Catholic University, an important member of the Catholic Union for the Social
Sciences, and a contributor to the Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali,
provided the link between Gemelli and Gini. Boldrini was the author of an article
relating social strata to physique, an approach congenial to Gini’s peculiar version
of sociology, that came out in the Rivista Internazionale (1932).
A few social scientists active in the Catholic Union contributed to the Rivista
Internazionale under Gemelli’s supervision. They had diverse educational
backgrounds and scholarly interests, but all enlisted in an attempt to provide
legitimation for the existing political order from the point of view of conservative
Catholicism, whose social philosophy was allied with fascist corporatist and
authoritarian ideology in a common endeavour to fight alternative ideologies such
as Liberalism (see Gemelli 1933a, 1937). Among these social scientists, the young
economist Giovanni de Maria and economic historian Amintore Fanfani published
valuable essays on the character of modern entrepreneurship and the origins of
capitalism in Italy (De Maria 1929; Fanfani 1933), thereby showing that serious,
non-parochial scholarship was possible even with the given cultural and political
constraints. De Maria’s study focused on the contributions by foreign students of
entrepreneurship such as the American E.R.A. Seligman and the Austrian J.
Schumpeter; Fanfani’s on a critical discussion of Sombart’s and Weber’s works
on the rise of modern capitalism. De Maria (who became Professor of Political
Economy at the Università Bocconi) sought to legitimize the functions of
entrepreneurial activities in the institutional framework of the capitalist order;
Fanfani (who became a leading Christian-Democratic politician in the postwar
period) established a connection between counter-reformation and capitalism
(Fanfani, 1934). Sociology, in any case, as an autonomous, scientific discipline,
was rejected by Fanfani (see Fanfani (1939) 1974:309–314; see also Ornaghi
1984:40, 114), and in general by those exponents of Catholic sociology who, like
Luigi Bellini and Agostino Gemelli, strove to find in their opposition to liberal
individualism common ground between the Catholic and the fascist interpretations
of the corporatist doctrine (see Bellini 1929, 1934; Gemelli 1937). From the point
of view of the development of sociology in Italy, this was clearly not conducive
to a broadening of the scope of its theoretical and substantive interests.
The case of Luigi Bellini, a lawyer who was a close collaborator of Gemelli, is
indicative. Bellini’s first sociological work, published in 1929, was a relatively
value-free introduction to this subject with an emphasis on the classification of
social phenomena and a discussion of the concepts of social function and
equilibrium, and of social and historical causation (1929). Bellini’s subsequent
work (1934), however, intertwined social-science analysis with normative
prescriptions and metaphysical interpretations of social phenomena, in conformity
with a corporatist view of society which was compatible both with a ‘Catholic
Sociology’ and the fascist corporatist doctrine (see for example 1934:2, 116–117).
Sociology could no longer therefore be distinguished from a Catholic and
authoritarian social philosophy, in agreement with Fanfani’s own orientation (see
Fanfani (1939) 1974:309–313).
Gemelli was not, however, only a social philosopher, but also the indefatigable
organizer of much of whatever empirical research was conducted in Italy during
the 1920s and 1930s (see Gemelli 1933b, 1937). Thus, the Catholic University,
with its Research Center for Applied Psychology, the Rivista di Psicologia and
the already mentioned Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, all of which were
directed by Gemelli himself, became important reference points for the Italian
social sciences. Their theoretical limitations were not offset by Gemelli’s
non-theoretical empirical investigations in applied psychology, and especially, in
the psychology of industrial work. As a consequence of Gemelli’s active presence
in other research centres, theoretical irrelevance characterized the whole field of
the applied social sciences in Italy.
The numerous investigations performed by Gemelli and his colleagues served
more practical purposes. On the one hand, they were instrumental in the formation
of modern management in postwar Italy, on the other hand, they were subservient
to the cultural policy pursued by the fascist regime. The special and dubious
achievement of the Catholic University of Milan was thus to promote a version
of the social sciences suitable to the Catholic hierarchy, to the political authorities
and the entrepreneurial class (see Lentini 1974:29–45). As for the State
Universities, the Faculty of Political Sciences in Perugia was perhaps the most
distinguished among those instituted by fascism for the education of the
managerial class of the regime (Albertoni 1977:13–14; Lentini 1974:36–37).
FASCIST CORPORATIVISM
The official doctrine of corporatist representation was formulated in the writings
of economists, legal scholars and philosophers (for a general discussion, see
Ornaghi 1984). Ugo Spirito, among philosophers perhaps the foremost proponent
of this doctrine, maintained that only by means of corporatist representation and
authoritative coordination of sectional economic interests could individual and
social interests be reconciled (Spirito 1939:119–127). The attention of the jurists
was focused instead on the subsequent enactments that created, between 1926 and
1934, the legal framework of Italian corporativism; but they, too, contended that
‘with the corporationthe State pursues the goal, which corresponds to a need of
the greatest importance for modern society, to settle economic and social conflicts
by harmonizing and consolidating the economic and social interests in conflict’
(Panunzio 1939:399). The actual distance between the officially proclaimed
doctrine and its applications in legal practice was, of course, very great (see Tinti
1988:249–250). Finally, among economists, a distinction may perhaps be drawn
between those who saw some way of combining corporativism with liberal
economic theory, and those who strove for ‘a complete renewal of the fundamental
principles of economic science’ (Arena 1943:31). The latter group eventually
became predominant, as signified by the acceptance of corporatist theory by such
disciples of Pareto as Amoroso and Lanzillo (cf. Amoroso 1932, 1934; Lanzillo
1936), and its direct advocacy by Giuseppe Bottai (1895–1959), the Minister of
National Education in Mussolini’s government and an exponent of this theory (see

Bottai (1935) 1974).
Filippo Carli, who had previously been a competent and articulate sociologist,
from the late 1930s onwards became a leading representative of corporativism
within the economists’ fold, besides having an important position in the traders’
corporation and a personal connection with Bottai himself (Bottai 1939). Carli
may therefore be considered as an official spokesman for the corporatist
doctrine.10 Carli distinguished between functional and ‘organic,’ or structural,
corporatist representation (Carli 1939:5–11). Corporations may be grouped by
occupational positions such as employers and employees, or alternatively by
sectorial categories such as those of specific agricultural, manufacturing,
commercial or service sectors. But Carli, as well as the other ‘experts’ on, and
proponents of, fascist corporativism, failed to raise, let alone discuss, the complex
problem of the representation of interests, which is nonetheless crucial for the
formulation of any corporatist or neo-corporatist model (for an overview of this
problem, see Cotta 1986).
In the case of functional representation, many occupational positions— for
example, managerial positions—may be represented according to a variety of
different and incompatible criteria, while in the latter case, a great number of
enterprises cannot be unambiguously classified in one economic sector or another:
conflicting interests and differences in economic power persist within sectorial
corporations, and political interests inevitably interfere with the processes of the
selection of issues and decision-making (see Kelsen (1929) 1984:88–93; Weber
(1917) 1971: 255–258). It may therefore be argued that the fascist doctrines of
corporatist representation effectively prevented the analysis and debate of themes
—such as the power distribution among different occupational categories and
economic sectors, the relations between economic and political elites, and
alternative procedures of economic and political elites, and alternative procedures
of economic and political representation—that were, and still are, highly relevant
to sociology and the social sciences in general. This conclusion is in no way
modified by the excellent sociological background of some corporatist
theoreticians such as Carli and Spirito, nor by the existence of tensions and strains
between such leading exponents of this doctrine as Spirito and Gemelli (see
Gemelli 1933a:124).
THE DEMOGRAPHIC SOCIOLOGY OF CORRADO

GINI
Corrado Gini (1884–1964), a prominent demographer and statistician, played a
role in the history of the Italian social sciences during the 1920s and 1930s,
especially in his capacity as the influential president of Italy’s Central Institute of
Statistics. Gini’s reputation as a student of demography was consolidated by his
regular attendance at international conventions, his numerous publications in
Italian and English, and his personal acquaintance with foreign scholars, in
particular with faculty members of the University of Chicago. As an eclectic social

scientist, Gini combined, in a unitary conception of social and political change,
categories and propositions derived from demography and rudimentary versions
of elite theory and social darwinism. ‘The first cause of the evolution of the
nations,’ he wrote, ‘must be sought in biological factors. A greater or smaller
proportion of the more advanced family lines in the evolutionary parabolic curve
should by and large characterize the successive stages of the nations’ (Gini
1930a:27). More immediate causes of the nations’ evolutionary change are,
according to Gini, ‘demographic and economic differentiationand the ensuing
social replacement’. Most probably, all such causes ‘basically are common
manifestations of deeper biological factors’ (Gini 1930a:25), since the core of the
ruling classes is constituted by biologically more advanced families. Their
demographic senescence produces, therefore, the ageing of ruling classes and the
decline of nations, unless the ranks of these classes are kept open to a steady inflow
of individuals originating from the lower strata of society or from different, less
civilized nations. Such individuals are not only younger and more prolific, but
also often better prepared by biological selection to endure the struggle for life,
and may accordingly account for the biological and cultural rejuvenation of a
nation (Gini 1930a:24–30, 47–49, 80, 84–87), provided that favourable political,
economic, cultural and social conditions remain (Gini 1930a:106–112).
The demographic crisis of Western, Northern and Central Europe, which started
in the late nineteenth century and has become ever stronger, may in the long run
cause the decline of white civilization, unless it is offset by counterbalancing
demographic trends in southern and Eastern Europe and/or by adequate
demographic policies (Gini 1930a:50–62; 1930b: 723–729). In particular, Gini
maintained, the demographic policy pursued in Italy by Mussolini’s government
should be appraised favourably, for it promotes the anthropological unification of
the country, and opposes the population decline caused by urbanization (Gini
1930a:88; 1930b:723). Views similar to Gini’s were expressed by other Italian
demographers and statisticians who shared his conception of, and interest in,
sociology. Boldrini, Casanova, Livi and Savorgnan were among the most
prominent of these (see Boldrini 1932; Casanova 1941; Livi 1937; Savorgnan
1927). What was peculiar to Gini’s sociology, however, was his ‘organicist’
approach. Society was equated to an organism, one whose life is characterized by
a condition of unstable equilibrium which is periodically altered by the recurrent
perturbations produced by the demographic, political and economic cycles. As an
organism, society is held together by a central regulatory power, by inborn or
acquired tendencies in its individual members, and by adaptation mechanisms
mediating between society and the economic or social environment. The
prosperity and decline of societies and nations depends on the ability to check the
downward phase of a cycle: of all the types of cycles, however, demographic
cycles are the most important for Gini (see Gini 1927).
MICHELS AS A STUDENT OF FASCISM

Roberto Michels, German by birth but an Italian citizen from 1920, was an
attentive scholar of the rise of fascism, to which he was sympathetic from the
moment of its inception (Michels 1924).11 Michels’ peculiar intellectual biography
showed a development from Syndicalist Socialism to fascism, but some of his
areas of interest—such as in the conditions for the rise of a capable political class,
in greater political participation and in an effective political democracy in the state
and party organizations—remained central to the whole of his scholarly
production. As a political scientist and sociologist, Michels distinguished himself
by his great knowledge of the international literature on the various themes he
explored, and yet this advantage was offset by his lack of conceptual rigour and
the persistent inadequacy of his methodology (Linz 1966:XXVI; Sola 1972:II;
Weber 1910?). Moreover, in the 1920s and 1930s Michels’ contributions to
political sociology, though ostensibly value-free, were ambiguous enough to
provide both an explanation and a legitimation of some central features of the
fascist political system.
Michels’ definition of authority was derived from Weber’s concept of authority
(Herrschaft). Although Weber made it perfectly clear that obedience to authority
may originate from a variety of motives, including personal advantage (Weber
1956:122–123), for Michels authority implied a relation of moral leadership and
voluntary submission (Michels 1931b, 1932b:340–341). By the same token, the
Weberian concept of charisma, originally defined in ‘non-ideological’ terms
(Weber 1956:140–141), was interpreted by Michels with the purpose of
legitimating Mussolini’s dictatorship. Mussolini was made the ideal type of
charismatic authority and indeed of authority in general (Michels 1920:355–361;
1932b:340; 1934b; cf. Bazzanella 1986:214; Portinaro 1977:135–137). Michels’
theme, finally, of the political class, or governing elite, was borrowed from the
writings of Pareto and Mosca, but conveniently reformulated in order to provide
ideological support to the fascist elite (Beetham 1977:167–178; Portinaro
1984:280–282). Accordingly, the governing minority was characterized by its
members’ allegedly superior qualities. Such qualities— Michels claimed—exist
as a consequence of the co-opting of qualified members into the political class:
these exchange and mobility processes ensure the existence of an ‘ideal elite’.
Michels’ last works of political sociology hardly served the theoretical purpose
for which they had been ostensibly formulated. The rise to, and persistence in, top
government positions by Mussolini and his associates was simplistically explained
as the result of personal qualities which allegedly made them the most qualified
politicians and accounted for their charismatic appeal. Democratic political elites
were therefore invidiously compared with the fascist elite (Portinaro 1977:134).
Charismatic authority was the only type of authority Michels discussed in his late
writings, which evidence but a faint trace of the ingenuity he had displayed in his
early (1911) work on the sociology of the political party (Michels 1911).
In fact, Michels’ close association with the fascist regime, for which he
performed the role of official ideologist, made it imperative for him to confer a
new meaning to, or insert into extraneous context, some analytical categories
formulated by other social scientists. Legitimation of the given political system,
rather than the explanation of its resources of strength and authority, seems to have
been Michels’ main concern. The relations between those who avail themselves
of such resources and those who cannot do so—a theme that inspired some
important theoretical contributions from Gramsci, Mosca, Pareto and the younger
Michels himself-were tackled by Michels in the 1920s and 1930s as a scholar of
the regime, rather than as a social scientist striving for verifiable explanations.
Accordingly, he drew freely on diverse intellectual sources, combining Gentile’s
idealism with Einaudi’s liberalism and Max Weber’s political sociology (Michels
1936a; Bazzanella 1986:214–215), and wrote on whatever subject was
recommended and made fashionable: demographic policy, the creation of a
corporatist economy, the ethical qualities promoted by fascist education, the
advantages accruing from the fascist state’s intervention in the nation’s economic
and cultural life, and so forth (Michels 1924:71; 1927:40; 1929:551; 1931a:131–
134; 1932a:993; 1934a; 1936b:5).
Michels’ writings met the need of Mussolini’s regime for cultural legitimation,
and provided its managerial and political classes with some education in the social
sciences. Michels made use of sociological categories derived to a large extent
from Weber, Mosca and Pareto and from his own political sociology and sociology
of organization, such as authority, charisma, political organization and ruling elite.
These categories provided the appropriate theoretical instruments for the
legitimation of fascism and of its leader’s rule, as much as, or even more than, for
the purpose of a value-free analysis of fascism.
THE CONSTRAINED VOICES OF THE OPPOSITION

The sociological studies conducted by Italian social scientists during the 1920s
and 1930s were characterized by a number of constraints.12 The few social
scientists who chose to remain in Italy despite their principled opposition to
Mussolini’s regime either drastically restrained their scholarly production, as did
Gaetano Mosca (1858–1941) and Rodolfo Mondolfo (1877–1976) or else, like
Luigi Einaudi (1874–1961) and Norberto Bobbio (1909–), refrained from
conducting studies that could be considered subversive by the authorities.
Uncompromising adversaries who were not jailed, as Gramsci was, were forced
to live in exile, as were Salvemini, Sturzo, Gobetti (who however died immediately
upon his arrival in Paris), as were most intellectuals with liberal, socialist or
communist ideological orientations. The efforts of the exiles, as a rule, were
directed toward the goals of establishing ideological programmes and conducting
political activities against the fascist regime, but not toward the goal of
constructing sociological theory. Gaetano Salvemini, for instance, provided a
remarkable intellectual leadership of, and a major ideological role in, the
opposition movement to fascism. But as an émigré he could not carry on his

scholarly activity as a historian and student of the social and economic problems
of Southern Italy with his previous pace and productivity. An exception to this
rule might be Guglielmo Ferrero (1871–1942), the author of historical works on
ancient Rome and the French Revolution, and of an important study on the sources
of legitimate power (1942). Ferrero, as a professor of history at the University of
Geneva, had the time and the opportunity to engage in scholarly pursuits, in spite
of his relentless and uncompromising opposition to Mussolini’s regime. But
Ferrero chose to keep scholarship and partisanship separate, so that his writings
on political theory were conceived at an abstract and general level of analysis (on
Ferrero, see Baldi 1986).
Luigi Sturzo (1871–1959) would be another case in point. Sturzo is known
today mainly as the founder, in 1918, of the Partito Popolare Italiano, which rallied
the votes of the Catholic electorate. Sturzo, ordained in 1894, sought in his early
works to reconcile his Catholicism with a lively interest in the so-called ‘social
question’ and the problems of Southern Italy. A progressive thinker and
sympathetic observer of the working class’s emancipatory struggles, Sturzo also
became in subsequent years an attentive student of Sorel, Mosca, Pareto, Weber
and Durkheim. One of Italy’s foremost politicians, and an intransigent opponent
of Mussolini in the years following the First World War, Sturzo’s political writings
were printed by Gobetti’s publishing house (see Sturzo 1924). He concentrated
almost exclusively on sociological theory, although he conducted some empirical
research on social structure during his lengthy period of political exile, first in
London (1922–1940) and then in New York (1940–1946). After his return to Italy
in 1946, he resumed his political activities with the Christian Democratic Party,
without neglecting his commitment to a liberal-Catholic sociology. He inspired a
Luigi Sturzo Foundation for Sociological Studies in New York (1944) and an
Istituto di Sociologia Luigi Sturzo in Rome (1952). He was author of a number of
works on sociological epistemology and theory published in England, the United
States, and Italy (see Sturzo 1926, 1935, 1949, 1970). Though Sturzo was a
prominent and versatile intellectual figure, he was better known in Italy as a
political thinker (see Campanini and Antonetti 1979) than as a sociologist (see,
however, Morra 1979). The opposite holds true in the United States (see especially
Timasheff 1962; cf. also Honigsheim 1945; Mueller 1945; Osterle 1945).
Nonetheless, his attempt to reconcile undogmatic Catholicism with sociology led
to the discipline’s acceptance by some of the Vatican’s own institutions of higher
learning, such as the Gregorian University, which introduced the subject into its
curriculum (see Gini 1957:6).
The sociology of Luigi Sturzo was oriented by a philosophy of history which
emphasized a transcendent principle and goal, but at the same time the active
participation of ‘associative tendencies’, which exist in every individual
consciousness, in the constantly recurring process of the constitution of society.
The transcendent principle and goal permeate this process with a rationality which
is however immanent to it. The family-related, political and religious forms of
association produce social evolution or stagnation, according to their interaction

patterns and their overall correspondence to the collective consciousness. Sturzo’s
rejection of the totalitarian state, and implicitly of Mussolini’s regime, stemmed
from consideration of its negative impact on the development of associative forms
and on the general evolution of society (for a concise introduction to Sturzo as a
sociologist and political thinker, see Battaglia 1985; for the publication of his
collected works, see De Rosa 1949–1984, vols I-XII). It is apparent, however, that
his implicit criticism of the fascist state was part and parcel of his general political
and sociological theory, which was essentially developed after and to a large extent
independently from Sturzo’s confrontation with Mussolini (1919–1922).
Accordingly, the contribution of Sturzo to sociology should be properly discussed
not within the over-narrow context of his political relationship, and intellectual
reaction, to fascism, but rather within the much broader context of the international
debate on questions of ethics, sociology, and the epistemology of the social
sciences.13 Sturzo’s lengthy exile, which was a direct consequence of his
ideological and political opposition to Mussolini, had the unforeseen effect of
providing him with the necessary leisure to pursue his scholarly research. It is
hardly accidental that Sturzo’s sociological writings were composed during his
exile, or immediately thereafter, for—much as Ferrero—Sturzo too was torn
between scholarship and partisanship. Constraints on political liberties, in other
words, proved to be a boon to sociology. Yet this conclusion, while likely to hold
true for Sturzo and Ferrero, should not be generalized to other authors. As
previously emphasized, the condition of being jailed or exiled set a number of
constraints on the majority of those Italian scientists who refused to compromise
with fascism. Leaving aside the practical difficulties of making a living in a foreign
country, any intellectual or social scientist who was not only interested in abstract
theory, but also in subjects directly concerning Italy in one way or the other, faced
severe limitations in the investigation of primary and secondary sources. These
limitations would have become even more serious if their observations had directly
concerned the power structure of the regime, in terms of the social recruitment of
the political elite, and its relations on the one hand with the economic elites of the
manufacturers and the agrarians, and with the higher layers of the civil service
and the military on the other.
In fact, observations of this kind were practically impossible, even for the
ideologically aligned sociologists living in Italy (see Lentini 1974:38). Michels
confined his interest to abstract questions of the recruitment of the political
authority and its relations with other elites. Empirical research was also, and a
fortiori, impossible for the uncompromising authors with an interest in social
analysis who were living in exile. Those among them who did not concentrate on
theory construction or historical investigations, such as Sturzo and Ferrero, could
freely pursue empirical research only in foreign countries (like Renato Treves, as
we shall see presently). The few analyses of Italian social situations and political
developments by a small circle of Communist émigrés in Paris, and their secret
correspondents in Italy, bear witness to the constraints under which these analyses
were produced. Thus, the anonymous ‘letter from Rome’ (1936) contains a number
of remarks on the political attitudes of the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie and
the intellectuals (see ‘Borghesia’ (1936) 1976:95–105), but even a sympathetic
student of the Communist Parisian Group calls into question the empirical bases
of these remarks (see Lentini 1974:56). By the same token, even brilliant and
articulate analyses of the class structure and class relations in Italian cities—such
as Sereni’s study of the Neapolitan working class—had to rely exclusively on
official statistical data (to the extent that they were available in Paris). These data
were however absolutely inadequate as a basis for general conclusions, for
example, on the impact of political repression on working class militancy (cf.
Sereni (1938) 1974:121–132). Moreover, the members of the Parisian circle
pursued a social and political goal—the achievement of proletarian revolution in
Italy under the guidance and leadership of the Communist Party—and were
therefore not interested in sociological research as such (see, for example, Grieco
(1928) 1974:231–244). Sociology was typically understood by them in terms of
Bukharin’s conception of the discipline, and for this very reason rejected (see
Gramsci (1935) 1974:337–343; Curiel (1935) 1974:345–354).
As mentioned, Renato Treves (1907)—who is a prominent philosopher and
sociologist of law—represents a rare and perhaps unique instance of an Italian
sociologist who conducted, in the early 1940s, firsthand empirical research (using
a variety of research methods) on strictly sociological questions, such as the social
life in an urban slum area of an Argentinian city. The research was meant to be
an example of empirical investigation, the history of which Treves had written on
(Treves 1942). It is worth noting, however, that Treves’ interest in empirical
research was the accidental consequence of his appointment as professor of
sociology at the Argentinian University of Tucuman. Treves’ educational and
professional background in Italy was in no way conducive to this interest (see
Lentini 1974:46–47), and sociological investigations such as those that he
conducted in Argentina would have in any case been considered quite
objectionable by the authorities. Treves left Italy in 1938, after the enactment of
anti-Semitic laws. Living in exile was apparently a precondition for his empirical
research, since the interest and the opportunity for unconstrained research was
hardly available in Italy.
Since the construction of sociological theory, insofar as it bore on fascism—
namely, its institutions, elites and supporting social strata—was severely limited
in its cognitive sources and freedom of expression, all the politically non-aligned,
in-depth analyses of fascism were produced before the consolidation of
Mussolini’s dictatorial power, in the mid 1920s. We shall accordingly focus on a
restricted number of well-known Italian social scientists and politically active
intellectuals who wrote extensively and significantly on the fascist movement and
party in the early 1920s. In an attempt to give a comprehensive review of political
and ideological orientations, we shall start with Gramsci’s Marxist standpoint,
then consider Gobetti’s and his associates’ left-liberalism and Mosca’s
conservative liberalism, and finally focus on Pareto’s somewhat ambiguous
mixture of liberal and authoritarian viewpoints. All these authors developed their
analyses of fascism as part of more general theoretical and ideological
frameworks, which will also be discussed, together with the question of their
reception by fascist and non-fascist intellectuals. Michels’ contribution to an
analysis of fascism will be reassessed in the light of its ambivalence toward
(bordering on downright rejection of) all sociological enquiries, including his own,
that were not deemed politically and ideologically reliable.
Gramsci as a student of fascism

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) was born in Ales, near Cagliari, on Sardinia. His
father, a civil servant, could not secure a comfortable standard of living for his
family. As a student, Gramsci attended the humanistic gymnasium in Sardinia,
and then (1911) enrolled at the University of Turin to study literature and
philosophy. He was forced, however, to discontinue his studies in 1915, because
of frail health. His political activities as a supporter of (and journalist working on
behalf of) the Italian Socialist Party started in 1914, but became more intense after
1917. In 1919 he was the editorial director of, and an important contributor to, the
new radical magazine L’Ordine Nuovo, which became a daily newspaper in 1921.
In the same year Gramsci joined the recently constituted Communist Party of Italy,
of which he was selected to be the official representative at the Executive
Committee of the Third International (1922). As a prominent and fierce opponent
of Mussolini’s fascist party, Gramsci was arrested in 1926, and subsequently
(1928) sentenced to an imprisonment term of twenty years. While in prison, despite
his rapidly deteriorating health, Gramsci was able to write his Notebooks, his most
important theoretical work. Hospitalized in 1935, he died two years later of
tuberculosis.
Gramsci’s analysis of fascism has struck many commentators as perceptive and
brilliant (Lentini 1974:26–27; Santarelli 1973:15–17; Spriano 1977:154). The
analysis is relevant for sociologists and political scientists to the extent that it
outlines the sociological conditions of the rise of fascism, and some of the reasons
for its consolidation in the Italian political system. It is important to note, however,
that Gramsci’s writings on this and on most other subjects served above all the
practical purpose of establishing a revolutionary ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’—
as the Marxist-Leninist expression would put it—rather than setting itself the goal
of constructing pure theory (Gramsci 1973a:287). Gramsci was, accordingly, less
interested in theory than in practice, to the effect that sociological and
political-science theory was instrumental to the pursuit of revolutionary ends.
What he achieved, though, is an interesting account of the ascent and strengthening
of Mussolini’s dictatorial power. To be sure, the fundamental thesis is Marxist
enough: ‘Fascism is a reactionary armed movement that intends to disaggregate
and disorganize, and consequently to immobilize, the working class’ (Gramsci
1973a:279). Fascism is then ‘an armed dictatorshipdirectly operating on behalf
of the capitalist plutocracy and the agrarians’ (Gramsci 1973b:240; 1966:243).
Gramsci’s analysis articulated and buttressed this conception by bringing into it

the themes of the political mobilization of, and the existence of conflicting
tendencies within, the bourgeoisie itself (cf. Salvadori 1973:335).
Gramsci suggested a variety of distinctive criteria in this connection. Social and
political forces were distinguished according to their control of the means of
production, in keeping with the orthodox Marxist criterion, but also according to
their contribution to economic production, to their historical and cultural
traditions, and to the sources and quantity of their income. In Italy, the driving
forces of the revolution were provided not only by the industrial and rural
proletariat, but also by the peasantry (Gramsci 1966:299; 1973a:133, 283–286).
Proletarians and peasants together formed the majority of the population,
represented by the Communist Party. Of all these classes, the industrial and the
rural working class, and ‘the industrial-agrarian ruling classes’ (Gramsci
1973a:281) were clearly identified both as sociological categories and in terms of
their political allegiances by their relation to the means of production.
The peasantry, however, derived its political orientation from its
cultural-historical heritage and contingent economic conditions: relations of
production as such were therefore not all-important. Accordingly, the cause of the
struggle against fascism was likely to be promoted by the Southern rather than by
the Northern farmers, through an alliance with, and under the direction of, the
industrial working class (Gramsci 1966:529; 1973a:71, 257, 259–260, 282, 284).
As for the petite bourgeoisie, this class seemed to be defined by a number of
different criteria, such as income (Gramsci 1966:222; 1973a:281; 1973b:257);
professional origins (Gramsci 1966:299; 1973a:257, 280–281); their obsolete
function in economic production (Gramsci 1966:9–10, 222; 1973a:54–55, 201–
202), and, finally, their deep-seated conservatism (Gramsci 1966:12; 1973a:258).
What seemed to provide unity to this stratum, otherwise defined by so many and
not fully compatible criteria, was their common political tendencies. The members
of the petite bourgeoisie were not only subservient to capitalists and large
landowners but were also agents of the counter-revolution, and active supporters
of the fascist party (Gramsci 1966:9, 12, 222; 1973a:54, 201–202).
But its loyalty to the fascist party could not be taken for granted. An economic
crisis may induce this class to break away from the bourgeoisagrarian-fascist
coalition, and join forces with the workers and the peasants (Gramsci 1973a: 12–
13, 201–202, 280–282). It was therefore apparent that in Gramsci’s opinion the
ambiguous sociological position of the petite bourgeoisie made it a potential ally
of either coalition of social forces, depending on its present prosperity and vision
of the future. At any rate, Gramsci’s distrust in the revolutionary potential of this
heterogeneous stratum is testified by his stress on the organizational purity of the
Communist Party, as any inclusion of petit bourgeois elements into the party
organization would undermine its working-class and revolutionary character
(Gramsci 1973a:292–293). The ascent of fascism is thus accounted for as the
consequence of its ability to constitute a united bourgeois front in a period of
political and social crisis (Gramsci 1973a: 279). Giolitti, along with the political
system he represented and directed, had mediated among the conflicting interests
of the various segments of the bourgeoisie, while exerting political corruption over
the ‘most advanced’ segments of the working class. The way was thus paved for
the dictatorship of the capitalist and agrarian ruling classes over the industrial and
rural proletariat (Gramsci 1973a:43, 276–277).
The weakness of the bourgeois coalition, whose cohesion was severely strained
by factional interests, was compounded in the postwar period by the increased
militancy and improved organization of the working class. A new, authoritarian
government was therefore necessary to bolster the bourgeoisie’s economic
predominance and to reorganize its political dictatorship. Fascism would not have
been successful, however, had it not been for the failure of the working class to
give adequate guidance, leadership and political organization to the other
oppressed classes (Gramsci 1973a:278–279). The victory of the reactionary front
was nevertheless short-lived, since the unchecked violence promoted by the fascist
government no longer served the interests of the bourgeoisie, and actually
undermined the legitimacy of its rule (Gramsci 1973b:264–265).
Gramsci, in keeping with his Marxist perspective, discounted the possibility of
having the interests of both the conservative and the revolutionary power blocs
represented in one political system, whether democratic or not. Mosca and Pareto
concurred with Gramsci in that they, too, considered Mussolini’s regime to be a
consequence of the crisis of democratic parliamentary institutions. They, too,
thought that this crisis was produced by the inability of some or all of the privileged
strata to promote by the agency of these institutions the welfare of the nation, or
even their own private interests. To this extent, Gramsci, Mosca and Pareto
conducted a sociological analysis of fascist and democratic political systems,
whose strength and stability was made contingent on the support of certain social
strata. However, Mosca and Pareto, unlike Gramsci, maintained that the political
hegemony of the working class is incompatible with the public interest, and
interpreted the fall of the Italian parliamentary democracy as a consequence not
of a political rearrangement of bourgeois forces, but of the ineptitude and
selfishness of the entrepreneurial class (Pareto), or the powerlessness of the
educated middle class (Mosca). Before turning to the contributions of these two
authors, it is worth considering Piero Gobetti’s sociological and political analysis
of fascism. Although Gobetti was an uncompromising liberal, and not a Marxist,
his analysis was in many respects closer to Gramsci’s than to Mosca’s and Pareto’s.
Gobetti as a student of fascism

Piero Gobetti (1901–1926), born and educated in Turin, became at a very young
age the influential editor of cultural and political periodicals such as Energie Nove,
La Rivoluzione Liberate and Il Baretti, in addition to producing a number of essays
on literature, history and contemporary politics, and founding a publishing house
in 1923. His uncompromising opposition to Mussolini’s fascist movement and
party, conducted from a left-liberal standpoint, became even stronger after 1922.
After that, Gobetti’s Rivoluzione Liberale was confiscated by the police; Gobetti
himself was beaten up by a mob and arrested several times. He left Italy in February
of 1926, and died of bronchitis a few days after his arrival in Paris. In his writings
on Mussolini and fascism, mostly produced between 1922 and 1924, Gobetti
expanded his liberal conception of social and political life. In this conception, the
new world of industrialism promotes material and spiritual emancipation, but only
provided that the social classes of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie—that is, the
two classes directly involved in industrial production—find adequate
representation in a ruling political class devoted to the cause of industrial progress
(Gobetti (1922) 1960: 263–266).
Political democracy, based on universal suffrage and proportional
representation, must be considered a prerequisite to this result ‘Universal
suffrage,’ as he put it, ‘is the only instrument, however imperfect, for the long-run
political and moral education of the masses’ (Gobetti (1922) 1960:428).
Mussolini, and those manufacturers who supported him, undermined such
educational work, which was especially necessary in a country like Italy that was
‘backward and devoid of any attachment to the fundamental freedoms’ (Gobetti
(1922) 1960:428; see also: (1923) 1960: 529). A vigorous opposition to fascism
was accordingly, ‘a question of the historical, political, economic maturity of our
economy, of our ruling classes, of the working and the industrial status groups’
(Gobetti (1924) 1960:765, 803). The proletariat and the elites of tomorrow’s free
democracies ‘will not collaborate with fascism, since they endeavored to create
for the future a new situationof political dignity and economic seriousness’,
quite in opposition to the conservative and traditionalist economic orientation of
Mussolini’s regime (Gobetti (1924) 1960: 694–695, 797).
The regime represented ‘the economic dictatorship of the plutocratic status
groups’, who could still control the Italian political system and citizenship, as they
had done before through Mussolini’s ‘demagogic, bureaucratic and paternal
dictatorship’ (Gobetti (1924) 1960:637). In this sense, fascism was ‘the legitimate
heir’ to the pseudo-democratic Italian political class, which had always been
conciliatory in its spirit, pursuing government positions, afraid of free popular
initiatives, parasitical, oligarchical and paternalistic (Gobetti (1924) 1960:644).
In the political arena, the democratic bloc, comprising Catholic, socialist and
communist political forces and representing the proletarian and the enlightened
middle classes, faced a reactionary bloc based on the petite bourgeoisie and the
protectionist agrarians and manufacturers and politically represented by
Mussolini (Gobetti (1922) 1960:240, 383–388, 400; (1924) 1960:792, 797).
Gobetti’s work, and in particular the editorial he wrote for the first issue of the
journal Rivoluzione Liberate, dealt with issues then widely debated in political
and sociological circles centring on the establishment of a political class able to
govern the country’s new social needs. Although the eclectic intellectual origins
of Gobetti’s thought are still a matter of controversy, he certainly belonged to the
liberal and, in certain respects, socialist traditions. There is general
acknowledgement of the influence on his thought exercised by Gaetano Mosca,
who was his tutor in the Law Faculty of the University of Turin (where Gobetti
enrolled as a student in 1917 and where Mosca had taught since 1898).
Gobetti explored both the virtues and the vices of Mosca’s work.14 In his view,
Mosca’s bleak exposition and his mathematician’s patterns of thought (features
of his sociology) should be set against his work as a historian, his study of the
southern Italian petite bourgeoisie—which provided him with the material for his
first and best-known book, Teoria del governi e governo parlamentare—and his
use of European tools of political analysis. Mosca overcame his anachronistic
nostalgia for the ancien régime with his ‘brilliant discovery of the concept of the
political elite’. Thus, although Gobetti adopted Mosca’s teachings, he gave them
an interpretation which emphasized their democratic and liberal aspects and
audaciously reconciled the two concepts of elite and political struggle.
Some interpreters of Gobetti’s thought have classified him among the elitists
(Ripepe 1974), of whom Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto and Roberto Michels
played a leading role in the founding of sociology in Italy as well as enjoying
international fame (Burnham 1943). Yet an examination of Gobetti’s search for
an innovative political doctrine (which he never managed to elaborate fully)
reveals aspects that conflict with this classification and accentuate instead the
democratic and ‘libertarian’ character of his liberalism. Moreover, the sceptical
aloofness of Gaetano Mosca has little in common with the passionate commitment
of Gobetti, who used the morality of liberalism as a political instrument; a heroic
morality founded on asceticism, as the spiritual education of the bourgeois class
so that it could shoulder its historic responsibilities. Gobetti’s thought was
moulded by his study and discussion of Kant, and his frequent use of such terms
as ‘asceticism’ and the ‘Calvinist spirit’ reveals his knowledge of and interest in
the ideas expressed by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of
Capitalism.15 Gobetti maintained close intellectual contacts with other prominent
authors such as Filippo Burzio and Guido Dorso, both of whom published in
Gobetti’s periodical La Rivoluzione Liberale, and Giovanni Ansaldo, a moderate
liberal who contributed to the diffusion of Weber’s sociological and historical
writings in Italy in the early 1920s.16, 17 Burzio and Dorso were followers of
Mosca’s and Pareto’s doctrines (Burzio was closer to Pareto, Dorso to Mosca).
By surviving the fall of fascism, they were instrumental in postwar Italy in
upholding the liberal-elitist approach to political and social analysis that Gobetti,
Mosca and Pareto had so well represented at the onset of fascism.
Mosca and Pareto as students of fascism

Gaetano Mosca (1858–1941), born in Palermo, taught constitutional law at the
State University of Turin and at the private Università Bocconi of Milan, and
history of political thought at the State University of Rome. Mosca was also a
member of the Italian Parliament (1909–1919) and Senate (1919– 1941), though
he refrained from political activity after 1925. Among his most important works
are Teorica dei governi e governo parlamentare (1884), Elementi di Scienza

Politica (1896, 1923, 1939), Storia delle Dottrine Politiche (1933).
Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), born in Paris but an Italian citizen, studied
engineering in Turin, then lived in Florence (1870–1873) and finally near
Lausanne (1893–1923), where he taught political economy at the university. His
most significant works were: Cours d’economie politique (1896–1897), Les
systèmes socialistes (1902), Manuale di economia politica (1906), Trattato di
sociologia generate (1916), Fatti e teorie (1920), and Trasformazione delta
democrazia (1921).
In 1925, the elderly Gaetano Mosca, who had become a member of the Italian
Senate, on several different occasions took to the floor against law bills endorsed
by Mussolini and intended drastically to curtail the citizen’s political rights and
the prerogatives of parliamentary institutions (Mosca 1949:277–284; see also
Albertoni 1978:193–199; Bardusco 1983:151–153). Mosca explained his
opposition to all these law bills not only by referring to his own faith in political
liberties as values worth preserving, but also by appealing to the more widespread
value of ‘development and progress’ that benefited those nations where political
liberties had been safeguarded through representative institutions (Mosca
1949:282–283). In his 1928 essay on the ‘causes and remedies of the crisis of the
parliamentary regime’ Mosca took up this line of reasoning again, and extended
and buttressed it by making use of the empirical knowledge he had gathered in
his lifelong research on political institutions. Parliamentary regimes, he
contended, were able to protect civil and political liberties because, and insofar
as, they provided an independent source of authority by means of which those
who ruled could control and limit the power of the rulers. According to Mosca,
this held true if, and only if, the economic welfare and political influence of the
cultivated middle class were preserved. Only the middle class possessed sufficient
knowledge and competence to keep the power of the public administration in
check. Yet the establishment of equal and universal suffrage had dealt, in Mosca’s
opinion, a major blow to the political influence of the middle class, while the
economic crisis and rampant inflation of the years following the First World War
had greatly reduced its standard of living.
Therefore, for Mosca, the economic and political crisis of the cultivated middle
class constituted one of the ultimate causes of the ineffectiveness of parliamentary
institutions in protecting civil and political liberties. A further cause could be
traced, according to Mosca, to the control which skilled workers exerted through
their unions on governments and on the parliamentary bodies, given the crucial
importance of industrial production and given the political leverage of the working
class in a political system based on equal and universal suffrage (Mosca 1949:
102–111). These considerations, in which the advocacy of the values of civil and
political freedom was supported by sociology and political science, reiterated and
epitomized recurrent themes in Mosca’s writings (Mosca 1923:264, 395, 484 note
1; 1949:302–336; 1958:341, 362). In this connection, it is worth noting that
Mosca’s liberalism involves an ideological model of the balance of political and
ultimately social forces. This model, he thought, might be implemented under

certain political, social and institutional conditions, such as the existence of
parliamentary bodies elected on the basis of unequal and restricted suffrage and
the preservation of the social and political power of the cultivated middle class.
Mosca assigned to this class the crucial social function of providing legitimacy to
the social and political order (Mosca 1958:452–455). Thus the demise of the
middle class would pave the way to social and political systems that would not be
fully legitimate, and would be socially and politically unbalanced in the sense of
being subservient to capitalist or working-class interests (Mosca 1923:60–61, 397–
399; 1949:308–315; 1958: 454; see also Portinaro 1977:132; Segre 1983:118).
Mosca’s analysis of fascism was part of a general theoretical scheme in which
the ascent of Mussolini to power was explained as the result of the crisis of
representative institutions and of the social forces which supported them (Beetham
1977:163–164). Pareto’s explanation, as put forward in his late sociological
writings and private correspondence, is strikingly different. This difference stems
from the distinct conceptual apparatus with which the two authors analysed
fascism as a social and political phenomenon. In contrast to Mosca, Pareto
dismissed the contention that parliamentary institutions can represent the general
interest of the nation. Rather, parliaments were, for Pareto, the instruments of
private capitalist interests, in spite of the ideological verbiage with which the
existence of these institutions was legitimated (Pareto 1964: paras 1704, 1713).
The contemporary rulers of democratic societies, according to Pareto the so-called
‘speculators’, were experts in the shrewd and ruthless use of persuasion and
corruption to promote their own private interests. Parliamentary institutions were
the appropriate tool for this purpose, since political parties—especially those of
democratic orientation—appealed to sentiments deeply rooted in the populace,
thereby facilitating its domination and manipulation by the plutocratic ruling class
(Pareto 1964: paras 2229, 2250, 2275, 2326, 2328; 1980:1197; see also Portinaro
1977: 130–134).
Against this background, it is not surprising that the references to fascism which
appeared frequently in Pareto’s articles and letters of his last years (1921–1923)
interpreted its rapid ascent to power as a consequence of the failure of the
parliamentary institutions to give political guidance to the nation, and promote its
economic welfare. The speculators’ control of these institutions had produced a
general condition of political anarchy, weak governments and economic recession
(Pareto 1980:1085, 1088–1089, 1150–1151, 1159, 1169–1171). Instead of using
persuasion and manipulation, the fascist leaders opposed—according to Pareto—
their own illegal violence to the violence exerted by their enemies, which was not
restrained by the public authorities (Pareto 1980:1085, 1088–1089, 1150–1151,
1159, 1169–1171).
After Mussolini seized power, Pareto welcomed the new government’s reliance
on the use of force against those who followed their own selfish interests at the
expense of the public weal. Moreover, according to Pareto, fascist policy sought
to strike a balance between the pursuit of the collective interest, the prosperity of
the nation, on the one hand, and the demagogic satisfaction of widespread
sentiments, on the other. Previous governments had made unabashed use of
demagoguery and had failed to create the economic conditions for the development
of industrial production. Fascism’s ascension to power was thus greeted by Pareto
as the salvation of Italy (Pareto 1980:1150–1153, 1157, 1190; see also Beetham
1977: 164–166).
According to Pareto, the lasting success of Mussolini’s party and of his new
government was contingent on a number of social and political conditions, in
addition to the ever-present necessity of overcoming the great economic and
financial difficulties of the postwar years and avoiding demagogic excesses
(Pareto 1962:315–316). These social and political conditions were, first, an
ideology, or set of values, which would appeal to the sentiments of the fascist
rank-and-file, and to those of the population at large (Pareto 1962:284–285, 292,
311; 1980:1156–1157, 1170–1171) and, second, abstention from the private use
of violence after gaining control of the government and the legal means of
coercion. Resorting to the private use of violence may benefit the collectivity if
the authorities fail to maintain law and order, but in normal times it is in the public
interest for coercion to be the exclusive prerogative of state authorities within the
limits established by the law (Pareto 1962:320; 1980:1152, 1179). The third
condition was the upholding of civil liberties, and particularly of freedom of
expression, since their curtailment would in the long run weaken the government
and be detrimental to the nation at large (Pareto 1962:320; 1980:1151–1152).
In this reconstruction of Mosca’s and Pareto’s attitudes toward, and analysis
of, fascism no mention has been made of their well-known concepts of,
respectively, ‘political class’ and ‘elite’. This is not accidental, for the two authors
made little use of these concepts in this specific connection, even though their
analyses of fascism were conducted in keeping with some of their pre-established
categories. Mosca’s ‘political class’—narrowly defined as composed of those who
held authoritative power—may best exert its role when controlled by
parliamentary institutions, whereas Pareto’s political ‘elite’ may be most
advantageous when able to control, or even to do away with, an ineffective and
corrupt parliament. Of course, Pareto, too, conceived the possibility that an
effective ‘elite’ would cooperate with an effective parliament, but this was not—
in his opinion—the case of Italy in the postwar years (see Fiorot 1983, 92–100).
Neither the concept of a ‘political class’ nor ‘elite’, in relation to parliamentary
order, fits the novel situation presented by fascism.
THE RECEPTION OF GRAMSCI, GOBETTI,

MICHELS, PARETO AND MOSCA BY FASCIST AND
NON-FASCIST INTELLECTUALS
The contributions by Gramsci, Mosca, Pareto and Michels to a sociological
account of the rise and consolidation of fascism met either complete indifference,
or a very qualified acceptance, or finally a selective interpretation which concerned
their analytical categories rather than their theoretical propositions. In the case of
Gramsci, the matter is simple. Gramsci’s writings on fascism, as well as on any
other subject, failed to attract attention from the time of his imprisonment (1926)
until the fall of fascism. Gramsci was prevented after his imprisonment from
carrying on any intellectual communication with the outside world and this
repression continued even after his death in 1937.18 The contents of the notes jotted
down in prison remained unknown until the late 1940s. His writings only began
to attract serious attention in the 1950s and in the following decades (Santarelli
1973:9–11; Spriano 1977:97). The fascist policy of political and ideological
repression was therefore successful, at least as far as the reception of Gramsci’s
ideas was concerned. This policy of repression was addressed to all outspoken
and overt adversaries of the regime.
The social sciences in general were held in suspicion whenever their
representatives displayed independence of thought, no matter how limited (Lentini
1974:48). A case in point is Michels himself. Michels was full professor of the
new fascist ‘science’ of corporative economy, and was active in this capacity as
an ideologist of the regime. But both qua sociologist and qua apologist he met
with widespread resistance and diffidence. Fascist intellectuals had in general little
use for Michels’ strictly sociological writings (Bazzanella 1986:215; Portinaro
1977:136). They praised him as a political scientist (Orano 1937; cf. also De
Marchi 1986: 22). But Michels’ ‘science of the political class’ (Michels
1936a:159), largely devoted to the study of political elites, was little more than
‘legitimation of the regime’ expressed in the ‘terms of a scientific theory’
(Beetham 1977:173; see in general: 167–173). Sociology, even Michels’, was
generally held in suspicion whenever power and authority became areas of inquiry
(Lentini 1974:38–39). At best, as a sympathetic colleague of Michels’ remarked,
Michels managed to ‘turn the same sociology that Pareto had made so disagreeable
into something pleasant’ (Curcio 1937; cf. De Marchi 1986:23).
Pareto’s selective and occasionally critical reception by fascist intellectuals may
account for this disparaging judgement. Pareto’s works enjoyed immense
popularity in the 1920s and 1930s (Beetham 1977:166), and there were attempts
to make use of some concepts derived from Paretian sociology, such as the
circulation of the elites, the heterogeneity of social groups and their inevitable
competition for the pursuit of economic, social and political power (cf. Morselli
1928; Levi della Vida (1935) 1974: 189–200). But the general tendency was to
incorporate these sociological concepts as far as possible into the framework of
corporatist doctrine, and to discard them when this was thought to be impossible
(Ornaghi 1984: 68–69, 117, notes 44 and 47, 166–167). The intellectual efforts
of the Italian social scientists who were supportive, and concurred in the
production, of fascist culture were not oriented, generally speaking, to the
discussion and application of Mosca’s and Pareto’s categories, but rather to the
establishment of the new ‘science’ of the corporatist state discussed above.
To be sure, Pareto’s attitude toward the rise of the fascist movement and party
was selectively interpreted as giving endorsement and legitimacy to Mussolini’s
dictatorship (see De Pietri-Tonelli (1939) 1961:49–52; Morselli 1928; Quilici

1939:110–114), and alleged ‘deep affinities of thought and spiritual orientation’
were discovered between Pareto and Mussolini (Quilici 1939:XVIII). Thus a case
can be made for continuity in political ideology between Pareto and fascism, apart
from the largely successful attempt to insert his sociological categories into a
corporatist theoretical framework. A different approach to reconciliation was
provided by those authors who attempted to reconcile Pareto’s theory of economic
equilibrium and social change with corporatist doctrine (see De Pietri-Tonelli
1942; Palomba 1935). Finally, Enrico Leone’s (1931) articulate version of an
authoritarian political science gave a new formulation to some categories of
Pareto’s economic and political sociology, such as speculators, savers, and
politicians.
Nevertheless, fascist criticisms were levelled against Pareto’s explanation of
social change in terms of residues, social heterogeneity and mobility, and against
his epistemological assumptions and methodological procedures (see De
Pietri-Tonelli (1939) 1961:39–40; Levi della Vida (1935) 1974: 191–192, 199).
Perhaps the most stringent and articulate criticisms of Pareto’s economic and
sociological categories were expressed by Ugo Spirito, who pointed out the
unsatisfactory character of the conceptual distinction between logical and
non-logical actions, the insufficiency of the definition of economic goods and
action, the untenable character of the distinction between objective and subjective
utility, and, finally, the excessively abstract character of both the economic theory
of equilibrium and the sociological theory of the elites (Spirito (1927–1928) 1939:
190–232). Pareto’s reception as an economist and sociologist by fascist students
of the social sciences was therefore not univocal and ranged from uncritical
acceptance—after, of course, a convenient reinterpretation of his works—(Quilici)
to uncompromising rejection (Spirito). On the whole, perhaps, Pareto was more
influential as an economist than as a sociologist (for a short bibliography on
Pareto’s reception in Italy during the 1920s and 1930s, see Quilici 1939:7–8). But
even among non-fascist Italian social scientists his reception was mixed, as we
shall see presently.
As for Mosca, his steadfast refusal to compromise with fascism and his speeches
before the Italian Senate against Mussolini’s legal reforms and in support of
parliamentary democracy, makes any attempt to interpret him as a forerunner of
fascism difficult. It is not surprising, then, that fascist intellectuals showed little
interest in Mosca’s later writings, and preferred to quote his early polemical
writings on the degeneration of parliamentary rule (Albertoni 1978:200–201;
Cavallari 1983:244–247; Ornaghi 1984:89; Portinaro 1977:136–137), or else, as
with Enrico Leone, limited their references to a few quotations of a critical nature
(Leone 1931). It is not surprising that it was Mosca, more than Pareto, who exerted
a remarkable influence on some prominent members of the intellectual opposition
to Mussolini, while Michels’ involvement with fascism caused him to fall into
disrepute in the liberal fold. Aside from the possible influence of Mosca, Pareto
and even Michels on the Marxist Gramsci (Portinaro 1984:291; Salvadori
1973:255–256), Mosca’s development of his ‘political class’ theory within the

context of a consistently liberal ideology influenced Gaetano Salvemini, as well
as the younger representatives of the Italian liberal left, such as Gobetti, Dorso
and Carlo Rosselli. From their perspective, which was ideological rather than
sociological, the message was that democratic elites were entrusted with the task
of inspiring the masses with the values of democracy and liberalism.
Pareto’s sociological teaching was nevertheless influential to some extent. Of
the Italian liberal intellectuals who employed Pareto’s ideas, Filippo Burzio, who
freely reinterpreted Pareto’s sociological principles of the elites and the
heterogeneity of social groups, had the greatest impact According to Burzio, only
liberal democratic institutions would enable the most qualified individuals to rise
to economic and political power, and competition among different elites would
prevent economic oppression and political despotism. Whether Burzio, Dorso,
Gobetti, and Rosselli were faithful interpreters of Mosca and Pareto is of course
questionable (Bobbio 1977:219–239; Invernici 1983:255–268; Ripepe 1974:825–
827).
CONCLUSION
In this paper we have endeavoured to shed light on the mutual relations of Italian
sociology and the fascist regime in the period between 1920 and 1945. In this
connection, both the history of the discipline during fascism and the sociological
analyses of fascism have been considered. As for the history of Italian sociology,
a comprehensive overview that includes the preceding and following periods
points to two developmental stages. The first stage, from the 1870s to the early
1920s, was characterized by a lively interest in, but failed institutionalization of,
this new social science. The second stage, which corresponds to the rise and
consolidation of fascism, and which has accordingly received special attention
here, is marked on the one hand by some institutionalization of the discipline,
following the 1923 reform of the educational system, and on the other hand by
widespread (though not complete) suspicion and even rejection, as well as by
severe constraints in the categories and subjects relevant to theoretical and
empirical research. These constraints were also felt by intellectuals and scholars
who opposed fascism, though those living in exile could at least take advantage
of the freedoms of expression and enquiry.
Despite some institutionalization as an academic discipline, the growth of
sociology was thus hampered not only by the repression of these political
freedoms, but also by the official support of the corporatist doctrine, which was
taught in the faculties of political sciences, law, and economics. There were further
obstacles, to the effect that there was a severe lack of consensus among the students
of this discipline on its proper field of enquiry and relations to the other social
sciences, and strong opposition, as a matter of principle, from such reputed idealist
philosophers as Croce and Gentile, and from their numerous followers. All these
obstacles did not prevent the establishment of important research centres and
social-science schools at the University of Rome and the Catholic University of

Milan under the leadership, respectively, of Gini and Gemelli, and focusing on
demographic sociology and psychophysical adaptation to industrial work.
Accordingly, the consolidation of sociology after the Second World War could to
some extent take advantage of the incipient institutionalization and the orientation
to empirical research, which had marked the growth of the discipline in the prewar
years, albeit with different objects and methods.
Some of the most gifted students of the Italian social and political life in that
period suggested articulate explanations of fascism as a movement, party and
regime. Their explanations differed substantially in their analytical categories,
content, and value premises. Their receptions were also different: ideological and
political opponents of fascism were influenced by Mosca rather than by authors
more sympathetic to the regime, whereas supporters of fascism made selective
use of some of Pareto’s sociological categories, such as the circulation of the elites
and their struggle for power. The alleged superiority in their biological endowment
was especially stressed by Gini and his followers. Pareto’s concept of residue was
thus often interpreted in a biological, rather than cultural, sense, even though he
had made it clear that residues should not be equated to instincts. Pareto’s
sociological legacy was therefore restrictively interpreted, if not quite betrayed.
Given the uncertain reputation of sociology among most fascist intellectuals, they
were inclined to evaluate and honour Michels as a political scientist rather than
as a sociologist. On the other hand, Michels’ reputation as a fascist thinker
prevented his writings from ever becoming influential in the intellectual circles
hostile to fascism, with the possible exception of Gramsci, whose understanding
and account of fascism were however completely at odds with Michels’.
If we are to draw some conclusions of theoretical significance from this chapter
in the history of sociology, we may note, first of all, that concepts ostensibly
produced by social scientists for strictly scientific purposes lent themselves to
ideological uses. It is significant, in this connection, that this tendency involved
not only those who had created the concepts, but other authors as well, who felt
free to employ them as they pleased. The lack of conceptual rigour may contribute
to the ideological abuse of social-science categories (Ripepe 1974:826–827), but
even Weber’s rigorously defined term of ‘authority’ (Herrschaft) was
reinterpreted by Michels to become a suitable tool to legitimate Mussolini’s
despotic rule. However—and this would be our second conclusion—Pareto,
Mosca and, to a lesser extent, Michels succeeded in their efforts to equip
subsequent generations of social scientists with a set of categories which are still
crucially relevant to students of social, economic and political elites, in spite of
their ideological potential. In other words, the ideological uses and abuses of
social-science concepts in no way imply that they are scientifically worthless.
The limits of the ideological use of concepts are not inherent in the concepts
themselves (even if rigorously defined), but are given by external and contingent
circumstances. The most important of all these circumstances seem to be the
absence of authoritarian regimes determined to achieve full control of the
production of culture, and the lack of appeal of certain social science concepts to
specific ideological audiences. Thus it was not the concept of ‘political class’ as
such, but rather the liberal image of Gaetano Mosca that accounts for the fact that
fascist ideologues refrained from using it, and of its popularity among the liberal
adversaries of Mussolini. Likewise, Michels’ involvement with fascism
contributed to his temporary influence on other fascist intellectuals, but also to
the result that most opponents of fascism ignored his writings.
NOTES
1 The most important contributions of recent years have been the book by Filippo
Barbano and Giorgio Sola, Sociologia e scienze social: in Italia, 1860–1890, Milan,
1985, and, by G.Sola, ‘La sociologia italiana dall’unificazione nazionale ai nostri
giorni’, Storia sociale e culturale d’Italia, vol. V, La cultura filosofica e scientifica,
tome I, Bramante editrice, Busto Arsizio, 1988. Nevertheless, very few scholars have
written on the early history of sociology in Italy, and it is only in recent years that
study has begun of its origins and development, with research into source materials.
2 The idea of teaching sociology first came to Giuseppe Carle during the discussions
of the Congresso delta Società per il progresso degli studi economici, held in Milan
in 1874. He submitted his proposal for a university course in social science or
philosophy to the then Minister of Education, Ruggero Bonghi. Thus, one can argue,
Carle initiated a school of sociological thought which had the merit of blending
interest in sociology with an intellectual tradition that was deeply rooted in Italian
culture. He taught Gioele Solari, a distinguished scholar of political science and
cultivator of this new discipline who, at the University of Turin, tutored Piero Gobetti
(who wrote his degree thesis under his supervision), and then Norberto Bobbio,
Renato Treves and Bruno Leoni— the outstanding minds in a generation of legal
philosophers who devoted themselves to sociology and were responsible for the
renewed growth of the subject after the Second World War—and Filippo Barbano,
a prolific writer on the history of Italian sociology.
3 The aims of the conference were to encourage the teaching of the social sciences, to
bring together scholars engaged in research in these areas with a view to founding
a Società italiana di scienze sociali, and to discuss topics divided into three subject
areas: historical-philosophical, legal-economic and bio-ethnological. Although the
conference attracted numerous speakers from several countries, it was riven with
controversy, principally because of the presence of ‘too many occasional
sociologists’, which was detrimental to the quality of the scientific discussion.
4 In July 1897 the journal set out its philosophy as follows: ‘Although sociology
has had and still does have its distinguished scholars, it has not yet clearly defined
its principles; and work often appears under the name of sociology which—because
of its shallowness of analysis, because of its unwarranted tendency to synthesize, or
because of its abuse of artificial comparisons between social and biological
phenomena—amounts to no more than sterile generality, rather than consisting of
careful examination of facts or the prudent deduction of laws. A journal of sociology,
therefore, if it is to succeed must set itself an objective that matches the current needs
of the science, keeping within its natural boundaries and disseminating knowledge
that is exact. It should not occupy itself with all facts or topics of a social nature
which, by being too particular, do not fall within the scope of sociology; nor should
it seek to trespass on the fields of other sciences.’
5 Regarding research into collective psychology, mention should be made of Scipio
Sighele (1868–1913), an acknowledged pioneer in sociological study, psychologist
of the scientific school, and criminologist. Sighele was the author of various essays,
including ‘La coppia delinquente’ (1893) and ‘La folla delinquente’, (1891)
two monographs that were translated into numerous languages.
6 Renato Treves, one of the leading architects of Italian sociology’s revival, was the
scholar who proposed this historical division to the World Congress of Sociology
held at Stresa in September 1959. Treves distinguished four historical periods: the
first dominated by positivist thought and lasting from approximately the unification
of Italy to 1903—the year in which Benedetto Croce’s La critica first appeared; the
second lasting from 1903, a period which saw the progressive rise to ascendancy of
idealist thought, until 1922, the year in which fascism seized power, the third
comprising the fascist dictatorship from 1922 to 1945; the fourth dating from the
end of the war, when Italy rebuilt its free democratic institutions. Treves did,
however, draw a distinction between Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile, who
was even more vehemently opposed to sociology.
7 Other noteworthy publications by Squillace, who taught at the free university of
Brussels, are his Le dottrine sociologiche (1903), translated into German in 1911,
and I problemi fondamentali delta sociologia (1907). Mention should also be made
of the manual by Francesco Cosentini, Sociologia: genesi ed evoluzzone dei fenomeni
sociali, with an introduction by Enrico Morselli and a chapter by Massimo
Kovalewski, Turin, 1912.
8 As evidence of the influence of the First World War on Italian intellectual life, the
members of the Circolo di filosofia di Roma debated subjects such as ‘Moralità e
nazionalità’, ‘La guerra nel pensiero dei filosofi’, ‘Nazionalismo e
internazionalismo’, ‘Guerra e diritto’. Benedetto Croce took up a position which
provoked ferocious criticism. Although he recognized that the Italians had the duty
to defend their ‘historic institutions’, he separated the political sphere from the
cultural sphere, thus setting himself against those who over-hastily described the
war as not a political, but a cultural conflict.
9 For Gini, the process of social interchange is due to the comparatively lower birth
rates of the ruling class, and he accordingly employs demographical and statistical
data. For Pareto, the process is brought about by the specific cultural attributes of
this class, and he therefore makes use of historical data. The author suggested, by
way of conclusion, a possible integration of the two theories (cf. Levi della Vida
(1935) 1974:189–200. See, for another example, Boldrini 1933).
10 What makes his contributions even more interesting is his discussion of a moot but
crucial point, the determination of the prices of goods and services in an economic
order in which ‘the Corporations, entrusted with the representation of sectorial
productive interests, were to promulgate ‘economic laws’ in order to regulate
production’ (Panunzio 1939:352). Carli’s solution was the stipulation of ‘standard
contracts’, in which the representatives of the various categories constituting a single
Corporation establish agreed-upon wholesale prices as a result of a bargaining
process (see Carli 1939:11–16, 157–171).
11 Roberto Michels, a scholar of European education, lived in Italy first at Cossila S.

Grato (Biella) in 1900, then in Turin starting from 1906 where he taught as full
professor of political economy. Between 1914 and 1928 Michels was professor at
the University of Basel and succeeded in returning to teach in Italy, after several
unsuccessful attempts, in 1928, when he was appointed to the Chair of General
Economy and Corporative Economy in the Faculty of Political Sciences in Perugia.
In May 1926, Michels had become lecturer of political sociology in Rome with an
appointment by the faculty of political sciences of the Regia Università (Michels
1927).
12 We may disregard the fact that not all these social scientists would have called
themselves sociologists. The figures to be discussed here are treated as sociologists
because of categories and variables they employed, and because the content of their
argument had a sociological character.
13 It is worth stressing the participation in this epistemological debate of Eugenio
Rignano. Rignano, a little-known scholar, contributed in the late 1920s two articles
to the American Journal of Sociology (see Rignano 1928; Rignano, Becker 1929).
14 Cf. in this connection Gobetti’s article ‘Un conservatore galantuomo’ (An Honest
Conservative), dedicated to Mosca, and written upon the latter’s appointment at the
law faculty of the University of Rome, and consequent relinquishing of his teaching
position at the University of Turin (see Gobetti 1969:656).
15 Gobetti’s publishing house printed a number of works on the Protestant culture (see,
for example, Gangale 1925).
16 Guido Dorso (1892–1947) studied the problems of the Italian South and worked on
Gobetti’s journal Rivoluzione Liberate until 1923. Most of his writings were
published in La rivoluzione meridionale, edizioni Gobetti, 1925. He wrote a detailed
biography of Mussolini (1949). Noteworthy among his other writings are ‘La classe
dirigente dell’Italia meridionale’, ‘Dittatura borghese da Napoleone a Hitler’ and
‘Classe politica’, collected in Dittatura, classe politica e classe dirigente (1955).
Dorso took an active part in the struggle against fascism, first through his contacts
with the clandestine groups of Giustizia e libertà and then as a member of the Partito
d’Azione.
17 The works of Filippo Burzio (1891–1948) include Politica demiurgica, Bari, 1923,
Il demiurgo e la crisi occidentale, Milan, 1933, Essenza e attualità del liberalismo,
Turin, 1945. His sociological writings all appeared in Giornale degli economisti e
Annali di economia: ‘Introduzione alla sociologia’, March-April 1947, pp. 139–161;
‘Le “azioni non-logiche” di Pareto’, September-October 1947, pp. 525–539; ‘II
concetto di “residue” di Pareto’, March-April 1948, pp. 125–138. These articles have
now been collected in Stefania De Seta (1984).
18 The only exception was a conversation which took place between Gramsci and a
fellow Communist inmate in 1930. This conversation was subsequently reported to
the ‘Foreign Centre’, constituted by the Party leadership living in exile in Paris (cf.
Gramsci 1973a:431–435; Spriano 1977:72–74).
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4
ACADEMIC DISCUSSION OR POLITICAL
GUIDANCE?
Social-scientific analyses of fascism and National
Socialism in Germany before 19331
Dirk Käsler and Thomas Steiner
Sometimes Italian Fascism was discussed. But National-Socialism

under Hitler was not regarded as a serious political movement in the
academic circles I was connected with. Because it was vulgar,
barbaric, and quite strange to people of the older educated traditions,
with its shrill voices, its philosophy for the half-educated, its loud
symbols. Therefore, as far as I recollect, nobody thought of making
it a theme of sociological seminars or research.
(Norbert Elias)2
When the fascist march on Rome in 1922 led to the emergence of an Italian fascist
state, a potential alternative to democracy was established as a political model.
Political and scholarly discussion in Germany was motivated by the question of
the relevance of this development for the young and still unstable Weimar
Republic. German social scientists had a share in this discussion. Their analyses
of fascism were ambivalent in character—academic as well as political documents.
They derived from various theoretical schools, and came to different political
conclusions. The social scientists that analysed fascism in Italy misjudged Nazism.
The German social scientists during the Weimar Republic who analysed the rise
of National Socialism had quite different political roles, and reacted differently.
THE DISCUSSION OF ITALIAN FASCISM 1923–1925

Ludwig Bernhard (1924) and Johann Wilhelm Mannhardt (1925a) published the
first comprehensive books on Italian fascism. Two longer articles, one by Robert
Michels (1924) and another by Jakob Marschak (1924b, 1925), were published in
the influential Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. A few more articles
appeared in less prestigious journals (Eckardt 1923a, 1923b, 1923c; Landauer
1925; Rosenstock 1923; Weber 1925; Wieser 1925). These analyses shared certain
features: each dealt with the question of the social and political preconditions for
the development of fascism, questions related to fascism’s character as a
‘movement’, questions about changes in the political and economic system caused
by fascism, and questions related to the effects the political transformation of Italy
88 ANALYSES OF FASCISM AND NATIONAL SOCIALISM IN GERMANY
might have on Germany. There were, however, significant differences in their

conclusions, particularly their overall evaluation of the ‘depth’ of the fascist
revolution.
Mannhardt interpreted fascism as a ‘spiritual-moral power’ that tried to seize
the Italian people and was to lead to what Michels called the ‘renewal of Italy’,
by an ‘inner conversion’. More moderate analysts saw fascism as a new political
‘system’ (Bernhard) that was an alternative to democracy. This was the perspective
of the majority of the analyses produced before 1925: Bernhard, Eckardt, and
Wieser, for example, concentrated on the political structures of the fascist state.
A third approach was Marschak’s, who denied that any real change in the political
and social apparatus had been brought about by the fascists, and regarded the
fascist revolution as no more than the installation of a new ruling party.
The Marxist perspective of class struggle

Marschak attempted to refute one central element of the fascist self-interpretation
by arguing that the development of fascist trade unions represented the defeat of
the ‘corporationist’ idea within fascism. With this argument he opened the
question of class domination within fascism. He claimed that the corporationist
conception of economic organizations, the idea of trade unions as basic units of
the state,
reaches deeper than it appears, it cannot remain on the level of constitutional

questions because it contains much more: the cohesive force of society. But
that very class that holds a crucial influence on the ruling party denies this
cohesion where it seems to hinder their own aims and accepts it when it
seems favorable for their own aims.
(Marschak 1925:106)
The development of the fascist trade unions was thwarted by ‘the social
constellation and the social situation of Fascism’ (Marschak 1924b:727). The trade
unions had lost against the ‘ruling practitioners who willingly bowed to the socially
dominant groups, whether it is the plutocracy in the big cities or the local bosses
within industry or agriculture, thereby stabilizing the power of the state or their
own power’ (Marschak 1925:103).
This pointed to the question of fascism’s power bases. According to Marschak
fascism combined ‘three versions of dictatorship’ (1925:113): party-dictatorship,
which was the drive by the middle-class urban intellectuals to become a new
governing stratum; class-dictatorship, which utilized the tendencies of the owners
of industrial and agrarian capital to use political and quasi-military violence for
the solution of social questions; and the personal dictatorship of Mussolini, which
rested on his personal charisma, through which these divergent forms were
integrated. The relation between the forms, however, changed.
All three relationships exist independently but the importance of the

innovative points within the programme are lost more and more, and the
importance of the party power as means and end in itself becomes all the
more clear, and even that becomes clouded more and more by the role of
the party as an instrument for the capitalistic bourgeoisie.
(Marschak 1925:138)
Marschak’s analyses went beyond simple analyses of political structures. He

showed how political structures were underpinned by ‘social domination’, and
thereby opened the path from an analysis of fascist ‘dictatorship’ to one in terms
of the Marxist account of fascism as ‘class dictatorship’.
Contrasting democracy and fascism: the functions of the

political system
In using the term ‘revolution’ to describe the seizure of power by the fascists,
Bernhard agreed with Mannhardt and Michels: labelling the fascist movement as
‘revolutionary’, and interpreting the fascists’ seizure of power as a ‘revolution’
(following the self-interpretation of the fascists), made it possible to treat fascism
as a new political order. This new political structure of authority was contrasted
with the democratic order and described unanimously as a ‘dictatorship’ (Bernhard
1924:63; Eckardt 1923c:541; Mannhardt 1925a:248–50; Wieser 1925:611) whose
elements consisted of the party, the militia, the administration and the
‘corporations’, the new trade unions.
Bernhard (1924:113), Mannhardt (1925a:264), and Michels (1987:294) all
stressed Mussolini’s ability to produce political continuity and direction, very
much in contrast to the preceding democratic system. Eckardt, however, pointed
to clear disadvantages of the ‘sovereignty of the intentionally party-orientated
state of the activists’. He thought it would stir the ‘fight of the pure power factions
against each other’ (1923a:35). Others, such as Bernhard, Michels, and Wieser,
argued that the advantage of fascism as a political system was that it worked.
Michels, for example, contrasted an incompetent and decaying parliament
characterized by continuous internal squabbling, with the fascist government, an
extra-parliamentary elite. A parliament should be preserved, he said, only to gain
the support, not the active participation of the majority.
This reasoning suggested that democracy and fascism were in some sense
functionally equivalent in their institutional means to similar ends. According to
Bernhard, fascist hierarchy and democracy ‘in their practical application are not
so far apart’ (1924:77–78). Within a democratic system there is also the contrast
between trained party-leaders fully conscious of the political situation and the
‘masses which had limited political judgement’. Yet these leaders were dependent
on their followers in each case. The dictator Mussolini also had to rely on the ‘trust
of the broad Fascist organizations’ (1924:78). Bernhard therefore saw dictatorship
as an intermediate stage which would lead to the further organic development of
the Italian nation, an interpretation also advanced by Friedrich Wieser (Wieser

1925:609, 618–19).
These authors both interpreted the fascist political and economic policy as
genuinely novel (Bernhard 1924:107; Mannhardt 1925b:4; Michels 1987:277),
though they had conflicting opinions about its effects. Bernhard’s analysis of
fascist economic practice stressed its successes in re-organizing and revitalizing
the Italian economy. Eckardt, in contrast, described the policy as a failure: ‘the
Mussolini government took many rights from workers, civil servants, farmers,
and small tenants but has done nothing against capitalism, the financial world of
the entrepreneurs—or did not want to do anything against them’ (Eckardt
1923c:542). With this, Eckardt came very close to Marschak’s thesis of the victory
of a ‘class-dictatorship’, but it is characteristic of the distinction between the two
perspectives that Eckardt regarded this only as ‘an increasingly undemocratic
policy’ (Eckardt 1923c:542).
The Völkisch perspective

The idea of organic development was the basis for the notion of the Volk, the
almost magical German expression for ‘the people’, which cannot be rendered
fully into English. Mannhardt interpreted the fascist state as a ‘Volksstaat’.
Fascism, he argued, was a revolution in the sense of a reconstruction of the Italian
people ‘from within’ (Mannhardt 1925a:389). For Mannhardt this had a deep
historic meaning:
The people and the state [of Italy] did not correspond until now. The people,
still incomplete, had not found its state yet. The Fascist state intends to
become the state of the Italian people as such. Italy would become a
Volksstaat like England and France have been for a long time because to be
a Volksstaat meansthat a specific people has given itself the particular
form of the state that fits its nature.
(Mannhardt 1925a:392)
According to Mannhardt fascism will become for Italy ‘what puritanism was for
England and liberalism was for France’ (Mannhardt 1925a:392). To do so fascism
must ‘succeed not so much as a party—that might be impossible —but as a
Weltanschauung and as a way of thinking’ (Mannhardt 1925a:392–93).
Mannhardt began with the same observations as the ‘political’ authors, but placed
them instead in a völkisch perspective. On the grounds of his own theory of the
Volksstaat Mannhardt had to reject fascism ‘as a recipe for our German situation’
(Mannhardt 1925a:394). But at the same time he regarded it as possible that
fascism had a ‘übervölkisch meaning’ (1925a:393). ‘It may easily be the meaning
of fascism to transmit this new line of thought in the specifically Italian version
to the world, like liberalism was propagated in its French or English version’
(Mannhardt 1925:393). By that Mannhardt envisioned the possibility of using
fascism as a model: ‘It may be that the German Volksstaat grows from the same
root as the Fascist state but it is very certain that it may only grow on the soil of
our people from its own essence and by its own power’ (1925a:394).
1926–1933 The main authors and their themes

When the fascists achieved full governmental control in Italy in 1925 a broad
discussion started in German social science on the fascist state. The contributors
to this discussion who became particularly visible will be dealt with in some detail
in the following paragraphs.3
Enwin von Beckerath

After 1927, Beckerath gradually moved to the centre of the German discussion
on fascism. His book, The Essence and the Development of the Fascist State
(1927b), was reviewed in five scholarly journals (Eckert 1930/31; Herre 1929;
Michels 1928b; Schotthöfer 1929; T. 1927) .4 The book was a historical account
of the political development of fascism and of the fascist state.
This book soon became the standard for discussion of fascism during the
Weimar Republic.5 Beckerath subsequently broadened his analyses in a series of
articles. In two of them he introduced a comparison between fascism, Bolshevism,
and the absolutisms of the seventeenth and eighteenth century (1927a, 1929b).
Both variants of ‘modern absolutism’ (1927a:245) were, he noted, revolutionary
in their origins. Their political methods were the same, as were their organizational
practices. The symmetry ‘of the construction of both systems consists first of all
in the structure of the party, the dictatorship by the party, and in domination by
violence’ (1929b:146). Differences could, however, be seen. The social carriers
of the different ideas varied, as did the position of the economy within the social
system.
In his first article for Schmollers Jahrbuch Beckerath compared the ideas of
fascism to the reality of fascism, describing the origins of the fascist ideology of
the state and society and confronting these ideas with the descriptions of some of
the internal problems of Italian Fascsis (1928). In 1931 the very prominent
Handwörterbuch der Soziologie, edited by Alfred Vierkandt, was published and
soon became the standard reference work for the new discipline. Beckerath, as
‘an outstanding expert on Fascism’ (Grabowsky 1931a:316), was commissioned
to write the article on fascism for this important disciplinary codification. In his
contribution he systematized and repeated his account of the social origins and
the social structure of the fascist movement, the fascist party, and the fascist state
(1931a). Beckerath even came to be regarded internationally as an expert, as
evidenced by being asked to write the chapter on fascism for the American
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, published the same year (1931b).
Beckerath’s seventh article was written for the 1932 edition of Schmollers
Jahrbuch, which was a Festschrift for Werner Sombart. It contained several
articles on fascism on the common theme of its economic order. Beckerath again
explicated his main theses and compared fascism to other social and political
systems, in particular to the ‘democratic-parliamentary interventionist state’, in
which the ‘antagonisms of an economy full of conflicts have masterfully been
interwoven into the state’. Fascism, in contrast, has ‘made the state independent
of the economy and the party, and left the economic order totally to the bodies of
self-governance’ (Beckerath 1932:362).
As Christian Eckert correctly noted, Beckerath’s method was ‘essentially
historical but mixed with fundamental discussions’ (Eckert 1930/31:359).
Beckerath remained within the political-functional perspective which treated
fascism as a ‘system’, and fascism and Bolshevism as ‘political experiments’
(Beckerath 1927a:245, 249). He was fascinated by the forces reshaping Italy, this
‘most peculiar conquest of a state modern history has experienced’ and by the
‘thrilling experiment of the creation of a state’ that had been going on since 1925
(Beckerath 1927b:141; 1932:350). He explicitly considered the fascist system to
be a potential model for Europe, and considered a return to authoritarianism likely
because of economic and political tensions. He saw as the main task that this
authoritarian state would face was the ‘reshaping of the capitalist order’ (Beckerath
1929b:153). No concrete political suggestions for Germany arose out of
Beckerath’s analyses. Writing in an academic manner, he restricted himself to an
objective analysis of broad historical developments, and to general predictions.
Ernst Wilhelm Eschmann

Eschmann, a former student and later assistant of Alfred Weber, played a
prominent role during the Weimar Republic, not so much as a scholar, but as a
writer for the journal Die Tat, a source of political catchwords for young
conservatives. Eschmann published a whole series of articles on Italian fascism,
in Die Tat and in other journals. He played the role of expert on Italian fascism,
in particular with his book The Fascist State in Italy, which appeared in 1930 in
a series oriented towards the broader public.
Eschmann’s first article on fascism, published in the scholarly journal Ethos in
1927, dealt with the theoretical predecessors and the few theoretical
pronouncements of fascism, and with the relation of fascist ideas and concepts to
the fascist movement itself. Eschmann stated that ‘fascism does not possess any
real content’, and had ‘no comprehensive theory of the state’ (1927:64). In 1928
Eschmann wrote on fascist youth organizations for Das junge Deutschland, the
journal of the German youth associations, and described the youth movement of
fascism—its development, institutions, and methods—and fascist opinions on the
relationship between the state and youth (1928). Eschmann’s article on Fascism
and the Middle Classes published in Die Tat in 1929 characterized the Italian
middle classes as supporting the fascist revolution.
The Fascist State in Italy of 1930 was a detailed description of the development
of fascism and its theory of the state, followed by an account of state-formation
processes themselves: the construction of the administration, organization of the

economy, and development of important political areas such as education, youth,
growth, social policy and regional politics. Eschmann did not believe that the
attempt to integrate the workers into the Italian state had not been successful, nor
did he believe its ‘post-democratic evolution’ (1930a:114). He doubted the
transferability of fascism to Germany, suggesting that the more advanced
capitalistic development of Germany precluded it.
His second book, Fascism in Europe, also published in 1930 gave this question
a much more differentiated treatment. First he dealt with the Italian situation and
the ‘spiritual content of Fascism as a movement’ as the basis of Italian foreign
policy and its methods. The next part of the book dealt with the question of whether
‘Fascism as a system [has] an European meaning independent of its concrete
manifestation?’ (1930b:77). Eschmann explicitly chose not to answer this question
ideologically, but rather by an ‘account of real sociological and mental conditions’
(Eschmann 1930b:77). ‘The task is to follow the social and economic experiences
of Fascism, to lay out guidelines for the reconstruction of the political and social
order on the basis of the nation as the only real basis out of their own necessities
and their own tradition’ (1930b:87–88).
Eschmann continued to do this in papers in Die Arbeit, the leading journal of
the trade unions (1930c, 1931 a). Both of the articles in this journal dealt with the
integration of the workers into the fascist system, one from the aspect of the
organization of their interests, the other from the aspect of the general social policy.
Eschmann’s perspective might be characterized as ‘political’ in two senses:
thematically he dealt with fascism as a political system, which he treated in part
as a political model for Germany. He presented selected parts of the fascist system
to various groups that took a special interest in specific questions. He regarded
national ‘needs’ as the only real basis for politics. In contrast to the völkisch
conception, these needs developed out of the social situation of particular social
strata and their relationship to the economy and the state. Eschmann was the only
author with a nationalistic orientation dealt with here who tried to combine and
relate sociological considerations with matters of political structure. Thus he
contributed to the sociological discussion of the internal situation of Germany that
had proceeded parallel to the discussion of fascism (1931b).
The results of this can be seen in the concluding passage of Fascism in Europe.
Eschmann argued against the uniformity of all ‘groups that call themselves Fascist
in other countriesif in one country such a group gains some real influence it will
have to follow the necessities of that country’ (1930b:88). In a footnote he noted:
‘It has to be pointed out for example that the NSDAP, regardless of their emotional
sympathies for Italy, with growing clarity try to distinguish themselves more and
more from Fascism as its inner development proceeds’ (1930b:88).
Robert Michels
From today’s perspective, Michels appears as the most prominent participant in
the discussion of fascism. In view of his stature as sociologist and his fascist
activism, one might expect him to have been in the centre of the discussion. From
the number of reviews of his work this assumption appears to be correct: his
volumes, published in 1925 and 1930, were taken very seriously.6 His two volumes
of Socialism and Fascism in Italy (1925a) included his article The Rise of Fascism
in Italy, together with articles on the history of Italian socialism and Bolshevism.
He tried to draw an evolutionary line from these movements to fascism.
Italy Today, published in 1930, was a comprehensive account of Italian history,
economy, and culture. The chapter on ‘Italy under Fascism’ reproduced four
previously published articles (Michels 1926b, 1928a, 1928c, 1929), and added an
account of economic developments since 1922 and an enthusiastic appraisal of
Mussolini. Michels’ last publication before 1933 was a short article for the Berlin
journal Die Zeit (Michels 1930b).
The sheer number and visibility of Michels’ publications on fascism make it
quite clear that Michels was regarded as an expert in this area. He gave many
presentations on the topic and was asked for an article in a dictionary (Michels
1928c). With his 1930 book, the fifth volume in a series on the construction of
modern states, addressed to a politically active readership, Michels tried to reach
a broader audience and succeeded. Michels also regularly wrote articles for Swiss
and German daily newspapers dealing with various aspects of fascism.
Michels’ analyses throughout stressed the ethics of fascism. He identified the
main characteristics of the new Italy as the ‘powerful will’ of fascism and a
‘collective enthusiasm in existence for six years’. All of this contrasted to the
‘period of fatigue’ after the end of the war (1926b:113; 1928a:17; 1930a:209).
The most important quality of the political ethos that had developed from this was
a ‘theoretically underdeveloped but practically highly developed sense of duty’
(1928c:524). ‘Fascism has created a new state. This has been based on tough
discipline from top to bottom with an enormous productivity which tries to reach
all parts of the nation’ (1928c:526). This line of argument obviously came directly
from fascist self-interpretation, with its topoi of the revolutionary deed, moral
rejuvenation, strong government, and leadership. Michels did not discuss
Germany or National Socialism: his interest was only in his adopted country, Italy,
and his new political home, fascism.
Wilhelm Andreae and Walter Heinrich

Andreae and Heinrich were members of Othmar Spann’s school. Their
interpretation of fascism was strongly influenced by Spann’s theory of the
corporate state, of ‘Stände’, the ranks they held all societies to be constructed of.
Andreae’s book State-socialism and Ständestaat (1931b) opened with an overview
of the history of ideas of the Ständestaat and offered short analyses of ‘recent
reality in Russia and Italy’, the ‘despotic state’ of bolshevist state-capitalism and
the ‘mixture of national, state-socialist, and ständisch elements in Fascism’
(1931b:198–99). Part of his chapter on fascism had been published earlier (1931a),
when he participated in the discussion on fascism, attacking some of Ludwig
Bernhard’s theses mentioned above. Andreae defended fascism for installing
neither a planned economy nor a dictatorship, and stressed instead the multiple
ständestaatlich features of fascism.
In 1932 the second and revised edition of Heinrich’s book Fascism, first
published in 1929, appeared. His very detailed account of the fascist legislation
that had led to the reconstruction of the Italian state and economy and its ‘spiritual
bases’, was retained; an ‘evaluation from a universalistic stand-point’ was added
(1932:VIII). Andreae’s second book, Capitalism, Bolshevism, Fascism, was
published in 1933. It provided a comparative analysis of the basic ideas, economic
system, and state forms typical for these three different systems. Both authors,
who referred favourably to each other, analysed fascism and in particular the
relationship between state and economy primarily from the perspective of Spann’s
advocacy of a ständisch separation of state and economy. By understanding
fascism in the terms of their own theoretical framework, or rather in the terms of
their master’s framework, both authors were led to distinguish the state-socialist
features of fascism from its ständestaatlich ones. Fascism was treated as a first
step in the development predicted for the whole of Europe by their theory towards
a ständisch economy.
In spite of their common theoretical foundation, Heinrich and Andreae were
engaged in quite distinct discussions. Andreae restricted himself to a
ständestaatlich, functionalist analysis. Heinrich, however, gave his interpretation
a völkisch dimension. He did not regard Italian fascism as capable of eventually
evolving toward ständestaatlich ideas. He believed that the ‘word which would
save the whole of Europe and which could throw a magic formula against the
threatening decline cannot be pronounced in a Roman language. We believe it
will have to be pronounced in German’ (Heinrich 1932:182).
Georg Mehlis
Mehlis was on the periphery of the discussion. From 1910, Mehlis served as editor
of the philosophical journal Logos which had turned quite strongly to sociological
problems, but his books were not taken very seriously or widely reviewed
(Grabowsky 1931b; R.P. 1928). In his book on Mussolini’s ideas and the meaning
of Fascism (1928) Mehlis praised Mussolini as the ‘hero’ and born leader of the
Italian people. All social and political developments were interpreted as results of
Mussolini’s ideas. In his next book, on Mussolini’s State, he interpreted Italian
fascism, as the subtitle read, as ‘the realization of corporatist ideas of community’
(1929a). Many of his theses were taken directly from fascist documents and in
general his interpretation reproduced fascist self-interpretation. Like Michels,
Mehlis treated fascism from the perspective of heroic leadership and ethical
rejuvenation and, like Michels, Mehlis moved to Italy and regarded himself as a
representative of that country. It may be noted, however, that Michels and Mehlis
evidently did not accept each other in this role: neither, at least, mentioned the
other.
Mehlis published in the same kinds of journal as these other authors. He wrote
as an expert in the official journal of the German employers’ association, Der
Arbeitgeber, where four of his articles were published during the years 1926–1930.
They dealt with the spirit of the fascist laws of labour (1926), with the fascist
economic system as a ‘middle road between bourgeois-liberal and proletarian
economic systems’ (1927:380), with ethical rejuvenation through fascism as the
‘re-gaining of the social group-morale’ (1929c:305), and with the fascist
Ständestaat (1930b). Other papers were published in a social-scientific journal
(1929b) and an economic journal (1930a, 1931). As in his books, in his articles
Mehlis analysed fascism mainly as an ethical phenomenon; even the specific
reorganization patterns of state and economy were analysed in terms of their
ethical functions.
The change of themes after 1925

Questions about the ideological, social and historical-political origins of the
development of fascism had been an essential part of the social-scientific
discussion of fascism before 1925. Beckerath in the first seven chapters of his
Essence and development of the Fascist state of 1927 dealt with these questions
by repeating all the interpretations developed earlier. His account of the
development and structure of the fascist movement became the fourth in book
form and may be interpreted as a belated final account of these questions. Works
that appeared after 1925 mentioned the question of the origins of fascism in very
short introductory remarks, if at all, and referred instead to the existing accounts
by Beckerath, Bernhard, Mannhardt, Marschak, and Michels.
After 1925 the centre of the discussion shifted. In the forefront stood the
question of the state and economy which the fascists gradually built after 1925.
In particular, the new syndicalist legislation, implemented after 1926, was seen
as genuinely new, and as representing a political alternative for Germany. As such
it became even more interesting to social scientists.
Fascism as a system, a dictatorship, a class-dictatorship, an

ethic, or as the first stage to democracy: different
perspectives on the political character of fascism
Andreae, Beckerath, Eschmann, Heinrich, and Michels offered what may be
characterized as political-functional analyses of the structure of the Italian state
reorganized by the fascists. The most important elements of this type of analysis
may be found in the definition of the fascist system of domination given by
Beckerath: ‘the Fascist system of domination as a dictatorship from the top which
interpenetrates all horizontally organized classes by its organs and links them all
together with the help of the state power-apparatus like with a clamp’ (Beckerath
1927b:142). The form of the government, the party, and the state apparatus were
analysed in detail. Statements about Mussolini’s position were embedded in an
analysis of the fascist party structure, the fascist elite, the various committees that
advised the Duce, including the ‘Big Council’—the central governing board of
fifteen to twenty persons. The relationship between party and state was regarded
as the fusion of both and the adaptation of the structure of the state to that of the
party.
These political-functional analyses each characterized the fascist state as an
interdependent system of many elements, and used similar terms to describe it
(Beckerath 1927b:110; Beckerath 1929b:134; Eschmann 1930a:114–15;
Eschmann 1930b:77–79; Andreae 1933:198). The term ‘dictatorship’, which had
been used unanimously to describe fascist rulership before 1925, gradually ceased
to be used and was replaced by other terms. Fascism as a system continued to be
compared with the two other political alternatives, Bolshevism and democracy,
in a functionalist manner. Most of the authors had negative views of democracy
(Beckerath 1932:349–50; Michels 1930a:220; Heinrich 1932:11).
A certain political attitude towards fascism grew out of these
political-functional analyses. Treating fascism as a system inclined people to
discuss it as a potential model for Germany as can be seen in the cases of Beckerath,
Eschmann, and Andreae. But not all of them drew these conclusions. Bernhard,
in contrast, considered fascist political reorganization to be dysfunctional in the
relation between state and citizens and in the control of power. The democratic
state also showed dysfunctionalities, he thought, as ‘a necessary result of the
unbridgeable conflicts between the parties’ which prevented ‘the indispensable
balance that is needed for a steady government’ (1931:41). But Bernhard pointed
out that ‘badly working parliamentarism is not nearly as horrible as Fascism badly
guided which would throw the whole nation at the mercy of a single person or of
a gang’ (1931:42). Bernhard even denied fascism the character of a system. He
interpreted it as a purely personal dictatorship by Mussolini. The ‘Fascist
corporative state is nothing but an unlimited self-governance’ (1931:31). Adolf
Grabowsky pointed to the same tensions: ‘The Führer overpowers the system’
(Grabowsky 1928a:428).
The term ‘dictatorship’ in this period became the catchword of a minority
opposed to analysis of fascism as a ‘system’. Dictatorship was regarded as
dysfunctional, and not a feasible model for other countries, if it had a future in
Italy at all. After 1925, the Marxist thesis of class-dictatorship, as it was presented
by Hermann Heller and Siegfried Marck, also retained the concept of
‘dictatorship’. In their analyses it was used as a term to denounce fascism. Heller
said of fascism that ‘its political form has unveiled itself as the most primitive
political form of all, as dictatorship’ (Heller 1931b:109). Because this dictatorship
was interpreted as directed against workers, fascism could not solve ‘the cardinal
problem of our political crisisthe antagonisms of the social classes’ (Heller

1931b:158).
These analysts consequently rejected fascism as a model. Heller criticized
Beckerath for regarding the political and economic contradictions as solved
(1931b:135). But his analysis was also political, directed primarily against the
anti-democratic forces in the Weimar Republic. In Legal state or dictatorship?
Heller characterized the ‘neo-feudal pose of power and the outcry for the strong
man as the expression of a mood of despair on the side of the citizens’ for whom
dictatorship appeared to bring salvation from the threat by the proletariat
(1930:17).
Georg Mehlis and Robert Michels were alone in giving a positive evaluation to
fascism as dictatorship. They took the term from fascist self-interpretation. Mehlis
spoke of an ‘aristocratic democracy which one might call in all honesty a
dictatorship because the will of one man is decisive as he bears all the
responsibility’ (1929a:81).
Michels’ account of fascism always placed the ethical side of the state in the
centre (Michels 1930a:225–24), as did Mehlis, who contrasted the ethical
character of the liberal state with the ‘organic state’. In contrast to ‘rugged’
parliamentary democracy with its ‘lack of authority’ one could find in ‘the organic
Fascist state the foundation of a really sovereign authority which governs over
everyone, and comprises the essence of state community representing the unity
of the nation which is of spiritual character’ (Mehlis 1931:329–31). But because
it stressed the völkisch character of fascism this analysis did not treat Italian
fascism as a model.
Heinrich, Singer, Vōchting, and Schmitt continued the völkisch discussion after
1925. Elements of the fascist self-interpretation appeared in their writings as well,
including the idea of the ethical rejuvenation of state and nation beyond the matter
of political form (Heinrich 1932:125–127, 182; Schmitt 1929; Singer 1932:379–
80; Vöchting 1931b).
The concept of the Volksstaat, first introduced to the discussion of fascism by
Mannhardt, was reintroduced. Singer, for example, interpreted Mussolini’s ‘will
of self-presentation as the Italian man’ as an instance of what fascism had to offer
other peoples (Singer 1932:381). But he continued by saying that ‘the demands
and promises by Hegel and Nietzsche were about something more: elevation as
such and therefore their words still await their procreation in some more noble
material’ (Singer 1932:381). It may correctly be assumed that this ‘more noble
material’ could be interpreted as German material, comparable to Heinrich’s
image of the word that should save Europe and which could thus reproduced the
political thesis of the superiority of the German only be pronounced in German
(cf. above p. 97). The völkisch perspective people. Fascism served as a pattern
and starting-point for Germany’s reconsideration of herself and her political will.
Fascism was also interpreted as an ethical phenomenon by
conservative-democratic authors. Kogon and Bonn regarded it as a ‘developing
dictatorship’, as the final realization of antidemocratic principles which could not
be the basis of an alternative system but could be seen as a preliminary step or as

a detour to democracy (Kogon 1927, Bonn 1928). Wieser and Bernhard had
advanced this thesis before 1925. By democracy these authors meant something
spiritual, like ‘solidarism’: Solidarismus in the case of Kogon, a sentiment for the
whole: Gesamtheitsempfinden in the case of Bonn. Both referred to a romantic
idea of community.
Fascism was regarded by neither as a political model. Kogon explicitly rejected
it by referring to the ‘national and historic differences between the European north,
west, and south’ (Kogon 1927:385). But they did not regard it as an enemy to
democracy. Indeed, in reality fascism was not very far from democracy and would
soon ‘wipe off the character of dictatorship in order to help democracy to a victory
in Italy although not in a liberal form’ (Kogon 1927:405).
The economic order of fascism

The second major theme of the social-scientific discussion of fascism in Germany
before 1933 was the reorganization of the economy and its integration into the
fascist state-apparatus. The collection of laws governing the economy, the Carta
del lavoro, went into effect in 1926–1927 and was discussed in detail in twenty-one
of the articles dealt with here. Nine of these articles were published in
non-scholarly economic or political journals (Andreae 1931a; Eschmann 1930c;
Heinrich 1928–29; Mehlis 1926, 1927; Michels 1926b, 1930b; Steinberg 1926;
Vöchting 1931b).
The ‘functionalists’ stressed the newly founded professional associations, the
fascist syndicates of workers and employers, which were said to be the crucial
element in the integration of state and economy. The conventional interpretation
of the fascist economy was that the ‘subordination of the economy under the state
was the leading principle of Fascism’ (Albrecht 1931:762).
Like the fascists themselves, the functionalists regarded the fascist economic
order as a system which served as the material basis for a powerful state, increased
production, as well as the solution of the social question (Albrecht 1931:762;
Beckerath 1931a:135; Eschmann 1930a:93; Lachmann 1930:35; Mehlis
1927:379). The fascist economy was contrasted with preceding and competing
systems, in particular capitalism. Of these authors, Margherita
Hirschberg-Neumeyer alone claimed that capitalism had continued unchanged
(Hirschberg-Neumeyer 1928:202). All the others stressed that only fascism had
made it possible for the state to intervene in the capitalist economy (Michels
1930b:225; Eckert 1932:344; Strachwitz 1932:28; Beckerath 1927b:138,
1931a:135). This new relationship between state and economy was labelled by
some authors as ‘Merkantilismus’.
The Ständestaat thinkers offered a third interpretation of the relationship
between fascism and capitalism. Their central idea was that parliament as well as
the economy should be organized so that all important groups in the society were
directly represented, a situation they contrasted with the over-representation of a
single class or interest group they considered characteristic of democratically

organized societies, and they saw evidence of movement in this direction: ‘the
Stato corporativo tries to break away from capitalism in many ways, it also means
a break away from a centrally planned economy and rather has a tendency towards
a ständisch organized national economy’ (Heinrich 1932:149).
The völkisch authors again combined functional judgements with ethical ones
and stressed the fascists’ attempts at the ethical education of economic opponents,
as the fascists also did. Their solution to the social question was the
re-establishment of an ethical foundation to the economy.
In contrast to other functionalists, Bernhard, Strele, and Strachmann simply
rejected the idea of a special fascist economic order. They were convinced that
the corporative order would only aim at handing the professional associations over
to the state. Goetz Briefs also denied to the fascist economy any distinct character:
fascism, according to him, had ‘no economic system’, it ‘operates only with the
concepts of bourgeois and capitalistic economic order Fascism is no new social
system at least not in the sense of a revolution and re-organization of the existing
social order of the country’ (Briefs 1932:925).
The Marxist authors did not see in fascism any solution of ‘The Social
Question’, but rather its intensification. The fascist economic order was interpreted
as a version of class-dictatorship which derived from the necessities of capitalism.
The essence of fascism was deduced not so much from its political order but from
its economic order.
There were three different readings of this. Borkenau was of the opinion that
fascism was nothing but the creation of the capitalistic class itself. Heller also
regarded fascist politics as being in the service of the economy, not the other way
round, as fascism did not have ‘the will to strive for a form of planned economy
that would reach further than present-day capitalism’ (Heller 1931b:120). The
fascist order was denied any systematic character: ‘All in all Fascism cannot be
seen as a new form of the state but only as a version of dictatorship that fits
capitalistic society’ (Heller 1931b:133). The thesis of fascist dictatorship was also
advanced by Marck, but he did not interpret it as a servant of the interests of the
bourgeoisie. Fascism, he said, is ‘the most certain symptom of capitalism’s
decline’. The bourgeoisie’s ‘abdication as a politically active class [was] a gesture
of despair in an attempt to avert the imminent proletarian revolution’ (Marck
1928:376). In the Marxist perspective, fascism was never interpreted as a system
on its own but only as a historical first step to a system governed by the proletariat.
FASCISM AS A FOIL FOR THE ANALYSIS OF

NATIONAL SOCIALISM
After 1930 the prospect of fascism through the ‘National-Socialist German
Workers Party’, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP),
became a realistic political alternative to the democratic system of the Weimar
Republic. From the end of 1931 to early 1933 several social scientists appraised
this development. Some of them used Italian fascism as a foil for their evaluation
of National Socialism. Most of these articles, however, were not presented as
scholarly analyses but as political commentaries.
Walter Hagemann, Adolf Grabowsky, and Ferdinand Aloys Hermens each
characterized the Italian model and evaluated the Nazi movement They stated
that Hitler was
only a little man. The little man with a pompous drapery, the little parvenu
who only thinks about the decoration of his Brown House, the little man
who—like his underlings—drives around in his big cars proudly, the little
man who eventually releases his orders which are unconsciously funny.
(Grabowsky 1931a:317)
Hermens stated that while the party-dictatorship of the fascists ‘did succeed in
achieving great aims’, the Nazi leadership lacked ‘the elite quality of Fascism by
far’ (1932:491–92). If National Socialism, as a result of the collapse of
parliamentarism, had to come out of its ‘comfortable opposition-role’, he
predicted, it would be soon done with. ‘At the most it would take months, it
certainly would not be years. The German people would not tolerate such a classe
dirigente for long’ (1932:494).
Other papers were written by Karl August Wittfogel who, in a journal close to
the German Communist Party (Wittfogel 1932a, 1932b), attacked fascism, and
social democracy with it, as the true political opponents because they were the
enemies in the class struggle, and by Willy Hellpach, who within the
conservative-democratic discussion interpreted Nazism as having a tendency
towards an ‘improved democracy’ (Hellpach 1932).
In February of 1933 the last detailed accounts of fascism and National Socialism
by German social scientists immediately after the seizure of power by the Nazis
were published. The Jewish journal Der Morgen devoted a whole edition to the
theme ‘The State’ to which several social scientists contributed. Gottfried
Salomon, in his article on The Total State, analysed the differences between
Russia, Italy, and Germany and the danger of a total state in Germany.
An article by Franz Oppenheimer analysed the evolution of the modern state
and ended with an account of the battle between ‘rationalism’, or socialism, and
capitalism, whose intellectual defenders argued with economics, the fascist and
Soviet doctrine of the ‘absolute state’, and the race theories.
Salomon and Oppenheimer remained on a highly abstract level. Both stated
their opposition not so much to the political organization or movement of fascism
but rather to fascism as the realization of a principle antagonistic to them.
Ernst Michel in his contribution asked how Protestant and Catholic Christians
might be organized together with Jews into a political Volksfront, a united front.
Other concrete analyses of the threat to the political situation by the Nazis were
offered. Margherita Hirschberg-Neumeyer described the essential distinction
between Italian and German fascism as follows: ‘The great danger threatens the
Jews not from the Fascist system as such but from the question which has been
raised by some groups in Germany acting like Fascists whether the Jews should
be taken into the state at all’ (Hirschberg-Neumeyer 1933:473). According to her,
the Italian Jews ‘have been fully integrated with equal rights into the Fascist state’,
and Italian fascism has ‘almost not touched the basis of a society founded on a
humanistic-psychological basis’ (1933:474–75). Hirschberg-Neumeyer did not
give up hope for a similar development in Germany.
This edition of the Jewish journal not only marked the end of the participation
of Jewish scholars in the discussion of the social sciences in the Weimar Republic,
where they had played such an important and crucial role (K sler 1986), it also
was the last edition of the journal itself.
Salomon’s and Oppenheimer’s articles can also be seen as contributions to a
much broader academic and political discussion of the concept of the Staat, a
concept with immense importance in the German tradition and one for which the
word ‘state’ is quite inadequate. This discussion had continued throughout the
Weimar Republic. The texts of Salomon and Oppenheimer reflect the great
abstractness of the social scientific discussion. The style of writing meant that this
literature could not deal with concrete political developments, much less influence
them. Even the Jewish intellectuals threatened by concrete dangers spoke of
political developments principally as a spiritual conflict, and even the most
clear-sighted analysis of Nazi anti-Semitism, provided by Hirschberg-Neumeyer,
concluded with a reference to ‘the idea of the organic’.
Even those participants in the social scientific discussion of fascism who
sympathized with it shared the belief that the Nazis were not qualified to be the
agent of the political reorganization of Germany. It is no surprise that none of
these social scientists produced more elaborate accounts of what they saw as
German imitators of Italian fascism. Their dislike of the NSDAP did not alter their
support of an authoritarian or even totalitarian reorganization of the state. The
themes of their analyses of fascism derived directly from the broad anti-democratic
perspective which dominated political discussion in the Weimar Republic.
It is difficult to assess the political effect of those writings portraying fascism
as a positive model. On the one hand it must be said that these texts remained very
abstract and academic. They were published mainly in books whose readership
consisted first of all of scholars, as can be seen from the number of reciprocal
citations, and secondly of an elite readership of politically aware people. It is
difficult to say how much of this scholarly discussion actually reached the political
elite of the Weimar Republic, much less whether it had any impact. But, it
nevertheless may be said that social scientists held a monopoly with regard to the
theme of fascism, at least on the book market. Their only competitors were
translations from Italian.
The social-scientific discussion of fascism was meant to influence the political
elite. This may be inferred from the fact that many of the articles were published
in journals orientated toward economic elites. In these discussions social scientists
appeared as experts before an audience interested in political questions and as
informants about fascism as a political model. This continued after the ‘victory’
of the Nazi party. In several papers,7 and particularly in a volume dealing with
fascist economy published simultaneously in Italy and Germany in 1934 some of
the authors discussed here, Beckerath, Eschmann, Heinrich, Michels, and
Vōchting, evaluated fascist economic development (Dobbert ed. 1934).
No concrete political suggestions were produced, and this was characteristic of
the social-scientific discussion. Virtually all the authors strove to limit themselves
to a purely scholarly discussion of fascism, and tried to avoid any ‘degeneration’
into political commentary. These attempts were only part of a much broader
concerted effort by social scientists to gain recognition as ‘real scholars’ by
adhering to the ideal of ‘objectivity’. This aim was particularly stressed by those
scholars who defined themselves as ‘social scientists’ in the Weimar Republic, or
were defined as such, and who hoped to gain academic respectability and to find
niches in the highly institutionalized academic system of German universities
(K sler 1983).
THE DISCUSSION OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM

The German social-scientific discussion of Nazism before 1933 must be strictly
separated from the discussion of fascism: it was dominated by a totally different
set of participants and it followed a very different pattern. While the
social-scientific discussion of fascism had primarily appeared in books, Ph.D.
dissertations and articles, the discussion of Nazism was fought out in political
journals more or less directly linked with the German trade unions or the
Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD), the German Social Democratic
Party. The social-scientific discussion of Nazism carried out on these different
platforms had more the character of a political discussion than an academic one.
And it was less of a theoretical discussion and more an empirically grounded
political discussion.8
Only a few articles were published before the great ‘victory’ of the Nazi party
in the general German parliamentary elections in September 1930. The Nazis
increased their share of votes, from 2.6 per cent in May 1928 to 18.3 per cent.
Thus the social-scientific discussion of Nazism had a very short period of time to
develop before early 1933, when the Nazis took power. The literature was small
and the number of participants fewer than in the ten-year-long discussion of
fascism. The main articles are summarized below.
Conservative-democratic critique of the völkisch movement

The first relevant mention of Nazism can be found in a paper by Rudolf Heberle
of 1925, published under the pseudonym of ‘Jarno’, which dealt with the völkisch
movement in Germany, into which he placed the NSDAP. Following the main
lines of what was characterized above as conservative-democratic perspective,
Heberle interpreted the völkisch movement mainly as a matter of mind, as a
Gesinnung. Anticipating the discussion of Nazism proper, he presented the

völkisch political-military associations as totally new political forms, directly
opposed to all forms of Gesellschaft, or society, and conforming more closely to
the pattern of Gemeinschaft, or community. This analysis followed one of the
central themes of early German sociology (Käsler 1984, 1991).9
The electorate of the NSDAP

In the summer of 1930, in the influential SPD journal Die Gesellschaft, Carl
Mierendorff published the first article analysing the electorate of the NSDAP. He
noted the ‘phenomenal rise’ of the NSDAP during the preceding elections at the
level of the Länder, the German states, as well as at local community level.
According to Mierendorff, the Nazi Party possessed a ‘chemically perfect
combination of racist resentment and resentment against their own social position,
of particular economic interests and elementary feelings of hate’ (Mierendorff
1930:494). There were three groups which were particularly ‘predestined for such
aims on the basis of their spiritual and social positions’: the bourgeois middle
classes, the employees, and the farmers. The Nazis also succeeded in politically
mobilizing the youth and the relatively large group of previous non-voters.
Mierendorff undoubtedly recognized the growing success of the NSDAP before
the September elections, enumerated their social causes, and warned against their
political effects. After the September elections a much broader discussion started
in the Social Democratic journals, but no other contribution by a social scientist
appeared in the official party organ Die Gesellschaft.
The structure of the NSDAP and of the political system in

the political-functionalist perspective
Two authors, Adolf Grabowsky and Sigmund Neumann, dealt with Nazism in
political functionalist terms. Each analysed the structure and the development of
the political system of the Weimar Republic and tried to show how Nazism could
result from such a system, and what kind of feed-back effects it might have on the
political system as a whole. Both authors were lecturers at the Hochschule für
Politik, the influential Advanced Institute of Government in Berlin. Grabowsky
contributed several articles to the journal Die Tat and the Zeitschrift für Politik
dealing with changes in the structure of the German political parties and with the
rise of Nazism (Grabowsky 1928b, 1929b, 1930, 1931a, 1931b, 1932). His earlier
analyses of fascism played no significant role in his understanding of Nazism, as
he did not regard fascism as a transferable system. Neumann’s analysis of Nazism
appeared in his book of 1932, The political parties in Germany (Neumann 1986).
Both authors explained the success of the Nazis as a consequence of a general
crisis and the failure of the other parties, as well as of the crucial novelty of the
political form of the NSDAP. Grabowsky described the novelty of the Nazi Party
in terms of its bündisch character. The term can be loosely translated as ‘fraternal’
or ‘associational’. In the eyes of partisans and observers alike this trait

distinguished the NSDAP from the ‘old parties’. It corresponded with ‘the new
asceticism’ that the youth had been striving for, ‘an ideal of an order which is
without any doubt deeply similar to the discipline of both the bolshevist and the
Fascist parties’ (Grabowsky 1929b:455). Neumann stressed the youthful and
military character of the NSDAP and the longing of its membership for strong
leadership. Both authors attributed the rise of these ‘new forms of
political-spiritual representation’ to the development of the old parties (Neumann
1986:96). Grabowsky attacked their internal spoils system and their quest for large
membership regardless of the quality of the members (Grabowsky 1929b).
Neumann identified a ‘moral crisis’ which derived from the tendencies of
bureaucratization, economization, and growing rationalization of politics in
general (Neumann 1986:98).
These old parties which Neumann called ‘democratic integration-parties’ were
confronted with ‘absolutist integration-parties’ of both the left and right. Their
characteristic elements were ‘definite personal leadership, hierarchical structure,
tight organization in a more or less military fashion’, activity of the party members
consisting mainly ‘of obedience and subordination upheld by a great myth and
made visible with the help of elaborate symbolism’ (Neumann 1986:107).
The emergence of these parties influenced the whole of political life. Political
discussions and propaganda were replaced by pure self-presentation, the search
for coalitions became replaced by the quest for absolute domination or by an
attitude of total opposition to the state. Moreover, a transfer of the power factors
had taken place, such as from parliament to other institutions, for example the
Reichspräsident (Neumann 1986:107–109).
With this ‘political-functional’ analysis the authors reached a clear assessment
of the political situation: they each characterized the contrast between the ‘old’
parties and the NSDAP and they both explained the attraction of the Nazi
movement quite convincingly. They were each able to sketch potential reactions
and countermeasures that could have been taken by the ‘middle-parties’ against
the Nazis, such as a stress on ‘national’ motives, a change in political style,
activation of the party membership, and the strengthening of parliament. All these
measures might have proved successful in the long run. But the political events
at the end of 1932 and the beginning of 1933 made them all irrelevant.
The relationship between social democracy and the middle

classes in the journal Die Arbeit
The journal Die Arbeit was the official organ of the Allgemeiner Deutscher
Gewerkschaftsbund, the central association of the social-democratic trade unions
in Weimar Germany. During the three years after the success of the NSDAP in
the elections of September 1930 this journal published a series of articles dealing
with Nazism. Seven of the ten authors were social scientists, five of whom held
positions in universities, the others having Ph.D. degrees in a social science.
Presumably they were employed on a full-time basis by the trade unions. These
articles, which referred to each other, formed a closely interwoven debate about
the historical development of Nazism, its place in the social structure of Germany,
on the relationship between the SPD and the Nazi-followers, the potential further
development of Nazism, and possible counter-strategies.
The theme of the placement of the bourgeois middle classes was dealt with by
Theodor Geiger who identified them as a Zwischenschicht, a ‘stratum in-between’
the antagonistic capital and proletariat classes (Geiger 1930:638). This ‘stratum
in-between’ consisted of the ‘old middle classes’ such as craftsmen, retail traders,
and farmers, and the ‘new middle classes’ like salaried employees, civil servants,
professionals, and skilled labourers. This placement of the middle classes became
the basis for Geiger’s further analyses which he continued in his book of 1932.
His main arguments were questioned only by Eschmann and Tōnnies. Svend
Riemer also spoke of the new middle classes as strata ‘which cannot be placed
clearly class-wise’ (Riemer 1932a:103).
For these authors it was not so much ideology which was of crucial importance
for an understanding of the attraction of the Nazi movement, but rather its character
as a protest movement. As Riemer explained:
This situation has found a clear-cut political expression in the movement of

the National Socialists who seemed to be conjured up in seemingly only a
few years but which is nothing but the political protest of the petit-bourgeois
middle which found itself together under the impression of the experiences
of inflation and the present-day economic crisis.
(Riemer 1932b:266)
The electoral success of the NSDAP in 1930 derived from a ‘panic in the
middle-classes’; the Nazi party had become ‘the party of the humiliated and the
slandered’ (Geiger 1930:649). The ‘psychic motives’ for their continued success
without any doubt and in particular among the masses that have been won
over since 1930 are to be found not so much in the enthusiasm for a new
state and a somehow reformed people but in emotions of anger and
disappointment with the existing state.
(Geiger 1932:118)
Other authors were specifically interested in the question of the social origins of
the voters for the NSDAP. Hans Neisser stated:
The National Socialists attracted between fifteen and twenty percent of the
industrial work force, twenty to twenty-five percent of the agrarian work
force, and the rest from the middle-classes, the salaried employees, the civil
servants, and the pensioners.
(Neisser 1930:659)
According to Walter Dirks, Nazism had become ‘an Utopian action’ of the middle
classes, the employees, university students, intellectuals, and young unemployed,
and he explained its dynamics with the ‘social tensions which put people of these
strata in unrest, in “movement”’ (Dirks 1931:205). Bruno Gleitze interpreted the
NSDAP following as ‘a mixture of bourgeois in despair, proletarians fed up with
the present, and youth hungry for the future’ (Gleitze 1932:310).
Another crucial element in the class-analytical approaches was the effects of
the propaganda of the NSDAP. Geiger argued that the propaganda during the
elections was directed towards the differences within the middle classes
in the framework of the very clever rhetorical mannerisms of arbitrarily

exchangeable slogans that were given out depending upon the different
structures of the electorate in different electoral districts.
(Geiger 1930:649)
Geiger offered some examples, pointing out that the slogan of a ‘powerful state’
was very attractive to the civil service and that the slogan of a ‘national spiritual
elite’ was very attractive for teachers and intellectual youth. The denunciation of
‘the Jews’ and ‘the Bosses’ was very helpful in attracting several very distinct
groups at once. According to Riemer the ‘function of the “Third Reich” does not
rest so much on the programmatic level, it does not demand action, but rather
represents the clear expression, the symbol which the nagging attitude of the
dissatisfied create for themselves’ (Riemer 1932a:112).
The analyses of Nazism in the articles in Die Arbeit not only tried to understand
the Nazi movement but also tried to contribute to the creation of an effective
counter-strategy for the SPD. After their articles on the relationship between the
NSDAP and the middle classes, Geiger and Riemer each followed up with an
article on the relationship between the SPD and the middle classes. Other authors
also tried to advise on strategy.
Geiger stated that the ‘new proletariat’ which had never been as impoverished
as the industrial work-force, had remained unchanged in their nationalism. The
SPD had never responded to this attitude, and thus had driven the ‘new proletariat’
into the arms of Nazism. A second mistake of social democratic propaganda was
the continuous use of the term ‘proletariat’ even for salaried employees, who
interpreted this as a sign of a loss in social standing. The same problem arose with
the formula of ‘pauperization’; instead ‘of an explanation of a tendency of
capitalistic evolutionin the ears of the petite bourgeoisie this became a
programme of the socialism they saw themselves as victims of (Geiger 1931:632–
33). Geiger developed some practical political recommendations from this, after
calling for a ‘theoretical re-working of social reality’ and an ‘improvement of the
basic socialist ideas’. He spoke out against ‘a certain routine in demagogic
influence’, and in particular against the ideological petrification of the social
democratic press (1931:633–34).
Walter Dirks, who wanted to prevent a stronger Nazism from swallowing

Catholicism or influencing it with fascist ideas, recommended a very similar
strategy. There had to be an attempt to succeed in doing for the employees in
particular, but also for the craftsmen, the farmers, and the intellectuals, what the
socialist movement had succeeded first in doing for the workers’ proletariat in the
factories: to analyse their social situation realistically and to define a realistic
political aim based on a self-understanding, and an understanding of the social
environment and from this gain the power for realistic political action (Dirks
1931:208).
Neisser was the first to speak out against this kind of coalition-building strategy.
He instead called for the SPD ‘to concentrate first of all on gaining those industrial
workers who are standing outside’ and on ‘holding tight to the youth’ (Neisser
1930:659). Tönnies allied with Neisser on this point and called for the SPD to
regain ground lost to the Communists. The followers of the NSDAP, which he
regarded in reality as a monarchist party, were first of all agrarian workers and
the urban petty bourgeoisie ‘together with countless young men and women’ who
had voted for this Modepartei, this fashionable party (Tönnies 1931:778). They
could not be won for the SPD.
Riemer called Geiger’s proposition a very problematic thesis: ‘ideological
generosity always means the danger of tumbling into irrationalities, into petit
bourgeois romanticism’ (Riemer 1932b:268). In its idealistic and romanticist
thinking ‘National-Socialism has shown so much of its adequacy to the
middle-classes, this Weltanschauung increased to the level of the masses’ that it
would be totally hopeless to try to compete with it (1932b:268–69). Riemer instead
advised waiting for tendencies of loosening up’ in which the new middle classes
due to an improvement of the economic situation will separate themselves from
the old middle classes and hence from Nazism (1932b:272).
Geiger offered a similarly optimistic prognosis for the future decline of Nazism.
He noted a ‘sharp drop’ in the Nazi following:
When the leaders of the NSDAP are forced to a practical confession against
or for Socialism than we will see that the old middle-classes want old
capitalism with the protection of the individual entrepreneur while the new
proletariat will want socialism. The unified front of aggressive nationalism
one day must necessarily crack due to these different economic interests.
(Geiger 1931:628; also Geiger 1932:135–36)
These authors were very close to the SPD and analysed Nazism within the confines
of Marxism, in terms of its social origins and its internal ideological integration.
They proposed an SPD policy limited to attracting the support of specific social
groups.
As can be seen from these texts their Marxist perspective did lead to a certain
selective blindness with regard to some aspects of Nazism. Those who stayed too
close to their own theory easily lost sight of possibilities of development and
action. In the case of the authors in Die Arbeit, it might have become clear to them
that their accounts of Nazism had definitely underestimated its capacity to
integrate its diverse following.
Another participant in this discussion was Ernst Wilhelm Eschmann, who was
not a Marxist. As we have seen, in his analyses of Italian fascism, Eschmann was
the one who called for a political conception for Germany that would be specific
to her own needs but take into account the fascist experiences. In two articles
published in Die Arbeit (Eschmann 1930c, 193la), he had also depicted the
integration of the Italian worker into Italian society as an exemplary model. In
another paper in 1931 he referred to the discussion of salaried employees and tried
to subsume this social group under his concept as he had done with the workers
before.
The ‘socialist speakers’ used concepts that Eschmann regarded as
not very convincing in two ways: neither will it actually grasp the crisis of
the bourgeoisie, nor find a language which might make it plausible for the
middle-classes to understand their supposedly ‘false position’. Or does one
really believe that slogans like ‘panic in the middle-classes’, ‘revolt of the
employees’, ‘revolution by the proletarian of the white collar workers’ can
convince the bourgeois strata which have entered a state of turbulence to
socialism in its present-day party version?
(Eschmann 1931b:364–65)
The political relevance of the middle classes, Eschmann said, had been grossly
underestimated because of the Marxist ‘concept of a historical sequence of
aristocracy, bourgeoisie, proletariat’ (1931b:368). In Germany for the first time
in history the bourgeois strata have come to a state of political activity, and they
are not the ‘forerunner of the proletariat but at least its contemporary’. ‘The
class-struggle’, Eschmann concluded, ‘has moved more to the right’ (1931b:368).
The proletariat together with the middle classes stood against ‘the stratum of the
owners of the monopolies’ and both strove for ‘the replacement of domination by
this group over the means of production by way of taking them away and putting
them under the control of the whole nation’ (1931b:368). In contrast to the
proletariat, which has ‘by means of their party integrated itself into the state and
has won the National by the Social’, the bourgeois strata started from nation and
state, ‘the Social is based on the National’ (1931b:370).
This concept of a nationally oriented socialism—which made it quite easy for
Eschmann ultimately to find his way to Nazism—was bound to provoke the
opposition of the Marxist authors. Geiger in his article three editions later criticized
Eschmann’s concept of a ‘non-capitalistic bourgeoisie’ because he regarded it as
‘essential to distinguish the middle-classes dependent upon wages from the
petite-capitalistic bourgeoisie, the propertied middle-classes’ (Geiger 1931:624).
The latter was not anti-capitalistic but was only looking for a more social
capitalism and could not be won for socialism. The front of the class struggle
therefore was not moved ‘more to the right’. Only the ‘new proletariat’ could be
attracted. Geiger pointed directly to the main aims behind Eschmann’s theses: ‘He
thinks that the proletariat and the non-monopolistic bourgeoisie have the same
interests, namely the replacement of socialism as the aim of the struggle by some
“social” form for the middle-bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie. We believe
that we have to hold tight to a fundamental socialism’ (Geiger 1931:626; also
Geiger 1932:106).
Three articles in Die Arbeit explicitly dealt with the programme of the NSDAP.
Adam Hüfner reviewed a book by Hans Reupcke on National-Socialism and the
Economy of 1931. He tried to show the swift change of the Nazi economic
programme from an earlier ‘petit bourgeois utopianism’ to an ‘explicit
private-capitalistic ideology of entrepreneurship’ (H fner 1931:190). Jenny Radt
dealt with Nazi concepts of law, in particular the Nazi conceptions of the state, of
the identity of state and people, and of citizenship connected to the principle of
Blutsgemeinschaft, community of the blood, and the inferior position of women.
In her treatment of the Italian model, Judith Grünfeld, using quotations from the
Nazi women’s movement showed that fascism in general is ‘directed against
women workers and women civil servants and in particular against all higher
professional occupations by women’ (Grünfeld 1932:428). Fascism meant a
return to brutal male domination combined with the traditional locking of

women into the worst and most stressful jobs. Therefore the trade unions
will have to fight for women workers because of their poor professional
situation and their justified desire for a more meaningful existence,
otherwise they might become victimized by the mendacious Fascist promise
to save women from the stresses of their jobs.
(Grünfeld 1932:435)
While the second of these two articles pointed to threats connected with the rise
of Nazism, the first had tried to discredit it with an analysis of its programme like
the papers dealt with above. This type of discussion stood in clear contrast to those
Marxist interpretations which insisted that the published programmes of the
NSDAP were irrelevant to an understanding of the character of the movement.
The Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus

Another social-scientific discussion of Nazism was published as of August 1930
in a second important social-democratic journal, Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus,
which was the organ of ‘Religious Socialism’ or ‘Young Socialism’ within the
SPD (Auernheimer 1985:119–21). Two of its editors, Eduard Heimann and Paul
Tillich, were social scientists who were also ‘religious socialists’. Heimann taught
economics and social sciences at the University of Hamburg; Tillich became the
successor to Max Scheler’s chair of philosophy and sociology at the University

of Frankfurt during 1929–1933, until he was forced into exile by the Nazis.
The articles in the Neue Blätter did not constitute as coherent a discussion as
was found in Die Arbeit. Nazism was discussed from various aspects, but the main
questions were similar—the social origins of the Nazi movement and the failures
of SPD politics. The authors in Neue Blätter shared a Marxist analytic framework,
and their disagreements were within this framework. The main theme of articles
by Walter Mannzen, Eduard Heimann, and Günter Keiser was the social
background of the Nazis and their ideology. According to Mannzen, Nazism had
attracted ‘the whole of the petite bourgeoisie, in particular the “self-employed”
craftsmen, not only a few workers, the farmers and the jeunesse dorée of the
universities coming from the more petit-bourgeois strata’. Behind all these groups
stood the dominating great landowners (Mannzen 1930:372). For Heimann,
Nazism was ‘the revolt of the middle-bourgeoisie and the petite-bourgeoisie’
(Heimann 1931:270). Keiser considered ‘the agrarian-bourgeois middle-strata’ to
be the nucleus of the Nazi movement (Keiser 1931:270).
All of them saw Nazism not as anti-capitalistic ‘but as a-capitalistic and by that
reactionary in the essential meaning’ (Keiser 1931:271). Nazism tried to revive
the feudal system, to stop capitalistic rationalization, and recreate ‘balance’
between big and small businesses, between industry and the agrarian sector.
According to Mannzen and Keiser, the Nazi alliance with the bourgeoisie against
the proletariat derived from these intentions. Heimann concluded that not only the
proletariat but the whole of the German people would be threatened if the Nazis
realized their economic aims.
This warning from Heimann was published in a special issue of the Neue Blätter
in April 1931 on Nazism. Mierendorff, Heller, and Tillich contributed discussions
of the political position of Nazism and the failures of social-democratic politics
which had aided the development of Nazism and therefore had to be corrected.
Mierendorff regarded Nazism as ‘a social movement’ of farmers, the middle
classes, and employees, and at the same time as ‘a movement for freedom’—
because of its combination of nationalism directed to the outside and of
anti-parliamentarism on the inside, and also ‘a youth-movement’ (Mierendorff
1931:149). It was an ‘amalgamation of a social and a nationalistic protest
movement into an antidemocratic, antiparliamentarian spearhead’ (Mierendorff
1931:153).
Heller, who had participated in the social-scientific discussion of fascism, also
commented on Nazism. In his contribution to the Neue Blätter he pointed to ‘the
lack of consciousness of national responsibility of the strata which had ruled the
Wilhelminian state’, and contrasted this with ‘the national consciousness of the
social democratic leader’ Ebert (Heller 193la:154–55). Current social democratic
politics lacked ‘a programmatic affirmation of state and nation’ and together with
the economic crises this lack had aided nationalistic agitation (Heller 1931a:155).
The SPD, he concluded, would have to define their future politics much more in
national terms. Tillich found a way to deal with Nazism at the very end of a long
philosophical article on the problem of domination. According to him Nazism

‘overlooks the most significant feature of domination: that domination without
broad acceptance and without demands that derive from this acceptance is not
domination but highway robbery and rape’ (Tillich 1931:170).
Two other social scientists, Fritz Borinski and Alfred Meusel, contributed to
the discussion of Nazism in the Neue Blätter. Borinski analysed the nationalism
of the bourgeois youth in his contributions. In his first article he depicted the ‘turn
of the young bourgeoisie’ to anti-capitalist sentiments and called for them to take
the next turn, to socialism (Borinski 1931:104). In his second article he
distinguished between a ‘false’ nationalism, exemplified in Nazism, and a
‘genuine’ nationalism (Borinski 1932:533). Even in 1933 Borinski continued to
make this contrast: ‘Nationalism as the passionate will of a people for their
freedom, for their life, for their task shapes history as did the will for freedom and
the will for life, as well as the missionary belief of the proletariat’ (Borinski
1933:61–62).
Meusel analysed the relationship between the parties from an orthodox Marxist
position through the case of a former lieutenant, Scheringer, who had switched
from the NSDAP to the German Communist Party, the KPD. Under existing
foreign circumstances, ‘a genuine national impulse could only come from the
workers’ (Meusel 1931:285). This was because a socialist government alone could
make a treaty with Russia, which the allies who made the Versailles treaty could
not do, and thus initiate a policy of liberation. Therefore ‘the abandonment of
socialism today necessarily means betrayal of the future of the nation. The path
from a serious nationalism to a serious socialism is the product of a logically
consistent evolutionary process’ (Meusel 1931:286). This expectation was based
dialectically on the Marxist model of evolution, and was obviously not shared by
the editors of Neue Blätter, as they pointed out in two footnotes. A certain political
blindness was represented here by Meusel, who could not free himself from
preconceived Marxist ideas of historical development.
Social-psychological discussion of National Socialism

Hendrik de Man (1931a, 1931b), leftist author of The Social Psychology of
Socialism, explained middle-class sympathy for Nazism as an ‘ideological
symbol’ of defence against the threatened ‘proletarization’ of these strata
(1931a:22). Nationalism was interpreted by him as a ‘compensatory idea’ by
which these threatened strata had tried to achieve a new self-appreciation and
recapture a ‘We-feeling’ (1931a:25). In these early writings, de Man
recommended ‘a genuine radicalization’ of the socialist critique as a strategy
against Nazism, together with the development of more ‘leadership’ within the
socialist movement and the presentation of Utopian ideas as the basis for action.
De Man systematized a psychological approach to Nazism which the other Marxist
writers assumed implicitly, and concluded with similar recommendations about
satisfying the emotional and psychological needs of Nazi followers.
National Socialism as a weapon of the bourgeoisie: the

anti-reformist position
Almost all the social scientists who contributed to the discussion of Nazism were
reformist Social Democrats who accepted the concept of reform of the capitalist
system from within, by gaining the majority in parliamentary democracy. For them
an understanding of the democratic system and the question of how different
groups within the electorate could be reached were crucial. This was also the case
with the discussion of Nazism in Die Arbeit and in the Neue Blätter, the Nazi
movement was interpreted as an electoral opponent and the discussion focused on
strategies to attract voters.
Fritz Sternberg stood outside this discussion. For him Nazism was the
instrument of the ruling classes, and not a social movement with a ‘false’ ideology.
According to Sternberg the proletarized middle classes formed the mass basis of
Nazism. The question to be asked was ‘why was it successful in preventing these
strata from revolting against monopolistic capital?’ (Sternberg 1932:345).
Sternberg attributed this to the location of the middle classes in the production
process, where the small farmers and the retailers, who held ‘positions of small
anarchical manufacturers’, turned against mortgage banks or the department stores
instead of fighting against monopolistic capital. By means of wage robbery from
the urban masses this capital caused the prices for agrarian products to drop. The
rationalization of the retail system changed the situation for the worse. In the case
of the salaried employees, what brought them to the Nazis was their ständisch
ideology and their hope for the improvement of their social position relative to
the workers.
Sternberg asked what could be done about these developments. He criticized
both workers’ parties: ‘Growing masses are disappointed by the reformism of the
SPD. They start to realize that the fight against Fascism has to be a fight against
pauperization, against wage-robbery, against the destruction of social policy,
against the destruction of all the rights of the workers’ (Sternberg 1932:390).
Because of its ‘ultra leftist tactics’ the KPD had split workers’ mass organizations
and divided workers in the factories and therefore ‘was unqualified for the
leadership in these struggles’ (Sternberg 1932:390).
Sternberg represented those on the left who had been excluded from the SPD
or the KPD and had founded two schismatic splinter groups, the Sozialistische
Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (SAPD) and the Opposition in der Kommunistischen
Partei (KPDO), both of which advocated a united workers’ front: ‘It has become
essential to organize an extra-parliamentary struggle, and therefore a united bloc
of the workers is needed’ (1932:395). Only then when the fight for just wages had
begun could a common bloc of workers be created and the proletarized middle
classes be attracted to it When this bloc was established it should be possible to
show the masses ‘with direct reference to their situation and without making
concessions either to the emotional or to the nationalistic currents of these strata
that the fascist solutions are only superficial slogans’ (1932:398).
In contrast to the other Marxist writers, Sternberg did not believe in an inevitable
historical development. He hinted at the possibility ‘that a capitalistic way out of
this crisis may be organized’. ‘If it comes in Germany,’ he said, ‘it will come in
a Fascist version and it will increase the imperialistic danger of war in world
capitalism, if not lead directly to war’ (1932:399). Germany therefore appeared
to him to be currently at the centre of world history, for it will be there ‘where the
decision will be made whether the counter-revolution, Fascism, or barbarity
makes a decisive step forward, or the chain is broken by revolution’ (1932:400).
Social science as policy guidance

The social-scientific discussion of Nazism was dominated by members of the SPD
or scholars who offered guidance to the social democrats. No other serious
academic perspective on Nazism developed within sociology. As the quotation
from Elias at the beginning of this chapter suggests, mainstream sociology was
silent about Nazism (Käsler 1984:507–27). The members of the Frankfurt School,
who in any case defined themselves as ‘outsiders’ to academic sociology, did not
discuss Nazism in anything published before 1933. Their theoretical-philosophical
orientation left little room for concrete empirical research on this subject. Erich
Fromm, who wanted to undertake empirical research on workers and employees,
met substantial opposition within the Institute, and his results were not published
until 1980 (cf. the Introduction to Fromm 1983). Only after their exile to the United
States did the members of this school seriously analyse these questions (Wilson
1982; Brandt 1983).
The social-democratic authors were looking for strategies for a political struggle
against the Nazi movement. In contrast to the discussion on Italian fascism, which
was, as we have shown, an academic discussion about a model of society and was
only indirectly political, the discussion on Nazism was directly political.
The attempt to influence the practical politics of the SPD through
social-scientific analysis failed. The SPD failed to react in any visible way to the
proposals given in Die Arbeit and the Neue Blätter. The SPD and the KPD did not
react to Sternberg’s proposals either. Thus, although a substantial group of social
scientists regarded Nazism as worthy of social-scientific analysis and published
their results in relevant publications, no detectable change in the political field
took place. The political developments overtook them all.
NOTES
1 We are grateful to Professor Harvey Marshall (Purdue University) who helped us

polish our clumsy Germanic English. For further information about the authors
discussed in the following, see the list on pp. 124–126.
2 Norbert Elias, Letter to Sven Papcke of November 15, 1982. In: Sven Papcke,
‘Weltferne Wissenschaft. Die deutsche Soziologie der Zwischenkriegszeit vor dem
Problem des Faschismus/Nationalsozialismus’. In Sven Papcke (ed.) Ordnung und
Theorie. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Soziologie in Deutschland. Darmstadt:

Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1986, p. 188 FN 89.
3 Many other social scientists dealt with fascism during the years 1926 to 1933. Of
particular interest are the following: Steinberg (Steinberg 1926); Kogon (Kogon
1927); Vöchting, a disciple of Michels (Vōchting 1927, 1931b); Schmid, who wrote
the first Ph.D. dissertation on fascist economics (Schmid 1927); the collection edited
by Landauer and Honnegger (Landauer/Honnegger eds 1928); Grabowsky
(Grabowsky 1928a); Hirschberg-Neumeyer (Hirschberg-Neumeyer 1928); Marck,
in the journal of the left wing within the Social Democratic Party (Marck 1928); the
influential conservative lawyer, later to become a Nazi, Carl Schmitt (Schmitt 1929);
Strele (Strele 1929); the social-democratic lawyer and author of a sociologically
orientated book, Heller (Heller 1929, 1930, 1931b); the author of a Ph.D. dissertation
on state economy, Lachmann (Lachmann 1930); the dictionary article by Albrecht
(Albrecht 1931); the second book by Bernhard (Bernhard 1931); the author of
another Ph.D. dissertation on public administration by Strachwitz (Strachwitz 1932);
Briefs (Briefs 1932); the former theoretician of the Communist Party, Borkenau
(Borkenau 1932); and three articles on the fascist economic order in the special
Festschrift issue of Schmollers Jahrbuch for Werner Sombart by Eckert (Eckert
1932), Singer (Singer 1932), and Beckerath (Beckerath 1932).
4 Carl Schmitt’s article of 1929 cannot properly be seen as a review of Beckerath’s
book as it concentrated much more on Schmitt’s own interpretation of fascism.
5 Dieter Haselbach in his recent analysis of the very influential economic theories and
concepts of the so-called ‘Ordo-liberals’, such as Franz Bōhm, Alfred
Müller-Armack, Wilhelm Rōpke and Alexander R stow, has shown the great impact
Beckerath’s analyses of Italian fascism had for this group of economic thinkers. Cf.
Haselbach 1991:49–54, 59–60, 249.
6 In an appreciative manner Bernhard (1926), Bourgin (1932), Eckert (1931), Heberle
(1925–26), Tatarin-Tarnheyden (1926), Vōchting (1931a). In a critical manner
Anton (1926), Olberg (1925), Wichterich (1932).
7 Eschmann (1933b, 1934a, 1934b), Hermens (1933a, 1933b), Mannhardt (1933),
Mehlis (1933, 1934), Michels (1934), Beckerath (1934, 1943). Beckerath’s article
of 1933 ‘Amerikanischer Fascismus?’ was an analysis of Roosevelt’s economic
policy which, as he stated, tried to gain political control over the economy, even
more so than fascism and Nazism.
8 There were few social scientific publications on Nazism apart from these discussions.
They followed the same academic pattern as the discussion on fascism. They
included three papers by Landauer (1930, 1931a, 1931b), one book by Wiener
(1931), the sole Ph.D. thesis on Nazism, by Scheunemann (1931), and the sole
dictionary entry dealing with the NSDAP by jessen (1933). All these authors tried
to write in an academic manner and to show the insufficiency of the economic
programme of the NSDAP. Jessen was the only uncritical commentator: he even
cited passages from Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
9 Heberle later did empirical research on the election patterns and the success of the
Nazis in the German Land of Schleswig-Holstein, but he could not publish these
results before his exile to the USA (Heberle 1945). They will not be dealt with here,
as they could not play any significant part in the German discussion.
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Die Gesellschaft, 7, I:489–504.
——(1931) ‘Was ist der Nationalsozialismus’, Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus, 2,
4:149–154.
Neisser, H. (1930) ‘Sozialstatistische Analyse des Wahlergebnisses’, Die Arbeit, 7,
10:654–659.
Neumann, S. (1986) Die deutschen Parteien, 5th edn., Berlin (1st edn. Berlin 1932).
Olberg, O. (1925) Review of Michels 1925, Die Gesellschaft, 2, I:588–589.
Oppenheimer, F. (1933) ‘Staat und Nationalismus’, Der Morgen, 8, 6:438–444.
R., P. [Peter Rhoden] (1928) Review of Mehlis 1928, Berichte der Deutschen
Hochschule für Politik, 6, 4:88.
Radt, J. (1931) ‘Das ōffentliche Recht im “Dritten Reich”’, Die Arbeit, 8, 3:195–200.
Reupcke, H. (1931) Der Nationalsozialismus und die Wirtschaft, Berlin.
Riemer, S. (1932a) ‘Zur Soziologie des Nationalsozialismus’, Die Arbeit, 9, 2:101–118.
——(1932b) ‘Mittelstand und sozialistische Politik’, Die Arbeit, 9, 5:265–272.
Rosenstock, E. (1923) ‘Das Wesen des Fascismus’, Hochland, 20, 9:225–233.
Salomon, G. (1933) ‘Der Totale Staat’, Der Morgen, 8, 6:422–432.
Scheunemann, W. (1931) Der Nationalsozialismus, Ph.D. Dissertation, Berlin.
Schmid, E. (1927) Die Arbeitgeberorganisationen in Italien, Ph.D. Dissertation, Z rich.
Schmitt, C. (1929) Review of Beckerath 1927, Schmollers Jahrbuch, 53, 1:1907–113.

Schotthōfer, F. (1929) Review of Beckerath 1927, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und
Sozialpolitik, 61:419–422.
Singer, K. (1932) ‘Die geistesgeschichtliche Bedeutung des italienischen Faschismus’,
Schmollers Jahrbuch, 56, 6:363–381.
Steinberg, W. (1926) ‘Die Auswirkung des Faschismus auf die soziale Struktur Italiens’,
Wirtschaftliche Nachrichten für Rhein und Ruhr, 7, 6:157–159.
Sternberg, F. (1932) Der Niedergang des deutschen Kapitalismus, Berlin.
Strachwitz, M.L. Countess of (1932) Faschistische Sozialpolitik, Ph.D. Dissertation,
Freiburg.
Strele, K. (1929) Parlament und Regierung im faschistischen Italien, Innsbruck.
T., K. (1927) Review of Beckerath 1927, Berichte der Deutschen Hochschule für Politik,
5, 4:49–50.
Tatarin-Tarnheyden, E. (1926) Review of Michels 1925, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft
und Sozialpolitik, 55:822–826.
Thalheim, C.Chr. (1932) ‘Die Zukunft des Nationalsozialismus’, Die Hilfe, 38:24.
Tillich, P. (1931) ‘Das Problem der Macht’, Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus, 2, 4:157–
170.
Tönnies, F. (1931) ‘Parteipolitische Prognosen’, Die Arbeit, 8, 10:774–785.
Vochting, F. (1927) Die Romagna, Karlsruhe.
——(1931a) ‘Italien von heute’ (Review of Michels 1930), Schmollers Jahrbuch, 55,
2:109–120.
——(1931b) ‘Die “Carta del Lavoro”’, Die Tat, 22, 12:997–1008.
Weber, A. (1925) Die Krise des modernen Staatsgedankens in Europa, Berlin/Leipzig.
Wichterich, R. (1932) Review of Michels 1930, Zeitschrift für Politik, 21:353–356.
Wiener, M. (1931) Vom nationahozialistischen Wirtschaftsprogramm, Berlin.
Wieser, F. (1925) ‘Die modernen Diktaturen’, Archiv für Rechts-und
Wtrtschaftsphilosophie, 18.
Wilson, M. (1982) Das Institut für Sozialforschung und seine Faschismusanalysen,
Frankfurt/New York.
Wittfogel, K.A. (1932a) ‘Die Demagogic der Frühprogramme des Faschismus’, Der
rote Aufbau, 5, 16:730–741.
——(1932b) ‘Der Mystizismus des Faschismus’, Der rote Aufbau, 5, 21:977–985.
LIST OF THE SOCIAL-SCIENTIFIC AUTHORS

PARTICIPATING IN THE DISCUSSION OF FASCISM
AND NATIONAL SOCIALISM
Albrecht, Gerhard (b.1889), Professor of Economics and Social Sciences, University of
Jena
Andreae, Wilhelm (b.1888), Professor of Finance, University of Graz (Austria)
Beckerath, Erwin von (b.1889), Professor of Economics and Government, University
of Cologne
Bernhard, Ludwig (b.1875), Professor of Economics, University of Berlin
Bonn, Moritz Julius (b.1873), Professor of Political Science, Business School of Berlin
Borinski, Fritz (b.1903), University Assistant, University of Leipzig
Borkenau, Franz (b.1900), Full-time employee of the German Communist Party (KPD)
until 1929
Briefs, Goetz (b.1889), Professor of Social Policy and Sociology, Technical University
of Berlin
Dirks, Walter (b.1900), Catholic writer
Eckardt, Hans von (b.1890), Professor of Public Administration, University of
Heidelberg
Eckert, Christian (b.1874), Professor of Economics and Government, University of
Cologne
Eschmann, Ernst Wilhelm (b.1904), University Assistant to Alfred Weber, University
of Heidelberg; Editor of the journal Die Tat
Geiger, Theodor (b.1891), Professor of Sociology, Technical University of
Braunschweig
Gleitze, Bruno (no information available)
Grabowsky, Adolf (b.1880), Dozent, Technical University of Berlin and Institute for
Advanced Study of Government in Berlin
Grünfeld, Judith (b.1888), Ph.D. Dissertation in Public Administration, University of
Tübingen (1913)
Hagemann, Walter (b.?), Ph.D. Dissertation in Philosophy, University of Berlin (1922)
Heberle, Rudolf (b.1896), Privatdozent in Sociology, University of Kiel
Heimann, Eduard (b.1889), Professor of Economics and Social Sciences, University of
Hamburg
Heinrich, Walter (b.1902), Privatdozent in Economics and Sociology
Heller, Hermann (b.1891), Professor of Law, University of Frankfurt
Hellpach, Willy (b.1871), Professor of Psychology, University of Heidelberg
Hermens, Ferdinand Aloys (b.1906), University Assistant, Technical University of
Berlin
Hirschberg-Neumeyer, Margherita (no information available)
Hüfner, Adam (b.?), Ph.D. Dissertation in Public Administration, University of
Heidelberg (1930)
Jessen, Jens (b.1896), Privatdozent of Economics, University of Göttingen
Keiser, G nter (b.?), Ph.D. Dissertation in Philosophy, University of Jena (1931)
Kogon, Eugen (b.1903), Editor of Catholic weeklies
Lachmann, Ludwig (b.?), Ph.D. Dissertation in Public Administration, University of
Berlin
Landauer, Carl (b.1891), Professor of Economics, Business School of Berlin.
Man, Hendrik de (b.1885), Lecturer of Social Psychology, University of Frankfurt
Mannhardt, Johann Wilhelm (b.1883), Professor of Comparative Government and of
the German groups in foreign countries and in the border areas (Grenz- und
Auslandsdeutschtum), University of Marburg
Mannzen, Walter (b.?), Ph.D. Dissertation in Public Administration, University of Kiel
(1934)
March, Siegfried (b.1889), Professor of Philosophy, University of Breslau
Marschak, Jakob (b.1898), Professor of Economics, University of Heidelberg
Mehlis, Georg (b.1878), Professor of Philosophy, University of Chiavari (Italy)
Meusel, Alfred (b.1896), Professor of Economics and Sociology, University of Aachen
Michel, Ernst (b.1889), Director of the Akademie der Arbeit, Frankfurt
Michels, Robert(o) (b.1876), Professor of Sociology, University of Perugia (Italy)
Mierendorff, Carl (b.1897), Ph.D. Dissertation in Philosophy, University of Heidelberg

(1923), journalist, SPD politician
Neisser, Hans (b.1895), Privatdozent of Public Adminstration, University of Kiel
Neumann, Sigmund (b.1904), Professor of Political Science, Institute for Advanced
Study of Government in Berlin
Oppenheimer, Franz (b.1864), Professor of Sociology, University of Frankfurt
Radt, Jenny (no information available)
Riemer, Svend (b.1905), University Assistant, University of Kiel
Rosenstock, Eugen (b.1888), Professor of German Law and Sociology, University of
Breslau
Salomon, Gottfried (b.1896), Professor of Sociology, University of Frankfurt
Scheunemann, Walther (b.?), Ph.D. Dissertation in Philosophy, University of Berlin
(1931)
Schmid, Emil (b.?), Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Zürich (1927)
Schmitt, Carl (b.1888), Professor of Law, Higher Business School of Berlin
Singer, Kurt (b.1886), Professor of Social Sciences, University of Hamburg
Steinberg, Wilhelm (b.1893), Professor of Philosophy and Social Sciences, University
of Breslau
Sternberg, Fritz (b.1895), 1919–1923 University Assistant to Franz Oppenheimer,
University of Frankfurt; freelance journalist
Strachwitz, Maria Luise Gräfin von (b.?), Ph.D. Dissertation in Social Sciences,
University of Freiburg
Strele, Kurt (no information available)
Thalheim, Karl-Christian (b.1900), Privatdozent of Economics, Business School of
Leipzig
Tillich, Paul (b.1886), Professor of Philosophy and Sociology, University of Frankfurt
Tönnies, Ferdinand (b.1855), Professor of Sociology, University of Kiel
Vöchting, Friedrich (b.1888), Privatdozent of Economics and Agrarian Sciences,
University of Basel (Switzerland)
Weber, Alfred (b.1868), Professor of Economics and Sociology, University of
Heidelberg
Wiener, Margarete (no information available)
Wieser, Friedrich (b.1851), Professor of Economics, University of Vienna (Austria)
Wittfogel, Karl August (b.1896), Member of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt
124
5
SOCIAL-SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS—NO
IDEOLOGUES
Sociology and social research in the Third Reich
Carsten Klingemann
The Nazi regime is usually seen as a totalitarian Führerstaat in which decisions

were made exclusively in accordance with proclaimed ideology. But in reality the
National Socialist state was an ‘authoritarian polycracy’ composed of many
competing power sections with overlapping responsibilities. The mechanisms by
which programmes were executed were not fully routinized, so the precise
character of the authority of its various agencies was unclear. In the research
domain, however, the mechanisms were those familiar to academics today:
consulting fees, subsidies for research and publication, political influence over
academic appointments, and the like. Many specifically Nazi state programmes
required experts: lawyers, physicians, race theorists or eugenists, and social
scientists also contributed to their development. Nor was this the case only for
programmes motivated by specifically Nazi ideas. In general, governmental tasks
became more and more complex, as a result of the Nazi policy of state intervention.
Preparations for war, the war economy, and the administration of captured
territories all contributed to the demand for experts.
Because the regime had eliminated oppositional parties, free media, trade
unions, other associations, interest groups and social movements, it was compelled
to develop alternative sources of information and advice beyond the domain of
public discussion. The Nazi party’s own Weltanschauung could not replace expert
knowledge. The processing of decision-relevant information (political
consultation, planning, prognosis) was thus taken over by experts, many of whom
promptly offered their services after the seizure of power. Sociologists were
among these experts. The sociologists who contributed were not typically engaged
in attempts to realize the backward-looking and romantic aims of National
Socialist ideology but rather with what amounted to the rationalization and
modernization of social conditions. The policy of rearmament, war and expansion
in particular depended on modernization, and the requirements of policy were
often inconsistent with declared ideological dogma. Especially when the policies
served to establish Germany as a world power, the technocrats of the National
Socialist regime were able to establish many policies in spite of ideological
resistance.
The application of social-scientific knowledge and statistics was very
successful. A comprehensive system of informational registration of the
population, the aim of which was to facilitate the imprisonment or ‘elimination’

of ‘social undesirable’ groups, and the ‘final solution of the social question’ in the
course of building a ‘new society’, was constructed. These ‘applied’ tasks
influenced the development of sociology. Sociology ‘modernized’ by becoming
more intensely concerned with empirical social research. This development, in
short, was not a product of the so-called ‘Americanization’ of sociology in the
Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), as some historical accounts have suggested
(Kern 1982). Rather, the early ‘empiricists’ of postwar sociology learned their
trade before 1945, in connection with the social-scientific rationalization of
National Socialist administration. The Holocaust was an element of a massive
effort at planned social change and the transformation of the social structure which
included the ‘final solution of the Jewish question’ (Aly and Roth 1984; Heim and
Aly 1991). Sociologists were deeply involved in the implementation of the larger
program.
The designation ‘sociologist’ is not unproblematic in the case of these people,
and this raises a broader historiographic question. Traditionally, studies of
sociology under National Socialism have restricted enquiry to such topics as ways
in which the theoretical direction of academic sociology changed, or the areas of
sociology that ceased to be studied as a result of the expulsion and persecution
after 1933 of Jews and ‘political undesirables’. These facts were used to support
the contention that sociology was brutally brought to a total standstill in 1933 (R.
König), or that only a ‘national’ (völkische) and pseudo- or anti-sociology
continued to exist, and this contention in turn supported the idealization of
sociology as an ‘oppositional science’ necessarily associated with enlightenment
and emancipation. This chapter proceeds from the question of whether the success
of sociology in complex societies might be the product of its functions of securing
and perpetuating the status quo, whether a totalitarian regime based on a dynamic
capitalist society would not inevitably have been forced to develop certain forms
of social research and expertise.
In the case of the National Socialist regime, this question reduces to a specific
research problem: what were the reasons for the employment of professional
sociologists and social researchers outside the university setting, and what effects
did this have on university sociology and on other forms of institutionalized social
research? It will be concluded that the National Socialist regime was a particular
variant of modern social technocracy. The ‘normal’ aspects of social technocracy
made the crimes possible; the Weltanschauung enabled them to become
monstrosities. The participation of sociologists was one of the normal elements.
Social scientists were numerous in the staffs and advisory boards of the National
Socialist administration and, above all, played a role in new organizations, specific
to the Nazi state. The careers of these people will provide the primary material for
this study.
This material points to another aspect of the question of ‘discontinuity’.
According to legend, German sociology began anew in the Federal Republic in
1945. But at least eighty sociologists in the FRG were active in their field before
SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE THIRD REICH 127
1945. And at least thirty more scientists identified in the International

Encyclopedia of Sociologists (Bernsdorf and Knospe 1980 and 1984) as
sociologists worked in neighbouring disciplines after 1945. Not only was there
continuity in personnel. Several social research institutions founded during the
Nazi period became very successful after 1945, such as the Sociographical
Institute at the University of Frankfurt, the Organization for Consumer Studies in
Nuremberg, the Workgroup for Area Studies in Berlin, later called the Center for
Area Studies and Regional Planning and located in Hanover, and the Research
Group on Rural Populations in Gelsenkirchen which later became part of the
well-known Social Research Center at the University of Munster in Dortmund.
Social-scientific experts who had worked in fields like area studies,
demography, or Eastern European studies before 1945 dominated these fields in
the new FRG. Former members of the political economic class IV of the Academy
for German Law, founded by the Governor General of occupied Poland, Hans
Frank, became leading members of the advisory boards that designed the economic
and social policy of Welfare Capitalism. In short the social-scientific infrastructure
composed of scientists, their institutions, and contacts with the
political-administrative apparatus that had been constructed during the Third
Reich continued to develop after 1945. This of course is not how the story has
usually been told: the social and political influence of certain famous social
scientists, such as those of the Frankfurt School, has been taken as emblematic or
representative, and their importance has been overestimated relative to these
‘practitioners’ who began their successful careers under National Socialism. In
the first decades after the Second World War, it was not the critical tradition of
the social sciences, with its slow and sparse development, but the activism of the
quantitative sociologists with professional experiences gained in the Third Reich
that dominated sociology, sometimes with the help of the former exiles. The social
racist Karl Valentin M ller, for example, received public financing for his Institute
for Empirical Sociology in the beginning of the 1950s, helped by a scientific and
political clean bill of health (Persilschein) given by Max Horkheimer himself.
THE EMIGRATION OF GERMAN SOCIOLOGISTS

AND ‘REICHSSOZIOLOGIE’
The exile of many German sociologists can only cursorily be dealt with here,
though it is central to the myth of the disappearance of sociology under National
Socialism. After the Nazi seizure of power, laws were enacted and administrative
measures taken to dismiss Jewish as well as politically undesirable civil servants.
These actions affected Jewish sociologists and the few sociologists who fell into
the category of political undesirables.1
The Frankfurt School has been widely used to reinforce the argument that only
the best in the tradition of German sociology was expelled. But the members of
this school did not regard themselves as ‘sociologists’, and, on the contrary,
campaigned against the idea of a purely ‘disciplinary’ sociology. Their relation to
sociology has varied with the rhetorical purposes of commentators. In the postwar
years René König expressly excluded them from the community of sociologists,
treating them as tendentious and speculative philosophers of society.2 As late as
1960, König also attacked Karl Mannheim and Siegfried Landshut (emigrants,
like himself), considering them to be among the social-scientific gravediggers of
the Weimar Republic. Twenty years later, he exalted them as the men on whom
Weimar sociology had pinned its hopes and who in their capacity as sociologists
had been removed by the Nazis (Klingemann 1985:369–371). This is grossly
misleading. Sociologists were not driven away because they were part of a
discipline detested by the Nazis.3 The phrase ‘Jewish sociology’, it may be noted,
was applied less by National Socialist officials than by the ambitious anti-Semites
of the discipline itself, such as Richard Thurnwald.
ACADEMIC SOCIOLOGY AFTER 1933: A SHORT

SUMMARY
Marxist sociology and other ‘critical’ approaches disappeared from
German-academic sociology after 1933 as a consequence of the expulsion of
sociologists who were Jewish or ‘political undesirables’. A broad spectrum of
sociological themes and areas of research nevertheless remained. In addition to
the established centres of academic sociology in Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg,
Heidelberg, Cologne, and Leipzig, sociologists continued to teach at more than a
dozen other universities within German-dominated territory, including such places
as Prague, Strasbourg, and Vienna. Among these academic sociologists were some
who were primarily concerned with traditional themes, including quite esoteric
ones, and others who produced nothing more than quasi-sociological
Weltanschauung pamphlets or programmatic (and verbally radical) formulations
of ‘Community of the People’ sociology (Rammstedt 1986).
Traditional scholarly sociology thus did indeed decline. But the spectrum of
empirical social research concerned directly with social policy problems became
increasingly broad and well-developed, especially in the areas of rural sociology,
urban sociology, demography, sociology of the economy and industry, and
political sociology (Schuster and Schuster 1984). Academic sociology based in
the universities after 1933 thus was renovated through processes of
extra-university professionalization and by an orientation towards ‘useful’
empirical social research geared towards themes that became relevant for the
policies of the Nazi regime. All of this was quite unknown to traditional German
academic scholarship.
The first chair in Volkstumssoziologie was established at the University of Jena
in 1933. In early 1940, Karl Seiler ascended to a newly established chair in
sociology at the Academy of the Social Sciences in Nuremberg—after he had done
research projects in rural sociology financed by the Workgroup for Area Studies,
an agency to be discussed at length in this chapter. Even in Frankfurt, from which
the members of the famous Institute for Social Research as well as Karl Mannheim
and other Jewish sociologists had been expelled, there were new beginnings: the
Frankfurt sociologist Professor Heinz Marr organized a Working Group for Social
Science which developed a programme geared to providing social scientific advice
and service to firms, administrative agencies and Nazi institutions in the Frankfurt
region. Although the Working Group for Social Science only partially realized its
aims, it supported some academic theses and dissertations (Klingemann 1990b).
The Sociographical Institute of the University of Frankfurt, however, became very
successful (Klingemann 1989, 1991).
The Sociology Department at the University of Cologne, under Leopold von
Wiese, in addition to continuing its traditional version of sociology, also began to
perform empirical social research oriented to ‘practice’. Willy Gierlichs, the
second professor of sociology in Cologne and a Nazi activist, supervised diploma
theses and Ph.D. dissertations that dealt with volkspolitische questions and other
problems that were salient to the Nazi regime. Von Wiese himself supervised
seminar papers and dissertations produced as part of an official research project
financed by the state administrator of Trier on the situation of future generations
in the agrarian sector of the region of Trier (Klingemann 1988b).
The Sociology Department of the University of Hamburg, under its professor
Andreas Walther, had substantial success after 1933. Walther’s research in the
area of urban sociology, based on the methodological approach he learned from
the Chicago School, came to be regarded as socially and politically valuable.
Walther and his collaborators produced a comprehensive and very detailed social
cartography of some quarters of Hamburg that had been defined as areas dangerous
to the community (gemeinschädigende Regionen), analysing, down to the level
of individual streets, rates of social deviance and political dissidence. Walther
used data from the Social Welfare Administration, and added to it with field
research undertaken by twelve of his assistants. His social mapping was to be used
as preparation for measures of a large-scale ‘sanitization’, involving the preventive
eradication (Ausmerzung) of so-called socially dangerous people
(gemeinschädliche Personen), of the Hamburg slums. The plan was never carried
out (Roth 1986). But the maps indirectly contributed to city planning in Hamburg,
the Führerstadt (Pahl-Weber and Schubert 1987). Under the Nazis Walther was
able to demonstrate something that in the democratic order of the Weimar Republic
he was unable to—that empirical research in sociology could be policy-relevant.
Policy relevance requires policies to be relevant to. A regime in which the ‘solution
of the social question’ included the eradication of socially undesirable people
provided Walther’s opportunity and he succeeded in securing a place for his brand
of sociology. His success was made evident when he asked to retire in 1944, and
the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Hamburg tried to switch this chair
to another discipline. Walther opposed this. He mobilized his colleagues and allies,
got a vote from the academic senate in his support, and also received the support
of the rector. The Nazi Partei-Kanzlei, apparently at the instigation of the Berlin
sociologist and Dozentenbundführer, Schering, also intervened at the Ministry for
Science Education and Adult Education to save the chair for sociology. In early
1945 the Ministry, to block the strategy of the Faculty of Philosophy, proposed
that Walther should be appointed deputy of his chair (Wassner 1985, 1986).
Leipzig sociologists, around Hans Freyer, established the practical utility of
sociology by their empirically oriented research in rural sociology on rural labour
problems. Freyer also made some visible attempts to curry ideological favour. He
tried to introduce the idea of a ‘political semester’ to be required of all students.
The enthusiasm of some party representatives for this idea proved to be short-lived,
for his concept was not really compatible with party indoctrination. Empirical
research was a more successful means of securing support (Muller 1987). Studies
on the rural exodus, developed in cooperation with the special envoy of the Leader
of the Farmers of the Reich (Sonderbeauftragter des Reichsbauernführers für
Landarbeiterfragen), contributed to the regulatory and administrative process.
Among other sponsored research was work on sociological area studies.
Leipzig was an important scientific training centre, which served various
purposes. Ph.D. dissertation theses were very heterogeneous: on the one hand we
find Nazi functionaries who received degrees for ideological pamphlets (Sch fer
1990); on the other hand there were many dissertations in which politically neutral
themes were given serious scholarly treatment, and many more that dealt
empirically with concrete problems.
The Department of Social Science and Government of the University of
Heidelberg, usually identified with the name of Alfred Weber, who had been
dismissed in 1933, also turned to practically oriented empirical research during
the Third Reich. Alfred Weber’s former co-director, Carl Brinkmann, who became
the sole director, had started a few empirical social research projects before 1933,
supported, until 1935, by the Rockefeller Foundation. The Workgroup for Area
Studies and the Central Office for Regional Administration (Reichsstelle für
Raumordnung) continued the funding. The emphasis of this sponsored research,
which continued until the appointment of Brinkmann to the University of Berlin
in 1943, was on the areas of rural sociology, urban sociology, and sociological
area studies. The research was closely related to the reorganization plans of the
Nazi regime for Western Europe as well as for the newly conquered Eastern
territories. The plans, of course, included the expulsion and annihilation of the
population in these territories. At the Heidelberg Department of Social Science
and Government many Nazi functionaries received Ph.Ds, from Arnold
Bergstraesser (who was later forced into emigration when it was found that he
was ‘non-Aryan’) and from Brinkmann (Klingemann 1990a).
In Berlin, the work of the older generation, including Kurt Breysig, Richard
Thurnwald, and Werner Sombart, continued. Franz Alfred Six, who took his
second doctorate under the supervision of Arnold Bergstraesser and who had
become a high-ranking officer of the SS, initiated in 1940 the foundation of the
Faculty for Foreign Studies of the University of Berlin, which served as a centre
of applied sociology within which young sociologists (especially from Heidelberg
and Leipzig) could continue their careers. Sociologists had previously been
employed at the German School of Advanced Political Studies, which in 1933
was placed under the control of the Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and
Propaganda. This was one predecessor to the Faculty for Foreign Studies, which
was under the direct control of the SS. The Faculty for Foreign Studies specialized
in the training of qualified experts on foreign countries. Its Institute for Foreign
Studies (originally part of the Fakultät and later an official state institution with
its own budget) became an agency that specialized in policy advice in the overall
area of foreign affairs for the Third Reich. In addition to serving as experts in
psychological warfare these social scientists were expected to contribute to the
expansion of information, analysis, and expertise in all areas of foreign affairs.
The sociologists who taught in the Faculty for Foreign Studies were, as a rule,
simultaneously section heads (Abteilungsleiter) in the Institute for Foreign
Studies: the arrangement was a highly advanced combination of academic activity
with extra-academic professionalization.
The role of academic sociology in the scientific preparation, planning, and even
the execution of the policies of the Nazi state evolved through the creation of
institutes. There were institutes ‘at’ a university—and not ‘of’ a university—
financed for example by foundations, such as the Sociographical Institute at the
University of Frankfurt, or some private societies, like the Working Group for
Social Science (Frankfurt), or the Organization for Consumer Studies
(Nuremberg), which either received permanent or project-related support from
Nazi agencies. There were other institutions, like the Institute for Studies of
Borders and Foreign Areas (Klingemann 1989) or the Reinhard-Heydrich
Foundation in Prague which did not formally belong to any university, but in
reality were institutions for empirical social research which cooperated closely,
in terms of staff and research aims, with nearby universities. They relied less on
permanent staff and were, like the Heydrich Foundation, directly dependent on
the SS. The Institute for Government Research in the University of Berlin, for
example, could, because of the friendship of its directors with the Reichsführer
SS, Heinrich Himmler, draw freely on the resources of the Office for the
Strengthening of the German Peoples (i.e. outside the borders of Germany). The
Institute for Foreign Studies at the University of Berlin held a particularly powerful
position as an official state institution. The Scientific Research Institute of the
Official German Trade Union in Berlin commissioned research projects for
sociologists, gave them temporary positions so that they could continue to pursue
an academic career, and, in the case of younger scientists without university
opportunities, offered them the possibility of permanent positions. In short,
academic sociology at those universities that engaged in ‘practical’ work were
well integrated into the scientific planning apparatus of the Nazi state.
THE GERMAN SOCIOLOGICAL SOCIETY (DGS)

During the Weimar Republic the German Sociological Society organized seven
sociological conventions (K sler 1983). It promoted the expansion of the
profession, but without much success. Not only was academic sociology not
systematically institutionalized before 1933, the DGS played no significant role

in the eyes of the general public (K sler 1984; Stōlting 1986). In August 1933 the
German Sociological Society pursued its own ‘cleansing’ (Säuberung) in
anticipation of action from outside. It used the phrase ‘for reasons of suspension
or emigration abroad’ in a decree restricting re-election of members of its council
to those not covered by this phrase. This decree was revoked on the demand of
the grand old man of German sociology, Ferdinand Tönnies, but the revocation
had no concrete consequences. Both the secretary of the association, Leopold von
Wiese, and Werner Sombart tried by a voluntary transformation to conformity
with Nazism (Selbstgleichschaltung) to prevent an attempted seizure of power by
a group of National Socialist sympathizers around the Jena sociologist Reinhard
Hōhn. Höhn was an influential member of the security service of the SS (the SD).
Neither side succeeded: a compromise candidate, Hans Freyer, was selected as
the new ‘Führer’ of the German sociologists. He attempted to affiliate the German
Sociological Society with the Academy for German Law, but when this failed the
DGS ceased to exist (Klingemann 1986b; Pasemann 1985).4
The community of German sociologists was not shocked by these events. Many
of those who had stayed in Germany tolerated, approved or even applauded the
expulsion of Jewish and ‘politically undesirable’ social scientists: the expulsions
were accompanied by nearly two dozen programme papers about the future of
German sociology which reflected these attitudes (Klingemann 1981, 1986a).
Leopold von Wiese, one of the most prominent representatives of German
sociology, stated his readiness to cooperate with the new regime, and reiterated
this in several subsequent articles. The Bonn philosopher and sociologist Erich
Rothacker not only published a programme for a ‘National Sociology’, he was
even briefly the leader of the department of education of the people (Volksbildung)
in the Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. Rothacker proposed,
among other things, the creation of social science research institutions under the
guidance of the government to the Reichs Ministry of the Interior. This initiative
was stillborn (Klingemann 1990c).
The public campaign against the established ‘liberal’ sociology was led ‘from
below’ by Reinhard Höhn. The Jenaer Soziologentreffen in Spring 1934,
organized by him, was celebrated by two articles in the official Nazi party paper,
the Völkischer Beobachter, as a proof of the successful reorientation of German
sociology in the form of the new ‘Communal Sociology’ propagated by Höhn.
With this, the public image of sociology, previously attacked as Jewish, Marxist
and liberal, changed. But none of this image manipulation influenced the everyday
academic life of sociology and its concrete work.
NATIONAL SOCIALIST SCIENCE AND UNIVERSITY

POLICY AGAINST SOCIOLOGY? SOCIAL
SCIENTISTS AS UNIVERSITY POLITICIANS AND

CONTROLLERS OF SCIENCE
With the creation of the Ministry for Science, Education and Adult Education in
the Spring of 1934, the regime had a national science policy organization. Reinhard
Höhn became very influential in it. But the ministry had no policy for university
sociology, and the political position of the minister was weak. Höhn soon became
director of the SS-protected Institute for Government Research of the University
of Berlin, which provided another outlet for his energies. The humanities and
social sciences were not heavily regulated; universities and faculties had
significant discretion. After the departure of Höhn, personnel policy for the
humanities and the social sciences was formulated by Professor Heinrich
Harmjanz, who had pleaded in his second doctorate (Habititationsschrift) for
sociologically oriented ‘research on the German people’ (Volkskunde). Harmjanz
was a friend of a leading sociologist of the time, Gunther Ipsen, and together they
published the Journal for Volkskunde. Harmjanz, in a letter to the author, had said
that sociology as a discipline had not been exposed to particular ministerial
pressure, for example with respect to habilitations in sociology. There is no
evidence against his assertion.
The Ministry for Science, Education and Adult Education did exert influence,
as did the Official University Teachers Organization, the Official Student Union,
and the Rosenberg Office (see below), which contained a Central Office for
Sociology, and they all tried to the best of their abilities ideologically to ‘cleanse’
science. But the effects of these efforts were limited. Social scientists soon realized
that if they generally respected certain ideological-political limits, they could
present themselves as scientific experts without proclaiming the Nazi
Weltanschauung. This is not to deny the existence of ideological influences on
academic science, but to make a point about the manner in which this influence
took place: only when local academic ‘leaders’ or ambitious denouncers
formulated a special ‘German’ version of their discipline, could they engage the
support of the responsible higher institutions. Some of these institutions need to
be examined separately.
The Amt Rosenberg

The Rosenberg Office was led by Alfred Rosenberg (often characterized as
chief-ideologue of the Nazis) in his capacity as ‘Special Envoy of the Führer for
the Control of the Complete Spiritual and Ideological Training and Education of
the Party’ (Der Beauftragte des Führers für die Uberwachung der gesamten
geistigen und weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP). He had
been appointed to this position in January 1934. Rosenberg built up an office of
ideological control with many departments. In spite of its large staff, because of
competition with other institutions, such as the Official Party Control Commission
for the Protection of Nazi Literature (which we will deal with later), the influence
of the Rosenberg Office was limited. The basis for some of the constraints is made
clear in a letter of December 1939 from Martin Bormann, leader of the
Partei-Kanzlei, to the guardian of the Nazi Weltanschauung, Alfred Rosenberg,
as Special Envoy of the Führer. In this letter, it becomes very clear that the National
Socialist administration did not rely on ideological experts but on expert scientific
advice:
As you know, the ‘Stellvertreter des Führers’ gave his assent to the
incorporation of the German School of Advanced Political Studies into the
Faculty for Foreign Studies some time ago. To a great extent, the German
School of Advanced Political Studies has lost its former tasks. Hence, at the
new institute there will not be additional space for an ideological and
political training to the extent I assume you have in mind. The task of the
Faculty for Foreign Studies is the education of scientists with expert
knowledge on foreign countries. But it is not its task to educate new staff
politically. Hence I am of the opinion that the Faculty for Foreign Studies
is not the right place for the realization of the plans you have in mind and
which can be realized at the ‘Hohe Schule’ of the NSDAP, and therefore I
would like to ask you to abstain from your demand to take over the
protectorate.
(Bormann 1939)
The point is clear: expertise and indoctrination are separate domains. Rosenberg’s
attempts to advance the ideological position beyond the party, into the academic
sector, were not very successful. Some social scientists were criticized by the
Rosenberg Office for their Weltanschauung and were in consequence not
employed in the party-training apparatus, and some applicants to academic
positions in universities were declared unqualified on political-ideological
grounds. The Rosenberg Office enjoyed some success in controlling the area of
Volkskunde in the university system and in the extra-university areas.
Nevertheless, Rosenberg’s attempt to establish a genuinely Nazi science within
the partly cooperative traditional system of science failed. Although many social
scientists were active within the Rosenberg Office, as they later were active in the
Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Reichsministerium für die besetzten
Ostgebiete), also headed by Rosenberg after 1941, his influence on the social
sciences was small.
The ideological censors of the Rosenberg Office were eager to give verdicts on
the social scientists who were to be hired as lecturers for party functions, and
sometimes discerned a lack of ideological firmness. But they were not prejudiced
against sociology as such. Indeed, the various offices of the Rosenberg Office
relied on cooperative sociologists like Wilhelm Emil M hlmann for expert advice,
and employed, on a full-time basis, Peter von Werder, specialist in the sociology
of ethnological topics, and Kurt Utermann who was subsequently social researcher
at Dortmund. Among the other scholars who served the Rosenberg Office were
the philosopher and sociologist Gerhard Lehmann, and Helmut Schelsky (Sch fer
1990), who were readers for the Book Department of the Agency for the Support
of German Literature (Reichsstelle zur Förderung des deutschen Schrifttums); this
unit also engaged such social scientists as Arnold Gehlen, Gunther Ipsen, Otto
Kühne, Karl Heinz Pfeffer, Karl C.Thalheim and Max Rumpf. The influence of
the Reichsstelle was, however, limited to selecting material for party libraries and
party training. There were other relationships as well. Carl August Emge,
philosopher and sociologist of law and the scientific leader of the Academy for
German Law, was the permanent representative of the Schopenhauer Society to
the Rosenberg Office. The warm relationship between the professor of philosophy
Alfred Baeumler, leader of the Central Office of Scholarship of the Rosenberg
Office, and the philosopher and sociologist Eduard Baumgarten was used
extensively and successfully by Baumgarten in his various quarrels with National
Socialist colleagues.
The Central Office for Sociology in the Rosenberg Office was led by Wilhelm
Longert, an adherent and propagator of the views of the Vienna sociologist Othmar
Spann. He quickly distanced himself from Spann when Spann fell from grace, and
subsequently provided the security service of the SS with information on Spann
and his supporters (Siegfried 1974). At the Central Office for Sociology Longert
produced numerous evaluations of university teachers of various disciplines and
interfered in the granting of positions to sociologists. But the pomposity of the
designation of his department as Central Office for Sociology of the Office of
Science Planning in the Central Office of Scholarship was inversely proportional
to his power over sociology in the Third Reich. In any case, his additional
responsibilities in other offices in the Rosenberg Office—especially in the field
of economics—kept him from pursuing any effective policy with regard to the
social sciences. Like all the other members of the Rosenberg Office who were
engaged in science policy, Longert was occupied primarily with protecting the
‘real’ doctrine of National Socialism against ‘falsifications’ produced by eager
scholars who were of the opinion that they had been called to make a personal
contribution to the refinement of the Nazi Weltanschauung.
In at least one case the ideological control which Longert exerted led to the
abrupt end of a career. But it was not a politically insubordinate university teacher:
it was Heinrich Harmjanz, in charge of the recruiting policy of the Ministry in the
areas of the social sciences and at the same time head of a department of an
institution called ‘The Ancestral Heritage’, which was the Teaching and Research
Society of the SS. This organization did not only deal with the prehistory of
Germanic cults, as its name suggests, but supported a comprehensive natural
scientific research program, including the infamous Institute for Research for
Military Use (Institut für wehrwissenschaftliche Zweckforschung), known
especially for its medical experiments on humans. This organization also had no
prejudice against sociologists as such. With the explicit support of the
Reichsführer SS, Heinrich Himmler, two sociologists of language, whose work
was expected to be of great value for the Nazi ‘Strengthening of the People’ policy,
were supported by it.
Harmjanz, who was professor of Research on German Peoples
(Volksforschung) at the University of Frankfurt, fell foul of Alfred Rosenberg
because he ignored Rosenberg’s claim to a monopoly on Research on German
Peoples; and because he had quarrelled with Rosenberg’s collaborators in the
Society for Research on German Peoples. Longert knew of an evaluation that the
ethno-sociologist Wilhelm Emil M hlmann had written on the French sociologists
Emile Durkheim and Henry Lévy-Bruhl for the Central Office for Scholarship of
the Rosenberg Office, and he was acquainted with the work of the late Vienna
sociologist Franz Jerusalem. Longert alleged that Harmjanz, in his inaugural
dissertation, had plagiarized from these three Jewish sociologists. For this
Harmjanz, who had long been protected by Himmler, was tried before the ‘court
of honor’ of the SS and expelled from membership. He then surrendered his
position in the ministry and went into the Army.
But the administrative need for social-scientific data and information set a limit
to ideological control. Consider the case of Max Hildebert Boehm, a well-known
anti-Semite long before 1933, who is often regarded as the typical Nazi sociologist.
Shortly after the Nazi seizure of power he was given a chair of ‘Sociology of the
Volk’ at the University of Jena in October 1933. He had belonged to the group
within the German Sociological Society which had attempted the overthrow of
the established leadership. This estimate of Boehm is confirmed by the
ethno-political activities of his Institute for Studies of Borders and Foreign Areas
in Berlin during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich (Klingemann 1989).
Boehm was regional leader of the Nazi Organization to Protect the Law
(NS-Rechtswahrerbund) as well as a member of the Academy for German Law
and sustaining member of the SS. His application for membership in the Nazi
party of 1937 had been forwarded by the regional head as part of a collective
application for membership of prominent persons. But his acceptance as a party
member was successfully prevented by Alfred Rosenberg—together with his
major ally in the area of scholarship, Professor Alfred Baeumler. Boehm, who
even before 1933 had attacked Rosenberg for his ‘pseudo-religious blood
mystique’, had been denounced by local party members. Apart from its treatment
of Jews, the Volkstheorie of Boehm, based on research on minorities in Europe,
could not be made to accord with Nazi racial policy, for example, its exclusion of
the Slavs. The ‘leader’ of German university teachers (Reichsdozentenbundführer)
and the security main office (Sicherheitshauptamt) of the SS also raised objections
to Boehm. In 1938 Boehm withdrew his membership application. Subsequent,
and quite protracted, attempts by the regional Nazi leader, ‘Gauleiter’ Sauckel, to
enable Boehm and ten more professors to join the party failed.
Nevertheless, Rosenberg commissioned research from Boehm’s Institute for
Studies of Borders and Foreign Areas because, in his capacity as Minister of the
Occupied Eastern Territories (Minister für die besetzten Ostgebiete), he needed
social-scientific expert knowledge. Boehm’s other customers included the
Foreign Office, the Central Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), and the

supreme command of the Army (Klingemann 1989). Boehm participated in
meetings of various boards of the Academy for German Law. In 1938 he received
an order to perform an official survey of the possibilities for politico-cultural
activities in Eastern European countries. This career is indicative of the general
pattern of opportunities for social scientists in the Third Reich: the scientist as
producer of ideology was a potential threat to the ‘true’ doctrine of National
Socialism, while the social-scientific expert who possessed a monopoly of
information is sought out.
The Dozentenbund
The Dozentenbund was established in 1935 as an autonomous section within the
party. It had originated as a subordinate section within the Teachers Union
(Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund). The local representatives of the
Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Dozentenbund (the National Socialist Docent
League), and of the University Instructors League (Dozentenschaft),were if
possible to ‘lead’ the teaching staff of the university in personal union as official
representatives. Particularly after 1945, they were presented as omnipotent arbiters
of academic careers. This enabled university teachers to describe their own
compliant behaviour as the inevitable result of brutal force. German sociologists
who remained in their positions during the Nazi era were also eager to depict
sociology as a discipline that had suffered especially from this control. But the
hostility of the Dozentenbund to sociology is doubtful. The prominent sociologists
Arnold Gehlen, Carl Jantke, and Eduard Willeke (who, like Jantke, was a
collaborator in the Social Research Institute of Dortmund), the military sociologist
Walther M.Schering, the rural sociologist Hellmut Wollenweber, the industrial
sociologists Johannes Gerhardt and Walter Herrmann, Karl Günzel and Willy
Klutentreter, all were active and held high positions in the Dozentenbund and the
Dozentenschaft. The sociologist of sport and family, Gerd Cehak, had been an
officer (Gefolgschaftsführer) at the Institute for Sport. The rural historian G nther
Franz, contributor to the newly established sociological journal Volksspiegel,
founded in 1934, and after 1945 co-editor of the Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte
und Agrarsoziologie, taught at a Docent political training school
(Dozentenakademie). Walter Beck, social psychologist and sociologist, was an
official of the working group on psychology (Fachschaftskreis Psychologie)
which in 1937 had planned the cooperation of the Berlin universities in the
Dozentenbund. Gardy Gerhard Veltzke, who worked in 1933 and 1934 at the
university office of the SA in Berlin, in 1936 and 1937 became leader of the School
of the Office for Scholarship within the Youth Administration (Reichsschule des
Amtes Wissenschaft der Reichsjugendführung). From 1937 to 1939 he had worked
as assistant to Carl Brinkmann at the Department of Social Science and
Government at the University of Heidelberg, and was in 1944 personal secretary
of the Chief Officer of the Docent League (Reichsdozentenführer) and later

employed by it.
In 1934, in order to strengthen the ideological resolve of the new generation of
university teachers, attendance at courses at a Dozenten School or a Dozenten
Camp were required of all ‘habilitated’ persons seeking a venia legendi, or licence
to teach. The Ministry for Science, Education and Adult Education realized very
soon that this form of ideological control would not produce a National Socialist
science. Consequently in 1938 the last Dozenten Camp given in connection with
the Dozenten School was closed. The responsibilities and organization of this unit
had changed several times and the duration of courses had continually decreased.
The local leader of the Dozentenbund at a given university was expected to become
the leader of the official Dozentenschaft, in order to achieve complete control of
university teachers. This aim, however, could never be realized, not least due to
the fact that the position of the local Dozentenbundführer was never regarded as
a very attractive post for an established university professor—though in a very
small number of exceptional cases the position was held by a prominent scholar.
More often it was held by a younger scholar. The power of the Dozentenführer
was in fact quite limited. The Privatdozent Willy Gierlichs, a sociologist at the
University of Cologne, headed the Cologne foreign office of the Dozentenbund
and had been very active in the NSDAP. His teacher and mentor, Leopold von
Wiese, together with the Dozentenführer had filed several applications to promote
Gierlichs to full professor. The faculty nevertheless was able for many years to
prevent his promotion (Klingemann 1988b).
Although the local representatives and the Dozentenbund could make the lives
of individual university professors quite difficult, and in some cases advance
careers, the Dozentenbund as an institution was never able effectively to Nazify
the universities. Those scientists who wished to work in accordance with the Nazi
Weltanschauung and Nazi politics did not need to be convinced. Others remained
indifferent or even resisted. Others continued their scientific work successfully
without making any overt ideological concessions to Nazism. In early 1943,
Martin Bormann, the leader of the Party Council, asked for the dissolution of the
Dozentenbund. Although the recruitment policy of the Dozentenbund was oriented
strictly towards party ends and participation reflected opportunism, the
participation of social scientists was disproportionately large, relative to their
numbers in the university.
SOCIOLOGY RESPONDS TO FASCISM

SOCIOLOGISTS IN CENSORSHIP, INTERNAL
SECURITY, AND RELATED AGENCIES
The Official Party Control Commission for the Protection of Nazi Literature (PPK)
also concerned itself with sociology. Founded in April 1934, the PPK was
originally set up to ensure that only literature that had been accepted by them, and
included in the Nazi bibliography (Nationalsozialistische Bibliographie),
published monthly, could call itself ‘national socialistic’. The reason for this
commission was the fact that after 1933 a great efflorescence of ‘National
Socialist’ literature had developed. The PPK, with its more than one hundred
full-time employees, like other agencies tried successfully to enlarge its realm of
competence. Dissertations in the social sciences that dealt with explicit themes of
the Nazi movement or the Nazi state had to be approved by the PPK prior to
publication. Not only fresh Ph.Ds in sociology tried to have their publications
listed in this bibliography but even established sociologists fought for the inclusion
of their work. Here and elsewhere the PPK was in bitter bureaucratic competition
with the Rosenberg Office. By means of a treaty with the Chamber of Culture
(Reichskulturkammer), which was controlled by the Ministry of Popular
Enlightenment and Propaganda, the PPK was empowered to ban certain books.
In the course of the war, however, the full-time staff of the PPK diminished
measurably.
Many sociologists can be found among the volunteer ‘readers’ for the PPK.
One sociological insider, Gerhard Kr ger, held a leading position there. Kr ger
was granted his Ph.D. for a thesis on ‘Students and Revolution’ supervised by the
Leipzig sociologist Hans Freyer. He was the chief reader at the Bibliographisches
Institut in Leipzig and was responsible for the new edition of Meyers Lexikon and
for the inclusion of the (surprisingly large number) of competent articles in Meyers
Lexikon dealing with sociologists and sociology. Another reader in the
Parteiamtliche Prüfungskommission was Kleo Pleyer, who in 1926/27 had been
assistant to Max Hildebert Boehm and was a lecturer in history and sociology at
the German School of Advanced Political Studies in Berlin from 1930 to 1933.
Among the other readers in the Parteiamtliche Prüfungskommission were the
assistant to the Königsberg sociologist Gunther Ipsen, Helmut Haufe, and the
Vienna social scientist Franz Ronneberger, who worked for other National
Socialist organizations as well.
In some contexts censorship was welcome. The various institutions such as the
Rosenberg Office, the Parteiamtliche Prüfungskommission, the supreme
command of the Wehrmacht, the Youth Organization (Reichsjugendführer), the
Foreign Office and other ministries and authorities were routinely asked to censor
whenever issues of National Socialist ideology, the party, the government, and in
particular questions concerning foreign or domestic policy or the military had been
dealt with in social-scientific dissertations, or when official data had been used.
Many people who received doctorates were deeply disappointed if the thesis was
judged to be nothing world-shaking or ‘war-important’, so that it was not classified
as ‘confidential’ and therefore they had to donate the deposit copies of their
dissertation.
The SS security service (Sicherheitsdienst der SS), the SD, also had a direct
impact on the policy of the Ministry for Science, Education and Adult Education.
The SS security service, as a party organization, had developed into the relevant
control-institution for the state-run Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei), which
comprised the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo), the criminal police, and the
border police. After the creation of the Central Security Office (RSHA) in 1939,
the various party and state organizations were formally integrated. The SD
originally functioned as an internal state secret service, but after 1937 was also
engaged in external espionage. In the RSHA these tasks were distributed among
the ‘Amt III (SD-Inland)’ and the ‘Amt VI (SD-Ausland)’. Although executive
duties were originally reserved for the Gestapo, the SD ultimately became engaged
in them as well. The SD-Einsatzgruppen participated in the killing of hundreds of
thousands in the occupied territories.
The ‘SD-Inland’ had a task that the suppression of public criticism by the Nazi
regime indirectly produced, the task of assessing public opinion. It produced
thousands of detailed reports, contributed by hundreds of informants throughout
the Reich. These reports (Lebensgebietberichterstattung, Lageberichte, and the
Meldungen aus dem Reich) were in effect an instrument of public opinion research.
They were designed by Reinhard Höhn, mentioned above, a Ph.D. in jurisprudence
and a former assistant to a professor of sociology at the University of Jena. Höhn
later became a high-ranking SS officer and professor at the University of Berlin.
Sociologists were also active in various branches of the SD and the RSHA as
experts on questions relating to Eastern Europe and south-eastern Europe, and
contributed to research on the enemy (Gegnerforschung), to the control of
scholarship by the ‘SD-Inland’ and the ‘SD-Ausland’, and worked in the ‘Amt
VII’ for the Analysis Branch (Weltanschauliche Forschung und Auswertung) of
the RSHA.
As head of a main department of the SD, Höhn had responsibility for cultural
affairs. From 1934 to the beginning of 1937 he intimidated officials of the Ministry
for Science, Education and Adult Education; but his SD career was stopped
through intrigue, on the grounds of past ideological faux pas. During his period
of influence as the new director of the Institute for Government Research at the
University of Berlin (from 1935), and as a personal friend of Heinrich Himmler
(who continued to allow his rise in the SS hierarchy), he promoted sociological
work and projects. In 1944, following the orders of his successor in the SD, Otto
Ohlendorf, who was not only in charge of the ‘SD-Inland’ but at the same time
also Secretary of State of the Reich Ministry of Economics, Höhn organized a
meeting of fifteen social scientists. Max Hildebert Boehm gave the main paper
and Franz Ronneberger an accompanying lecture. Other participants, including
Ronneberger, Hans-Joachim Beyer, Karl Valentin Muller, and Karl Heinz Pfeffer,
became, like Boehm, well-known sociologists in the postwar era.
Friedrich Wagner, cousin of the notorious Karl Heinz Pfeffer, was also active
in SD control of scholarship. Wagner studied at the Heidelberg Department of
Social Science and Government and received his doctorate there in 1934 under
the supervision of Arnold Bergstraesser. In 1938 he was habilitated under Ernst
Krieck, who is generally regarded as the prototypical Nazi philosophy professor.
Afterwards, in addition to various positions in National Socialist organizations,
Wagner was made a lecturer in ‘Political Philosophy and Government’ at the
University of Heidelberg. Between November 1940 and April 1943 he was a
full-time employee of the SD Munich Main Office as a referee for its office
Wissenschaft und Hochschule, Schule und Erziehung. He then became lecturer
and later held a chair in the Philosophy of the State and Culture (Staats- und
Kulturphilosophie) in the Faculty for Foreign Studies of the University of Berlin.
The founder and dean of this faculty was, as mentioned above, Franz Alfred Six,
another student of Arnold Bergstraesser and a high-ranking officer in the SS. In
addition, Wagner retained an honorary affiliation with the ‘Amt VII’ or Analysis
Branch (Weltanschauliche Forschung und Auswertung) of the Central Security
Office (RSHA), also led by Six.
The liaison officer (Verbindungsführer) of the Central Security Office to the
Partei-Kanzlei was an SS-Obersturmbannführer and senior officer in the Civil
Service (Regierungsrat), Dr Justus Beyer, who was also head of the science
department and deputy of the Head of the Culture Office (Hauptstellenleiter
Kultur) at the Central Security Office. Beyer had been employed as an underling
at the sociology department at the University of Jena, when Höhn was an assistant
there. In the autumn of 1933, Beyer went to work for the SD, following in Höhn’s
footsteps. In his curriculum vitae of 1936 he stressed the fact that he had studied
sociology, which enabled him to discuss scientifically and in a politically effective
way the corporativism of the Vienna sociologist Othmar Spann. Beyer’s report on
‘National Socialism and Universalism’, published in the professional journal
Deutsches Recht in 1936, was placed in his SS personnel file as proof of his
scientific qualifications. Höhn, as Beyer’s superior, in a letter of recommendation
dated October 1936, praised ‘the extraordinary elaboration of the Spann-report’.
It may be assumed that Beyer was the author of the confidential report on the
Spann circle, which helped to stop its political operations in Germany (which had
been promoted by the industrialist Fritz Thyssen) and in particular caused the
Institute for the Study of Ranks (Institut für Ständewesen) in D sseldorf, financed
by Thyssen and other industrialists, to close (Siegfried 1974). Beyer’s Ph.D.
thesis, The Ideology of Ranks in the Era of Systems’ (i.e. the Weimar era) of 1941,
was not only a learned sociological study, it refuted and put an end to sociological
reinterpretations of the National Socialist state in terms of Spann’s model of a
corporate society composed of ‘ranks’.
SOCIOLOGISTS AND AREA STUDIES
The Office for the Strengthening of the German Peoples as

promoter of social research
In his capacity as Officer for the Strengthening of the German Peoples, the
Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler was responsible for all settlement activities in
the Reich as well as for the Germanization (Eindeutschungs or Germanisierungs)
policy in the occupied Eastern territories. The Reichskommissariat (RFV) was
founded as an autonomous unit by Himmler in October 1939, and was responsible
for relocation measures involving millions of people throughout the Reich and in
the associated and occupied territories, as well as in those areas which, after the
Hitler-Stalin pact, had to be ‘cleared’ of settlers of German descent
(Volksdeutsche). The notorious Generalplan Ost which included planning for the
expulsion and, in many cases, killing of the former inhabitants, and the new
settlement of vast territories in Central and Eastern Europe, had been developed
and partly realized under the RFV. Several social scientists took an active part in
the preparatory analysis and planning. As Reichskommissar, Himmler himself
initiated and financed several research projects and research programmes of
social-scientific institutes.
Area studies and settlement planning is an example of an area of professional
sociological and social research activity outside the universities in which the
recognition of the expert competence of non-university sociologists led to close
cooperation with university sociology, as well as to a strengthening of academic
sociology. A Workgroup for Area Studies (Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für
Raumforschung (RAG)), was founded in 1935 which in the end coordinated the
research of fifty-one such workgroups at different universities. It was the scientific
counterpart of the administrative Central Office for Regional Administration
(‘Reichsstelle für Raumordnung’ (RFR)) founded at the same time, but it served
other planning authorities as well. It became a meeting-place for sociologists.
The RFR was responsible for ‘the comprehensive superior planning of the
German area for the whole of the Reich’ (Meyers Lexikon, vol. 9, 1942, column
106). It had veto power over plans of other parts of the administration. At the start
of the war, special Nazi agencies, like the Office for the Strengthening of the
German Peoples, could push through their own regional concepts and rely on the
RFR for support.
Once planning measures in the old Reich territory had been dealt with, the RAG
increasingly concerned itself with the implementation of the policies of expansion
and settlement in the conquered and occupied territories. Among the scientific
projects of the RAG were the support of dissertations and the financing of positions
in the academic system, together with long-term research projects in the area of
the social sciences. Through this research many sociologists participated in the
Nazi policy of enlarging German Lebensraum, with its tragic consequences for
the occupied states and populations.
Friedrich B low, the Berlin sociologist and economist, was the chief scientific
advisor of this group. After 1939, he became its vice-chairman as well. He fulfilled
these tasks in addition to performing his duties as professor at the University of
Berlin, and his lectureships at the commercial university in Berlin and the School
of Forestry in Eberswalde. Through his position in the working group, together
with his numerous programmatic treatises on the sociological foundations of Area
Studies (Klingemann 1986a), and through presiding over conferences of the
Arbeitskreis Zentrale Orte, B low became an important influence on the
programme of the area studies. The working group dealt with the planning of
settlement in the new territories in the East (based for example on the concept of
the Central Place (Zentrale Orte) of Walter Christaller), which played a role in
administrative decisions (Rōssler 1990). In one of these meetings the onetime
Cologne sociologist Leo Hilberath took part, as representative of the Central
Office for Regional Administration. For a short time the Leipzig-Nuremberg
sociologist Walter Hildebrandt worked in the central office of the workgroup.
From early 1942, Erika Fischer, whose sociological doctor’s thesis was supervised
by Hans Freyer, coordinated the scientific projects of all fifty-one area studies
university study groups in the whole Reich.
The following social scientists were heads, assistant heads, or managers in these
university study groups: F.B low, A.Gunther, W.Herrmann, H. Linde, K.V.
Muller, G.Mackenroth, H.Sauermann, K.Seller, K.C. Thalheim, W.Vleugels, and
H.Weigmann. Participants in meetings of the workgroup included the sociologists
H.Bach, H.Freyer, H.Haufe, C. Jantke, B.Rauecker, H.Raupach, M.Rumpf, H.
Wollenweber, and G. Wurzbacher. The workgroup financed appointments, single
research projects, and long-term research programmes for sociologists, gave
orders for expert reports (memoranda as well as planning records), and supported
special dissertations at the universities in Bonn, Erlangen, Frankfurt
(Sociographical Institute; Institute for Economic Area Studies), Giessen,
Heidelberg (Department of Social Science and Government), Cologne (Sociology
Department), Nuremberg (Organization for Consumer Studies) and Rostock
(Department of Economic Area Studies), as well as at the Business School of
Leipzig.
Besides the ‘heads’ who were already established, such junior sociologists as
W.Hildebrandt, H.Linde, K.H.Pfeffer, and Max Ernst Graf zu Solms-Roedelheim,
who became university sociologists in the Federal Republic, worked on these
(sometimes very) well-financed projects. The workgroup represented an early
form of institutionalization of multidisciplinary social research devoted to policy
purposes. The Academy for Area Studies and Regional Planning in Hanover was
the direct successor of the workgroup, and continued to bear its name to 1947.
After 1945, such Reich sociologists as W.Brepohl, F.Bülow, G.Cehak, W.
Hildebrandt, G. Ipsen, H.Klocke, H.Linde, H.Morgen, K.V.Muller, K.H.Pfeffer,
E.Pfeil, and F.Wagner worked at this academy, on such topics as the sociology of
refugees, education, population, and industrial and regional planning. The
Sociographic Institute at the University of Frankfurt, K.V.Müller’s Institute for
Studies of Intelligence and Department of Empirical Sociology (Hanover and
Bamberg), the Organization for Consumer Studies (Nuremberg) and the empirical
social research staff of the German Society for Population Studies and the
exclusive German Center for Population Studies at the University of Hamburg
(Wess 1986) are all cases of forms of institutionalized social research initiated
during the Third Reich and continued in the postwar period.
The most important organizational result of professional social research in the
field of area studies in the academic sector of sociology was at the University of
Frankfurt. Ludwig Neundörfer, who intended to give a lecture on his
sociographical method of area research at the cancelled meeting of the German
Sociological Society of 1932 and 1933, was in charge of the Regional Plan for
North-Baden (Bezirksplaner) and was Vice State Plan Officer in the state of Baden
to 1940. In 1940, the National Farmer’s Association and the Workgroup for Area
Studies requested a sociographical stock-taking to be used as the basis for the
‘rearrangement of the agricultural conditions in the Old Reich’. In order to analyse
the ‘social structure of wide areas of the Reich on the basis of comparable maps
and by that of the substance to be formed by the administration’ 4,500 ‘orientation
communities’ (Richtgemeinden), comprising one million households, had been
registered by 1942–43. Making this original material useful for planning and
research efforts for public administration was a considerable task. A
Sociographical Institute at the University of Frankfurt was created for Neundörfer
early in 1943 to carry it out. Neundörfer had already lectured on regional planning
and resettlement there in 1940. As sponsor of this Sociographical Institute, a
special foundation, the Foundation for Research on the German People (Stiftung
zur Erforschung des deutschen Volksaufbaus), was founded and endowed with
50,000 Reichsmarks from two former ‘Jewish’ foundations. The city and the
University of Frankfurt also participated. Neundörfer’s salary was paid by the
Workgroup for Area Studies which had been integrated into the Reich Research
Council (Reichsforschungsrat). Neundōrfer was given additional support by the
Ministry of Finance through the National Farmers’ Association, and became a
part-time employee of the Administration of the office of its leader
(Reichsbauernführer) in 1941. The Reichsbauernführer, the Research Council
(Reichsforschungsrat) and the Office for the Strengthening of the German Peoples
all agreed that the institute should build up a German Archive of Maps and Surveys
supported by the Ministry of Finance. Neundōrfer’s colleagues were appointed
by the National Farmers’ Association and paid by special resources from the
Ministry of Finance. The annual expenditure for three such agencies in Berlin,
Vienna and Frankfurt, as well as for some researchers at the State Farm
Organization (Landesbauernschaften), amounted to a total of 300,000
Reichsmarks (Klingemann 1989).
Discussions of the formation of an advisory board for the Sociographical
Institute for the purpose of coordinating its activities for the rural reorganization
(ländliche Neuordnung) concluded that, in addition to the Workgroup for Area
Studies, the Reichsbauernführer, and the Central Office for Regional
Administration, the Office for the Strengthening of the German Peoples should
also be represented. It was also agreed that the Reichskommissar should finance
the research he ordered. The habilitated rural sociologist Herbert Morgen, lecturer
at the University of Berlin, was made his assistant on the advisory board. Morgen
was head of the division Rural Sociology (Bodenordnung und ländliche
Soziologie) at the Department of Rural Studies and Policy (Institut für Agrarwesen
und Agrarpolitik) of the University of Berlin. This institute was led by
SS-Oberf hrer, Professor Konrad Meyer, chief of the planning office of the
Reichskommissar. Morgen was also chief of the Research (Forschungsdienst) of
the working groups on rural studies (Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaften der
Landwirtschaftswissenschaft), and he conducted surveys by order of the

Reichskommissar who collected planning-relevant data on the formerly Russian
rural districts of occupied Poland, and became a co-author of the Generalplan Ost.
Work on the reorganizational plans (Neuordnungspläne) was executed on a
large scale by the Sociographical Institute, but was almost superseded in 1944 by
research orders concerning the planning of the reconstruction of destroyed districts
and cities. In the fiscal year 1945–46, for example, the Office for the Strengthening
of the German Peoples arranged for a study of the nutritional situation of a large
town population, for a sum of 12,000 Reichsmarks. The Workgroup for Area
Studies provided 22,000 Reichsmarks for a study of ‘social regrouping’ problems
in the old section of Frankfurt.
Altogether, the budget of the institute in the year 1945 amounted to
approximately 130,000 Reichsmarks. In order to secure sociological material on
cities and towns (which was now abundant), the Workgroup for Area Studies
continued to finance the Archive for Maps and Surveys, later renamed the ‘Archiv
für räumliche Sozial-Struktur’. The Sociographical Institute became a member,
through an application by the Office for the Strengthening of the German Peoples,
of the Wehrforschungsgemeinschaft that had been constituted by a decree of the
Reich’s Marshall Hermann Göring with explicit reference to the order of the
Führer on the ‘protection of research indispensable for warfare’ (Befehl zur
Sicherstellung der für die Kriegsführung unentbehrlichen Forschung) of August
1944.5 The institute continued work without interruption after the war, for example
by performing research on the integration of displaced persons after the end of the
war (Heimatvertriebene). In 1947 it had a budget of about 121,000 Reichsmarks.
The ubiquitous SS-Oberführer Professor Höhn performed basic
social-scientific research for his friend the Reichskommissar Heinrich Himmler.
Between 1941 and 1944, the Reichskommissar procured, through the Reich
Research Council, the considerable sum of 29,000 Reichsmarks for research
projects entitled Research on the Material at the Secret State Archives on the
Population Policy of the Prussian Population Office (Aufarbeitung des Materials
des Geheimen Staatsarchivs über die Volkstumspolitik der Preussischen
Ansiedlungskommission) and another one on the Teutonic Order and its policies
of Germanization. Between 1942 and 1944, the Institute for Government Research
at the University of Berlin received 25, 450 Reichsmarks for research projects on
different questions related to the newly conquered territories in the East. These
research projects were to be used in the planning phase of Himmler’s settlement
policy, which included the expulsion and slaughter of untold numbers of Jews and
Poles. By November 1939 the Reichsf hrer SS had arranged that during the war
period Höhn’s institute would work exclusively for the SS. From 1939 to 1941,
the institute delivered forty reports on the functions of the Reichsführer SS in his
capacity as Office for the Strengthening of the German Peoples. On Himmler’s
explicit order these were submitted to all supreme Reich authorities.
SOCIOLOGY IN THE THIRD REICH:

PSEUDO-SCIENCE, ABUSE, OR ‘PROOF OF ABILITY’?
Höhn could not directly continue his highly successful career as a Nazi sociologist
in postwar years. He became the head of a private School for Management Training
(Akademie fürFührungskräfte) in Bad Harzburg. As a rule, however, the younger
people who had worked as professional social scientists for the
political-administrative apparatus of the Third Reich soon had positions in
sociology in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The acceptance and use of sociology outside the universities led to a certain
consolidation of academic sociology. Not only the centres of Reichssoziologie,
Berlin, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Cologne, and Leipzig, but also nearly all of the
other universities of the National Socialist state offered work or opportunities for
training, of which more than one hundred of the sociologists who had careers in
the Federal Republic after the war had availed themselves. There were at least 350
‘sociological’ dissertations— defined by very restrictive criteria.6 These 350
dissertations (and about 20 habilitations of sociologists who continued their
academic careers in German universities after 1945) represented a considerable
amount of sociological training, despite the vast reduction of resources resulting
from expulsion, persecution, and the effects of war.
Virtually no one was interested in experts on Nazi Weltanschauung (Bergmann
et al. 1981; Rammstedt 1986). But even the adherents of the National Socialist
regime among the Reichssoziologen wanted their students to get a solid scientific
education. As members of a social-scientific National Socialist braintrust, these
junior sociologists would have been useful for Germany’s anticipated European
hegemony. Under the altered political conditions of the postwar period, they
pursued academic careers in a socially influential discipline. Narcissistic cliché
notwithstanding, sociology is an administrative discipline. Social scientists were
very successful as analysts in the field of area studies. The ‘Community of the
People’ sociologists who served as justifiers for the licensed high priests of the
brown ‘industrial sacrificial community’ (Jaeggi et al. 1984) were of no
significance.
The National Socialists exerted power over a highly complex dynamic industrial
capitalism which generated a gigantic war economy. Their bureaucracy consulted
social-scientific experts when the rationalization of the socio-economic machinery
(much complicated by ideological irrationality) or the aims of territorial expansion
could not be achieved through the exegesis of Mein Kampf. Kōnig assumed (1987)
that social-scientific theory, expertise and reflection can only serve democratic
societies, as a means by which social and political power bodies are criticized.
This was an error. The sociology that has had real influence on society has been
the kind that perpetuates the status quo and for that reason necessarily is forced
to rationalize the potentially short-sighted practices by critical analysis and advice.
Sociology in a dictatorial regime is not necessarily ‘pseudo-sociology’. It is rather
the side of the discipline’s Janus-face which is turned to power (Klingemann

1987a, 1988a).
NOTES
1 A first impression of the extent of the exile of German social scientists can be gained
from the lists of exiled social and political scientists of Lepsius (1981b; this list
however includes persons born after 1930) and by examining the dates in the
biographies of the sixty-six representatives of sociology in the Biographical
Handbook of the German-Speaking Emigration (Mertens 1987). The surveys of
university sociology in 1932/33 of Lepsius (1979) and Fornefeld et al (1986) provide
quantitative comparisons. Biographies, case studies, memoirs and dialogues about,
of and with exiled social scientists are provided in Greffrath (1979), Lepsius (ed.)
(1981), Lepenies (ed.) (1981, vol. 4), Srubar (ed.) (1988), Wiggershaus (1986) as
well as the report of 1939 by an official of the ‘Ministry for Science, Education and
Adult Education’ on German university teachers in Turkey (Grothusen 1987).
2 As Neumann has pointed out, the few sociologists who returned from exile played
a marginal role in the postwar consolidation of the discipline (1984, cf. the opposing
interpretation by Srubar, 1988).
3 Indeed, the exiles were not all anti-fascists. Arnold Bergstraesser, a Heidelberg
sociologist, was interned twice during his US exile for pro-Nazi intrigues (Krohn
1986). Other later emigrants were nationalists, among them the Jewish university
sociologists who were veterans of the First World War and consequently had at first
been protected from dismissal, and who waited, in vain, for recognition of their
patriotism (Käsler 1985).
4 The Akademie für Deutsches Recht (ADR), into which Hans Freyer had tried without
success to incorporate the German Sociological Society, was founded by Hans Frank,
who later became Governor-General of the so-called ‘Rest-Polen’ (remnants of
Poland). Although it never achieved its original aim of significantly participating in
the development of new laws, the ADR nevertheless built up an impressive advisory
apparatus and gained some public interest by means of its monthly journal, its annual
report, and a publication series. The sociologist of law, Carl August Emge, was
scientific leader and vice-president of the ADR for several years. Some forty
sociologists were active in commissions and other ADR groups. The infamous
Polen-Denkschrift (Poland memorandum), presented at the Nuremberg trials as
evidence against Hans Frank, which was meant to improve German policy in
occupied Poland, was the work of social scientists in the ADR who had been active
in the areas of economic, social, and legal policy. Other sociologists had been
consulted as experts on questions of Volkstumspolitik (assimilation policy) in the
East, i.e. the concrete problems of German policy of occupation, exile, and
annihilation.
5 Another social scientist, Eduard Willeke, also worked for the ‘Reichskommissar für
die Festigung deutschen Volkstums’. In 1941, by order of the Reichskommissar,
Willeke joined a research commission. He had the task of describing and evaluating
manufacturing, particularly in the industrial sector of the Elsass. In the FRG he was
affiliated with the Sozialforschungsstelle in Dortmund.
6 The list in (Fassler 1984) is most vaguely defined and there are only a few
overlapping cases between his list and mine.
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6
‘SOCIOLOGISTS’, SOCIOGRAPHERS,
AND ‘LIBERALS’
Hungarian intellectuals respond to fascism
Dénes Némedi
Sociologists encountered fascism both as political participants and as observers.

As citizens and participants in the political life of their countries, they were more
or less active in fascist or anti-fascist movements and were affected by their
success or failure. As observers, they encountered fascism as a new and complex
phenomenon that tested their analytical capabilities as it did those of the other
social sciences. Research on the response of sociology as a discipline to fascism
can follow two different paths. The first is the conventional path followed by
historians, in which sociologists were treated as political agents. The other one is
more complicated, for it departs from the assumption that it is part of the
sociologist’s vocation to provide explanations for social phenomena that go
beyond conventional opinion. If sociology, confronted with fascism, fails in this
respect (as, I believe on the whole, it failed), the historian faces a paradoxical task:
to explain the absence of an explanation. This is an intrinsically normative
historical problem, for it presupposes that sociology should have analysed the
fascist phenomenon, and if it failed to, it failed to live up to its obligations as a
discipline.
The challenge of fascism (or of Stalinism or of any other totalitarianism) is
particularly acute for sociology for another reason. These systems sought to revoke
the differentiation of the spheres of political, social and economic life. Sociology,
along with other social sciences, was created as a response to the process of
subsystem differentiation which these movements sought to revoke. Thus fascism
threatened to destroy the very foundations upon which sociology was built. But
it did so in a manner which included the use of modern social techniques. This
mixture of modernism and anti-modernism made the scientific analysis of fascism
(and of Stalinism) particularly challenging and difficult.
At first glance, the Hungarian case is not really interesting. There was no
established academic sociology, and until 1942 there was no chair of sociology
or social theory, and no academic training programme for sociologists, so in a
sense there is nothing to analyse. The real situation is more complex. There were
amateur social research movements or groups in Hungary in the interwar period
and the problem of fascism was central, implicitly or explicitly, at least for two
of them.
Fascism as ideology and as a political system was relevant for Hungary in two
respects, internal and external.
INTERNAL
Even if the Hungarian political system in the interwar period cannot properly be
characterized as fascist (as it was by Stalinist ideologists), there were periods when
it was moving toward the establishment of a fascist-type system. And there were
political groupings which aimed at the transformation of the political regime into
totalitarian fascism (Lackó 1975a; Magyarország 1976; Ormos 1987). The
dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy and the dismemberment of the ancient
greater Hungary led to a short-lived revolutionary experiment in 1918–1919 which
was followed by a bloody counter-revolutionary regime with fascist aspects
(including anti-Semitism, agrarian social demagogy, and direct political influence
by the military). Extreme rightist tendencies remained alive even after the
restoration of the conservative, slightly authoritarian ancien régime. In the 1930s,
right-wing radicalism gained in popularity among the ruling elite and a Nazi-style
movement came into being (the so-called Arrow-Cross movement, an array of
coalescing and dissolving parties, most popular in the lower middle classes and
in some fragments of the working classes and reaching its peak of popularity in
1939) (Lackó 1966). Gyula Gömbös, the Prime Minister in 1932–36, was a former
counter-revolutionary and outspokenly sympathetic to Italian and German
totalitarianism. Under German influence, anti-Semitic laws were passed (the first
one in 1938). Hungary was a reluctant ally of Germany in the war against
Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Toward the end of the war, the Arrow-Cross
men established a puppet regime. However, the political system as a whole
remained firmly conservative-authoritarian until 1944. It did not possess the
modernistic characteristics of the fascist regimes: it was not supported by any mass
movement or organization, and carefully avoided the use of social demagoguery
and rejected any form of plebiscitary legitimation. Perhaps this was due to the
relative backwardness of the Hungarian social structure. The peasantry as a social
category remained relatively intact. In spite of the intrusion of capitalist elements
in agriculture it was not differentiated unequivocally along class lines. Sections
of the upper and middle strata conserved their feudal characteristics (large estate
owners, bureaucratic middle classes with roots in the nobility). The recently
urbanized non-Jewish lower middle classes (which were the most enthusiastic
supporters of the Nazis in Germany) were relatively small.
EXTERNAL
Whereas Italian fascism did not threaten Hungary as a national state, and was
therefore unequivocally popular with the right-wing public, in the eyes of many,
even among those with rightist attitudes, Nazism embodied well-known German
expansionist tendencies. But German expansionism helped Hungary to recover
HUNGARIAN INTELLECTUALS RESPOND TO FASCISM 153
some of the territories lost in the Trianon treaty (which was considered as unjust
by the overwhelming majority) after 1938, and was popular for this reason. But
after the Annexation of Austria, Germany became a neighbour that was too
powerful. This power made itself felt when Hungary was reluctant to fulfil German
economic, political, and military demands and when the Nazis began to win the
loyalty of Hungary’s relatively large German minority. The question of German
imperialism could not be separated from the problem of fascism and Nazism, and
many who became ardent anti-fascists were motivated more by Hungarian
patriotism than by conscious democratic anti-fascism.
The relatively low level of professionalization in the social sciences reflected
the relative backwardness of Hungarian society (Lackó 1981a). Sociology was
among the last developed disciplines. The conservative cultural government was
not actively hostile to sociology. It was simply not interested in it and consequently
did nothing to overcome the resistance of the old-fashioned faculties to its
introduction in the universities (Saád 1989). The sociological activity that existed
was restricted to amateur intellectual groupings and to a tolerated existence on the
fringe of more traditional and secure disciplines, such as law and history.
Sociological ideas, research, and sociological interest were present in three
groupings. The first of these was the ‘official’ conservative sociology which was
almost totally driven out of the memory of the profession after 1945.1 The group
was centred around the review Társadalomtudomány and consisted of lawyers,
philosophers, economists and historians who had an occasional and in most cases
superficial interest in sociology or social philosophy. There was only one
‘professional’ among them, the Privatdozent István Dékány, a hard-working
compiler (Saád 1985).2 The most interesting members of this grouping were the
law philosopher Barna Horváth (Nagy 1985) and the history professor István
Hajnal (Glatz 1988).3, 4
Although they were unable to institutionalize a genuine social science, the
Társadalomtudomány group accepted the academic model of the role of social
science. They argued that political ideology and political purposes should be
excluded from ‘pure’ sociology. But the majority of the group were firmly
conservative in their socio-ethical and political convictions, and in this respect
they were not immune to the influence of certain fascist ideas. These influences
can be discerned in the very learned discussion of the concept of ‘leader’ by
Dékány, who treated the Führerprinzip as a legitimate formulation of the problem
of leadership in modern societies (Dékány 1937), and in the uncritical analysis of
the Lebensraum as a stage in economic development (Dékány 1940). Gyögy
Szombatfalvy, the rival of Dékány for the direction of Társadalomtudomány, was
even more sympathetic to certain right-wing ideas.5 Although he distanced himself
from the Nazi variant of racism, he accepted Hungarian anti-Jewish legislation on
‘objective’, ‘scientific’ grounds. ‘The feeling of difference,’ he argued, ‘was
developed on both sides (i.e. Hungarian and Jew) to such a degree that the only
conceivable basis for quiet cooperation is peaceful inner separation’
(Szombatfalvy 1940:81).
Not everyone was as committed to the conservative, authoritarian world-view

as Dékány and Szombatfalvy. For example, Horváth and Hajnal were much more
sympathetic to certain basic liberal ideas. They were on the periphery of the group.
They also tried to avoid direct political discussion. But when Horváth was asked
to comment on the planned forced rationalization of the Hungarian legal system
(a plan which was initiated by Gōmbōs and elaborated by the controversial
administrative lawyer Zoltán Magyary), he rejected it because the evolution of
law, he insisted, follows a spontaneous, unconscious path which must not be
disturbed by forced intervention (Horváth 1933). Both Horváth and Hajnal were
interested in piecemeal, slowly developing, ‘deep-layered’ processes, in the
hidden structures of everyday activities, and opposed them to state organizations
and brute power. It was in this sense that Hajnal tried to assimilate the Durkheimian
idea of social facts. On this ground, he criticized both modern economic
organization based on private interests and crude power and the organizations
based on force alone (Hajnal 1939). The sophisticated reader could notice the
latent anti-totalitarian world-view of Hajnal which was, however, concealed
behind the extensive textual criticism of Durkheim, Weber, Tönnies, Freyer etc.
and behind the learned analysis of the achievements of medieval peasant and
artisan societies.
The Társadalomtudomány group encountered fascism largely as citizens. Their
writings gave evidence of their attitudes toward it, but provided no serious analysis
of fascism. Perhaps this can be explained by the detached attitude toward politics
which the participants of the group professed and transferred from their principal
professions to their activities in sociology as a subsidiary, pastime activity. As
there was no coherent attempt to analyse Hungarian society (or any concrete
contemporary society) in this group, the specific problem of the sociological
explanation of the origin of fascist (or totalitarian) movements was in any event
not even posed for them.
The second group of quasi-sociologists was a group of populist intellectuals,
students, journalists, and writers. The populist intellectual movement developed
in the 1930s in literary circles and in rather rightist student groups. Hungarian
populism is a variant of a widespread Central and East-European intellectual
current, the best-known example of which is the Russian ‘narodnichestvo’.
Populism in this region generally combines national themes with the idea that the
true representative of the national character is the peasantry. The fate of the
peasantry is therefore the central issue of these movements, which are rather
critical of the existing social conditions and reject both the Western, capitalist way
of development and the Marxist socialist alternative to it, opting for a special
community-oriented ‘third way’. Populistic themes were present in Hungarian
social thinking since the beginning of the nineteenth century but until the end of
the 1920s there was no distinct populist intellectual group. The appearance of the
populists in the 1930s rearranged the intellectual scene dramatically.
The Hungarian populists adopted the idea that traditional conservative, liberal
or socialist ideologies were unable to give adequate answers to the social and
political problems produced by the great economic crises. They embraced the idea
that the Hungarian social reality (first of all the real situation of the ‘people’, the
peasantry) needed to be ‘discovered’. This movement produced an amateur
sociology called ‘sociography’ (Borbándi 1976; Lackó 1975b, 1975c, 1981b,
1981c; Némedi 1985a).
‘Sociographies’ were written mostly in impressionistic, literary manner. They
were based on firsthand observations of rural life. Generally there was no attempt
made to use more ‘objective’, scientific procedures. The books were written for
the general public and their professed aim was to enlighten the middle strata about
the plight of the rural poor. There was a discernible general scheme which
influenced the presentations: they were interested in the remnants of the old
peasant community and culture and they deplored the ‘deformed
embourgeoisement’ of the Hungarian peasantry, for its contradictions of its place
in an economy dominated by urban capitalism and feudal landlordism. The
incredible misery of the servants on the big estates (Illyés 1936), the fate of the,
in many cases unemployed, agricultural labourers (Féja 1937; Kovács 1937; Veres
1936), the stagnant smallholder societies of the small villages (Elsüllyedt 1936;
Erdei 1938, 1940; Némedi 1988; Szabó 1936, 1938), the social structure of the
big agricultural towns of the Hungarian plains (Erdei 1937, 1939)—these were
themes of the main works of the sociographers. Even today they are vivid works.
Ferenc Erdei’s works were in many respects exceptional: although he, too,
wrote impressionistic, pseudo-literary books (Erdei 1937, 1938), he was interested
in more scientific procedures too.6 He systematically studied foreign sociological
literature. His synthetical analysis of peasant society (Erdei 1943) is in every
respect scientific and professional. Utilizing the existing statistical materials and
analysing the few available observations, he developed a theory of peasantry
which was based on the distinction between the ‘social forms’ produced by
traditional reproduction and the social positions determined by the market
processes: the combination of the two resulted in a detailed typology of the
peasantry (Némedi 1985b).
The sociographer’s movement was not immune to fascist influences. The
peasant orientation first developed among the proto-fascist youth movements of
the counter-revolutionary period (1919–1921). The populist groups of the 1930s
could not totally rid themselves of this heritage. Each of the sociographers was
influenced in his formative years by the controversial novelist and journalist Dezsō
Szabó (Gömbös 1966; Nagy 1964).7 His passionate love of the peasantry, his
advocacy of social reform and his chauvinist anti-Jewish and anti-German
attitudes attracted many young intellectuals. The Bartha Miklós Society which
was very active toward the end of the 1920s (B.Bernát 1987; Sebestény 1981;
Szabó 1978) was highly typical of the curious populist mixture of rightist and
leftist social reformism. However, the prevalence of anti-German attitudes
contributed to decreased sympathy for the fascist movements, especially after
1933.
Even so, it cannot be said that in the 1930s there were no traces of radical
right-wing influences in the populist, sociographic movement. The völkisch ideas
and the Boden myth of the Nazi movement had an impact on many populists. Signs
of this influence can be found in occasional remarks and in private correspondence.
Mihály Kerék, a well-informed agrarian economist, had written a very sympathetic
review of the Nazi settlement plans and in a private letter he was very enthusiastic
about the reformist dynamism of the Nazi regime (Kerék 1934a, 1934b, 1934c).8
Even more characteristic is the case of Ferenc Erdei, who early combined romantic
populism and Marxist ideas with his sociological insights (Huszár 1979). When
he travelled in Western Europe in 1934–1935 he was impressed by the new regime
in Germany. This can be seen in his sociological account of the journey, which
was published in part shortly afterwards. He believed earnestly that there was a
social revolution in Germany (Erdei 1988a) or, as he somewhat later put it, a
thorough transformation led by the cult of the peasantry and by communitarian
ideals (Erdei 1988b). The agrarian economist Mátyás Matolcsy, who was a close
collaborator of the populist sociographers and who had earlier published a very
influential and well-received book on agrarian reform (Matolcsy 1934), defected
from the group and entered the fascist Arrow-Cross Party in 1938.9 Apparently
he came to the conclusion that the populist movement was too weak to achieve
any reform in the face of the opposition of the conservative government, and he
believed that the radical right was earnest in its social reformism. He was later
bitterly disappointed in this hope (Kisfaludy 1974).
The real or supposed right-wing sympathies of the populists were passionately
criticized by the ‘urban’ liberal-democratic intelligentsia and by the exponents of
the various left-wing groupings. Sometimes the populists were denounced as
fascists, as they were in the debate around the so-called ‘New Spiritual Front’, the
product of an ill-judged alliance between the prime minister, Gömbös, and some
populist intellectuals (Lackó 1975c). The accusations were repeated time and time
again, both by liberal journalists and by orthodox communists (Gaál 1935; Ignotus
1936). The suspicions were justified because the position occupied by the
populists, particularly in the Jewish question, was ambiguous. The anti-Semitism
prevalent in the right-wing student organizations was criticized by them but they
did not repudiate racial categorization totally. They qualified their position by
stressing repeatedly that ‘race’ should not be understood as a biological category
which determined the fate of individuals; rather it was understood by them as a
spiritual categorization. Those with a liberal or socialist anti-fascist outlook did
not accept this qualification. The issue was in the centre of the debate between
Ferenc Fejtö and Peter Veres.10,11 Fejtō pointed out that Veres’s argumentation
contained many unclear concepts and statements which could be exploited by the
radical right (Fejtō 1937a; 1937b). Veres confirmed that for him class solidarity
and racial-popular solidarity were equivalent, and, under pressure, reverted to a
biological conception of ‘race’.
I could find the basic characteristics of my human ideal type, the form of
behaviour necessary and possible in a collectivist society, in the ‘rough’
peasantry of the plains as well as among the young workers. My ‘racial
reaction’ is therefore nothing other than the combination of my ideological
and biological ideal type as it can be found in the peasantry and among
young workers.
(Veres 1937:428)
Veres later combined his concept of race and nation with the idea that socialism
(which meant for him agrarian collectivist radicalism) cannot triumph without the
help of powerful leading personalities (Veres 1939, 1940, 1942). However, Veres
remained a member of the Social Democratic Party and hostile to the various
right-wing movements and groups.
There is nothing anomalous in this because the populist movement as a whole
was rather on the left of the Hungarian political spectrum. In 1937 they organized
the short-lived March Front, a loose alliance between populists and young
Communist intellectuals. The Front held meetings where the authoritarian regime
was criticized and people warned of the German menace and of the activity of the
Hungarian fascists. One year later the Front was practically dissolved by the
government (Salamon 1980). In general, apart from the slips mentioned above,
the political journalism of the sociographers’ movement was anti-fascist (and
anti-German). Among the best examples of its efforts are the vivid and
sociologically informed accounts of right-wing radicalism among the poor
peasants of the plains written by Imre Kovács (Kovács 1936, 1938).12 The decline
of sociographic activity after the Annexation of Austria did not change the attitudes
of the majority in this regard. Many of the former sociographers were connected
with the anti-German, liberal-reformist newspaper Magyar Nemzet. It was there
that Zoltán Szabó launched his campaign for the defence of the spiritual
independence of Hungary.13 The campaign was directed against German and Nazi
influences (Szabó 1940).
The sociographers responded to fascism as citizens and Hungarian patriots, not
as sociologists or social scientists. They did not produce an analysis of the fascist
phenomenon. This was not due to a detached scholarly attitude, as was the case
of the ‘official’ sociologists. The sociographers were engaged in reformist politics.
They considered themselves as political exponents of the peasantry and they
believed that sociography was a means in the process of emancipation. However,
their inability to confront fascism analytically was not just personal neglect. It was
determined by the structure of their thinking.
Populist sociography started from the assumption that the Hungarian peasantry
was not and could not be integrated into national society. They believed that the
sheer economic exploitation of the peasantry effectively restricted its capacity to
participate in the national cultural and political life. They also showed that there
were important status differences, power mechanisms and political inequalities
which prevented the peasantry from progressing toward full citizenship. The big
estate system, the central and local administration dominated by a bureaucracy

which inherited its self-definition from the old nobility, and the suppression of the
interests of the village communities were seen as the main causes of the plight of
the peasantry (Némedi 1985b).
These were clearly political ‘causes’, and in this respect it can be said that the
populists practised a critical ‘political sociography’. On the other hand, however,
they were opposed to the traditional political machinery and to the traditional
political ideologies. Populism thus emerged and presented itself as an alternative,
a ‘third way’. In the 1930s, when the distinctive populist ideas were formed, they
believed in earnest that the ‘third way’ leads somewhere ‘above’ politics. The
populist group was characterized by a ‘metapolitical’ outlook which led them to
look for moral answers to political questions. In this respect the influence of the
cultural critic, essayist, and novelist László Németh was very important (Lackó
1981c).14 The populist sociographers were caught in a paradoxical situation: the
problem they had discovered required them to provide an analysis of the political
system. But the ideology they had adopted prevented them from taking the political
machinery very seriously and from trying to analyse it in detail. They evaded the
paradox by rhetorical means.
Due to the paradoxical situation described above the populists were
conceptually unable to interpret the fascist movement, which could not be reduced
to the social dimension alone. The sociological analysis of fascism would have
required a theoretical attitude which granted equal attention to social and political
structures. This was impossible to do within a strictly populist approach. Those
among the populists who, for different reasons, departed from the original
‘metapolitical’ conception (Erdei, Kovács, and Szabó) felt the inadequacy of the
populist ‘paradigm’ clearly. Thus Erdei programmatically stated in his book on
the agricultural towns that a new conception of politics was necessary (Erdei
1939:209 ff.). Kovács (1938) reminded fellow-populists of the dangers which
come from the neglect of politics. Szabó (1940) conceptualized the problem as
the dissociation of national and social aspirations. But this was too fragmentary
to serve as a basis for the interpretation of the fascist phenomenon.
However, a sociologically informed political commentator, István Bibó, who
had some connections with the populist group (he was a close friend of Erdei and
in the 1930s was sympathetic to the cause of the sociographers) (Huszár 1986),
produced toward the end of the war an extended analysis of the European situation
in which he presented the most serious Hungarian attempt to grasp the fascist
phenomenon.15
Bibó had some links with the ‘official’ sociologists, as well. His father was the
first editor of Társadalomtudomány. He was a student of Barna Horváth, and was
also influenced by the historical sociology of Hajnal. Although he was sympathetic
to liberal ideas (in this regard he disagreed with Erdei) he was not totally
committed to any scientific or ideological grouping. In fact, he was the precursor
of a discipline which did not come into existence until the 1980s: political science.
His study of European balance and peace (Bibó 1986; Kiss 1984), which was
not published until the 1980s, is an ambitious undertaking. He attempts to interpret
the world war in the light of European history. He analyses German fascism in
this context. The key concept in his analysis of fascism (and many related systems)
is ‘hysteria’, which he understands as a collective phenomenon. Hysteria prevails
if ‘the community abandons reality, if it becomes incapable of solving the
problems posed by life, if its self-evaluation is uncertain and exaggerated, if its
reactions to the impact of the world are unreal and disproportionate’ (Bibó
1986:374). He knows the dangers of the ‘metaphysics of community’, he accepts
that psychical states can be attributed only to human individuals, but he believes
that the aggregation of these psychical states results, in certain cases, in collective
attitudes ‘which are analogous to the reactions of hysterical men’ (Bibó 1986:375).
German fascism was a hysterical phenomenon because it was ‘deformed’,
dominated by the absurd conception that the historical forces which were engaged
in the struggle for freedom and nationhood could be won over for the cause of
nationhood alone (Bibó 1986:467). Hitlerism negates the three basic evolutionary
tendencies of European society: international unity, democracy and socialism,
says Bibó, and this demonstrates its incapacity to understand historical reality
(Bibó 1986: 479). Bibó knows that the emergence of Hitlerism can be explained
by specific historical circumstances. But he maintains that one cannot fully
understand it without taking into account the social-psychological factor of
‘hysteria’ (Bibó 1986:480–481).
Bibó is fully aware that fascism cannot be understood purely in
political-historical terms. At the same time, he knows that there is an essential
political moment in fascism. As he was not engaged very actively in the populist
movement, he was immune to the ‘metapolitical’ illusions of his friends. He
stressed many times the importance of political processes and ideas. But he always
tried to avoid the reduction of historical processes to political decisions (and to
the political ideas informing those decisions) alone. In this respect he was deeply
influenced by the sociology of Erdei. He knew that the ideas and ideals constituting
the core essence of Europe depend on the development of civil society and
rationality alone was not enough to ensure their predominance. The
social-psychological concept of ‘hysteria’ was the result of these considerations:
it was the social cause of the absence of rationality in fascist thought.
However, ‘hysteria’ is a specious solution. It does not describe any real social
processes. Bibó himself conceives it as a logical error, a form of cognitive
incapacity. The conceptualization of Hitlerism as a ‘hysterical’ phenomenon
derives its plausibility from the fact that the public appearance of Hitlerism had
many ‘hysterical’ features in the common-sense meaning of the word. However,
Bibó had another meaning in mind. According to his definition even a philistine,
quiet political system would be ‘hysterical’ if it was incapable of comprehending
‘reality’. This was how he described the Hungarian political evolution in the period
of the dual monarchy. Hitlerism appears as the consequence of an inner, logical
contradiction. The idea that fascism is the result of some gigantic failure of
European thought was not totally foreign to contemporary philosophers. However,

by adopting this line of reasoning, Bibó’s analysis of fascism remains merely
pseudo-sociological (or pseudo-social-psychological). He, too, was unable to
develop a comprehensive account of right-wing totalitarianism. His
historico-political analysis was very similar in structure to the political critique of
fascism developed in the ‘liberal’ pre-sociology of the 1930s: the analysis was
reduced to the defence of certain values and to the critique of the fascist destruction
of the European rational heritage.
The ‘liberals’ constituted the third group in this period of the prehistory of
Hungarian sociology. They were centred around the review Századunk which was
heir to the more famous, pre-1914 review Huszadik Század. Originally, the group
was founded by Oszkár Jászi and attracted mainly urban, open-minded, critical
Jewish intellectuals.16 After the revolution the majority of the participants (among
them the best-trained specialists) were forced into exile. In the 1930s, the
leadership of the group fell to a non-Jew, Imre Csécsy, who tried to maintain a
high intellectual level and a combative democratic spirit (Kerékgyarto 1989).17
The authoritarian racial and press legislation of 1938 destroyed the Századunk and
with it the group itself.
The sociological legitimacy of the Századunk derived from the fact that it
published many sociological review articles. The emigrant members, too,
published sociological essays in it. Those who remained at home were unable to
do original systematic research in sociology. These circumstances determined the
manner in which fascism as a social and political phenomenon was dealt with.
Of the three pre- (or proto- or pseudo-) sociological groups, the team of the
Századunk was the most interested in fascism. From the late 1920s onward there
were few issues which did not contain material relating to fascism and/or Nazism.
The authors whose theories or theoretical opinions were dealt with included
Francesco Nitti, Luigi Sturzo, Carl Schmitt, Richard Kroner, Oswald Spengler,
Wilhelm Andreae, Georg Bernhard, Werner Sombart, G.A.Borgese, G.Salvemini,
Karl Mannheim (who, although he did not publish in the review, as a Hungarian
emigrant had personal contact with Csécsy), Coudenhouve-Kalergi, M.
Horkheimer and H.Marcuse. The lectures of Oszkár Jászi (who was at that time
at the Oberlin College) on Hitler and Nazism, given before American audiences,
were republished here (Jászi 1933, 1934, 1935). Paul Kecskeméti (Mannheim’s
brother-in-law) published some articles in the review dealing with general political
problems.18 The political events of the first years of Nazi rule were summarized
by him in well-informed commentaries under the pseudonym Peter Schmidt
(Schmidt 1933a, 1933b, 1935). He saw clearly that Hitler could not have acquired
power without winning the support of part of the working class. While he placed
Nazism in the German Protestant tradition of worship of the state, he did not reduce
the analysis to the demonstration of analogies with other phenomena known from
the history of ideas. The main factor leading to the Nazi victory was, he said, the
division of the working class movement.
The most interesting and profound analyses of fascism were written by the
emigrant moral and social philosopher Aurel Kolnai.19 Borrowing some key
Marxist concepts, he described fascism as the outcome of the contradiction
between political democracy and capitalist economy. Fascism attempts to defend
capitalism by creating a castrated socialism. It is not the bourgeoisie or the
proletariat, he says, which serves as the social base of fascist movements, but it
creates its own social base: the ruling groups of the fascist ‘gang state’ (Kolnai
1930). He stressed that fascism restricts the power of the oligarchic ruling classes.
The fascist elite has its roots in the popular classes. Therefore, he says, the fascist
state will be different from the ancien regime. While it is allied to the
representatives of anti-democratic forces (to the big estate owners, to big industry,
and military circles), it is in its essence an illegal popular movement aiming at the
establishment of a new type of dictatorial power. Kolnai’s explanation was only
one among many European attempts to explain fascism by a revisionist Marxist
approach. It had no discernible influence on the thinking of the inner Hungarian
group of the Századunk.
For Csécsy and the whole group of the Századunk fascism was a problem that
was political stricto sensu. Csécsy’s orientation was clearly stated in his
well-known article on the decline of democracies. He criticized equally fascism,
Bolshevism and the New Deal because all three were contrary to the democratic
ideal based on natural rights. He opposed to them democratic values (liberty,
equality, fraternity) which were supra-historical. Csécsy adopted an ethical
standpoint which implicated that the ‘essence’ of individuality was more important
for him than any social bonds. The social form of existence, he said, was not ‘the
highest possible form of life for us. It is not adherence to something which is
valuable in life. It is only the personality which counts’ (Csécsy 1935:2). In a letter
written to Jászi in 1936, Csécsy explained that he had given up the sociological
point of view, and no longer sought the ‘laws’ of history. The task of the thinker
is, he explained, ‘to preach the norms of the right moral conduct even if they are
contrary to the predetermined course of history’ (Kerékgyarto 1989:99). This
position excluded any attempt to analyse fascism sociologically while it
encouraged its ethical and political condemnation. Other members of the group,
including Berend (1936), Gōrög (1938) and Vámbéry (1936), reacted to the rise
of Nazism similarly.20
The anti-sociological evaluation of fascism by the heirs of liberal sociology is
fully understandable in the circumstances. They were closely connected with the
urban, largely Jewish, culture of Budapest which was menaced by right-wing
tendencies. They were in a defensive minority position which was not very
congenial to a detached, ‘objective’ sociological analysis of their adversary. It was
quite natural that they considered it to be their primary duty to defend the
threatened values themselves. They stressed that democratic values were valid
and did not enter into a sociological discussion, which would inevitably lead to
the relativization of these cherished values. As citizens they did their best to oppose
fascism and in this respect they exploited their connections and the fact that the
Századok was regarded as a sociological journal. As sociologists they believed

that it was impossible to confront it on a scientific level.
This overview of the response of Hungarian sociologists to fascism has yielded
largely negative results. For different reasons, each of the three groups of
‘sociologists’ were unable to give a specifically sociological answer to the fascist
challenge. This can be explained partially by the relative backwardness of
sociology in the interwar period in Hungary. But this is only part of the
explanation. We have seen that the special place which was occupied by politics
in the thought of the different groups determined their approach. The
‘metapolitical’ attitude of the populists was as much a hindrance to the
understanding of the fascist phenomenon as the ‘pure’ political (or
ethical-political) conception of the Századunk group (and, in a different way, of
Bibó). Fascism (or any other totalitarian political system) cannot be understood
unless one is able to synthesize the social and political point of view. This cannot
be done unless circumstances permit, as they did not in the Hungarian situation.
NOTES
1 ‘Official’ was the epithet chosen by the opponents of this grouping. It was taken
over by historians. It does not mean that they possessed an ‘office’ as sociologists:
there was no such office. It was intended as a shorthand description of their positive,
uncritical or softly critical attitudes toward the authorities. In fact, many of them
were civil servants or employees of agricultural corporative organizations.
2 István Dékány 1886–1965, Philosopher, sociologist: Doctoral degree 1909;
Privatdozent and secondary school teacher from 1920; 1942–1946, professor of
social theory at the Budapest University; extensive literary activity; forced retirement
in 1946, later deported to a provincial township.
3 Barna Horváth 1896–1973, Lawyer: Doctoral degree 1920; 1925–1949 professor of
philosophy of law at the University of Szeged; 1949, emigration to the USA; 1950–
1956, professor of The New School of Social Research, visiting professor in many
European universities, publications on the philosophy and sociology of law.
4 István Hajnal 1892–1956, Historian, official of various public and private archives:
from 1921 Privatdozent; 1930–1949 professor of modern history at the Budapest
University; later official at the Hungarian National Museum. Main areas of interest:
medieval and modern social history, history of technology, the relation of history
and sociology.
5 Gyōrgy Szombatfalvy 1888-?, Sociologist, public official: Secondary school
teacher; later official of the Ministry of Education; founding member, later secretary
of the Hungarian Social Scientific Association; editor of Társadalomtudomány.
6 Ferenc Erdei 1911–1971, Sociologist, politician: son of peasants; student of law in
Szeged; friendship with István Bibó; between 1937 and 1943, publication of several
important sociological and sociographical works; 1944–1949, one of the leaders of
the National Peasant Party, sympathetic to collaboration with the Communists; 1949–
1956, various governmental functions; after 1956, scholar in agrarian economics
and organizational activity in the Academy of Sciences.
7 Dezsō Szabó 1879–1945, Novelist, publicist: Literary studies, secondary school

teacher until 1919; later freelance journalist; sympathetic to the radical
counter-revolution in 1919–1920; his novel, Az elsodort falu (The Village Which
Was Swept Away, 1919), formulates the basic tenets of populism; popular among
the young generation in the 1930s.
8 Mihály Kerék 1902-, Economist: Official of various agrarian interest organizations;
1938–1939 departmental secretary for social policy; extensive literary activity on
problems of agrarian social policy, agrarian labour question and land reform.
9 Mátyás Matolcsy 1905–1953, Engineer, economist: Studied in Hungary, Britain and
the USA; employee of the Hungarian Institute of the Study of the Economy; 1935–
1944, member of parliament; 1939–1942, member of the Arrow-Cross Party;
publications on the methods of measurement of national income, on agrarian
unemployment and on land reform; 1946, sentenced to several years of imprisonment
for war crimes.
10 Ferenc Fejtö 1906-, Literary critic, novelist, political writer: Participation in the
communist youth movement; imprisonment; later member of the Social Democratic
Party; collaborator in the social-liberal review Szep Szo; 1938 emigration to France;
after 1945, leading French expert on East European issues.
11 Péter Veres 1897–1970, Novelist: Autodidact, until 1945 lived in a village as a
journeyman; member of the Social Democratic Party; imprisoned several times;
author of political, autobiographical essays, sociographical works, novels describing
the everyday life of poor peasants; 1944–1949, leader of the National Peasant Party,
founded by populist intellectuals.
12 Imre Kovács 1913–1980, Political essayist, novelist: Student of economics; leading
member of the group of sociographers; contributor to various journals and
newspapers; active in the anti-German resistance; after the liberation one of the
leaders of the National Peasant Party; hostile to the Communists; left the Peasant
Party; 1948, emigrated to the USA.
13 Zoltán Szabó 1912–1984, Essayist, sociographer: Initiator of the sociographic
movement of the Catholic youth; author of two sociographical books; after 1938
active participation in the patriotic, anti-German intellectual circles; 1945–1947,
editor of the populist review Valosag, 1947–1949, diplomatic service; 1949,
emigration to Paris, later London.
14 László Németh 1901–1975, Novelist, playwright, essayist: Medical studies; until
1942, practising dentist; from the 1920s on, critical and philosophical essays; one
of the leading ideologists of the populist movement; in a series of psychological
novels (the first one in 1936) and social and historical plays describes the situation
of the heroic, ethical and committed intellectual.
15 István Bibó 1911–1979, Lawyer, political scientist: Studied in Szeged, Vienna and
Geneva; Privatdozent from 1940; connections with the populist movement (with
Ferenc Erdei); 1946–1950, university professor in Szeged, member of the National
Peasant Party, author of famous essays on Hungarian history and political
development; from 1951, librarian; 1956, minister in the Imre Nagy government;
1957–1963, imprisoned.
16 Oszkár Jászi 1875–1957, Sociologist, politician: Student of law in Budapest, founder
and editor of the liberal socialist political and sociological review Huszadik Szazad,
leading figure of the progressive sociological school; actively participated in the
revolution in 1918; emigration in 1919 to Vienna, in 1925 to the USA; subsequently
professor at Oberlin College, Ohio; active in the democratic, anti-communist

emigration, author of books on theoretical issues, the national question, political
sociology.
17 Imre Csécsy 1893–1961, Editor, political essayist: Philosophical studies in
Budapest; lifelong friend of Jaszi Oszkar; in the 1920s private employee; in the 1930s
editor-in-chief of the Szazadunk, 1945–1949, leader of the Hungarian Radical Party,
publications on political and philosophical problems.
18 Paul Kecskemeti 1901–1980, Philosopher, social scientist: After studies in Pecs and
Budapest, journalist in Budapest and from 1929 on in Berlin; toward the end of the
1930s emigrated to Paris, later to the USA; worked for the Rand Corporation, later
university professor in California.
19 Aurél Kolnai 1900–1973, Philosopher: After 1920 emigration, studied in Freiburg
and Vienna; after 1933 emigration to Paris, later to the USA; from 1945, professor
of social philosophy in Quebec; many publications on German Nazi ideology.
20 Rusztem Vámbéry 1872–1948, Lawyer, publicist. 1898–1913 ministerial employee,
1903 Privatdozent, 1915–1919 professor of criminal law at Budapest University.
After 1920 barrister. Co-editor of the review Századunk. 1938 emigration to the
USA. 1947–1948 Hungarian ambassador to the USA. Extensive literary activity on
legal problems, political and ethical issues.
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Bernát, István (1987) A népi ideológic elözményeihez. A Bartha Miklós Társaság
torténete (1925–1930), unpublished manuscript, Budapest
Bibó, István (1986) ‘Az európai egyensúlyról és békéröl’, in Bibó István, Válogatott
tanulmányok 1:295–635, Budapest: Magveto.
Borbándi, Gyula (1976) Der ungarische Populismus, Mainz: Hase & Koehler.
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Dékány, István (1937) ‘A társadalom vezetöi. A vezetō-kategóriák kérdése’,
Társadalomtudomány 17:1–29.
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Politikai irasok 1, Budapest: Akademiai, pp. 38–42 (originally published 1 Dec. 1935,
in Makói Ujság).
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Budapest: Akadémiai, pp. 103–104 (originally published 20 June 1937, in Makói
F ggetlen Ujság).
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Gaál, Gábor (1935) ‘A magyarságtudományi törekvések bírálatához’, Korunk 10: 847–
854.
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Gōmbōs, Gyula (1966) Szabó Dezsö, M nchen: Molnár.
Gōrōg, János (1938) ‘Diktatúrák t ndöklése és elmúlása’, Századunk 13:132–141.
Hajnal, István (1939) ‘Történelem es szociológia’, Századunk 73:1–32, 137–166.
Horváth, Barna (1933) ‘A jog racionalizálása’, Társadalomtudomány 13:23–36.
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tanulmányok 3, Budapest: Magvetö, pp. 385–534.
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Illyés, Gyula (1936) Puszták népe, Budapest: Nyugat.
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Kerék, Mihály (1934a) ‘Németország mezögazdaságának új szervezete’, Válasz 1: 209–
211.
——(1934b) ‘A föld és munka reformja a Harmadik Birodalomban’, Válasz 1: 525–534.
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Library, Fond 7. XXXIX. No. 29.
Kerékgyártó, Béla (1989) ‘Az örök Gironde javithatatlan hívōje’. Csécsy Imre
gondolkodói és politikusi pályája, unpublished manuscript, Budapest.
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társadalomszemléletének bírálatához), Budapest: M velodési Minisztérium.
Kiss, Endre (1984) ‘Tōrténelem és társadalomlélektan’, Valóság 27, 9:42–49.
Kolnai, Aurél (1930) ‘Ifjuság és fasiszta reakció’, Századunk 5:503–511.
Kovács, Imre (1936) ‘A kaszás-kereszt mozgalom’, Magyar Szemle 27:325–333.
——(1937) Néma forradalom, Budapest: Cserepfalvi.
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Lackó, Miklós (1966) Nyilasok, nemzetiszocialisták 1935–1944, Budapest: Kossuth.
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választások, Budapest: Gondolat, pp. 298–317.
——(1975b) ‘A nemzedéki tömōrülésröl és szakadásról’, in Lackó Miklós, Válságok —
——(1975c) ‘Az Új Szellemi Front tōrténetéhez’, in Lackó Miklós, Válságok—
——(1981a) ‘A társadalomtudományok szerepe a magyar szellemi életben a két
világháboru kōzōtt’, in Lackó Miklós, Szerep és mü, Budapest: Gondolat, pp. 298–
342.
——(1981b) ‘A megrendítō rōgeszme’, in Lackó Miklós, Szerep és mü, Budapest:
Gondolat, pp. 123–156.
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Gondolat, pp. 157–247.
Magyarország története (1976) vol. 8, Budapest: Akadémiai.
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Gloria.
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Medvetánc, 2–3:295–306.
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Sociology 6:87–101.
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österreichischen Soziologie, Wien: Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, pp. 143–154.
Ormos, Mária (1987) Nácizmus -fasizmus, Budapest: Magvetö.
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——(1987) Tanulmányok a magyar szociológiai gondolkodás történetéböl,
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——(1933b) ‘A harmadik birodalomból’, Századunk 8:229–233.
——(1935) ‘Hitler három éve’, Századunk 10:74–82.
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7
PRINCIPLE, POLITICS, PROFESSION
American sociologists and fascism, 1930–1950
Robert C.Bannister
THE PROBLEM
‘For the two years from ‘38 to ‘40, I never discussed democracy or Nazism,’ the
sociologist William F.Ogburn confided to his diary once the war was over.
Although he had broken this silence briefly during 1941, his lectures were ‘wholly
analytical’, he continued. ‘I knewthat to refer to Hitler without at the same time
calling him a son-of-a-bitch, was to be classed as pro-Nazi. But we were not at
war, and I have never been much concerned with what people thought of me.’ Nor
did the outbreak of hostilities shake this resolve. ‘When the war came on I never
made any speeches referring in anyway to Nazism or democracy.’ When in his
classroom he occasionally discussed democracy, he approached the subject as one
might the ‘mores of the Eskimo’. ‘The classes,’ he observed, ‘were sometimes
resentful, sometimes quiet, sometimes, maybe, sullen.’1
During the interwar years, Ogburn’s was a voice that counted in American
sociology. During the 1920s, most of the prewar founders had passed from the
scene: Albion Small of Chicago (died 1926), Charles Horton Cooley of Michigan
(1929), and Franklin Giddings of Columbia (1931). Remaining founders included
Charles Ellwood of Duke and Edward A.Ross of Wisconsin, both secondary
powers in the profession. A third was W.I.Thomas, whose use of the ‘case study’
in The Polish Peasant (1918) provided a model for one brand of Chicago sociology
but whose prestige declined after his dismissal from the University of Chicago on
a bogus morals charge in 1918.
In their place appeared new contenders for professional power and prestige.
During the 1920s, the urban sociologist Robert Park and his students made the
‘Chicago school’ virtually synonymous with American sociology. At the
University of North Carolina, Howard W.Odum (Ph.D. Columbia, 1909) launched
the discipline’s first formal research institute and published Social Forces, the
first new sociological journal in the United States since the founding of the
American Journal of Sociology (1895). At the University of Southern California
Emory S.Bogardus established a West Coast enclave and a second new journal,
Sociology and Social Research. With W.F.Ogburn’s election to the presidency of
168 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGISTS AND FASCISM, 1930–1950
the American Sociological Society in 1929, this ‘second’ generation effectively

came to power within the profession.
Ogburn’s program, as outlined in his presidential address to the ASS, called for
a rigorously quantitative sociology, preferably based on statistics. Alternately
termed ‘neo-positivists’, ‘objectivists’, or (more derisively) proponents of
‘scientism’, sociologists of this persuasion held, not only that science provided
mankind with an all-embracing philosophy of life and the solution to all problems,
but that the techniques used in the physical sciences could be used to solve any
problem (Hayek 1954:1).
During the 1930s, these objectivists, in turn, divided into two loose factions,
one led by Ogburn and his allies (including Stuart Rice of the University of
Pennsylvania) and the other by Luther Lee Bernard, a maverick whose peripatetic
career finally brought him to Washington University in St Louis.2 For Ogburn, a
scientific sociology was nominalist, statistical, and advisory, that is, it was
concerned with means rather than ends. For Bernard it was realist and
presumptively radical in that it provided an ‘objective standard of social control’,
and hence absolute standards for social reconstruction. During the early 1940s,
objectivist sociology reached a peak of sorts with the successive appointment of
two leading proponents of value-neutral scientism to the editorship of the
American Sociological Review (Read Bain of Miami University in Ohio; F.Stuart
Chapin, University of Minnesota), and of a third (George Lundberg of Bennington
College) to the presidency of the American Sociological Society for 1943.
Although the lines separating the objectivist factions sometimes blurred, they
collectively differed in minor but significant ways from non-objectivist colleagues
in background and politics. Socially marginal, they represented the more
provincial reaches of a fast-modernizing America: the rural south (Ogburn), the
southwest (Bernard), and the upper Great Plains (Lundberg). Educated almost
exclusively in the United States, they had fewer contacts and less interest in Europe
than did the prewar founders and many of their own more cosmopolitan
contemporaries. Although Ogburn and his associates achieved success in the
university and foundation worlds, Bernard and many of his allies toiled at
provincial institutions of the second or third rank. While these circumstances
inclined many to a sort of populist radicalism on domestic issues, and to dissent
within the profession, they also made them prime candidates for post-First World
War disillusionment and isolationism in international affairs.
Since sociological theory and professional prestige were intertwined, questions
concerning American sociology’s response to fascism must be asked at the levels
of principle, politics, and profession. To the extent that the response was muted
or superficial (as Ogburn’s comments suggest), did the fault lie in sociological
theory, political conviction, or some combination? What role if any was played
by the internal dynamics of professionalism, a question particularly relevant given
sociology’s perennial instability? What effect did the emergence of fascism have
on the shape of the discipline? It is these questions that this paper will explore.
Historiography
Although historians of sociology have addressed these issues only tangentially,
earlier debates provide a focus for this discussion. An overarching question has
been whether fascism was rooted in religious, idealist, or romantic thought, or in
the tradition of positivism dating from Auguste Comte. Defending the first view,
a British pro-fascist argued that sociology provided no basis for social policy
precisely because it was narrowly positivistic. Italian fascism, in contrast, provided
the missing moral guide because it was rooted in religion and tradition. Enemies
of fascism reversed this judgement while accepting its premise. So viewed,
fascism marked a resurgence of the forces of traditionalism, authoritarianism, and
various forms of irrationalism (Barnes 1928; Ellwood 1938: 289).
In this interpretation, sociologists who set the stage were Vilfredo Pareto (‘the
Karl Marx of Fascism’); Ludwig Gumplowicz and others of the Austrian ‘struggle
school’; and a potpourri of racialists, nationalists, and eugenists now branded
‘social Darwinists’ (McGovern 1941; Hofstadter 1944).3
Others added that Comte, Durkheim, and Tönnies must also shoulder blame, a
charge later commonplace so far as concerned Tönnies. Despite their embrace of
science, each of these sociologists allegedly harboured secret affection for an
organic order characterized alternatively as theological (Comte), as Gemeinschaft
(Tönnies), and as mechanic solidarity (Durkheim) (Ranulf 1939:16–34).
Other critics meanwhile rooted fascism in positivism itself. Within American
sociology, this charge fuelled the ongoing battle between Ogburn’s rigorously
scientistic faction and Bernard’s loose coalition of social evolutionists, reformers,
and others increasingly marginalized within the profession. ‘If fascism comes, I
surmise that [some of the sheltered sociologists who are commanding the strategic
positions within the academic world] might be willing to surrender their birthright
for a mess of pottage,’ one of Bernard’s allies wrote him in 1938. ‘At the present,
some of them for the lack of vision, are drifting into the intellectual desert of
Logical Positivism where they will be brooding upon their empty eggs of
thought.’4 In Reason and Revolution (1941), the émigré philosopher Herbert
Marcuse argued that positivism, in separating sociology from philosophy,
narrowed the former to the study of immediate experience while exempting from
critical reason wider realms of experience which Comte proceeded to fill with the
elaborate rituals and symbols of his Religion of Humanity. Positivism thus
provided a defence of middle-class society, while bearing within itself ‘the seeds
of a philosophic justification of authoritarianism’ (Marcuse 1941:340–43). An
American critic, charging Lundberg with pro-fascist views, turned Marcuse’s
argument against ‘operationalism’, the latest attenuation of the extreme positivist
spirit (Hartung 1944:330, 335, 337, 340–41).5
Summary of argument
On balance, the following account supports the second rather than the first of these
interpretations, although insisting that national, international, and professional
politics were inextricably bound up with a positivistic orientation. In American
sociology’s response to fascism, principle, politics, and profession each played a
part.
Some American sociologists early developed a distaste for fascism. But those
who spoke out against the new movements in Italy and Germany laboured under
a dual disadvantage. At the level of theory, their passion was often deeper than
their analysis, as they viewed fascism rather narrowly in terms of class struggle
or as the logic of capitalism, both legacies of the domestic political battles of the
prewar Progressive Era.6 Despite some truth, these analyses were more revealing
of the concerns of left-of-centre American liberals or radicals than of the complex
nature of fascism. Nor, from a later perspective, were they really sociological.7
Within the profession, the most outspoken anti-fascists also lacked clout.
Although the four leading sociological journals gave some space to discussions
of fascism, and regularly reviewed books on the subject,8 authors and reviewers
were typically relative unknowns (often without Ph.Ds), European émigrés (and
hence also outsiders), or in fields other than sociology. Often right for the wrong
reasons, they were easy to ignore.
At the other extreme, Ogburn’s studied silence, if notable in its frankness, was
not unique among the profession’s leaders. During Mussolini’s rise to power
surprisingly few sociological big shots mentioned Italian fascism, while even
fewer criticized it. From the triumph of National Socialism in 1933 through the
Nazi-Soviet pact six years later, an amalgam of value-free objectivism, political
isolationism, and veiled anti-Semitism kept public discussion to a minimum.
Privately, younger objectivists speculated that a social scientist as scientist could
function as effectively in Hitler’s Germany as in Franklin Roosevelt’s America.
In his presidential address to the ASS in 1943, George Lundberg seemed to some
to verge on open anti-Semitism, while his other public statements appeared to
repudiate democracy.
During the early 1940s, a gradual recognition of the complex nature of German
fascism transformed the debate—due in part to new perspectives drawn from
earlier European sociology, and in part to growing recognition of the true meaning
of Hitler’s attack on the Jews. In the end, the debate over fascism worked to the
disadvantage of both versions of objectivism, most especially the narrowly
positivistic faction represented first by Ogburn, then by Lundberg. The
beneficiaries, however, were not the reformers and dissidents of the 1930s, but a
new generation who proposed to bring American sociology more squarely within
the European tradition. Chief among these was Talcott Parsons, whose analysis
of fascism in the early 1940s moved the debate to a new level, while directing
American sociology along a new path. Just as the First World War had hastened
the demise of a reformist social evolutionism and brought the rise of value-neutral
scientism, so the events of the Second World War paved the way for the emergence
of the Parsonian paradigm within the discipline.
In considering these issues, ‘response’ must be interpreted within an American
context. Unlike their Italian or German colleagues, American sociologists faced
no momentous decision to support or to oppose regimes that demanded their
loyalty. Rather they enjoyed the luxury of a wait-and-see attitude throughout most
of the 1930s. Once war was declared, theoretical discussions of the nature and
sources of fascism were subordinated to more general issues concerning
America’s war effort and, later, to the postwar reconstruction of Germany. Nor
were sociologists alone in responding too little and too late, as the historian John
Diggins has shown in his exhaustive study of American reactions to Mussolini
(Diggins 1972). No American sociologist here considered was openly pro-fascist,
as was the case with certain Italian and German social scientists.9 Rather, the case
was one of collective myopia in the face of distinctly modern developments that
cast a shadow not only on human history but on the very concept of modernity.10
ANTI-FASCIST VOICES
Charles A.Ellwood
During the 1920s, the professionalization of American sociology translated in
practice into close, empirical study of domestic issues rather than comparative or
historical studies of social systems or ideologies. The result was evident in the
response to international affairs. Despite their important contributions to urban
ecology and regionalism, for example, neither Robert Park nor Howard Odum
apparently studied or commented on the rise of Mussolini or German fascism.11
The task of speaking out instead fell initially to two men trained in the prewar
years: Charles A.Ellwood, an early Chicago Ph.D. (1899) who continued to
represent the religious, reformist impulse of prewar sociology; and Emory S.
Bogardus, also a Chicago Ph.D. (1911), whose ‘social distance’ scale won him a
minor reputation during the 1920s.
Born in upstate New York, Ellwood (1875–1946) began his career as a charity
worker before teaching at the universities of Nebraska and Missouri, and finally
Duke (appointed 1929). Convinced that the First World War was the product of
unbridled materialism, he launched a one-man crusade for spirituality in
scholarship against all forms of ‘objectivism’, a term he first used in 1916. In the
early 1920s he fought (and lost) battles against military conscription, immigration
restriction, and the racism that was endemic in his adopted state of Missouri.
Ellwood early observed fascism firsthand during a visit to Italy in 1927–28.
‘Perhaps the three and one half months which I spent [there] were the most
stimulating of the nine and one half months which I spent on the continent of
Europe,’ he wrote in an unpublished sketch of his career a year later. Although he
had once believed that social evolution guaranteed the triumph of democracy, he
was now less sure. ‘I now see that the Democratic Movement is not certain of
victory in our culture,’ he continued, ‘unless strong efforts are made in the
direction of social and political education.’12
From the late 1920s onward, Ellwood warned audiences throughout the nation
of fascism’s perils. ‘Never before has democracy in all its forms been challenged
so boldly, so determinedly, and so logically as by the fascist regime in Italy,’ he
observed in a public lecture at Vanderbilt. ‘Fascism is doomed before it starts
because it is built on false doctrines of social theory,’ he added before another
audience at Northwestern. ‘Even if fascism is well integrated within the nation—
and notice I am not saying that it is—but even if it is, it is headed for disaster,
because it leads inevitably to war.’13 Although Ellwood contributed little or
nothing in the way of formal analysis in these lectures or in his published work,
the menace of fascism also echoed through his escalating attack on sociological
objectivism (an ‘emasculated sociology’, he termed it), and surfaced again in The
Story of Social Philosophy (1939). ‘Hegellives again,’ he wrote of the roots of
Nazism, ‘in the “Authoritarian Volk State” that Hitler and his followers have set
up.’ Writing to praise E.A.Ross’s New Age Sociology the following year, he added:
‘The trend at the moment, as you know, is so strongly for fascism, and possibly
even toward a totalitarian form of the state, that our youth need to have their faith
re-awakened in the social and political principles which lie at the foundation of
our republic.’14
By the 1930s, however, Ellwood’s frank religiosity and armchair theorizing
branded him as a voice of sociology-past, while a diminutive stature, a nervous
manner, and a tendency to appropriate the theories of others made him an easy
target for ridicule among younger colleagues. At the University of Missouri years
before, the students called him ‘Little Charlie’ behind his back. During lectures,
Bernard recalled of his former professor, Ellwood had a habit of shrugging his
shoulders as if to ‘worm out’ of a jacket always too big for him, and had an
‘annoying habit’ of ‘sucking air or saliva through his teeth with a characteristic
sound, possibly because his lips were too big for his Irish type mouth’. At the
University of Chicago, Bernard added, sociologists resisted inviting Ellwood to
their seminars for fear he would publish their ideas before they did (Bannister
1987:115–16, 134–35, 192–94). When in 1935 Ellwood was elected president of
the soon-controversial International Federation of Sociology, one of Bernard’s
allies branded the election ‘utterly preposterous’.15
However estimable his attacks on fascism, and prescient his predictions
concerning war, Ellwood’s warnings were unlikely to have much impact on his
fellow-sociologists.
Sociology and Social Research

Born in rural Illinois, Emory S.Bogardus (1882–1973), like Ellwood, was heir to
the religious/reform spirit of the early century. While supportive parents urged
education, a local pastor inculcated a sense of ‘universal values and humanity-wide
needs’, he wrote of his early life. After graduating from Northwestern University
(BA 1908, MA 1909), he received a Ph.D. at Chicago for a thesis on ‘The Relation
of Fatigue to Industrial Accidents’. To finance his studies, he worked at the
Northwestern University Settlement on Chicago’s North Side, where he developed
a lifelong interest in the relations of different immigrant groups. During his long
career at USC (1911–1946), he published some 275 articles, most on theory and
group relations, although twelve (as he counted them) in the area of ‘world
community and organization’. In creating the ‘social distance scale’,16 Bogardus
contributed to the 1920s passion for quantification. But, unlike the more extreme
quantifiers, he continued to insist that sociology must serve democracy and social
welfare.17
Bogardus, accordingly, opened the pages of Sociology and Social Research to
discussions of fascism and international affairs. Typically brief, rarely penetrating,
these contributions nonetheless championed democracy against both fascist and
Communist alternatives. ‘As a means, fascism may be good,’ Bogardus concluded
an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of Mussolini’s programme in
1933; ‘but it contains the seeds of its own destruction in its autocracy.’ The
platforms of Hitler’s movement, a second commentator warned the same year,
‘reveal the party’s inbred anti-Semitic stand’ (Bogardus 1933:569–74; Mohme
1933: 409–15; Yankwich 1934:365–71). National Socialism was not socialism
despite its name, insisted John E.Nordskog, a colleague of Bogardus whose
training had included studies at the London School of Economics. In a column of
‘International Notes’, Nordskog also informed readers of the latest European
developments, while in book reviews drew attention to works critical of fascism,
among them John F.Holt’s Under the Swastika (1936) and Gaetano Salvemini’s
Under the Axe of Fascism (1939) (Nordskog 1939; 1937a; 1937b).
Sociology and Social Research thus reinforced Ellwood’s warnings. But
Bogardus faced similar problems impressing the sociological community with the
urgency of the situation. Not only were West Coast institutions still relatively
isolated, but he personally enjoyed little prestige among his eastern colleagues,
indeed was ‘very much disliked’, as Bernard put it to Read Bain, explaining why
a plan to make Sociology and Social Research one of three ‘official’ journals of
the ASS was doomed to fail.18 Although elected president of the Society for 1931,
Bogardus played little role in its affairs during the decade. More importantly, as
was also the case with Bernard and his allies, the contributors to Sociology and
Social Research, despite their defences of democracy, often made curious
concessions in the attempt to balance pros and cons of fascism. Although
anti-Semitism was excessive, continued the author of the article cited above, ‘a
racial problem does exist’. Even Hitler’s ‘frequently Nordic extravaganzas’, he
concluded, ‘may be viewed as moral regeneration’ (Mohme 1933:411, 415). In
Bogardus’s own analysis, and in others, admiration for fascist planning showed
through the criticism (Bogardus 1933; Wilson 1936). Although discussions of
fascism appeared sporadically into the 1940s, they were slight in both volume and
substance when compared with growing interest in the topic in the profession
generally.
The ASS rebels

During the 1930s, younger activists within the American Sociological Society
added their voices to those of Ellwood and Bogardus.19 At their centre stood the
irascible Luther Bernard, elected president of the ASS for 1932. Others included
Jerome Davis, soon to be dismissed from Yale in what became a minor cause
célèbre; and Maurice Parmelee, a sometime sociologist and government
economist, who in 1931 led the first of a series of battles to reform the ASS.20
Jerome Davis (1891–1979) led off in Contemporary Social Movements (1930),
a superficial and in many ways unsatisfactory effort that is important only because
it was one of the first attempts by an American sociologist to elucidate fascist
theory. For Davis, opposition to fascism was a natural extension of a lifelong
crusade against bad things. Born in Japan, the son of missionary parents, he
returned to the United States at age thirteen only to discover a great many things
to disapprove, starting with the ‘sexual smut and profanity [and]the ostentatious
display of wealth’ at the posh private school he attended in Washington D.C. (run
by his uncle), and continuing at Columbia graduate school (Ph.D. 1922) with the
‘social ignorance and stupidity’ that produced the 3-Ds (dependants, defectives,
and delinquents).21
In 1917 Davis made the first of several trips to Russia where he observed the
Revolution firsthand, an experience that provided him with a model of the good
society, a topic for a doctoral dissertation, and material for several books. During
the 1920s, Davis’s radicalism was a source of unending academic difficulties. In
1922 several New Hampshire manufacturers demanded that he be fired from
Dartmouth the year he arrived because of a study of a strike in a Manchester
factory. In 1925, Davis’s sympathy for the revisionism of Harry Elmer Barnes and
Sidney B.Fay brought a warning from Yale President James R.Angell, and
possibly cost him a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1927, following a trip to the Soviet
Union, the charge was that Davis had taken ‘Moscow Gold’ in connection with a
series of books he was editing for Vanguard Press.22
For self-protection if nothing else, Davis increasingly wrapped his social
concerns in a rhetorical mantle of science and quantification. Increasingly, he was
‘convinced that sociology must rely on the statistical method to a greater extent
than before’. His best-known work, An Introduction to Sociology (1927), was
subtitled ‘A Behavioristic Study of American Society’ (Davis 1927).23 Although
Davis’s publications were numerous, they were the sort that the new professionals
increasingly dismissed: studies of labour, the church, immigration and related
social problems; readers and textbooks. By 1932, he had published almost a dozen
books, but as a Yale dean was later unkind enough to point out, many were written
with others or loaded with source material.24
Contemporary Social Movements was an uneasy compromise between Davis’s

convictions and the demands of classroom teaching. A collection of readings
strung together by his own prose, it devoted only a hundred of its 900 pages to
fascism, with the bulk given to Communism, socialism, and the British labour
movement. Dealing entirely with Italy (since Hitler’s rise to power was three years
in the future), the fascist section consisted largely of selections from participants
favourable to the movement, capped by a dissent from Davis in the form of a
recitation of instances of fascism within the United States: from statements by
defenders of American capitalism to the activities of the Ku Klux Klan. For
analysis, Davis fell back on the conventional wisdom of the left: ‘Fascism is a
bulwark of capitalism’. Although he remained hopeful that American traditions
of free speech and popular education would safeguard the nation against the fascist
menace, he predicted that political power-holders, if sufficiently threatened by
opponents of private property, ‘would find the use of violence a natural and easy
step’ (Davis 1930:518, 521).
Most reviewers focused more on Davis’s treatment of Bolshevism than of
fascism. The hostile ones faulted his bias, while the favourable ones denied it
‘Rather strained efforts are made,’ one reviewer noted, ‘to link up each movement
with American conditions and interests.’ Another pronounced the work of
‘questionable’ value both scientifically and pedagogically. A third, in contrast,
wished that Congressmen investigating ‘red’ activity could have used the text in
college. In all three, professional and national politics tinged concern with fascism
per se, since the first two were written by professors at Yale’s arch-rival Harvard,
and the third by an Ohio State sociologist soon to be fired for radical activity
(Elliott 1931; Sorokin 1931; Miller 1931).
A second ASS dissident to discuss fascism was Maurice Parmelee (1882–1969)
in his Bolshevism, Fascism, and Liberal Democratic States (1934). Born in
Istanbul, the son of Congregationalist missionaries, Parmelee like Davis was a
birthright rebel, inheriting his parents’ zeal if not their religious faith. After
graduating from Yale (1904), he received a doctorate in sociology at Columbia
(1909), then taught briefly at the universities of Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota and
finally the City College of New York. In 1918 he accepted a job with the War
Trade Board in London, effectively leaving academic life for good, although not
for want of trying to return. During the 1930s, he won brief notoriety as a member
of the rebel faction that attempted to ‘democratize’ the ASS, but otherwise
remained on the fringes of his discipline. Before retiring from the Railroad
Retirement Board in 1952, he spent the rest of his career as an economist for
various governmental agencies.25
A man of wide interests and many causes, Parmelee wrote prolifically on
subjects that ranged from criminology (his speciality) to ‘scientific’ sociology (his
passion) to nudism (his favorite avocation). Other books included studies of sea
power, oriental culture, poverty, and even modern marriage, although he remained
a bachelor throughout his life. While Criminology (1918) and related works won
him a minor reputation within sociology, The New Gymnosophy (1927), a study
of nudism, and Bolshevism, Fascism and the Liberal Democratic State brought
him notoriety and near-disaster when Congressman Martin Dies in the early 1940s
managed to have him fired from his post with the Board of Economic Warfare for
espousing nudism and Communism (‘Dies in the Spring’ 1942).
An inveterate traveller, Parmelee observed the rise of Italian fascism and
National Socialism at first hand. In 1920, he returned to Germany to study
economic conditions for the State Department, remaining in Berlin until the spring
of 1923. During 1928–29 he travelled for a year in the Soviet Union and through
Italy to observe Bolshevism and fascism. During the summer of 1933 he was back
in Germany to witness the results of the Nazi takeover. Among American
sociologists, Parmelee was thus uniquely privileged to comment on fascism.
The fact that he finally had little more impact than Ellwood or Davis is thus
especially instructive. Although Parmelee’s Yale education and wide international
experience distinguished him from most objectivists, he shared their desire to
make sociology more ‘scientific’, albeit more ‘liberal’, as he once explained to
Bernard. In practice, this programme translated into a prevailing animus against
social workers, rural sociologists, and other ‘meliorists’ (his favourite pejorative).
This animus extended to European sociologists, particularly when they threatened
to siphon foundation funds from American sociologists, among them Parmelee,
who perennially sought such grants. ‘Last winter it occurred to me that if these
foundations would spend this money [given to European researchers] in America,
the problem of the unemployed American social scientists could readily be
solved,’ he wrote to Bernard in 1933, explaining a plan to persuade the
Rockefellers and others to buy American.26
Unfortunately, Bolshevism, Fascism, like most of Parmelee’s work, was bold
in scope, rich in detail, but rather short on critical analysis and systematic research.
Both Italian fascism and National Socialism, as expressions of nationalism, had
roots in history, he argued, the first ‘in imperial Rome, the medieval city state,
and the Catholic Church’, the second in the ‘traditions of the ancient Teutons’.
Although appealing to various groups in early stages, both were finally expressions
of ‘monopolistic capitalism’. Without denying the extreme denial of civil liberties
and individual rights under these regimes, he insisted that liberal-democracy under
capitalism ‘had also resulted in destroying in large part the civil liberties’.
Although National Socialism was a ‘close variant of fascism’, both differed
markedly from Bolshevism, despite contemporary opinion to the contrary
(Parmelee 1934:193, 7, 195, 362, 293).
Although one of Parmelee’s defenders later described his book as a ‘vigorous
attack on bolshevism and fascism and a paean for the liberal democratic state’
(Gibbons 1974:407), its emphasis on fascism-as-monopoly-capitalism, as with
Davis’s analysis, marked it as a product of American left-of-centre liberalism. To
be sure, Parmelee pulled few punches. Although stressing the pragmatism in
Mussolini’s philosophy, his characterizations of this strain as ‘opportunism’ made
it clear that he had little sympathy with it. His description of Nazi book-burning
and anti-Semitism were detailed and forthright.
On balance, however, Parmelee added little to current debate. Less extreme but
also less reasoned than contemporary analyses along similar lines (for example,
R.Palme Dutt’s Fascism and Social Revolution [1934]), his view of fascism as an
expression of capitalist interests, and as an authoritarian response to the problems
of liberal democracy, was by now the standard line of leftist writers, many of
whom Parmelee read and cited. Indeed, as one reviewer noted, Parmelee tended
to report on published sources rather than provide ‘his first hand reactions to what
he actually saw’ (‘Review’ 1935a: 499). His view of Communism, written while
New Deal policies seemed to be foundering and before Stalin’s purges were under
way, expressed the sort of sympathetic optimism many American intellectuals
still harboured toward the Soviet experiment. His prognosis for capitalism was
accordingly gloomy. ‘This is a vain hope for them’, he concluded of recent
attempts at economic planning in capitalistic societies. ‘Planning is wholly
inconsistent with and impossible under capitalism’ (Parmelee 1934:418).
Although Parmelee’s book was more widely reviewed than Davis’s
Contemporary Social Movements, the reviews suggested why he was even easier
to dismiss. The North American Review thought his chapters on Italian fascism
‘especially interesting’ because they exposed the economic realities behind the
‘bold, showy, and wonderfully well publicized Italian front’. But the reviewer also
cautioned readers that Parmelee must be ‘read with care’ because he ‘does not
always think as clearly as he might’. The Saturday Review of Literature wondered
where Parmelee himself stood politically. If not capitalism or socialism, then
what? Perhaps ‘technocracy’, the reviewer opined. But like most supporters of
technocracy, Parmelee dodged the question of what political and social objectives
would guide the technocrats —a charge similar to that often levelled against most
proponents of a more strictly scientific sociology and social policy (‘Review’
1935b:92; ‘Review’ 1935a:499).
Nor did Parmelee’s position in the profession redeem these shortcomings. He
was ‘a most insignificant looking person’ who ‘never achieved any standing’, one
contemporary recalled. He was not a very ‘conspicuous’ figure, added another,
and ‘was generally looked on as a mediocre scholar’. For whatever reasons, his
colleagues in sociology virtually ignored his analysis of fascism, just as most
would later fail to support him during the Dies investigation (comments quoted
by Gibbons 1974:413).
Luther L.Bernard
Although Luther Bernard (1881–1951) published less than his fellow dissidents
on the subject, he was perhaps the most adamant in private in opposing all
tendencies of ‘fascism’ whether at home, abroad, or within his own profession.
Born in Kentucky, raised in the bleaker parts of west Texas and southwest
Missouri, Bernard was one of sociology’s most complex figures—personally,
intellectually, and politically. After attending an obscure Baptist college in
Missouri, he received a doctorate in sociology under Albion Small at Chicago, in
the process breaking from his mentor and offending most of the faculty. Partly as
consequence, he became one of the profession’s most peripatetic practitioners,
teaching finally at half a dozen universities before an unwilling retirement from
Washington University in St Louis in the mid 1940s.
During his graduate school days, Bernard considered himself an ‘intelligent
liberal’, that is to say, one who favoured a social policy based on science rather
than on sentiment. During a summer on the Chautauqua lecture circuit in 1909,
he opposed socialists, reactionaries, and do-good sentimentalists alike.27 His goal
was ‘an objective standard of social control’, the title of his dissertation. But
Bernard’s politics, like those of Parmelee, could be somewhat confusing. Like
other social controllers, including many who supported Theodore Roosevelt’s
Progressive (Bull Moose) Party in 1912, he mingled praise of democracy with
calls for an ‘objective standard’ that seemed to denigrate democratic politics.
During the 1930s, Bernard was a political enigma—an amalgam of populist
instincts, an elitist faith in efficiency, and a distrust of the two major parties. In
1932, he urged two former Bull Moosers to run on a third-party platform of
‘constitutionalism, agrarian defense, and the welfare of the workers and the
unemployed’.28 In one unpublished attack on then-President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, he charged that the New Deal’s chief beneficiaries were ‘speculative
business’, ‘speculative overcapitalized railroads’, ‘credit speculators and
professional stock waterers’. F.D.R. himself was ‘the face debonair and the
ingratiating radio voice’; the ‘hero of the Hudson’; and ‘ninety percent Eleanor
[the President’s wife] and ten percent mush’.29 Then and later, however, the
politics of Bernard’s own utopia of perfect adjustment remained regrettably vague.
From this uncertain perspective, Bernard monitored the rise of Nazism with
growing concern. Unlike some champions of social control, he rejected the
argument that a Hitler or Mussolini could provide order and stability superior to
that in the democratic societies. Such stability was ‘illusory’, and indeed
destructive of the ‘most valuable elements in our society’, Bernard observed in
the spring of 1935 when a member of the audience at one of his lectures made this
argument. The coming of the dictatorships was but ‘a last desperate attempt to
hold a decaying civilization together a little longer’. Confronting a group of
Germans while returning from Europe that fall, he chided them for not
overthrowing Hitler. A year later, more apprehensively, he asked fellow
sociologist Charles Ellwood whether the older man thought that fascism was
‘going to overrun the world’.30
Tutored by his wife Jessie, Bernard acquainted himself with the growing
literature on fascism in preparation for his forthcoming study of Social Control
(1939). In the autumn of 1936 Jessie reported on John Strachey’s The Menace of
Fascism (1933), a left-wing attack widely criticized by American reviewers as
being pro-Communist. After reading Stephen H. Roberts’ The House that Hitler
Built (1937) and another work by a ‘British journalist’, Jessie commented on the
power of German propaganda, a theme of special interest to social control
sociologists. Shortly after Munich, Luther himself condemned the ‘effete
democracies’ of Europe for not calling Hitler’s bluff. ‘[War] would have been the
best thing,’ he wrote to Jessie, ‘war now—for it will certainly be war in earnest
in a few years, after Hitler has fully armed, and after Fr. and Eng. are ruined by
armament races. Only Russia, Germany, and Italy will survive (in Europe) this
cowardly policy.’31
In Social Control, Bernard cited examples of terrorization and regimentation
under the Nazi regime. His bibliography provided a full listing of recent treatments
of fascism. In War and its Causes (1944), an encyclopedic survey of the nature
and future of war as a social institution, he castigated the Nazis’ sneak attack on
other nations, their plundering of wealth from other countries, and their ‘unsound
racial ideology’. Although German nationalism was a minor motivation in
Nazism, the appeal to pan-German sentiments was ‘a convenient working
camouflage’ of motives that included ‘the desire of Hitler personally to play a
hero role in world affairs,of the capitalistic interests in the state to establish
economic imperialism over the world, of the military clique to regain their lost
professional prestige, and of the masses of the German people to have revenge
upon the peoples they had been told had despoiled them of their place in the world’.
In these and similar statements, Bernard thus introduced psychological and
cultural factors absent from the work of Davis and Parmelee (Bernard 1972:87,
335–36, 380).
Bernard also worked actively to offset the consequences of fascism for the social
sciences in Europe. At the 1937 meeting of the ASS he supported a motion by
Maurice Parmelee that would have blocked affiliation with the International
Federation of Sociological Societies, an organization dominated by the French
International Institute of Sociology, then (or soon to be) subject to fascist
influences.32 As editor of the American Sociologist, a publication he launched
after resigning from the ASS in the late 1930s, Bernard invited comments from
fellow sociologists concerning the role of refugee intellectuals. These refugees
were welcome, Harry Elmer Barnes intoned in a lead article in the American
Sociologist, so long as they ‘expose the methods of fascism, not flirt with them’
(Barnes 1944:1–2).
Linking fascism to a narrow and sterile positivism, Bernard also anticipated the
idealist-positivist argument then taking shape in the work of Marcuse and others.
His particular focus was the ‘fascist’ sympathies that allegedly motivated the
sociological elite who formed the core of the Sociological Research Association,
an invitation-only club organized in 1936, from which Bernard had been excluded.
Its members—which he termed ‘particularistic mystical sociologists’—included
two quite different types. One wing denied any regularity in human affairs, and
hence the possibility of social control through science. ‘Many, perhaps most of
the sociological mystics are Fascists at heart, and, when they can overcome their
repugnance to the espousal of a cause, are so in fact,’ he wrote. In their view,
sociology was ‘a mere esthetic exercise’, the universities ‘a natural product of
human stupidity, made to serve the function of providing them with incomes and
intellectual amusement’. A second type of mystic inhabited the house of science
itself: ‘he often regards himself as a statistical methodologist (and indeed does
frequently play with numbers and equations and with fact gathering)’ (Bernard
1940:340–50).
In the early 1940s Bernard sharpened this attack in the pages of the American
Sociologist. In one draft editorial—initially titled ‘Little Sociologist, What
Now?’—he summed up his case in especially vitriolic terms.33 The SRA, having
‘drawn ridicule’ for the ‘poverty’ of its research and the ‘mediocrity’ of its
candidates for election, now proposed to secure its grip on the ASS by creating
different categories of members (a proposal at the 1941 meetings). This report
would be accepted ‘by the “Heil Hitlers” of the Society’. So bitter were his feelings
that he temporarily succumbed to an adolescent temptation to jibe at the Society’s
initials—ASS. The result would be the domination of the Society by the SRA’s
‘fascistic machine’.34
Although Bernard’s friends persuaded him to delete the reference to the ‘Heil
Hitlers’, the charge contained a point worth exploring seriously: idealism and
empiricism, although philosophically opposed, boiled down to the same thing.
Denying a natural order, the ‘sociological mystics’ despaired of reintroducing
order in ‘this world of chaos’ other than through the imposition of an external
‘dictator’, just as the ‘theologically minded had earlier turned to “priestly
hierarchies”’. The worship of ‘fact‘ led down the same path. Coming from a
positivist, the charge against idealism was nothing new. What distinguished it now
was the related allegation that the trouble was with positivism itself. ‘Strange
bedfellows indeed!’ Bernard commented, thinking again of the cosy alliances
within the SRA (Bernard 1940:343).
Whatever their merits, however, Bernard’s fulminations diluted principle with
provincial prejudice and professional politics even more obviously than was the
case with most of his colleagues. Although he did not finally agree with
isolationists concerning the coming and conduct of the war, he shared their
anti-British animus, seeing British and German imperialism as the twin devils in
international affairs, and fearing a resurgence of fascism in British clothing with
war’s end (Bernard 1943a: 1–2; 1943b:1–2). Domestically, as the reference to
effete democracies suggested, his own version of democracy was something other
than that actually practised in Britain, France, and the United States—in fact closer
to a populist authoritarianism than he cared to admit.
Professional infighting also muddied devotion to pure principle. In the battle
over affiliation with the International Sociological Society, ongoing feuds within
the ASS (especially over the SRA), even perks in the form of the appointment of
delegates, reinforced lines drawn over isolationism, internationalism, and the Nazi
menace. On the issue of refugee sociologists, concern over their pro-fascist leaning
(as in Barnes’s article) joined considerations based on job security and
often-parochial nationalism.35 Whether or not some members of the SRA were
actually soft on fascism (Ogburn among them), Bernard provided no particulars.
Although his ‘fascist’ name-calling may be excused as the sort of hyperbolic
excess in which Americans often indulge, it also expressed his personal pique at
being excluded from the sociological establishment, effectively trivializing the

European reality.
Moreover, it was not at all clear that Bernard had more to offer than those
sociologists who insisted on a rigid separation of science and society, means and
ends. Although he had a chance to clarify his position in War and its Causes
(1944), the work was a curious one from someone who for several years had been
hurling the epithet ‘fascism’ at members of his own profession. At the conceptual
level his analysis combined a conspiracy theory of ‘big business’ (the American
perennial) with a personal inclination to see the world in terms of manipulation,
revenge, and the quest for individual advantage and prestige—a view he buttressed
with appeal to an already shopworn behaviourist psychology. Thus Hitler sought
to play the hero, military men sought lost prestige, and an industrial elite sought
economic advantage while bamboozling a vengeful German public.
Bernard’s taxonomic method meanwhile blunted those criticisms of fascism he
made, as he organized causes of war in a series of pigeon-holes (psychological,
geopolitical, cultural, etc.) into which he placed historical examples. Thus Nazism
as a manifestation of nationalism or religious fervour was effectively equated with
any and all expressions of these sentiments, past or present. ‘If this book were
readable, it would be dangerous’, a Harvard historian wrote concerning the latter
point. By putting aggressor and defenders on the same level, ‘no war appears
profitable and no cause good’: not the Civil War, not the war against the Axis.
Ultimately, he concluded, the fault lay not with Bernard, but the thrust of modern
‘objective’ scholarship. Three decades later, another critic put the matter more
bluntly: ‘But why doesn’t he also say simply, War is hell?’ (Fox 1944:4, 16;
Charny 1972:7).
Whatever the shortcomings of the analysis, Bernard and the other academic
radicals nonetheless deserve credit for speaking out, especially when compared
with the attitudes of leading proponents of a more strictly value-neutral sociology.
During the war years, The American Sociologist provided a continuing guide to
the latest books on fascism, while insisting that sociology was not adequately
addressing the issues. Although sometimes suspicious of Allied aims, and
convinced that war was an outmoded means of ‘social control’, Bernard called for
its vigorous prosecution, while warning of the dangers of a postwar reaction. In
retrospect, some of his themes appear naive, even wrong: his echoing of the New
Deal-as-fascism line, for example, or his characterization of Dumbarton Oaks as
a ‘thinly veiled military dictatorship of the great powers’. But his warning against
those in the postwar era who would collaborate with former Nazis in the interests
of opposing Russia raised an issue that continues to be debated (Bernard 1945:1–
2).36 At the same time, the factors that kept Bernard and his allies from pushing
their analyses further also explain why they too were less effective than they might
have been in mobilizing opinion against fascism within and outside the profession.
Politically, their leftist views, coupled in varying degrees with enthusiasm for the
Soviet Union, made them automatically suspect. However energizing their animus
against American ‘big business’, their insistence on this theme to the exclusion of
a genuinely sociological analysis revealed more about the American past than the
German or Italian present. The absence of such analysis, in turn, revealed the
interwar isolation of American sociology from its European roots (indeed a general
animus against theory altogether). Nor were these political convictions (and, as it
will turn out, anti-Semitism) unrelated to this theoretical orientation since both
ultimately reflected a crisis within a provincial, culturally impoverished, segment
of American Protestant culture from the 1910s onward.37
ABOVE THE BATTLE
William F.Ogburn
Although Bernard never named the ‘fascists’ in the SRA, he and his associates
regularly referred to the ‘T-O-R’ faction that controlled ASS affairs by the mid
1930s—the ‘O’ in this unholy Trinity being William Fielding Ogburn (1886–
1959), probably the most prominent and influential of the proponents of
‘scientific’ sociology within the profession.38 Born and educated in the South,
Ogburn had done his graduate work under Franklin Giddings at Columbia, and in
1912 earned his Ph.D. for a statistical study of child labour legislation. In Social
Change (1922), he introduced the phrase ‘cultural lag’ into the sociologists’
vocabulary. During the 1920s, he represented the discipline at the Social Science
Research Council, and was soon a power in the world of foundation politics. In
1927 he joined the faculty at the University of Chicago, later chairing the sociology
department. Ogburn’s pioneering study of the 1928 election earned him a minor
footnote in histories of quantitative social science (Ogburn 1929–1930; Easthope
1974:114–19, 133–34, 145–46; Maus 1962:136–38; Gow 1985:1–18). As
research director of President Herbert Hoover’s Committee on Social Trends, he
played a pivotal role in producing the pathbreaking Recent Social Trends (1931).
During the depression years, he served on several New Deal agencies.39
Despite a lifelong penchant for travel to exotic places, Ogburn early developed
a distrust of Europe and things European. During a visit to Paris in 1906, his first
trip out of Georgia, he was repulsed by his discovery of a bohemian world of
‘Russians, poets, artists, Jews’ (‘But nearly all queer’, he confided to his diary).
During the First World War, he saw firsthand evidence of wartime hysteria in the
activities of his Columbia mentor, Franklin Giddings, whose pro-war excesses
provided many younger sociologists with a powerful lesson of what sociology
should not be (Gruber 1975:60–1, 85–6). Attracted to socialism, he toyed first
with the economic explanations of Louis Boudin’s Socialism and the War (1916)
before settling into profound disillusionment at the outcome in the postwar era.
Ogburn’s programme for sociology, as outlined in his presidential address
before the ASS in 1929, was uncompromising. Sociology was ‘not interested’ in
improving the world, he told his colleagues. ‘Science is interested directly in one
thing only, to wit, discovering new knowledge.’ This goal required a ‘wholly
colorless literary style’ and a rigorous method, preferably statistical. The truly
scientific sociologist, a service intellectual rather than a policy maker, would not
pretend to ‘guide the course of evolution’, but rather would generate the
‘information necessary for such supreme direction to some sterling executive who
will appear to do the actual guiding’. The enemy was ‘emotion’: the goals
‘efficiency’ and ‘adjustment’ (Ogburn 1930).
Although Ogburn’s enthusiasm for this vision gradually eroded during the
1930s, his devotion to it shaped his reaction to fascism. As a matter of principle,
he tried to avoid statements on public issues entirely. When circumstances forced
him to discuss fascism, his references were brief and muted. For example, in
Sociology (1940), a textbook written with Meyer Nimkoff, Ogburn included one
three-page discussion of fascism and a second brief mention of totalitarianism,
both treated within the context of economic organization, social efficiency, and
‘different systems of interrelation of state and industry’. A ‘new type of
government’, totalitarianism posed ‘a challenge to democracy’, the authors told
students. But too much could be made of the differences between the two systems.
‘The propaganda regarding democracies and totalitarian states serves to
exaggerate the differences.‘Just as fascism in Germany and Italy was largely a
product of war preparations, so ‘many of the characteristics usually associated
with totalitarian societies are found in the democratic states in wartime’. Would
the totalitarian states evolve toward democracy? Answering this question, Ogburn
equivocated, concluding with a homily on the need to balance freedom and
organization (Ogburn and Nimkoff 1940: 765, 651, 654).
Meanwhile, Ogburn learned that such detachment had its price. Attending a talk
on German propaganda by the head of the Berlin Associated Press Bureau in mid
1942, he was curiously torn. ‘The questions and his stories related chiefly to the
interferences of the Nazis with liberty and to their brutalities’, he wrote in his
diary. He had ‘listened with great admiration at the skill and efficiency’ of the
German propaganda machine (‘not admiration of course for the end, but for the
means’), a manipulation of opinion that seemed to him not much different from
what any family or college fraternity does to its members. Others in the audience,
however, ‘seemed to listen with contempt, disgust and horror at the domination
and the interference with the liberty of the press and the distortion of fact’. While
they were consumed by hate, he assumed that atrocities ‘were a function of war,
instead of being a correlate of one side’, he continued, reverting to the language
of statistics. ‘As the discussion progressed, I felt alone, as though no one thought
the same way I thought.’ Was he ‘psychotic?’ Was he ‘in anyway abnormal?’ No,
he decided. But he disliked seeing his colleagues ‘so emotional and so hating’.40
When it came to explaining Nazism, or America’s motives in fighting the war,
Ogburn fell back on an economic analysis more extreme than that offered by the
ASS radicals. Attending a talk on the causes of the war a month later, he rejected
the speakers’ contention that the Allies fought for ‘human dignity’. If so, why
were those who cared about human dignity not at war all the time? Why not fight
at home for the rights of minorities? And weren’t the Germans fighting for their
own ‘human dignity’ which suffered so badly after Versailles? As a motive,

‘human dignity’ would not do, he decided. ‘The desire for material resources and
economic advantages plus a tradition for national glory’ better explained the issue
for both sides. Even at that, he still wondered why the United States was in the
war at all since the nation’s economic motive was at best in the form of fears for
the future.41
On V-E day, Ogburn looked back over the troubled years. ‘Now that the war is
over, I may say that I have felt lonely during the war with no person that I knew
with whom I could talk.’ His position, as he now reviewed it, was probably not
unlike that of many isolationists and ‘America Firsters’. He had ‘always wanted
us to win’. But the victory had been at great costs, hatred and passion being among
them. The root of his difficulty was merely ‘(a) certain detachment and (b) an
ability to see the other fellow’s side’. From this Olympian perspective, even Hitler
was but ‘a symbol to stimulate and arouse the masses’. In yet another entry he
complained that it was impossible to say any ‘kind words’ about Hitler without
being ostracized. What ‘kind words’ he had in mind, he did not specify.42
A year later Ogburn learned the full cost of his detachment. ‘The consensus
expressed about you was that your professional careerhas been seriously marred
and your reputation injured by your non-belief in democracy and your obsession
with [and] your fondness and admiration for totalitarian dictatorships’, a former
student wrote to him in 1946 after overhearing him thus criticized during a
conference held at Princeton. ‘Your friends cited the fact that you seemed to be
pro-Nazi in the late 1930s, even up to Pearl Harbor. They now say you are just as
strongly in favor of the Soviets, and that you evidently adhere to a totalitarian form
of government.’ She was also not comforted when another friend defended
Ogburn, saying he was reported as pro-Nazi ‘merely because of the absurd notion
you had that you could view objectively a war in which the world was involved,
and remain neutral’.43
The irony in all this was that Ogburn by this time was assailed on all sides. To
Harry Elmer Barnes, he seemed the prime example of the ‘flipflopping and
backflipping liberals’ who favoured peace in the 1930s but supported war when
‘Frankie [Barnes’s and Lundberg’s preferred name for President Franklin D.
Roosevelt] slipped’.44 The FBI, in turn, suspected Ogburn of being soft on
Communism, a suspicion that led them to keep track of his activities until close
to his death. The resulting file—which one investigator has recently examined
under the Freedom of Information Act—shows no evidence of any association
with right-wing groups, but rather involvement (usually very meagre) with
organizations designated as Communist or Communist fronts, among them the
Association of Scientific Workers from about 1938 to 1945, the Spanish Aid
Committee in 1941, and the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, also in
1941.45
Ogburn, accordingly, was troubled by this student’s report. ‘It jerked me up
quick’, he confided to his diary. But, as his other entries indicated, he was not
entirely blameless. He did admire order and efficiency; he did distrust emotion
deeply, even when directed against an Adolf Hitler. Nor, given a lifetime of
training, was Ogburn able or willing to remove the cloud in his postwar writings.
Debating the merits of freedom versus organization, he continued to insist that the
question was one of relative merits rather than absolute values. Thus the war
imposed some restrictions on all of us’, albeit that in Nazi Germany ‘the
curtailment of liberty was general’. In a passing reference, he used Goebbels’ work
as minister of propaganda as evidence of the misuse of knowledge, but left his
own judgement in the form of a question: ‘who shall say he used such knowledge
for the good of society?’ (Ogburn 1948:256; 1949:208).
George A.Lundberg
During the early 1940s, the defence of value-neutral sociology fell to a new
generation, and with it the problem of responding to fascism during wartime.
Among these stalwarts, few were more outspoken, or more colourful, than George
A.Lundberg (1895–1966) of Bennington College, and, after 1945, the University
of Washington. Although never enjoying Ogburn’s prestige, Lundberg exerted
greater influence within the profession than his academic positions might suggest:
as author of Foundations of Sociology (1941) and Can Science Save Us? (1947);
as president of the ASS for 1943; and as chief exponent of what he termed
‘operationalism’.
Lundberg’s troubles with fascism began in the late 1930s, at first almost as a
joke. ‘I know you are quite Fascist in speech, but I imagine you wouldn’t like it
if you had to live under it—because you dearly love your “inalienable right” to
shoot off your mouth,’ his friend Read Bain of Miami University wrote in March
1937. To this Lundberg replied: ‘Whence came this idea that I “am quite Fascist
in speech”? I hate the bastards as much as any Hebrew.’ Still bantering, the
sociable Bain confessed a year later that such talk was not making him very
popular. ‘I have already been run out of 2 or 3 households almost for saying that
I believe I could get along in Nazi Germany as a scientist, about as well as here—
some better. If I got into trouble it would be because I stuck my neck out, i.e. tried
to play a part in policy making, and value promoting—instead of doing my stuff
—find out what is.’46
In the end, however, it was Lundberg’s attitudes toward fascism, rather than
Bain’s, that caused the greatest controversy. Born in Fairdale, North Dakota, the
son of Swedish immigrants, Lundberg sought in ‘science’ a security and
respectability missing during his youth. Since there were no high schools in his
area, his education consisted of a college preparatory course from a Chicago
correspondence school, and a degree in education at the University of North
Dakota. From there it was an appointment as superintendent of schools in a place
called Hope, North Dakota (1920), an MA. under E.A.Ross at the University of
Wisconsin (1922), and a Ph.D. at Minnesota (1925) under Bernard and F.Stuart
Chapin.
A fifteen-month interruption to serve in the First World War shaped Lundberg’s

attitudes toward politics and world affairs more or less for life. ‘I escaped most of
the irritations, indignities, and absurdities of the military routine’, he later wrote
with characteristic hauteur, ‘and felt more than adequately repaid for the
inconvenience by a three months’ period of study at the London School of
Economics’. Whatever patriotism he felt yielded quickly to the post-Versailles
disillusionment. To the end of his days, he remained a foe of internationalism in
all its forms.
Were his convictions not problem enough, Lundberg had a way of putting things
that was offensive or amusing, depending upon one’s point of view. Despite his
self-professed love of the people, his statements concerning democracy and
dictatorship seemed to many to be pro-fascist, as his exchange with Bain attested.
Although on that occasion Lundberg denied the charge (‘I am not for a damn thing
but Roosevelt at present, and share his views fully in democracy’), he proceeded
to dig himself in even deeper. Sure, he liked ridiculing ‘the communists’ criticism
of fascism —most of it is idiotic’. Further, he wasn’t ‘at all sure that the Italians
aren’t as well off as they would have been under any other regime’. And the
Germans? ‘Somebody had to repudiate the treaty etc., etc. And if Hitler should
take back some of his colonies, it might help the world situation, if it wasn’t too
expensive.’ As for ‘the freedom of speech stuff, as he termed it: ‘how important
is it to those who have nothing to say, i.e. about 99%’. Since such freedoms were
a ‘correlate or function of the security of a regime’, one could expect their gradual
return once the new rulers were firmly in the saddle.
From 1939 to 1941, with war raging in Europe, Lundberg supported
isolationism and such America Firsters as the aviator Charles Lindberg. In public
he could be biting enough. But in private he was even worse. While visiting the
sociologist Roderick D.McKenzie at the University of Michigan in the late spring
of 1940—as Jessie Bernard heard the story—he boasted that he ‘had enjoyed [the
war] and grown fat on it’, a statement particularly offensive to Mrs McKenzie
who had lost a brother in the war. For ‘intellectuals’ he had nothing but contempt.
He hoped to do an article on their ‘stupid behaviorin the face of the war’, he
wrote to Jessie Bernard that same July. ‘I’d like to accuse them of selfishly looking
after what they think is their own interest—a vested interest in talk—and selling
the masses of the people in every country down the river by inducing them to fight
for symbols which aren’t worth fighting for, except for journalists, preachers and
professors, who live by them.’47
Nor did the war change Lundberg’s mind. In Can Science Save Us? (1947),
originally lectures at the University of Washington in the spring of 1945, he
repeated the message, although this time without any reference to fascism.
Lundberg’s message was vintage positivism, coupled with a lament that social
scientists get no respect. Without benefit of a scientific approach, the postwar
settlement was doomed to go the way of the disastrous Versailles settlement of
two decades before, Lundberg warned. Although he never defined the term
‘science’, his model was essentially that of the engineer or technician, stressing
method and results over theory and truth. Scientific statements, so conceived, had
a similar formulation whether dealing with disease or social problems: ‘if you
want this, ‘then’ do that. Statements of any other sort—whether political, ethical,
or aesthetic—were not scientific even when uttered by scientists. Social scientists
often form pressure groups to advance their preferences. But neither the likes, the
dislikes, nor the organizations were thus scientific (Lundberg 1947:27–33).
By this time, Lundberg’s views were taking a toll on his reputation. In
September 1940, Jessie Bernard warned that his anti-war sentiments, Olympian
objectivity, and apparent disdain of democracy were harming him professionally.
‘It has occurred to methat in the past decade or so you have allowed yourself
to become a bit too removed from the ordinary human values’, she wrote to her
old friend. ‘Are you not a bit too Olympian? pontifical? unsympathetic?’ Others
soon seconded the comment. ‘Positivistic sociology had its origin in a conservative
and reactionary mission, and this function characterizes it even today’, another
critic charged in the wake of his presidential address to the ASS, citing Marcuse
among others. Lundberg’s ‘advocacy of the isolation of science from society, and
a contempt for democracy’ together illustrated the ‘proto-fascist aspect of
positivism’. Years later, Jessie Bernard repeated her earlier warning. ‘I know you
are not a fascist; at least you never were. But your theories are definitely fascistic
in implication’ (Hartung 1944).48
Perhaps even worse, Lundberg had discredited all sociologists when it came to
government service, another student of Luther Bernard wrote to him once the war
was over. ‘I would say in the late emergencyI saw no evidence of any
practitioner of sociology (of either the scientific or intuitive school) being in any
policy making or agency role as a sociologist,’ he continued. ‘Being a sociologist
was a positive disadvantage in acquiring a strategic position in government and
you are not wholly without blame.’49
New departures
That interest in empirical research and a high level of professionalism need not
necessarily breed indifference to fascism was demonstrated by two apparent
exceptions to the Olympian detachment of Ogburn, Lundberg, and others: Clifford
Kirkpatrick’s Nazi Germany: Its Women and Family Life (1938); and Theodore
Abel’s Why Hitler Came Into Power (1938). Contemporaries of Lundberg, and
representatives of American sociology’s third generation, both men moved in
circles where scientific detachment was at a premium. An undergraduate at Clark
(B.A. 1920), Kirkpatrick (b. 1898) received his doctorate at the University of
Pennsylvania (1925), and later taught at the University of Minnesota (1930–49),
a bastion of positivist sociology. Abel (b. 1896), in turn, received both an M.A.
(1925) and Ph.D. (1939) at Columbia where he taught from 1929 until his
appointment at Hunter College in 1951.
Yet, in other respects, their backgrounds and experiences differed significantly
from Lundberg’s. While Lundberg first sat out, then regretted the First World War,
Kirkpatrick won a Distinguished Service Cross for service in the Army Ambulance
Corps. Before going to Minnesota, he moved through a series of elite eastern
schools, Andover and Brown (where he taught 1920–21 and 1923–24
respectively), in addition to Clark and Penn. Abel, a Pole by birth, served in the
Polish army during the First World War before coming to the United States, living
his entire life in New York, New Mexico, and Indiana. Steeped in European social
theory, he published his first book on Systematic Sociology in Germany (1929).
In their studies of fascism, Abel and Kirkpatrick employed empirical
techniques, setting their works apart from many similar efforts. Awarded a
Guggenheim for 1936–37, Kirkpatrick conducted extensive interviews in
Germany, many with National Socialists. In addition, he consulted a wide range
of German newspapers and other relevant publications. Abel, more ingeniously,
devised a contest wherein Nazi party members could win four hundred marks in
prizes for essays on their life histories. The enterprise yielded some 683
manuscripts, a number of which he reprinted verbatim in a final section of his
study.
What distinguished their works, however, was a new theoretical sophistication
that for the first time approached a genuinely sociological interpretation. National
Socialism, argued Kirkpatrick, was more than the product of leadership, terrorism,
class struggle and monopoly capitalism, or militarism—although each played a
part. Viewed sociologically, Germany was rather ‘an experiment in regression to
tribal-group intimacy on a national scale by means of modern agencies of
communication’. Initially, modern transportation and communication disrupt
primary-group intimacy, he continued, employing a distinction between primary
and secondary, in- and out-group going back to Charles Horton Cooley, William
Graham Sumner, and their European mentors. But these same forces also facilitate
attempts to revitalize this community on a national scale, a ‘tribal engineering’
with modern propaganda techniques. Since confusions concerning family life and
woman’s place were a central element in this dislocation, sociological analysis
provided the key to the Nazi programme for women, no less than to National
Socialism generally. Abel, targeting psychoanalytic and Marxian theories in
particular, also opposed simplistic, monolithic explanations. Rather, a complex
interaction of discontent, a flexible ideology, organization and propaganda, and
charismatic leadership brought Hitler to power, he argued in an analysis that drew
on Weber’s conception of charisma (Kirkpatrick 1938: Ch. 1; Abel 1938: Chs. 6–
8; Abel 1945).
Both Kirkpatrick and Abel also stated explicitly that careful scholarship did not
require detachment or disinterest. ‘The writer has no illusions about his capacity
for purely objective description,’ Kirkpatrick confessed. ‘In political outlook, he
is liberal in the sense that he values reason, toleration and co-operation.’ He was
also a ‘hedonist’ and thus disliked any system that made people manifestly
unhappy. To understand all was not to forgive all, Abel observed, challenging
Mme de Stael on this point. In later years, he returned to Germany to record exit
interviews with concentration camp inmates (Kirkpatrick 1938: xi-xii).50
But was the conflict between scholarship and commitment, medium and
message thus finally resolved? Had the shadow that objectivism shed over
analyses of fascism been dispelled? Despite their personal revulsion to Nazism,
and the merits of their analyses, neither the authors nor their reviewers answered
these questions very satisfactorily. Having disagreed with de Stael, Abel added
somewhat enigmatically: ‘I therefore declare myself willing to bear the accusation
of impartiality, but plead “not guilty” to a charge of intended approval or
disapproval of the movement’ (Abel 1938:9).51 Apologies aside, Kirkpatrick also
left no doubt that he intended a ‘scientific’ study. Indeed, in a variation of a
dilemma many social scientists have faced, he regretted that many Nazis he had
interviewed would view a ‘scientific analysis’ of their movement as a ‘betrayal
of friendship and ingratitude for hospitality’ (Kirkpatrick 1938:xii).
Reviewers applauded their detachment, rather than their convictions. ‘The
author will doubtless be attacked in these hysterical times for his impartiality’,
Kirkpatrick himself wrote of Abel. ‘From the standpoint of the sociologist that is
an achievement.’ While he had put down most such books ‘because the authors
have obviously written with their glands rather than their brains’, added a reviewer
of Nazi Germany, ‘not so Kirkpatrick, for this book is a model of tireless sifting
of evidence, patient inquiry, testing of interpretations, and scientific detachment’
(Kirkpatrick 1939; Waller 1940). Sophisticated analysis, it appeared, did not
resolve the dilemma of advocacy and objectivity.
OBJECTIVISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM

By the early 1940s, mounting evidence of Hitler’s ‘final solution’ convinced some
observers that anti-Semitism was not merely an incidental appendage but integral
to the psychodynamics of German fascism. Although the full story of how and
why Americans resisted acting upon this knowledge is too complex to be detailed
here, one factor was certainly a long, convoluted tradition of anti-Semitism that
strengthened during the interwar years as sons and daughters of prewar Jewish
immigrants took their place in American society. For the leading objectivists, hints
of anti-Semitism (or something very close) reinforced a principled neutrality
concerning fascism.52 Within academia, and the professions generally,
discrimination against Jews in the interwar years ranged from outright exclusion
to admissions quotas to more subtle ‘understandings’. Nor were the social sciences
immune. ‘Another possibility is Louis Wirth at Tulane’, W.F. Ogburn wrote to a
friend at Smith in 1930. ‘He has a very keen mind. He is a Jew, however.’ Even
more bluntly, Read Bain wrote to the sociologist Samuel Stouffer at the University
of Chicago in 1936 that he wanted to hire ‘a bright, young, non-Jewish, non-Negro
male under thirty’—a remark that deeply offended Wirth and caused Stouffer to
beg Bain for an apology.53 At Harvard a few years later, one administrator
explained patiently to Talcott Parsons why no Jew should be appointed at their
institution, reasoning circularly that their own economics department had a
difficult enough time placing their graduate student Paul Samuelson.54
Objectivism contributed to this status quo, however subtly and indirectly, in

that it took conventional stereotypes as ‘data’ for analysis. Perhaps most striking
was the case of William Ogburn. A radical of sorts during his younger years,
Ogburn by his own later testimony had spent ‘great gobs of time’ during his years
at Columbia in the 1920s helping Jews obtain jobs and fellowships. But his attitude
gradually soured. Their ‘aggression, ego, contempt, etc.’ got under his skin, he
later confided to his diary. Invited to dinner parties, he would wonder ‘if Mr.__,
a Jew, would be there, or Prof.__, a Jew was invited. If so, I braced myself for a
bad time.’ Finally, he asked himself ‘why I have to be so damned nice to the Jews
if I do not enjoy them’. At the same time, he realized how unjust it was to endow
‘the individual with the traits of the race’.55
Faced with this dilemma, a nineteenth-century liberal ideally might have reread
John Locke on ‘natural rights’, or quoted the Declaration of Independence. Ogburn
instead made a list. Comparing thirty-five Jews he had known at Columbia and at
Chicago with a random list of thirty-five non-Jews, he scored each group for ten
to fifteen objectionable traits often attributed to Jews. The result showed that 85
per cent of the Jews had the traits, but only 15 per cent of the non-Jews. ‘So I
declared my independence of my conscience about the Jews’, he concluded this
tortured diary entry. ‘And I am not “nice”, to those I don’t like, no matter how
much I sympathize, or how well I understand how they got that way.’56
Since Ogburn left little record of his activities before and during the war, the
results of this diary ‘declaration’ may never be fully known. The irony was that
this objectivist exercise, in an important sense, violated his basic instincts, then
and later. The letter for Wirth, a positive recommendation, was itself concrete
evidence of his efforts on behalf of Jewish colleagues. When compiling his list of
‘objectionable traits’, he did not consult his own feelings, but rather asked his
secretary, who was a Jew, what it was the Anglo-Saxons did not like about Jews.
Ogburn’s son later recalled that his father’s social life and friendships included
many Jews, and remembered nothing derogatory said about Jews in his home
(Fielding Ogburn to author, 18 October 1991). A few diary entries aside, Ogburn
was otherwise silent on the subject. But it is the silence, in the face of Nazi
atrocities, that is finally the problem.
Just as curious in its way was Bernard’s War and its Causes. Since his wife
Jessie was born a Jew, Bernard had discussed the issue of Jewish culture often
and passionately for two decades. Jessie herself had recently contributed to a
symposium on the nature and causes of anti-Semitism. Bernard thus ought to have
been more sensitive to the issue than were many of his colleagues. Yet in these
discussions with his wife, Bernard himself betrayed a deep ambivalence toward
Jews and Jewish culture, which, if not anti-Semitic, sometimes came awfully
close.57 Coupled with his other convictions—animus toward all religion, populist
resentment of big business—this ambivalence now translated into complete
silence concerning Hitler’s treatment of the Jews.
Although Ogburn confined his remarks to his diary, and Bernard took refuge
in silence, George Lundberg was characteristically outspoken. Like Ogburn,
Lundberg was never crudely anti-Semitic, and might even claim to oppose
discrimination against Jews. But his way of talking about them left doubts. ‘I am
breakfasting with two-of the fairest Bennington Hebrews’, he wrote to Bain in
late 1936, adding: ‘They have insisted on meeting me at the train with the family
limousine—I wouldn’t get out to meet Jesus Christ at a Chicago station at such
an hour of the morning.’ Equally ambivalent was his comment to Bain that he
hated the Nazi ‘bastards as much as any Hebrew’.
As translated in his presidential speech to the ASS in 1943, this ambivalence
caused a public furore. Although the subject was Sociologists and the Peace’,
Lundberg lost no time getting to religion, the source of those moral and ethical
views that had consistently frustrated true social science. A ‘minor illustration’,
he noted, were ‘large numbers of organized and articulate Jews in their unhappy
predicament devoting themselves to legalistic and moralistic conjurings so that
their attention is entirely diverted from a realistic approach. They demand
legislation prohibiting criticism and they demand international action outlawing
anti-Semitism, instead of reckoning with the causes of the antagonism’. These
‘firebrands’ would probably attack his remarks as anti-Semitic, he concluded this
lengthy harangue. But this fact merely showed ‘how a primitive, moralistic,
theological, legalistic attitude obstructs a scientific approach’.
As it happened, Lundberg did not have to wait. ‘I am compelled to report’, he
later wrote of the reception, that the talk ‘was interrupted with some hisses and
boos—not a usual recognition at this annual occasion’. In fact, he had not seen
such ‘an accolade’ in thirty years of attending scholarly meetings! When the
address was published, others continued to wonder. ‘Have you read Lundberg’s
presidential address?’ Parmelee wrote to Bernard the following spring. ‘It has
raised the question whether he is anti-semitic, although he protests against it’
(Larsen 1968:21).58
For the next decade, Lundberg continued a running battle with prominent Jewish
leaders and organizations, all the while claiming that he was really on their side.
The more he protested, however, the more you wondered. The Council for Judaism
are loud in their praises for my views and apparently regard me as a second Moses
called to lead the Chosen People out of the Wilderness’, he wrote to his close
friend Harry Elmer Barnes at the height of this controversy. ‘If this continues, I
expect to be eligible for honorary circumcision by the time commencement roles
[sic] around, or what does one get for high achievement among the Hebrews?’59
Anti-Semitism (partially) reconsidered

Such attitudes notwithstanding, some sociologists by the early 1940s were
beginning to explore the deeper dimensions of Jewish-Gentile relations, past and
present. A notable effort was Jews in a Gentile World (1942), a collection of essays
edited by one Isacque Graeber, a sociologist/ethnologist formerly at the University
of Paris, and Steuart H. Britt, a sometime lawyer and assistant professor of
psychology at George Washington University. Although the editors clearly
intended the work to aid the Jewish cause in the developing crisis, they insisted
that theirs was a book in which ‘experts from a number of fieldsexamine the
problems of anti-Semitism in a dispassionate, objective manner’. Contributors
were to include a number of non-Jewish scholars (‘in the interest of tact and
effectiveness’, the editor wrote to one contributor) (Graeber and Britt 1942:v-viii).
In the end, eight sociologists joined nine other contributors, making the volume
the most sustained address of the situation of Jews and the nature of anti-Semitism
by sociologists to date.
Their contributions included the worst and the best in the collection. Arguably
the worst was a survey of ‘Anti-Semitism through History’ in which Joyce O.
Hertzler of the University of Nebraska appeared to argue that the solution to the
problem of anti-Semitism was nothing less than the elimination of the Jew as Jew.
Among the better was Jessie Bernard’s ‘An Analysis of Jewish Culture’. Although
she too blamed Jews as well as non-Jews for the long history of anti-Semitism,
she argued for modification of conflicting cultural traits on both sides. Probably
the best, certainly the most sophisticated conceptually, was Talcott Parsons’s ‘The
Sociology of Modern Anti-Semitism’, the first of several analyses of fascism he
published during the early 1940s. In these articles, Parsons raised analysis of
fascism to a new level and in the process eventually established a new paradigm
for the discipline.
ENTER TALCOTT PARSONS

Born at the turn of the century, Talcott Parsons (1902–1977), like Lundberg,
represented a third generation in American sociology. Unlike his objectivist
contemporaries, however, he was early exposed to a wide range of American and
European social theory, first as an undergraduate at Amherst (1924), then at the
London School of Economics (1924–25) and Heidelberg (1927).60 In The
Structure of Social Action (1937) he provided the synthesis of Weber, Durkheim,
and Pareto that secured his reputation and later influence. This work, in turn,
provided the framework for several studies of the professions in modern society
(Parsons 1937 and 1939) and, indirectly, of anti-Semitism and fascism.
Fascism, Parsons insisted, was a distinctly new phenomenon on the world scene
—a ‘radicalism of the right’. Its ‘radicalism’ lay in the fact that it inspired often
fanatical zeal among the masses of the people. Its character as a movement of the
‘right’ derived from the role played in it by ‘privileged elite groups, groups with
a “vested interest” in their position’. The combination was ‘paradoxical’, he
continued, employing a favourite catchword of post-Second World War
liberalism. But the combination of the two in the same movement—masses and
elite—was ‘the very essence of the phenomenon’ (Parsons 1942d:124–25).
For his analysis, Parsons went directly to his European mentors: to Durkheim
for the concept of ‘anomie’ to characterize the state of insecurity that made the
masses amenable to extremist appeals; to Max Weber for the notion of a ‘process
of rationalization’ whereby scientific culture challenged traditions of status,
authority and privilege in the name of equality and individual liberty, while at the
same time creating an economic order of capitalist free enterprise that threatened
these values; and to Vilfredo Pareto for the idea that the ‘rationalistic scheme’ of
scientific culture leads to an underestimation of the ‘non-logical’ aspects of human
behaviour, including ‘the sentiments and traditions of family and informal social
relationships, of the refinements of social stratification, or the peculiarities of
regional, ethnic or national culture—perhaps above all of religion’.
Since the process of rationalization affected social groups differentially —
professional and business groups leaning in the rational direction, for example,
and rural ones in the traditional—the result was not only inherent ‘strains’ within
the social system, but social struggle. The ‘uneven incidence ofemancipation’
explained why certain marginal groups within society (women, youth, the lower
middle classes) felt these tensions most acutely, and hence were ripe for the appeals
of fascism’s radical traditionalism. In a second article on the social structure of
pre-Nazi Germany, Parsons described how and why these social factors had
combined to create a seedbed for National Socialism (Parsons 1942a).
From this perspective, anti-Semitism was an integral part rather than an
incidental by-product of fascism. Again, Parsons’s argument unfolded in a series
of interrelated propositions. For ‘smooth functioning’ a social system requires ‘a
relative stability of expectations’ and ‘a sufficiently concrete and stable system of
symbols around which the sentiments of the individual can crystallize’. Where
social disorganization produces ‘anomie’ the disruption of expectations and
absence of suitable symbols lead to a generalized aggression and insecurity. This
‘free-floating’ aggression then attaches itself to ‘symbols only remotely connected
with their original sources’. In this situation, scapegoating characterizes public
discourse. Since Jews are most intimately involved in, and hence identified with,
the spheres of rationalized activity (business and the professions) that are furthest
removed from Gemeinschaft patterns, ‘they easily become targets of the
frustrations and aggression of those groups least touched by the “process of
rationalization”’. Thus, Parsons concluded his contribution to Jews in a Gentile
World, ‘the most important source of virulent anti-Semitism is probably the
projection on the Jew, as a symbol, of free-floating aggression, springing from
insecurities and social disorganization’ (Parsons 1942d: 125–26, 134; 1942a:121).
Viewed in the light of European theories of fascism, most of this was hardly
new. Parsons’s anomie mass man, consumed by ‘free-floating aggression’, stood
in the tradition of Gustave Le Bon’s The Crowd (1895), Ortega y Gasset’s The
Revolt of the Masses (1932), and most recently, Emil Lederer’s The State of the
Masses (1940), even though Parsons cited only Durkheim.61 His notion of the
differential impact of modernization likewise echoed Karl Mannheim’s analysis
of the ‘sphere of knowledge’ of different social groups in Ideology and Utopia
(1929, Eng. trans. 1936), although Parsons did not mention any source other than
Weber.62
This is not to say that American sociology immediately embraced Parsons’s
interpretation. Before Howard Odum accepted ‘Some Sociological Aspects of
Fascism’ for Social Forces, Herbert Blumer turned it down for the American
Journal of Sociology, claiming that it was too long.63 Between 1945 and 1960, the
American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, and Social
Forces together published fewer than a dozen articles even nominally dealing with
fascism or Nazism, none of them mentioning Parsons or developing a similar
analysis.64
But new questions had been asked, and the basis laid for a more systematic
understanding. Where fascism was concerned, Parsons had moved American
sociology to a new level of analysis. Gone were unrelated generalizations
concerning the logic of capitalism, the revolt of the lower middle classes, the
strength of German nationalism, or the humiliation at Versailles. In its place was
a psycho-sociological explanation which anticipated similar arguments in
American social science and historical writing for the next two decades.
As the ‘frustration-aggression’ model gained adherents, Parsons’s brief efforts
were quickly eclipsed by an outpouring of new studies of fascism and
anti-Semitism. Among the most prominent of these were Theodor W.Adorno et
al., The Authoritarian Personality (1950), Hannah Arendt, The Origins of
Totalitarianism (1951) and a growing number of studies by émigré social
scientists. In Political Man (1960), Seymour Martin Upset (Ph.D. Columbia 1949)
fused these interpretations—including Parsons’s—into probably the fullest
account of fascism by an American-born sociologist to that date. Without claiming
too much for these psycho-sociological interpretations, or attempting to analyse
subsequent debates over theories of ‘the authoritarian personality’ or mass society,
one can say that Parsons’s work thus marked a turning point in American
sociology’s thinking about fascism.65
Parsonianism in practice
As the war approached, Parsons also took an active part in opposing German
totalitarianism—a public role that belies later images of him as an abstract, ‘grand’
theorist. Warning that Nazism threatened a return to the ‘Dark Ages’, he publicly
opposed the ‘appeasers’ at the time of the Munich conference in 1938. ‘This war
is not “just another European squabble” from which we can remain aloof, he
lectured, in effect answering the Ogburns and Lundbergs. ‘Our institutions are in
danger because a fight to the death is already being waged against them.’66
In Cambridge, Parsons helped establish the Harvard Defence Committee, an
organization formed to mobilize public opinion against Nazism and for aid to
Britain. Chairing its Morale and National Service subcommittee, he gave
numerous speeches (including one at a dramatic campus meeting disrupted by
isolationists), wrote frequent letters to congressmen, and spoke often on local radio
stations on behalf of intervention. When the isolationist Harvard Student Union
requested that he excuse a class to participate in a peace demonstration in the
spring of 1940, he refused on the basis both of his obligations to his students and
of his opposition to a ‘peace’ movement which, in his words, ‘can only mean peace
at any price’. ‘In the present juncture such agitation plays directly into the hands
of the Nazis;’ he added. ‘I can just hear Goebbels’ chuckle, as he hears of them.’67
So far as anti-Semitism was concerned, Parsons’s frustration-aggression model
did not please everyone, as the editor of Jews in a Gentile World soon made clear,
with respect to his contribution to that volume. In one of several uncomfortable
exchanges, one of the editors nagged Parsons about the tone of his article. ‘Mind
you, none questions your sociological analysis,’ he wrote, ‘but merely the political
effect of your conclusions upon the public’, since these conclusions would
‘confirm the average Gentile in his most complacent attitudes of snobbishness’.
Among Parsons’s sins were a seemingly derogatory reference to Jews as a
‘minority’, an allegation that Jews occupied the ‘most conspicuous places’ in
German society and government in the Weimar years, and a characterization of
Jewish sensitivity. ‘On the whole,’ Graeber added, ‘I find the
aggression-frustration hypothesissomewhat unsatisfactory.’68
Yet this flap told more about the editor’s hypersensitivity, however
understandable in the face of events in 1940, than of anti-Semitism on Parsons’s
side. In response to the complaints, he went out of his way to placate the editor,
qualifying the first and last points in footnotes, and replacing ‘most conspicuous’
with ‘prominent’. Privately, he complained to a friend that the editor was chopping
and rewriting his prose to cut the heart from his analysis.69
More importantly, Parsons’s later activities and associations had about them
none of the aroma of anti-Semitism that tinged the private and public musings of
some of the leading objectivists. Quite the opposite. In subsequent writings, he
continued to couple anti-Semitism and aggressive nationalism as twin ills of
modernization.70 His many Jewish colleagues and students consistently expressed
nothing but gratitude for his efforts on their behalf. During the McCarthy years,
Parsons defended younger colleagues, Jews and gentiles alike. Although the full
story of Parsons’s opposition to Nazism, and his support for German sociologists,
Jew and gentile, Marxist and bourgeois, remains to be told, his record appears to
have been one of firm opposition to bigotry and intolerance in all its forms.71
In the postwar years Parsons’s sociological theory, itself steadily evolving,
served a political agenda that remains in contention. Just as the writings of Ogburn,
Lundberg, and others masked the programme of isolationists, British bashers, and
America Firsters, so Parsons’s for a time supported the emerging anti-Communism
of the Cold War era. While their narrow economic interpretations were a pale echo
of socialist or Marxist originals, and rooted deeply in post-First World War
revisionism, his analysis was anti-Marxist by design and fervently anti-Stalinist
in practice. While the concerns of Ogburn, Bernard and others ranged from
isolationism to anti-business populism, the Harvard sociologist spoke for an
Eastern internationalism now reconciled to post-New Deal, mixed economy,
welfare capitalism.
To his critics, this Parsons of the 1940s-1950s appears a leading proponent of
an emerging ‘corporate liberalism’ and a Cold Warrior par excellence.72 To his
defenders, in contrast, his postwar activities seem a natural extension of his earlier
battle against all forms of totalitarianism. Never an uncritical defender of

‘capitalism’, they argue, Parsons distinguished in theory between ‘capitalism’ as
a socio-economic phenomenon and the economic rationality and market
mechanisms that were equally important for the operation of socialist economies.
In practice, he sought a middle way between orthodox laissez faire capitalism and
Marxian socialism. His vigorous opposition to Stalinism in the late 1940s, no mere
‘Cold War hysteria’, proceeded directly from his crusade against Nazism. When
McCarthyism threatened to deny free speech and civil liberties, he opposed it with
equal vigour. From this perspective, the recent de-Stalinization of Eastern Europe
suggests that Parsons was once again more right than wrong.73
Recently this debate has focused on Parsons’s activities in securing Russian
experts among former German collaborators in the late 1940s, a final chapter in
his wartime activities. Writing in the Nation in March 1989, the historian Jon
Wiener argued that Parsons’s agenda did not preclude cooperation with ex-Nazis
in the name of anti-Communism once the Cold War was underway. During the
summer of 1948, with the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia already a fact,
Parsons travelled to Germany to recruit Soviet and Eastern European specialists
for Harvard’s Russian Research Center (RRC), a group closely associated with
US intelligence agencies. Among the scholars whom Parsons allegedly met and
recruited was one Nicholas Poppe, a language specialist from the University of
Leningrad. Poppe’s wartime assistance to the SS extermination programme made
him an embarrassment to authorities in the British zone of Germany (where he
resided) and had convinced the US State Department to deny him a visa. Although
aware of these facts (although probably not the SS connection), Parsons allegedly
sought Poppe a Harvard appointment until continued opposition led him to the
University of Washington. Parsons’s other alleged ex-Nazi contacts that summer
included a Kiev professor who had worked with the German propaganda ministry,
and a former Red Army lieutenant-colonel who became chief of security of a
pro-Nazi Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia. Sought as war
criminals by the Soviets, these individuals presumably had a personal stake in
exaggerating the Russian menace to the State Department or to anyone else who
would listen. ‘By materially assisting in this intelligence process,’ Wiener
concluded, ‘Talcott Parsons contributed to some of the most antidemocratic and
anti-intellectual trends in post-war American political life.’74
In a significant challenge to this account, Jens K.Nielsen, a Danish scholar
trained at Yale, has raised important questions of fact and interpretation. For one
thing, Parsons, so the evidence suggests, never met or spoke with Poppe. For
another, it was the Harvard anthropologist Clyde Kluckholm, not Parsons, who
initiated efforts to recruit Poppe for the RRC (after convincing himself on the basis
of careful enquiry that Poppe had committed no war crimes). More importantly,
in all these efforts, one must distinguish between Parsons’s personal role and
motives and the activities of the RRC in which he was an active but secondary
actor.75
The background and beliefs of the ‘pro-Nazis’ whom Parsons allegedly

contacted during the summer of 1948 also demand a closer look, Nielsen
continues. Most if not all were in fact members of a so-called ‘Vlasov group’ (after
Russian Lieutenant-General Andrey A.Vlasov), a left-oriented, nationalist faction
of Russian army dissidents who hoped to overthrow Stalin by allying with
Germany. Closely connected with anti-Nazi groups in the Germany Army and
German intelligence (one of its most eager promoters in Germany was the officer
who planted a bomb in Hitler’s headquarters in 1944), they were German
collaborators but not pro-Nazi. Although Nazi leaders saw the value of the Vlasov
movement for propaganda purposes, they consistently humiliated its members.
Vlasov himself was held in semi-captivity in Germany throughout the war and
was once called by Himmler ‘a pig’. A ‘Vlasov army’ that existed briefly in 1945
was best remembered for a fight against SS units in Prague, and, in any case, was
in no position to commit war crimes. Toward the end of the war, they spoke of
establishing democracy in a so-called ‘Prague Manifesto’.76
Making this case, Nielsen is appropriately cautious. Parsons was fully aware
that Harvard’s RRC was closely integrated with governmental intelligence, an
arrangement which, however justified under the circumstances, raises important
questions about the appropriate role of the university in society. Future historians
may conclude that Poppe was indeed guilty of war crimes (even though his
supporters vehemently deny the allegation). The Vlasov group’s eleventh-hour
enthusiasm for ‘democracy’ may have been for allied consumption, since its
authoritarian tendencies generally eclipsed its libertarian ones. Although not
rabidly anti-Semitic, some of its leaders shared the anti-Semitism endemic in
Russian society. But in matters of such moral moment as war crimes, Nielsen
concludes, getting the facts straight becomes a special obligation.
Whatever the full truth turns out to be concerning Poppe (or, more specifically,
RRC knowledge of his past), the nature and aims of Vlasov and his followers, and
Parsons’s role on the RRC (and Nielsen’s case on each point appears compelling),
Parsons by the early 1950s was a clear winner on the sociological battlefront. For
Ogburn and Lundberg, debates over fascism brought ostensible damage to
reputation, while his became a major voice within American sociology and
postwar American liberalism.
CONCLUSION
What, then, should be the final judgement of American sociology’s response to
fascism? For émigré intellectuals such as Hans Gerth, as well as for a younger
generation of radicals in the 1960s, the answer later seemed clear, as the response
to fascism became something of a bellwether to those who attacked the ‘value-free’
ideal. Lamenting the emergence of this ‘scientific ethos’, Gerth in particular noted
that the American Journal of Sociology published only two articles on National
Socialism from 1933 to 1947, one, his own account of Nazi leadership, accepted
only ‘after the hot war was underway’ (Gerth 1959:7–14).
For Gerth, the explanation lay in the increasing specialization of the discipline
and the emphasis on ever-narrower ‘empirical’ studies. While agreeing in part,
this essay suggests both modification and extension of the argument. For one thing,
Gerth’s view understates the opposition voiced by Ellwood, the many
lesser-knowns who wrote articles and reviewed books on fascism in the
sociological journals, and by the Bernard dissidents, however superficial and
unheeded their analysis. For another, Gerth’s emphasis on developments within
sociology ignores the relation between sociological theory and the professional
and political pressures that shaped debate. As sociology professionalized, a rising
cult of scientific objectivity inhibited public statements on public issues while at
the same time marginalizing those most inclined to speak out against
developments in Europe. Intellectually, the treatment of fascism during the 1930s
and 1940s revealed the continuing isolation of American sociology from European
social theorists (Marx, Weber, and Freud among others), an isolation that grew
more marked as a second and third generation of American sociologists, unlike
the founders, sought their training at home. Compounding this myopia were
parochial concerns derived from the American experience during the progressive
era, specifically the tradition of opposition to ‘big business’, isolationism in
international affairs, and anti-Semitism, however veiled or convoluted.
The combined results could be seen in simplistic economic explanations that
obscured the revolutionary nature of fascism as combining a racial pathology with
the latest in science and technology; and in a behaviouristic psychology that
focused attention on propaganda techniques rather than the psychodynamics of
the fascist appeal.
Finally, in blurring differences between the Value-free ideal’ as preached and
practised by such interwar objectivists as Ogburn and the theories and activities
of Talcott Parsons, Gerth’s analysis obscures both the breakthrough in Parsons’s
writings on fascism and the extent of his public opposition to it before and during
the war. In the process, it also obscures the role of fascism, in shaping, if only
indirectly, a fundamental reorientation of the discipline in the postwar years.
NOTES
1 William F.Ogburn, Diary, May 8, 1947, William F.Ogburn Papers, University of

Chicago [hereafter WFO]. Many citations in this paper are from archival material.
These citations will be listed in the endnotes. Portions of this paper have been adapted
from Robert C.Bannister (1987 and 1991). I am indebted to Professors Stephen
Turner and Dirk Käsler for their perceptive comments on an earlier draft of this essay.
2 For ‘realism’ and ‘nominalism’ in sociology see Robert E.Park and Ernest W.
Burgess (1921:36–44); J.David Lewis and Richard L.Smith (1980:Ch. 6);
Christopher G.A.Bryant (1985:4–5).
3 For discussion of this literature and the ‘invention’ of social Darwinism, see Robert
C.Bannister (1989).
4 Christopher J.Bittner to Luther Bernard, November 11, 1939, Luther Bernard Papers,
Pennsylvania State University [hereafter BPPS].
5 A second source was Robert A.Nisbet (1943). Some intellectual historians
generalized this position into a criticism of the ‘relativism’ of the entire pragmatic
tradition. See John Diggins (1966:487–506), and Robert Skotheim (1971).
6 Although many writers capitalize ‘fascism’ when speaking of the Italian movement,
and use lower case for what is termed ‘generic fascism’, I employ the lower case
except when the author of a quotation has done otherwise.
7 On changing interpretations of fascism see A.James Gregor (1974); Frederick L.
Carsten (1976); and Renzo De Felice (1977).
8 In addition to books and manuscript sources, this study is based on a comprehensive
reading of articles and book reviews on fascism in the American Journal of
Sociology, Social Forces, Sociology and Social Research and the American
Sociological Review (est. 1936), although space precludes a systematic content
analysis of each.
9 Indeed, it would be fairer to say that some of those most sympathetic to fascism (the
Humanists of The American Review, for example, or the iconoclastic H.L. Mencken)
were inclined to be anti-sociological. See Stone (1960).
10 If this analysis is correct, the sociologists stand in marked contrast to the natural
scientists as described in Kuznick (1987).
11 This statement is based on the absence of any mention of the subject in Fred H.
Matthews (1977) and Wayne D.Brazil (1975). The latter deals with Odum’s career
only through the early 1930s.
12 Charles A.Ellwood, ‘Sociological Life’, Luther Bernard Papers, University of
Chicago [hereafter BPUC].
13 ‘Modern Democracy is the Offspring of Christianity’, ‘Ellwood Views Fascism as
Greatest Threat to U.S’, clippings in Scrapbook, Charles Ellwood Papers, Duke
University. For bringing these and other clippings of the 1930s to my attention, I am
indebted to Stephen Turner.
14 Charles Ellwood to Ross, May 17, 1940, Ross Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society.
Although Ross also kept alive the reformism of the founders, he apparently ignored
the subject of fascism almost entirely. See Julius Weinberg (1972).
15 Maurice Parmelee to Luther Bernard, June 28, 1937, BPPS.
16 The Bogardus scale measured distances between an individual and various racial
and nationality groups through a series of graded categories indicating the amount
of social intimacy the individual would allow (‘admit to citizenship’, ‘admit to my
club as a chum’, etc.).
17 On Bogardus, see autobiographical sketch, 1928, BPPS; Bogardus (1962), and
Martin H.Neumeyer (1973).
18 Bernard to Bain, April 4, 1930, BPPS.
19 For a full account see Bannister (1987:190–99).
20 A fourth academic radical to address the issue of fascism was Harry Elmer Barnes
(1889–1968), a historian-sociologist who led the revisionist battle to discredit
America’s entry into the First World War. Although space does not allow treatment
of his views here, see especially his Society in Transition (1939). For a recent
treatment of Barnes and revisionism see Peter Novick (1988: 208–23).
21 Davis [autobiography], BPUC.
22 Ross, ‘Some Aspects of the Jerome Davis Case’; and Davis to Ross, April 22, 1936,
Ross Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society [hereafter EAR].
23 Davis [autobiography], BPUC.
24 Davis to Dean Weigle, October 19, 1936, EAR.
25 On Parmelee, see Don C.Gibbons (1974).
26 Maurice Parmelee to Luther Bernard, October 21, 1933, BPPS.
27 Bernard, ‘George Vincent’ [faculty sketch], ms. 18 pp., BPUC.
28 Bernard to Gifford Pinchot, June, 1932; and to Harold Ickes, August 1932, BPPS.
29 Bernard, ‘Shall It Be “Goodbye Mr. Roosevelt”’, ms. [1935], BPPS.
30 Luther Bernard to J.A.Wolf, April 11, 1935; to Jessie Bernard, September 19, 1935;
to Charles A.Ellwood, August 22, 1936, BPPS.
31 Jessie to Luther Bernard, October 5, 1936, September 26, 1938, October 8, 1938;
Luther to Jessie Bernard, October 1, 1938, BPPS.
32 Luther Bernard to Earle Eubank, January 1, 1938, and to Maurice Parmelee, March
7, 1938, BPPS; American Sociological Society (1938:92ff). Although the radicals
in this four-year struggle revealed the same mixed motives as characterized their
activities generally, and were inexplicably slow to identify Nazi control as the central
issue, Bernard finally reviewed the episode in these terms in ‘Is Hitler Our
Fuehrer?’(1942). For background see Terry N.Clark (1973:228).
33 Bernard’s inspiration for the title was probably Hans Fallada’s Little Man, What
Now? (1933), a poignant, fictional representation of the German petite bourgeoisie
on the eve of Hitler’s takeover. Although Bernard left no record of having read
Fallada’s novel, it was widely discussed, including a review in Sociology and Social
Research (1936). For this suggestion, I am indebted to Stephen Turner.
34 Bernard, ‘Little Sociologist, What Now?’ ms. n.d. [1939], BPPS; cf. ‘The SRA Plans
to Die’, American Sociologist, p.1.
35 This generalization is based on an extensive file of replies to Bernard’s enquiry in
BPPS.
36 For drawing my attention to these themes in the American Sociologist, I am indebted
to John F.Galliher and Robert A.Hagan (forthcoming).
37 For a fuller development of this argument see Bannister (1987), especially pp. 231–
38.
38 The other initials stood for William I.Thomas, formerly of the University of Chicago,
and Stuart Rice of the University of Pennsylvania. Each was closely associated with
the educational foundations that were coming to play a large part in the funding of
the social sciences.
39 On Ogburn’s career see Duncan (1964), Huff (1973), and Martindale (1961:324–30).
40 William F.Ogburn, Diary, June 22, 1942, WFO.
41 Ibid., July 10, 1942, WFO.
42 Ibid., May 7, 1945, and September 16, 1944, WFO.
43 Mary Sims Walker to Ogburn, quoted in Ogburn ‘Journal’, May 8, 1947, WFO.
44 Harry Elmer Barnes to George Lundberg, September 8, 1949, Lundberg Papers,
University of Washington, Seattle [hereafter GAL].
45 Barbara Laslett to author, March 6, 1989. I am indebted to Professor Laslett of the
University of Minnesota for all the information in this paragraph.
46 Bain to Lundberg, March 2, 1937; Lundberg to Bain, March 22, 1937; Bain to
Lundberg, December 1, 1938. See also Bain to Lundberg, February 19; Lundberg
to Bain, February 23, 1941, Read Bain Papers, University of Michigan [hereafter
RB].
47 Jessie Bernard to George Lundberg, September 25, 1940, Lundberg to Jessie
Bernard, July 9, 1940, BPPS.
48 Jessie Bernard to Lundberg, April 22, 1949, GAL. See also Behice Boran (1947).
49 Bruce Melvin to George Lundberg, December 17, 1945, GAL.
50 Information concerning still unanalysed camp interviews from Stephen Turner to
author, September 10, 1989.
51 To this statement, an anonymous reader years later pencilled a large question mark
in the margin, adding ‘What the fuck??’ Marginalia in copy in Swarthmore College
Library.
52 On growing American awareness of the plight of European Jewry, and the nation’s
shamefully tardy response to the Holocaust, see Arthur D.Morse (1968), Henry
Feingold (1970), and David S.Wyman (1968 and 1984).
53 Read Bain to Sam Stouffer, October 17, 1936, RB.
54 Edwin B.Wilson to Talcott Parsons, May 12, 1939, Talcott Parsons Papers, Harvard
[hereafter TP].
55 Ogburn, ‘Journal’, March 15, 1948, WFO.
56 Ibid.
57 For an extended treatment of this theme, see Bannister (1991).
58 Maurice Parmelee to Luther Bernard, May 25, 1944, BPPS.
59 Lundberg to Barnes, February 22, 1949, GAL. The Lundberg papers contain
extensive correspondence on this issue.
60 On Parsons’s early life, see Peter Hamilton (1983:Ch. 3).
61 On this tradition, see Gregor (1974:Ch. 4).
62 This point is suggested in De Felice (1977:87).
63 Herbert Blumer to Talcott Parsons, July 6, 1942, TP.
64 One exception among sociologists was David Riesman (1942). Although Riesman
did not cite his future Harvard colleague, Parsons, his analysis was similar to
Parsons’s. This similarity underlines the judgement in Gregor (1974:91), that
Parsons had merely ‘conveniently summarized the efforts made until that time’.
When Riesman returned to the topic in the early 1950s it was within the context of
‘totalitarianism’—a term increasingly popular during the Cold War years to conflate
fascism and Soviet Communism. See Riesman (1964).
65 For a useful discussion of recent thinking see G.Eley (1983).
66 Parsons, ‘New Dark Ages Seen if Nazis Should Win’, Boston Evening Transcript,
September 28, 1938. I am indebted to Stephen Turner for bringing this piece to my
attention. For perceptive comments on an earlier version of this section, I also wish
to thank Dr Victor Meyer Lidz, Division of Addiction Research and Treatment,
Department of Mental Health Science, Hahnemann University. Dr Lidz, of course,
bears no responsibility for any remaining errors of fact or interpretation. In particular,
I am unable to address in the space available some important differences between
Parsons’s statements concerning Nazism in an advocacy role and in a more strictly
theoretical context, or the originality of his analyses of German social structure when
compared with sociologists before and after, including Hannah Arendt.
67 Talcott Parsons to Alan Gottlieb, April 16, 1940, quoted in Jens Kaalhauge Nielsen,
‘The Political Orientation of Talcott Parsons: The Second World War and Its
Aftermath’, in Talcott Parsons: Theorist of Modernity, (eds) Roland Robertson and
Bryan S.Turner, London, Sage Publications, 1991. I am indebted to this analysis for
much information in this section, and to Jens Nielsen for sharing his findings in
greater detail in a phone conversation with the author, November 14, 1991.
68 I.Graeber to Talcott Parsons, February 19, 1940, TP.
69 Parsons to Ben Halpern, June 26, 1942, TP.
70 E.g. Parsons, ‘Certain Primary Sources and Patterns of Aggression in the Social
Structure of the Western World’, Psychiatry 1947, vol. 10, p. 179.
71 Victor M.Lidz to the author, October 20, 1991; Nielsen, ‘Political Orientation’, p.
225.
72 William Buxton, Talcott Parsons and the Capitalist Nation-State, Toronto,
University of Toronto Press, 1985, especially pp. 97–101.
73 Nielsen, ‘Political Orientation’, p. 225.
74 See Jon Weiner, ‘Bringing Nazi Sympathizers to the US,’ Nation, March 6, 1989,
pp. 304 ff., which draws heavily on the unpublished doctoral dissertation (UCLA)
of Charles O’Connell, and on Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America’s
Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War, New York, Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1988, a book that discusses Poppe extensively.
75 Information in this and the next two paragraphs is drawn from Nielsen, ‘Political
Orientation’, pp. 220–24.
76 In addition to his own research, Nielsen bases this account on his reading of the rich
secondary literature on Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement, the most
recent being Catherine Andreyev, Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
REFERENCES
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8
RESPONSES TO FASCISM IN BRITAIN,
1930–1945
The emergence of the concept of totalitarianism
Peter Lassman
There is still very little agreement concerning the nature and significance of
fascism. The emergence of fascist regimes in the 1920s and 1930s presented
contemporaries with an awkward and yet compelling question. How were they to
make sense of these new regimes when their ideology and practice seemed to defy
the categories of conventional theory? The essence of the problem has been stated
by O’Sullivan who points out that ‘fascism appeared like a bolt from the blue. The
advent of fascism in the present century, that is to say, took nearly everybody by
surprise; and surprise, of course, is at once the parent and the child of theoretical
incomprehension’ (O’Sullivan 1983:7). It is easy to forget that according to the
major political ideologies of the time, conservatism, liberalism, socialism and
Marxism, there is no room for such a movement to appear and, more significantly,
to be successful. Bearing this in mind it is clear that contemporary social and
political thinkers were faced with a very difficult task. Furthermore, it was not
until the 1930s that the success of fascism abroad provided it with a significance
in Britain that it had previously lacked. It is also important to take note of the fact
that the theoretical debate about the meaning of the fascist phenomenon was itself
situated within a context of political argument. The practical objective of the
literature of fascism, written during this period, cannot be ignored. It is certainly
correct to say of most of this literature that, as it ‘was conceived of as a function
of the anti-fascist struggle, its immediate impact was political, or ethico-political’
(De Felice 1977:5).
It appears that British public opinion, as portrayed by the press, found fascism
to be a generally puzzling phenomenon. The British press found it difficult to
believe that it was being confronted by a genuinely new form of political activity.
British journalists tended to play down the anti-Semitism and racism of the Nazi
Party, for example, because they were incredulous that men could actually mean
to put such rhetoric into action. It has been argued that this inability to recognize
the totalitarian nature of the Nazi movement is indicative of a general failure of
the political imagination. The following statement is a strong assertion of this
argument.
There was a failure in Britain, as in Germany, to grasp the nature of

ideological thinking and of totalitarianism as a concept. People, in the
208 RESPONSES TO FASCISM IN BRITAIN, 1930–1945
framework of a liberal discourse, simply could not conceive that the

governing party of a great and civilized country could think in terms of a
philosophy which claimed to explain everything in terms of Race, Struggle
and Leadership, and which then sought to make, not a few improvements
here and there, but a veritable heaven (or hell) on earth from which all
divisive, and thus subversive, elements would be eliminated.
(Crick 1964:12)
Although there is an element of truth in this statement it is an exaggeration and a

simplification of the actual state of affairs. In fact, there was, especially outside
the Marxist camp, a growing awareness and interest in the use of the concept of
‘totalitarianism’ as a way of making sense of these new movements.
The concept of totalitarianism was deployed by many of the writers of this
period. An important example is to be found in the work of George Orwell, ‘a
figure lonely in the England of the 1930s for his insistence that the new and great
enemy was “totalitarianism”, of whatever form, and no longer other people’s
nationalism’ (Granzow 1964:236). Again there is both truth and exaggeration here.
Orwell is certainly extremely important in his recognition of the significance of
totalitarianism but he certainly was not alone in this. Increasingly, during the 1930s
and early 1940s, it became clear to many that, although fascism and National
Socialism were distinct systems, they were both examples of totalitarianism. A
typical view was that of Crossman who argued that totalitarianism itself had been
invented in Soviet Russia and its methods borrowed by the fascist regimes
(Crossman 1940:286).
The concept of totalitarianism was increasingly being used to focus upon the
novelty and uniqueness of the fascist regimes, in contrast to those, especially
parliamentary democratic, regimes which they had replaced. The use of a general
concept of this type also implied that a comparison of the differences, as well as
the similarities, that existed between the Italian and German cases be made. More
controversially, the logic of the concept drew attention to the similarities between
the fascist regimes and the Soviet Union. In effect, the theory of totalitarianism
had its first airing during this period, some twenty years before the popularization
of the term by the political science of the Cold War period. Nevertheless, the theory
was not developed in the direction of rigorous research, and, in the view of one
critic, the fundamental problem with the concept is that its ahistorical character
was inadequate for an exploration of the origins of this political system and, as a
consequence, only served to highlight the idea that fascism had ‘arisen from the
void’ (Aycoberry 1981:41).
A central feature of the debate, in Britain, concerning the nature of fascism
during this period is its uncertainty with regard to the question of the novelty and
uniqueness of the fascist regimes. This, in turn, is linked to the question of its
relationship to Communism. As the debate about the nature of fascism took place
within a context of political argument, in which Marxist categories played a central
role, it often assumed a highly polemical character. Many, who, for various
reasons, opposed the Marxist account of the nature of fascism came to rely upon
an appeal to the concept of totalitarianism. For example, Crick has pointed out
that Orwell, who must be considered as a ‘political thinker of genuine stature’
(Crick 1982:25), believed, in a way that is analogous to Hobbes’ Leviathan, that
‘a breakdown in good government’, by which he meant a breakdown in liberty,
tolerance and welfare, ‘could cause a leap forward into a hypothetical world order
of one-party total power, a kind of state that the world had never seen before’
(Crick 1982:25). According to Crick, between about 1936 and 1940, ‘political and
literary intellectuals’, such as Koestler, Borkenau, Silone, Malraux and Orwell,
all began to use and develop this concept quite independently of each other. It
appears that the concept itself was, if not invented by, at least first popularized by
Mussolini and the Italian fascists. Mussolini’s statement that a ‘party that governs
a nation in a totalitarian way is a new fact in history’, is typical (Mussolini
1939:175).
Contemplation of the emergence of fascism and its affinities with other regimes,
especially that of the Soviet Union, encouraged the use of the concept of
totalitarianism in Britain. The point of the concept was to warn that fascism
represented something new and dangerous that could not be grasped adequately
by the conventional categories of social and political analysis. However, in using
the concept to point to the similarities between the fascist and the Communist
regimes, there is a danger that an appreciation of the unique character of fascism
will be lost. Certainly, as the ideological debates in Britain developed during this
period, it becomes clear that the term was being used with increasing popularity.
Orwell certainly makes it perfectly clear that the virtue of the concept is that it
challenges directly the conventional wisdom of the Left for whom ‘National
Socialism was simply capitalism with the lid off’, and that ‘Hitler was a dummy
with Thyssen pulling the strings’. The uncomfortable fact that had to be recognized
was that ‘National Socialism is a form of Socialism, is emphatically revolutionary,
does crush the property owner just as surely as it crushes the worker. The two
regimes, having started from opposite ends, are rapidly evolving towards the same
system—a form of oligarchical collectivism’ (Orwell 1970:40–41).
There is a problem in considering the response to fascism of those who
explicitly defined themselves as sociologists. Sociology hardly existed in prewar
Britain as a distinct academic field. Nevertheless there was considerable debate
concerning the nature of sociology and the future prospects for the social sciences.
Given the absence of an institutionalized academic field of sociology it ought not
to come as a surprise to find that an interest in what we today might define as
sociological ideas and methods existed within many other related fields (Marshall
1936). It has been argued that there was a ‘concealed sociology’ within much of
British intellectual life (Lepenies 1988). Despite the absence of sociology as an
institutionalized academic discipline, there was a high level of interest in the nature
and development of sociology and the social sciences. Indeed, it is reported that
a foreign academic was led to remark that ‘we English, who profess to be unversed
in problems of methodology, were more passionate about such problems than the
scholars of the Continent’ (Barker 1936:8). Social and political theorists such as
Laski, Cole and Barker, if not writing what today we might want to define as
‘sociology’ as such, were writing, it can be claimed, ‘an inherently “sociological”
political theory’ (Collini 1978: 29). Laski, for example, was quite clear that
‘political theory cannot separate itself from sociology, of which, indeed, it is
clearly a branch or aspect’ (Laski 1936:115). Nevertheless, it is important to guard
against the fallacies of anachronism, in reading back into the past current
definitions of what counts as ‘sociology’. There are considerable differences
between the ideas of these thinkers that cannot be ignored. In fact, it can also be
argued that the influence of some of these thinkers was ultimately
counter-productive for the development of academic sociology (Collini 1978).
The ‘official’ sociologists such as Ginsberg, professor of Sociology at the
London School of Economics, tended not to deal directly with current political
questions. Much of Ginsberg’s work consists of essays which are mainly
philosophical in character. Fascism is only mentioned in the context of general
philosophical questions as, for example, in his essay The Individualist Basis of
International Law and Morals’ where some fascist ideas are briefly outlined
(Ginsberg 1947:258–278). Even writers such as Marshall who, although trained
as an economic historian, defined himself as a sociologist and became head of the
Social Science Department (not the sociology department) at the London School
of Economics did not concern himself, in print at least, with the problem of fascism
except to endorse the ‘new middle class’ theory of fascist support championed by,
among others, Cole (Marshall 1965:186). Also worth mentioning is the work of
the Mass Observation movement. The Mass Observation movement was founded
in 1937 by Charles Madge, Tom Harrisson and Humphrey Jennings. Madge and
Jennings shared a literary background. Madge was a poet and Jennings was making
films for the Post Office. Harrisson was a member of the Oxford University
Expedition to Malekula (now Vanuatu) and produced a widely read New Left
book Savage Civilization on the basis of his experiences there. Typical of their
work was the setting up of a National Panel of Observers who were given several
tasks to perform on every twelfth day of the month. An example of this approach
was the publication of May the Twelfth, a very detailed piece of literary collage
based on reports from observers throughout the country on the Coronation of
George VI (12 May 1937). Topics covered in the monthly surveys included
attitudes to blacks, Jews and fascists. This form of social research does not fit into
any orthodox categories of social science but was very popular during this period.
Its aim was to ‘capture social reality’ at precisely defined moments without
bothering with the excess baggage of theories and methods. Although there is
nothing systematic here and there are obvious questions concerning the reliability
of the data there are some interesting examples of popular attitudes to fascism to
be found here (Harrisson and Madge 1939).
Most of the interest in fascism was directed at the established regimes abroad
rather than at the British movement. Fascism itself had many precursors in Britain
but the first important movement was the British Union of Fascists founded in
1932. It appears that critical analysis and hostility towards fascism did not develop
fully until the 1930s and, especially, after the establishment of the Nazi regime
which provided fascism with a content and significance that it had previously
lacked (Lewis 1987; Thurlow 1987). The success of the National Socialists
demonstrated that fascism was no longer an exclusively Italian phenomenon while,
in Britain, warnings of the possibility of a fascist seizure of power began to appear
(Strachey 1934).
The early response to Italian fascism among British intellectuals was to regard
it sympathetically as an interesting social experiment. On the non-Marxist left
Italian fascism was seen by many, at first, as a development of the ideas of the
syndicalists and similar in aim to the ideas of the British Guild Socialists, who
were in favour of a decentralized economy with workers’ control of industry.
However, Cole, a leading advocate of Guild Socialism, had confessed as early as
1923 that, although he was ‘in the dark’ about fascism, it certainly had little to do
with the interests of the working class (Wright 1979:109). There was a degree of
expected sympathy for the Italian regime from many on the right. One typical
account argued that the Grand Fascist Council ‘consists of tried and trusted men,
and removes all questions of supreme national importance from the irresponsible
forces of political agitation’. Furthermore, it was asserted that fascism is
supremely successful in liberating the individual from the tyranny of the majority
(Goad and Currey 1933). However, when more analytical attention was focused
upon the Italian regime it was perceived to be a clear example of ‘totalitarianism’,
in which, if there had ever been any intention of constructing a state on syndicalist
lines, it had now been abandoned. Nevertheless, it was pointed out by one writer
that one of the lessons of Mussolini’s Italy was that it demonstrated the limits to
totalitarianism. This resided in the simple fact that total control of thought is
impossible. The libraries are still the organized opposition to the Fascist State’
(Finer 1935: 540).
Although the British fascist movement was not usually seen as the main threat
there was a considerable and growing anxiety about the danger of fascism. One
of the most perceptive accounts recognized fascism as a danger precisely because
it had its attractions and could not be written off in reductionist terms as being
simply a stage in the development of capitalism. According to Orwell, the real
danger that faced the country did not come from the British Union of Fascists but
from a ‘fascist attitude of mind’. In order to understand fascism, Orwell argued,
it is necessary to admit that ‘it contains some good as well as much evil’. It is quite
understandable that many would be drawn to fascism seeing it as ‘the last line of
defence of all that is good in European civilization’ (Orwell 1962: 187). A large
part of the responsibility for the appeal of fascism rests with the Marxist left whose
inability to take democracy seriously has had the effect of undermining its own
position. But more significantly, the tendency towards a belief in economic
determinism has also weakened the left’s case. The excessive materialism of the
left has resulted in the fact that ‘fascism has been able to play upon every instinct
that revolts against hedonism and a cheap conception of “progress”. It has been
able to pose as the upholder of the European tradition, and to appeal to Christian
belief, to patriotism, and to the military virtues’ (Orwell 1962:188). More
ominously, the end product of a ‘Fascist International’ would be the creation of a
‘totalitarian world’. Orwell’s message is pessimistic but realistic. There is no
reason to suppose, despite the optimism of the Marxist left, that economic and
technological development leads to an egalitarian and collectivist society. It was
more than likely that the future would be collectivist and totalitarian with ‘the
profit principle eliminated’ but with ‘all political, military, and educational power
in the hands of a small caste of rulers’ (Orwell 1962:189).
CAPITALISM IN DECAY AND FASCISM: THE

ORTHODOX MARXIST ACCOUNT
The main example of the orthodox Marxist account of fascism was that offered
by R.Palme Dutt. Dutt (1896–1974), originally a Classics scholar, was expelled
from Oxford for ‘Bolshevik propaganda’ and subsequently became a member of
the Executive Committee of the Communist Party from 1922 until 1965. He was
editor of the Daily Worker from 1936 to 1938. According to Dutt fascism is
capitalism in decay. It is the culmination of the ‘most typical tendencies and
policies of modern capitalism’ (Dutt 1934: 72). As a consequence there is no point
in examining fascist theory. It is in the ‘actual historical process that the reality
of fascism must be found, and not in the secondary derivative attempts post festum
at adornment with a theory’ (Dutt 1934:75–76). In true Marxist manner Dutt
attempted to define the essence of fascism by examining it in class terms and they
seemed to contradict each other. On the one hand, there was the picture of fascism
as a middle-class movement standing in opposition to both the proletariat and to
large-scale capitalism. On the other hand, fascism was presented as a weapon of
capitalism that made use of the middle class and some sections of the working
class. In Dutt’s view this contradiction can be shown to be more apparent than
real. Although it is true that the fascists do have widespread middle-class support
it does not follow that fascism is an independent movement of the middle class.
‘Fascism, in short, is a movement of mixed elements, dominantly petit-bourgeois,
but also slum-proletarian and demoralized working class, financed and directed
by finance-capital, by the big industrialists, landlords and financiers, to defeat the
working-class revolution and smash the working-class organizations’ (Dutt
1934:82).
The question of middle-class support for fascism was central for a diagnosis of
the political crisis. In conventional Marxist terms the emergence of the new middle
classes was described as being simply a stage in the process of proletarianization.
The middle classes are incapable of any kind of independent political activity and,
therefore, must support either the forces of finance capital or the proletariat. The
idea that there can be any form of ‘third force’ based upon middle-class support
is a myth. The decisive factor is the ownership of the means of production. The
middle class can either be the Auxiliary of finance capital’ or it can join the
proletariat in the socializing of the means of production. ‘These are the only two
alternatives before the middle class. The first is the line of fascism. The second is
the line of communism’ (Dutt 1934:86). Of course, as far as Dutt and the orthodox
Marxists were concerned, the true interests of the middle classes were represented
by the proletariat. Fascism could only succeed where the proletarian movement
was weak and the responsibility for such weakness lay with the ‘revisionists’ of
social democracy who, in essence, were ‘social fascists’ themselves.
The account of the development of fascism put forward by Dutt and others on
the Marxist left, such as R.Pascal (Pascal 1934), Professor of German at the
University of Birmingham from 1939 to 1969 and a prominent Marxist scholar,
was characterized by the mechanical application of a rigid set of theoretical
categories. As a consequence there was no need to consider fascist ideology or
theory. The idea that there is such a thing as a theory of fascism is itself an illusion.
For example, the idea of a ‘corporate state’ is ‘in fact the transparent
masquerade-dress of modern capitalism’. It follows that from this standpoint all
attempts, such as those of Butler (Butler 1941) or Russell (1935) (Bertrand Russell,
the third Earl Russell, the philosopher and winner of the Nobel prize for literature
in 1950), to trace the roots of fascism back into the intellectual past were
completely pointless. Modern society can be either capitalist or socialist.
According to this logic, if fascism is not socialism, then it must be capitalism. In
economic terms, which, ultimately, are the only terms that matter, fascism is
‘identical with capitalism, representing only a special method to maintain its power
and hold down the workers’ (Dutt 1934: 193). The major difference between the
fascist capitalist state and the democratic capitalist state is that the former ‘is based
on the violent destruction of the worker’s independent organizations and the
complete abolition of the right to strike’ (Dutt 1934:203). Other capitalist states
are advancing in this same direction but they have not dared to go this far.
The Marxist account put forward by Dutt is also characterized by a form of
historicist optimism. The teleology inherent in fascism is such that it is ultimately
to be seen as an ‘episode in the long-drawn class-war advancing to the final victory
of the socialist revolution’ (Dutt 1934:223). There is nothing ‘progressive’ about
fascism. If there were to be a society of ‘stabilized fascism’ then it would be a
society of ‘organized decay’. But fascism cannot last. It is merely a transitional
form of society. Fascism is the consequence of a delay in the revolution ‘when
the whole objective situation calls for the proletarian revolution as the only final
solution and ever more visibly raises the issue of the struggle for power, but when
the working-class movement is not yet strong enough and ready owing to being
disorganized and paralyzed by reformism, and thus lets the initiative pass to
capitalism’ (Dutt 1934:270). Fascism has the effect of intensifying the class
struggle. Fascism is both a ‘punishment for the “weakness” of reformism and “the
weapon of history for purging and burning out this weakness”’ (Dutt 1934:289).
TOTALITARIANISM: LEFT AND RIGHT

A similar description of fascism was put forward by Strachey. Evelyn John St Loe
Strachey (1901–1963), an important figure on the left, was a Labour member of
Parliament from 1929 to 1931 when he resigned from the party. He rejoined the
party and was an MP from 1945 to 1963. From 1946 to 1950 he was Minister of
Food and from 1950 to 1951 Secretary of State for War. In Strachey’s view fascism
and war are the inevitable results of the failure to overthrow capitalism. It seems
to be an uncontroversial fact that ‘fascism is one of the methods which may be
adopted by the capitalist class when the threat of the working class to the stability
of monopoly capitalism becomes acute’ (Strachey 1932:261). The function of
fascism is to create a mass movement for the protection of capitalism. In order to
be successful the fascists must rely upon anti-capitalist slogans and, as a
consequence, there is the danger that they might be taken seriously. Nevertheless,
it is clear that fascism is a counter-revolutionary force despite the fact that it might
be said to have a ‘revolutionary’ aspect in terms of its ability to destroy ‘weak’
capitalist governments. Where a ‘strong’ capitalist government exists, such as the
National Government in Britain, there is no need for fascism and such movements
are bound to be unsuccessful. However, unlike Dutt, Strachey saw that there was
something more to fascism than a simple economic analysis would allow.
Although fascism ‘had no theory’ it did have a technique. This was the
development of a ‘new form of party’ that ‘attempts to capture the whole lives’
of its members. Even more significantly there ‘is no doubt that the fascists
borrowed this technique from the communists’ (Strachey 1932:266).
The idea that fascism and Communism were both examples of totalitarianism
was developed by Strachey when political events, principally the Hitler-Stalin
pact and the communist policy of ‘revolutionary defeatism’, forced a
reconsideration of his ideas. What we now find ‘unspeakably vile’ about fascism
is its totalitarian character. But what is ‘totalitarianism’? ‘The best short definition
of it will perhaps be “enforced uniformity”. A country is totalitarian if uniformity
of all kinds is enforced upon the people of that country by the state. We primarily
think of such enforced uniformity as mental uniformity; for it is in the mental
sphere that such enforced uniformity is most striking and most repulsive’
(Strachey 1941:191). The danger inherent in totalitarianism is that it has, despite
being ‘a supreme evil’, ‘many advantages which undoubtedly attract many people
to it’. For example, it is ‘suggested that, if such enforced uniformity provides the
working class with rather better living conditions and more economic security,
then the loss of the right to differ does not matter to workers in the least’ (Strachey
1941:192). However, a difficulty presents itself to the analyst writing from the
left. How is totalitarianism of the right to be distinguished from that of the left?
Although Strachey at this time does point out the similarities between the two
versions of totalitarianism there is still a residue of the reluctance, that was felt on
the left, to equate them. We are informed that the ‘fascist, and more especially
Nazi, doctrine is so wildly untrue (i.e., it so wildly contradicts the objective facts
of the real world) that it corrupts, and will ultimately destroy, all those on whom
it is enforced’. But in the Soviet Union the doctrine upon which mental uniformity
is based is ‘incomparably truer (i.e., gives an incomparably better and closer
interpretation of reality) than is the fascist doctrine’ (Strachey 1941:195).
The recognition of the threat of totalitarianism played a central part in the
argument concerning the political implications of the idea of ‘democratic’ or
‘social’ planning (Mannheim 1940). Hayek’s argument against planning was
initially based upon his ‘annoyance with the complete misinterpretation of the
character of the Nazi movement in English “progressive” circles’ (Hayek 1944:
vii). His fundamental point is that the real conflict is not between the various
forms of fascist or Communist collectivism but, rather, between collectivism, as
such, and individual freedom. Of course, it is argued, the various forms of
collectivism differ from each other in terms of their aims and policies but it is
more important to recognize that they ‘all differ from liberalism and individualism
in wanting to organize the whole of society and all its resources for this unitary
end, and in refusing to recognize autonomous spheres in which the ends of the
individuals are supreme. In short, they are totalitarian in the true sense of this new
word which we have adopted to describe the unexpected but nevertheless
inseparable manifestations of what in theory we call collectivism’ (Hayek
1944:42). Hayek and Popper take as their ‘target’ the work of another émigré,
Mannheim. Mannheim’s argument for ‘freedom at the level of planning’
(Mannheim 1940) was ridiculed by both Popper and Hayek as being, in essence,
an invitation to totalitarianism. Popper, with some malice, went so far as to
compare the ideas of Mannheim, a victim of Nazism, and the logic of his
sociological thought, with those of Carl Schmitt (Popper 1957:79).
FASCISM AND THE CAPITALIST

COUNTER-REVOLUTION
An influential example of an attempt to understand fascism from a position that
has been termed ‘democratic Marxist’ (Barker 1942) is that of Laski. H.J.Laski
(1893–1950) was professor of political science at the London School of
Economics from 1926 to 1950. He was a member of the Executive Committee of
the Labour Party from 1936 to 1949 and Chairman of the Labour Party from 1945
to 1946. As far as Laski was concerned the answer to the question of the nature
of fascism was simple. It is ‘capitalism in decay’ (Laski 1943:95). Laski’s
interpretation of fascism was in essentials an unstable mixture. The interpretation
that he put forward attempted to combine some fairly orthodox Marxist ideas with
others which were in contradiction with them. The Marxists were correct to point
out that fascism is ‘simply the expression of monopoly-capitalism in decay’
because ‘it does not disturb the vital class-relations in any society it comes to
dominate; individuals, or special groups like the Jews, apart, it is characteristic of
its functioning that the rich remain rich and the poor remain poor’ (Laski 1942:88).
There is also, Laski felt, much truth in the description of fascism as the dictatorship
of the monopoly capitalists. Fascism is ‘the refuge to which capitalism is driven

when it is no longer able to preserve the privileges of its ruling classes and to make
concessions to the multitude’ (Laski 1942:88).
Laski, while in agreement with the main lines of the Marxist analysis, felt that
it was open to criticism. It was inadequate as an explanation of some of the most
troubling facts about the emergence of the fascist regimes. The Marxist analysis
had not paid sufficient attention to two fundamental facts. The first of these was
that both Mussolini and Hitler had come to power with the support of mass
movements which they themselves had created. The social basis of these
movements was such that they would seem to defy the categories of orthodox
Marxist analysis. They had brought together a distinct social mixture of ‘the
disinherited, whether the unemployed soldier like Roehm, or the déclassé
intellectual like Rosenberg, the dissatisfied youth and the petit bourgeois trader;
and they made an obvious and important appeal to women’ (Laski 1942:88). This
appeal was itself based upon the exploitation of nationalism. The fascist
movements also offered the prospect of a career and a new identity. This latter
point is not to be underrated in the particular context of economic depression and
the collapse of governmental legitimacy.
The second major disagreement with the orthodox Marxist interpretation
concerns the question of the relationship of the fascist movements to
‘monopoly-capitalism’. In Laski’s view it was a fundamental error to suppose that
the fascists were simply puppets in the hands of the capitalists. The fascist state
had been ‘driven by its own inner logic to the destruction of capitalism in its
historic liberal form’ (Laski 1942:91). The solution of the unemployment problem
demanded a level of state intervention in the economy that was inconsistent with
classical capitalism. Furthermore, the renewal of national traditions required an
extensive rearmament program. The consequence of the extensive state direction
of the economy was that the two fascist states had, by 1939, ceased to possess
liberal capitalist economies. Although it was true that the power of the large
industrial companies had been increased, this had to be understood to be in the
context of the general political direction of the economy. Laski, while committed
to the theory of the primacy of the relations of production in social explanation,
when dealing with fascism, was drawn towards an interpretation that recognized
the autonomy of politics (Laski 1936:118). His whole discussion of fascism is
characterized by this tension.
If fascism is ‘the outcome of capitalism in decay’, what does this imply?
It is the retort of the propertied interests to a democracy which seeks to

transcend the relations of production implied in a capitalist society. But it
is not merely the annihilation of democracy. It is also the use of nationalist
feeling to justify a policy of foreign adventure in the hope, thereby, of
redressing the grievances which are the index of capitalist decay. Wherever
fascism has been successful, it has been built upon a protest by the business
interests against the increased demands of the workers.
(Laski 1934:95)
Fascism itself has revealed the weaknesses within ‘capitalist democracy’. As

capitalism declines, the capitalist class and its allies will reject democracy in order
to defend their own position. The fascists, in Laski’s view, were simply ‘outlaws’
who had fooled the business interests into believing that they were capable of
killing Communism and saving capitalism. Fascism is the ‘counter-revolution’
and, as such, ‘it is the outlaw who gives its character to a counter-revolutionary,
as distinct from a reactionary state’ (Laski 1943: 259). The fascist parties had
succeeded in their use ‘of the power of the state to make themselves the masters
alike of the working classes and of the capitalist class in the interest of perpetuating
their own authority’ (Laski 1943:94).
The logic of fascist rule is to create a form of state in which terror is the means
used to destroy all forms of possible opposition. The essence of this new form of
state is that it is a ‘monoparty state’ in which there is a fusion of party-structure
and the apparatus of state-power. The result is that all opposition to the party is,
by definition, opposition to the state. Fascism in Laski’s view, amounts to a regime
of ‘outlaws’ who are primarily concerned with the preservation of their own
power. As a consequence of this, it follows that there is no need to undertake any
examination of fascist political ideas.
Much effort has been expended to discover a philosophy of fascism. It is a

waste of effort. Fascism is power built upon terror and organized and
maintained by the fear of terror and hopes to which conquest gives rise. It
is the disciplining of society for a state of war in which martial law is
permanent because the nation is forced to spend any brief period of peace
in the preparation for war.
(Laski 1943:96)
Laski denies in the strongest terms that there is such a thing as a fascist philosophy.
The ideas that fascists put forward are simply propaganda designed to give support
to a system of pure power and terror. Indeed, fascism is not a permanent
phenomenon in history and can only ‘win purpose by developing a philosophy;
but, by so doing, it would cease to be fascism’ (Laski 1943:114). ‘Fascism, in any
of its forms, is at bottom a doctrineless nihilism; the attempt to provide it with a
philosophic basis is the usual attempt of scholars to explain, or to provide a
pedigree for, something altogether remote from serious influence upon its
fortunes’ (Laski 1943:107). The difficulty here is obvious. Given this materialistic
analysis there can be no way of investigating or even recognizing the way in which
fascist ideology has the character that it, in fact, does have. It also becomes difficult
to say what is specific and novel in the fascist regimes. As a result Laski, despite
his awareness of the problem, is led to say that there is ‘nothing in the argument
of fascism which was not foreseen by Aristotle in his description of Hellenic
tyranny; all that is new in its technique is the scale upon which it has been applied
and the character of the weapons which modern science has placed at its disposal’
(Laski 1943:97).
Fascism for Laski is to be understood as the consequence of the breakdown of
capitalist democracy. The essential reason why fascism rather than socialism
succeeded is that it is, in reality, implicit within capitalism. ‘Capitalist democracy,
so to say, was always democracy on conditions approved by the capitalists. It was
admitted its place always upon the condition that it did not strain their allegiance
to democratic principles’ (Laski 1943:126). The Marxian form of analysis
favoured by Laski was simply unable to explain how and why it was that Germany,
the most advanced nation in Europe, had become a fascist state. Pointing to the
roots of fascism in German history, and making clear his rejection of ‘national
character’ forms of explanation, Laski could only describe the appeal of fascism
in terms of its claim to end political divisions and to recover a lost international
prestige. Ultimately, such a successful seizure of power could only occur under
suitable conditions. The preconditions for the possibility of ‘the outlaw’ taking
power are the breakdown of the rule of law and of agreed common principles in
society. As the foundation for his explanation Laski fell back on the orthodox
Marxist formula. A society begins to break down and its state can no longer satisfy
the demands of a large number of its citizens when its relations of production are
in contradiction with its forces of production (Laski 1943:111).
Fascism, according to Laski, is a transitional phase in the development of
capitalism but its essential character is disguised by the high level of state
intervention in the economy. Fascism is the capitalist counter-revolution. In order
to survive, the counter-revolution must suppress all forms of democracy and take
on a totalitarian form. ‘In a collectivist society based upon the world market, the
totalitarian state is the inevitable instrument of the counter-revolution’ (Laski
1943:264). However, as far as Laski was concerned, there was a fundamental
difference between the totalitarianisms of the fascists and of the Communists. The
vital difference is that ‘there is nothing in the nature of the Bolshevik state which
is alien from the democratic ideal’ (Laski 1943:265). Despite the formal
similarities between the two forms of state they are to be distinguished in terms
of their ideas and purposes. Here, at least, we can be assured that ‘fascism is a
contradiction of the objective movement of history’ (Laski 1943:113). Having no
philosophy, relying on terror, it cannot progress as an economic and social system
and without success in war it is bound to fail.
FASCISM AS AN ANTI-SOCIALIST MIDDLE-CLASS

MOVEMENT
An important discussion of the nature of fascism occupies a central part of the
work of G.D.H.Cole during this period. G.D.H.Cole (1889–1959) taught at Oxford
University from 1912 to 1957. He was Chichele Professor of Social and Political
Theory in that university from 1944 to 1957. The author of an enormous number
of publications, he was also president of the Fabian Society from 1952 to 1959.
Cole initially analysed fascism in terms of the changing class structure. The fascist
movement represented a new development in the ‘politicization’ of society, the
most significant being the transformations that have taken place in Russia, Italy,
and Germany. Margaret Isabel Cole (1893–1980) was assistant secretary of the
Labour Research Department from 1917 to 1925 and was a lecturer for the
University of London Tutorial Classes from 1925 to 1949. She was a political
journalist and the author of numerous works on social and political topics.
Widely as they differ in essentials, the communist and fascist systems have
this in common, that in both the state is not merely omnicompetent but also
omnipresent, concerning itself positively in every walk of life. In a sense,
it is idle to ask a Russian or an Italian to distinguish between politics and,
say, economics for in their countries everything is political, directed and
controlled by the agents of political life.
(The Coles 1934:5)
It is not surprising that in writing from their socialist standpoint the Coles, in
attempting to analyse the appeal of fascism, had to make clear the differences
between these two political doctrines. A major difficulty here arises from the fact
that there is not only much unclarity about the precise meaning of the term
‘fascism’ but that there is also the question of the possible similarities between
these two ideologies. In fact, fascism is depicted as being, in essence, an
anti-socialist movement.
Fascism arose and developed as an organ of struggle against Marxian

Socialism, and it signalized its victory by uprooting together with
parliamentary democracy every form of Socialist and independent Trade
Union organization. Its gospel was not social equality or world revolution
but a nationalism which denied the primacy of class distinctions and invoked
against them the collective self-interest of the nation as a whole.
(The Coles 1934:36)
The view of the Coles is that the appeal of fascism is to be explained largely in
terms of disillusionment and the ‘widespread sense of futility aroused by the great
depression’.
In order to understand the current political situation, the Coles felt that it was
of central importance to see what ‘forces in men’s minds’ lie behind the diversity
of movements bearing the ‘fascist’ label. This strategy, it is argued, is necessary
precisely because of the confusion surrounding the correct meaning of the term
‘fascism’. Here we see a common problem that all writers of the period, and ever
since, have faced. This is the question of the nature of the differences and
similarities that are to be found when comparing the two major fascist states. This
is without considering the added difficulty of those other states and movements
which either took or were given the ‘fascist’ label. This problem, in turn, is directly
linked to the question of the place of fascism on the political spectrum. Is it a

movement of the left, right or centre? Is it to be described, in any sense, as a
revolutionary movement?
Furthermore, as the term ‘fascist’ is sometimes used so broadly that it can
include programmes of social and economic reconstruction, such as Roosevelt’s
National Recovery program, it is essential to clarify matters by looking closely at
the social basis of fascism. It is only in this way that the correct distinctions can
be made. The confusion that is possible is demonstrated in the Coles’ own
judgement that, while it is definitely wrong to call Roosevelt’s programme
‘fascist’, there certainly are qualities that it does share with the European fascist
movements.
The truth is that in all the capitalist countries of the world today large sections
of the population are in a mood which makes them open to the appeal of
new political emotions enormously reinforced by the circumstances of the
time. Fascism is one form of response to this new emotional situation; but
it is by no means the only possible response, and many of the movements
that are commonly called fascist exist mainly because social classes and
vested interests of many different sorts have seen their opportunity of getting
popular support behind them in the imitation of those methods which were
effective in bringing Italian fascism to power.
(The Coles 1934:61)
What then are the causes of fascism? According to the Coles there is a definite set
of causes that can be listed which provide an explanation of this phenomenon. In
the first place, there is a widespread sense of futility with regard to the political
institutions of the parliamentary democracies. This general feeling predates the
world depression and the crash of 1929 but, clearly, it has been deepened by it.
Secondly, and following on from this observation, there is, in modern jargon, a
developing ‘crisis of legitimacy’ in most Western states. There is a widespread
feeling that parliamentary democracy is unable to cope with the demands thrust
upon it by the modern world. There is a growing ‘lack of respect’ for parliamentary
institutions and a general unwillingness, especially among the young, to speak up
for them. Furthermore, in the Coles’ estimation, this sense of the inadequacy of
parliamentary democracy is heightened by the belief that, as a system, it is
incapable and unwilling to do anything about the ‘growing sense of vast potential
wealth going foolishly to waste’. One result of this general feeling is the growth
of cynicism about politics but this, in turn, produces its own reaction. The reaction
against cynicism in politics leads to a demand for ‘new values’ to replace ‘the old
values that have decayed or ceased to appeal’. This ‘weariness of cynicism’ is felt
especially strongly among the intelligentsia, but it has spread among all sections
of the population. Here we can see an intimation that the fascist style of politics
is of a radically different kind to that of the more limited form typical of the
parliamentary or liberal democracies. Indeed, this is the implication of the Coles’
recognition that the appeal of fascism does, in fact, have deep roots within the
structure of parliamentary democracy itself.
A major background factor that helps to account for the emergence of fascism
is the ‘world-wide decline in the prestige of parliamentary institutions’. The
internal contradiction that exists in the heart of this political system is that while
‘it calls for popular participation in the work of government’, it ‘has reconciled
this demand with the practical exemption of the great mass of people from any
sustained political activity’ (The Coles 1934:41). On the other hand, both fascism
and Communism offer an ideal of ‘active citizenship’, and this is an essential
aspect of their appeal. Nevertheless, despite a common appeal to a concept of
‘active citizenship’, there are some fairly fundamental differences in operation
between the two systems. Thus, neither in Italy nor in Germany does ‘the state
belong to the workers or to the people in the same sense as in Russia. For in these
countries private property and class inequality remain’ (The Coles 1934:41). The
Coles offered the thought that if we were to look at these systems in terms of active
citizenship alone then we would have to agree that fascism and Communism were
much more democratic than the politics of the middle classes. The significance of
this was that, as the proportion of industrial workers in the labour force declined,
fascism had made a strong appeal to the ‘new middle classes’, represented, for
example, by the technicians, the salary earners and white-collar workers, who
were not tied to obsolescent methods of production. This middle-class movement
had emerged ‘as the instrument for saving capitalism from socialism or
communism’ (Cole 1933:280). Cole did not interpret this new social and political
development in a mechanistic manner. There was nothing inevitable in the spread
of fascism. In Britain, at least, it was unlikely that fascism would appeal to these
classes because the economic crisis had not been so acute. Furthermore, it was not
impossible for the middle classes to be attracted to socialism. Fascism is not a
permanent feature of the political landscape. Its probable outcome will be war and
economic collapse.
This analysis was attacked from the orthodox left. As far as Strachey was
concerned, Cole had completely misunderstood the true situation (Strachey
1935:333). In ignoring ‘the falling tendency of the rate of profit’ and concentrating
on the politics of the middle classes, Cole had not seen that, although the fascist
movements were composed of the ‘petits bourgeois’, they were not controlled by
them. Fascism, according to Strachey and the orthodox left, was monopoly
capitalism and nothing else. The real nature of fascism is that ‘it is a movement
owned and controlled, bought and paid for, from start to finish by these great
capitalists themselves’ (Strachey 1935:349). Even Hitler’s actions against the SA
were ‘capitalistically correct’ measures to restore the rate of profit.
In A Guide to Modern Politics (1934), co-authored by Cole and his wife,
Margaret, the Coles point out that, among the major social and political
developments of the time, such as the growth of bureaucracy and the
‘politicization’ of society, the most significant were the transformations that had
taken place in Germany, Italy and Russia. What then is fascism? One definition
that they offer is that ‘fascists are anti-socialists who are prepared to go to any
length in order to prevent the socialists from getting their way, and, distrustful of
the “freedoms” of parliamentary democracy, mean to make sure of defeating the
socialists by establishing a rival dictatorship of their own’ (The Coles 1934:43).
Another factor that accounts for the appeal of fascism is the fear of insecurity
felt especially among the property-owners, including those whose ‘property’ is
their education. This is a motivating force for supporting any anti-socialist
movement that offers a hope of maintaining the distribution of property. A more
extreme fear is generated by the prospect of Communism, which in contrast to
West European Socialism, is perceived as an alien ideology. Thus, the Nazis ‘with
their constant stress on their mission to defend Western Europe against the menace
of barbarism from the East, are only exaggerating a sentiment which finds a wide
response in minds which have been formed by a culture based on an age-long
system of class-inequality’ (The Coles 1934:64).
In addition to these factors, the Coles mention two further aspects of the appeal
of fascism. Here they come close to what later writers, such as O’Sullivan, have
regarded as a defining characteristic of fascism. This is the idea that fascism is
best understood as the most extreme form of an ‘activist style of politics’ that has
its origins in the development of a number of distinct motifs in modern European
political thought. A feature of this ‘activist style’ of politics is its theatricality.
‘Men want to march about the streets, dress up in special shirts, make loud political
noises on all possible occasions. For these activities give them the sense that they
are doing something instead of merely sitting still’ (The Coles 1934:66). This
desire for direct action tends to be felt more strongly by the young and this helps
to account for the fact that the fascists draw a disproportionate degree of support
from this social group. For among the young there is to be found, more than
elsewhere, a growing sense of futility with the orthodox parties, which are
committed to a more limited concept of politics. The Coles themselves express
some sympathy with this point of view, for it is true, they argue, that ‘socialist
leadership has been weak and ineffective in most of the parliamentary countries’
(The Coles 1934:65).
A central feature of fascism that most analysts have found difficult to come to
grips with is its fusion of socialist and nationalist ideas. As a result fascism has
not been easy to place on a conventional left-right continuum. There has also been
much disagreement concerning the extent to which the fascist regimes could be
called revolutionary. The Coles could point out that the revival of nationalism had
played an important role in the success of fascism. From their socialist standpoint
nationalism represented a paradoxical development. It contained both old and new
ideas. Nationalism had emerged in Europe with the French Revolution and was
therefore of relatively recent origin, but as a mass phenomenon it appealed to
something primitive in human societies. Nationalism is ‘at bottom a flight from
the terrifying complications of modern world problems back to a notion deeply
rooted in man’s social tradition’ (The Coles 1934:66). The Coles could see very
little that was positive in nationalism. They were able to make sense of it only in
terms of a form of social regression. The modern nation state becomes a symbol
for the reassertion of ‘tribal solidarity’ and as a reaction, especially among
politically unsophisticated peoples, against the progressive force of
internationalism.
The success of fascism can also be attributed to some other ‘secondary factors’.
Among these are the reassertion of the right to private property that has arisen as
a direct response to the threat of socialist control. In the struggle between socialism
and capitalism which the Coles take to be fundamental it is highly probable that
the mass of small property-owners will take the capitalist rather than the socialist
side. The defence of property coexists with a seemingly contradictory trend of
opinion. This is the belief that the state ought to intervene in order to support any
section of society that feels threatened by economic change. Such state support
has nothing to do with socialism. In fact, it is often a sign of desperation and can
be linked quite strongly with a belief in the qualities of personal leadership as an
alternative to democratic institutions.
Furthermore, the Coles perceived a ‘growing demand for state intervention to
help any section of the community which feels the pinch of economic adversity’
(The Coles 1934:69). This demand is not to be equated with a demand for
socialism. More ominously, there is also, linked to this desire, a decline in the
legitimacy of representative institutions and a corresponding growth in the respect
felt for personal leadership as a response to the perceived failures of intervention
by democratic states. The problems of democracy are compounded by a decline
in the belief in the value of politics itself, when political activity is understood in
terms of debate and discussion rather than coercion and violence. Indeed, the Coles
go so far as to say that this attitude, born out of frustration, is the most dangerous
of all the factors at work in the political arena. Fascism, then, for the Coles, is one
possible response to the political and social crisis of the age.
It is important to distinguish the fascist form of politics from those other forms
of state intervention that were often, mistakenly, labelled as ‘fascist’, especially
by theorists on the left. An example of this is the New Deal in America. From an
orthodox Marxist point of view it would appear that Roosevelt’s New Deal
programme had all the significant characteristics of a fascist policy. As far as the
Coles were concerned this could not be an accurate picture. If we compare the
policies of the European fascists with those of the Americans then we will see
more clearly the specific nature of fascism. The New Deal was an attempt to
strengthen and preserve industrial capitalism, while European fascism is a
genuinely revolutionary system in its desire to transform permanently the political
structure. The general conclusion that the Coles came to was that fascism is best
seen as an attempt to rebuild capitalism but upon state-directed lines and in the
interests of the middle classes and of the rentiers. European fascism can be
characterized as a form of capitalism that has emerged as an alternative to the
largely discredited form of relatively unregulated capitalism. The fundamental
objective of fascism is the destruction of socialism. The concept of the corporate
state is an essential element of fascist doctrine as it serves as an antidote to the

egalitarian demands of socialism.
The result of the Coles’ analysis is that ‘the essential thing about Nazism is that
it managed to fuse nationalist sentiment and the fear and dislike of Socialism into
a combined force too strong to be resisted’ (The Coles 1934: 187). Initially a
movement of property-owners and the middle classes threatened by
proletarianization, it has produced a new form of state and society. It is statist in
the most extreme form; it is totalitarian. Totalitarianism is a distinctively new form
of dictatorship. The ‘essential idea’ underlying the concept of ‘totalitarianism’ is
the process of ‘securing that as far as possible every form of social organization
that is capable of influencing the attitude and opinion of the members of the state
shall be brought under a leadership which is fully in sympathy with the attitude
of the dominant party’. Nevertheless, there is still the problem of differentiating
fascism from Communism. One distinction that can be made between the two
systems is that Communism arrives at a horizontal division of society prior to the
total abolition of all classes, while fascism operates with an image of a vertical
and corporatist division of society. Both systems are deeply anti-individualistic
but differ in terms of the form in which it is expressed. The Coles’ attempt to
distinguish between the two expressions of totalitarianism leads them to argue that
the real difference must lie in the forms of social structure that these political
systems both reflect and aim to create. As far as the Coles are concerned there is
‘all the difference in the world between using dictatorship as an instrument for the
preservation and for the destruction of class differences’ (The Coles 1934: 331).
While the Soviet Communist Party aims to be a broadly based party with an
internal organization that aims to be as ‘democratic as possible’, the fascist
dictatorships aim to preserve class distinctions and, as a result, the fascist parties
are organized on highly authoritarian lines. ‘The party has to mirror the social
system which it upholds: if the system is to maintain class distinction, so must
the party’ (The Coles 1934:332). As a consequence the fascist dictatorships rely
upon personal leadership as the ultimate form of authority. Again, it is the Coles’
belief that there is an important difference between the fascist and the Communist
forms of dictatorship. As far as Communism is concerned there is a ‘natural
hostility to personal leadership’. The proletarian dictatorship ‘will not canonize
Stalin’ (The Coles 1934:332).
Another distinguishing feature of fascist totalitarian dictatorship is that, in
contrast with the Communist variant, it is satisfied with the prevailing distribution
of economic rewards and can secure its ends without taking direct control of the
means of production. In fact, the ‘scope of dictatorship is far wider under
communism than under fascism; for in fact, as long as the great capitalists remain
in possession of the essential means of production, they are bound to constitute a
force in society—a kind of economic dictatorship—which no purely political
dictatorship can hope to make thoroughly compliant to its will. No fascist
dictatorship can be purely a political dictatorship; it must either become an
economic dictatorship as well, or govern in alliance with the economic dictatorship
of capitalism’ (The Coles 1934:333). It is the judgement of the Coles that fascism
is, in essence, a reactionary system in the sense that it merely aims to preserve
threatened institutions, whereas Communism is a truly transformative and
revolutionary social and political system. Both fascism and Communism are
examples of the new development of ‘totalitarian’ dictatorship but, from the Coles’
standpoint, it is essential that they are clearly distinguished, even if this means
that we are forced to conclude that the Communist system is the more complete
form. In fact, it is ‘a mistake to suppose that they stand in any sense for a common
idea. They are all anti-parliamentary because it regards the parliamentary system
as incapable of being adapted to serve the purposes of establishing or conducting
a classless Society based on economic equality. Fascism, on the other hand is
anti-parliamentary because it regards parliamentarism in its modern democratic
forms as incapable of serving any longer as an effective instrument for the
preservation of class differences and the nationalist idea. For communism, though
it has found embodiment so far only in the national state, is essentially
cosmopolitan, denying not only class privilege but also that national exclusiveness
upon which fascism everywhere insists’ (The Coles 1934:334).
TOTALITARIANISM AND THE WAR OF IDEAS

In contrast to theorists such as Laski and Dutt, who paid little or no attention to
the content of fascist ideas, in the opinion of Ernest Barker, the world of politics
could not possibly be understood in any real sense unless political and social ideas
were taken seriously. Sir Ernest Barker (1874–1960) was principal of King’s
College, University of London from 1920 to 1927 and professor of political
science at Cambridge University from 1928 to 1939. He was also professor of
political science at the University of Cologne from 1947 to 1948. For Barker, the
‘real war of our times is not a class war: it is a war between two mental worlds’
(Barker 1942: 121). ‘As we stand today, there is no war of classes. It is difficult
to say that there are any organized classes. But there is a war of ideas; and ideas,
when they grip the mind and drink the blood of conviction, become stern realities’
(Barker 1942:120). Democratic societies are threatened on two fronts. One of these
threats is the outcome of a ‘dualistic’ vision of a class-divided society which denies
the possibility of true democracy. But the much more dangerous threat is that of
totalitarianism. The totalitarian denies, not merely, the reality of democracy, but
its value. The fascist form of this argument regards democracy as a hopeless war
of political parties which is incapable of ever producing genuine national unity.
The Marxist, or ‘dualist’, argument, as Barker refers to it, leads in the same
direction but for a different reason. By asserting the victory of one class over all
others the apparatus of a totalitarian state is just as likely to be produced. Barker
was able to develop a much deeper understanding of the nature of fascism than
many of his contemporaries because he recognized that it could not be understood
in simple and straightforward class terms alone and that little was to be gained by
calling it the ‘counter-revolution’ of capitalism. In order to understand the appeal
of fascism it was necessary to investigate what its theorists claimed for it. The
fascist criticism of democracy that Barker considers is mainly that put forward by
Carl Schmitt for whom the ‘liberal-democratic’ state ‘is essentially a system—or
rather an anarchy—of unresolved dualisms’ (Barker 1942:289).
Fascism is a form of the modern totalitarian disillusion with democratic politics.
Nevertheless, the essence of fascism is not to be found in terms of a simple identity
with its doctrine. The ‘phenomenon itself is simply the party—whatever the
doctrine it holds or the theory it professes, and whatever the institutions which it
constructs in virtue of its theory or of its exigencies. The leader of the Fascist Party
has written that “a party which governs totalitarianally is a new fact in history”’
(Barker 1942:331). Furthermore, this new form of rule did not begin with the
Italian fascists. It began with the bolsheviks in 1917. The communist and fascist
parties are both single parties, which tolerate no other. They may differ in their
social and political aims: they may differ in the social and political institutions
with which they surround themselves. In themselves, and as a phenomenon of
history, they belong to the same genus. They are both of them close and exclusive
parties dominating everything in their area, and therefore “governing
totalitarianally”’ (Barker 1942:332).
The concept of ‘totalitarianism’ helps to define and make sense of a new form
of opposition to democratic politics and society. What is ‘totalitarianism’? The
opposition between totalitarianism and democracy is not simply between two
forms of government A totalitarian state is known ‘much more by what it does
than by the form of government which it employs. A totalitarian state is one which,
whatever its form of government and its method of political action, acts on the
principles (1) that the whole (however conceived, in terms of race, or of nationality,
or of class) is a transcendent being or “organism” which determines the life of its
members, (2) that the whole is “integrally realized”, or entirely comprehended, in
one association called the state, and (3) that the state has therefore a complete and
solitary control of human life and activity’ (Barker 1942:153).
There is a note of ambivalence in Barker’s understanding of the modernity of
totalitarianism. If totalitarianism is compared with absolutism it certainly goes
beyond it in its desire and ability to permeate every area of social life. But from
a historical point of view he felt that, perhaps, this impression of modernity ought
not to be taken at face value. ‘Totalitarianism professes to be modern: to be a
system of deliberate planning. But it is an old idea that men should be engineered,
and that their life should be made according to a plan. There is a sense in which
we might say that the totalitarian states are living in the sixteenth century’ (Barker
1942:166). Nevertheless, there is a recognition that, despite the similarities with
past societies, there is something new here that needs, especially in the case of
Nazi Germany, to be understood in its own terms.
It was also important to see that the rise of the totalitarian parties was not entirely
explicable in the terms of a theory of social class. Social class was obviously an
important element in any explanation but one had to be cautious. In each case the
emergence of a single party government represented the victory of a class or
combination of classes but its precise nature varied from country to country. Each
case must be examined in its uniqueness.
In Barker’s discussion of the totalitarian states he is careful to distinguish
between Italian fascism and German National Socialism. In both cases he pays
particular attention to their doctrines. Italian fascism seems to be the more
straightforward of the two systems. The development of Italian fascism, in
Barker’s view, was bound up in ‘chance and contingency’. When compared with
another totalitarianism, Soviet Communism, it became even more apparent that it
was ‘less planned, less continuous, and more opportunist’ (Barker 1942:329).
Italian fascism was to be interpreted as a rather eclectic system. Despite this, one
set of guiding principles could be discerned. Fascism is ‘a synthesis of the
negations and contradictions of communism’. Fascism is nationalist, anti-secular
and allied with capitalism. It also defined itself in terms of the negation of
liberalism and democracy. This was expressed in its idea of a ‘regulated’
capitalism and in its ‘corporatist’ theory of political representation.
The theory of ‘corporatism’ was one of the central features of Italian fascism.
As a response to both the liberal notion of the free competition of individuals and
the Marxist theory of class struggle, the corporatist idea becomes a defining
characteristic of the fascist movement. It was also proposed that corporativism
provided a superior form of national representation. Nevertheless, Barker stressed
that the reality of fascism does not lie in the doctrine alone.
How was fascism to be characterized? Not wanting to reduce a complex reality
to one factor, Barker argued that it is the result of an interaction of ‘leader,
nationalist creed, and social interest’ (Barker 1942:333). The dominant ‘social
interest’ was drawn from the independent and professional classes, industrialists,
businessmen, landowners, and students. However, there was another element that
ought not to be underestimated. This was the desire for political unity allied with
dissatisfaction with the international status of Italy. It was also clear that there was
no possibility of an autonomous corporatist organization of industry within a
totalitarian state. The Italian system is not a ‘corporative democracy’. ‘It is simply
a new would-be Caesarism, wearing a new democratico-corporative disguise’
(Barker 1942:359).
In comparison with Nazi Germany, Italian fascism seemed to be a political
system that presented few barriers to a rational interpretation. The political system
being constructed in Germany did present great difficulties for an explanation
because it was the most thorough and drastic rejection of democracy to be found
in any of the totalitarian states. The roots of this rejection of democracy were to
be found deep in the German political tradition. In Barker’s view, the German
intellectual tradition from the beginning of the nineteenth century had been
characterized by the two dominant motifs. These were ‘Prussianism’ and
‘Romanticism’. By ‘Prussianism’ he meant ‘the system of a transcendent state,
uniting a congeries of territories—a state expressed in the directing will of a
monarch or leader who was supported, on one side, by the army and the army
officers whom he had gathered around him, and, on the other, by a trained and
disciplined staff of administrative officials, loyal to their employer and versed in

all the technique of running and arranging smoothly the various wheels of his
business’ (Barker 1942:367). The state, in this account, is a transcendent being.
It does not emerge from the will of the people.
From the standpoint of ‘Romanticism’, there is something immanent in the
people, who are conceived as a ‘Volk’. The ‘Volk’ is a maker of law, which
expresses what is right for that particular people or nation. The peculiarity of the
German tradition consists in its fusion of these two, seemingly antithetical, themes.
‘The transcendent state, which shapes the people from above, can readily make
its peace with the immanent mind of the Folk’ (Barker 1942:368). It is here that
Barker saw the clue to an understanding of the uniqueness of the National Socialist
state. The transcendent state, and its director, can readily serve to put into practice
the will of the ‘Volk’.
Furthermore, when Western constitutionalism was imported into Germany, it
did not change the essence of its political tradition. The main result was that the
typical form of German political party was a doctrinaire party marked by an
ideology, a ‘synthetic philosophy of life’, concerned with criticism, rather than
with dialogue, as a consequence of the nature of the dominant state’s refusal to
share in power in any real sense. The result, in Barker’s view, was that Germany,
more than any other state, developed the preconditions for the existence of the
totalitarian party, as a new form of political organization, which ‘engaged in
pursuing some particular philosophy of life to its logical consequences’, and
defined itself in terms of its opposition to all other parties and their philosophies.
The establishment of the National Socialist regime could be seen, on this
account, as both a restoration and a revolution. It recalled the idea of a Leader and
a united Folk, but this Leader was of a new type. The Folk were also of a new
type, defined, now, by race and racial purity.
The National Socialist Party itself represented a mixture of nationalism and a
‘new non-working class Socialism’. ‘So far as it was National, it drew its adherents
from all, of whatever rank, who desired a national renaissance; so far as it was
Socialist, it appealed particularly, at any rate in its origins, to the elements less
regarded by the orthodox social democrats —the peasantry, the small shopkeeper,
and the lower middle class.’ (Barker 1942:373). It also had an immense appeal to
the young. From its beginnings, the party had defined itself as being exclusively
German, and linked itself to the idea of the Folk. The German Party differed
fundamentally here from the pragmatism and eclecticism of the Italian fascists.
This doctrine was fully articulated before it came to power.
National Socialism, with its roots set deep in the German political tradition,
possesses a uniqueness that sets it apart from other totalitarian parties. This is, in
part, a result of the centrality of the idea of leadership which dominates the party.
Here, the party following represents the will of the leader, the leader does not
represent the will of his following. This is the essence of the ‘F hrerstaat’, as
defined by Carl Schmitt.
The other innovation that characterizes the National Socialist regime,

differentiating it from the other totalitarian states, is its modernized version of the
romantic idea of ‘identity of kind’. This idea complements the leadership principle.
Again relying on the words of Carl Schmitt, Barker points out that, according to
this theory, there cannot be genuine leadership without an identity of kind, in
effect, of race, between leader and people. The belief in ‘identity of kind’ has also
been developed in another direction. This is the idea of racial superiority.
Leadership within races is joined to leadership between races. This belief in the
significance of race makes National Socialism more profoundly anti-democratic
than any of the other totalitarian movements.
National Socialism, for Barker, clearly represents a unique political and social
order. Despite its similarities with the fascist regime in Italy and the Communist
system in Russia, its extreme commitment to the idea of a ‘closed’ society produces
‘a peculiar polity’ and ‘a peculiar and self-contained economy’ (Barker 1942:390).
Even more significantly, the National Socialist system aims to bring an end to
political life, as it has been generally understood in the Western tradition, in a
much more radical fashion than have either the Italian or Russian regimes. Italian
fascism and Soviet Communism both claim to present the rest of the world with
a model for its own development. Germany simply presents itself. It is a unique
system which, by definition, cannot be extended beyond its racial boundaries. The
‘totality’ that is inherent in the National Socialist Weltanschauung represents, in
its denial of the rule of law and of the common European heritage which flows
from the subjectivity of its racial judgements, the most profound break with the
Western political tradition to be found in any of the totalitarian rejections of
democracy.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
It is clear from the work that has been discussed that in Britain, from the beginning
of the 1930s until, roughly, the end of the Second World War, there was an
important and interesting set of responses to the emergence of fascism. The main
difficulty that confronted all analysts was that they were attempting to understand
something new. The significance of this point is that we are presented here with
a specific example of what is a general problem for the social sciences in general.
Social and political reality does not generally develop in a totally predictable way.
New and unexpected phenomena arrive on the scene and we try to make sense of
them. But in trying to do so we have to make use of inherited concepts and theories
that were themselves fashioned in response to some earlier social development
Imaginative thinkers struggle to create new theories and concepts that they believe
will be adequate for a new reality.
In Britain, during this period, despite the low level of the institutional
development of the social sciences, social and political debate was characterized
by both depth and intensity. Debate of this kind did not occur in an ideological
vacuum and it, clearly, was marked by the political struggles of the period. This
ought not to come as a surprise. It is an essential element in the development of

the social sciences.
The concept of ‘totalitarianism’ was adopted during this period by a wide variety
of political analysts because it seemed to focus upon a new and puzzling reality
of twentieth-century politics. This new concept, although initially used in the
analysis of fascism, by its own logic led to the consideration of wider issues. Even
thinkers on the orthodox left had to pay some attention to the question of whether
this concept applied to the Soviet Union. The interpretation of fascism, ultimately,
could not be separated from a consideration of broader and, probably, even more
controversial questions.
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232
INDEX
Aachen, University of 122 American Jewish Committee 2

Abel, Theodore 187, 201 American Journal of Sociology 79, 167,
Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Veterans of the 193, 197
184 American Review, The 198
absolutism 90, 116, 226 American Sociological Review 167, 193,
Academy for German Law (Akademie für 198
Deutsches Recht 126, 132, 135, 147 American Sociological Society 167, 169,
Academy of Sciences (Hungarian) 162 173, 175, 179, 183 186, 191
Adler, Max 16, 18, 22, 27, 38 American Sociologist, The 179
Adorno, Theodor W. 1, 11, 193 Amherst College 192
agriculture and agrarian issues 23, 29, 66, Amoroso, L. 57, 79
87, 89, 106, 111, 113, 143; Ancien regime 68, 160
bourgeois middle-strata 111; Andreae, W. 17, 18, 36, 94, 96, 99, 116,
collectivist radicalism 156; 121, 160
conditions 143; Andreyev, Catherine 201
corporative organizations 162; Angell, James R. 174
economists 155; Anglo-Saxons 190
experts 52; Annali di Statistica 54
interest organizations 162; Année Sociologique 43
labour question 129, 162; annexation, Austria’s 25
protectionism 67; anomia 9, 192
reform 155; Ansaldo, Giovanni 47, 68
rural reorganization 144; Anschluss see Austria, annexation of
social demagogy 151; anthropology 46;
workers 108; cultural 44;
see also peasants social 54
Akabane, Toyojiro 18, 34 anti-capitalism 116
Akademie für Deutsches Recht (ADR) anti-communism 195
see Academy for German Law anti-German attitudes 155
Albertoni, E. 50, 56, 69, 74, 79, 84 anti-German resistance 163
Albrecht, Gerhard 99, 115, 121 anti-individualism, sociological 5
Allgemeiner Deutscher anti-parliamentary 111, 224
Gewerkschaftsbund 105 anti-semitic laws 64, 151
Aly, Götz 125, 147 anti-semitism 127, 136, 151, 156, 169, 172,
Ameri, Vincenzo 51 176, 181, 189, 193, 196, 206
America Firsters 183, 186, 195 Anton, Z. 115
233
Antonetti, N. 62, 80 Bad Harzburg, School for Management

appeasement 193 Training in 145
Archiv für Sozialmssenschaft und Baden 143
Sozialpolitik 86 Baeumler, Alfred 135
Archives de Sociologie 53 Bailyn, B. 37
Arcoleo, Giorgio 46 Bain, Read 167, 173, 185, 189, 199
area studies 130, 141 Baldi, R. 61, 79
Arena, C. 57, 79 Banissoni, F. 80
Arendt, Hannah 193, 201 Bannister, Robert C. 8, 12, 172, 198, 202
Aristotle 19, 217 Barbano, Filippo 45, 77, 80
Arrow-Cross Party 151, 155, 163 Bardusco, A. 69, 80
asceticism 68, 104 Baretti 67
Association of Scientific Workers 184 Bari, law faculty of 48
Asturaro, Alfonso 43, 79 Barker, Ernest 209, 215, 224, 229
atheism 11, 21, 34 Barnes, Harry Elmer 37, 168, 174, 179, 184,
Atrocities 29, 125, 128, 132, 141, 144, 147, 191, 199
188, 190, 217; Barnes, James S. 202
German occupation policy 147; Barth, Paul 43
Nazi atrocities 190; Bartha Miklós Society 155
see also Holocaust, concentration Basel, University of 78, 123
camps, medical experiments on Battaglia, F. 62, 80
humans, sanitization Bauer, Otto 28, 30, 36
Auernheimer, G. 116 Baumgarten, Eduard 135
Augustine 19 Baxa, Jakob 17
Austria 4, 13, 22, 26, 29, 32, 35, 39, 121, Bayertz, Kurt 12
149; Bazzanella, A. 60, 73, 80
annexation of 15, 27, 152, 156; Beck, Walter 136
Concordat of 1855 26; Becker, H. 53, 79, 84
constitution 23, 26, 32; Beckerath, Erwin von 90, 96, 99, 102, 115,
fascism of 23, 39; 120
First Republic of 15, 26, 29, 32, 36; Beetham, David 7, 12, 70, 73, 80
Habsburgs 15, 26, 151; behaviourism 16
Heimwehr 23, 35, 38; Bellini, Luigi 55
socialist paramilitary organizations 35 Below, Georg von 18
Austrian People’s Party 27 Benini, R. 53
Austro-Marxism 18, 26, 30, 33, 36, 38 Bennington College 184, 190
Authoritarian Personality, The 12, 193 Berend, Béla 161, 164
authoritarianism 76, 91, 168, 176 Bergmann, Waltraud 146
authority 61, 76, 83, 192; Bergstraesser, Arnold 130, 140, 147, 149
charismatic 60; Berlin 127, 130, 142, 144, 146, 175;
Michels’ definition of 59; Business School of 121, 142;
Weber’s concept of 59 Hochschule für Politik 104;
Aycoberry, P. 208, 230 Institute for Studies of Borders and
Foreign Areas 131, 136;
Bach, H. 142 Technical University of 121;
Bachi, R. 53 University of 17, 43, 121, 130, 142, 144;
INDEX 235
Department of Rural Studies and Borinski, Fritz 112, 116, 121

Policy (Institut für Agrarwesen und Borkenau, Franz 115, 121, 208, 230
Agrarpolitik) 144; Bormann, Martin 133, 137
Faculty for Foreign Studies of 130, Bosco, A. 44
134, 140; Bottai, Giuseppe 57, 80
German School of Advanced Political Bottomore, T. 36
Studies 130, 134, 138; Botz, G. 30, 36
Institute for Advanced Study of Boudin, Louis 182
Government 122; bourgeois-liberal 95
Institute for Foreign Studies 130; bourgeoisie viii, 26, 28, 31, 66, 88, 100,
Institute for Government Research 106, 109, 194;
131, 139, 145 conflicting tendencies within 65;
Bernard, Jessie 178, 186, 190, 197, 199 petite 28, 31, 66, 109;
Bernard, Luther L. 167, 172, 176, 185, 187, young 112
190, 197, 202 Bourgin, G. 115
Bernát, B. 155 Brandner, M. 18, 36
Bernát, István 164 Brandt, G. 114, 116
Berne 46 Braunthai, Julius 28, 36
Bernhard, Georg 160 Brazil, Wayne D. 198, 202
Bernhard, Ludwig 86, 88, 100, 115, 121 Brepohl, W. 143
Bernsdorf, Wilhelm 126, 147 Breslau, University of 122
Beyer, Dr Justus 140 Breysig, Kurt 130
Beyer, Hans-Joachim 140 Briefs, Goetz 100, 115, 121
Beyerchen, Alan D. viii, 12 Brinkmann, Carl 130, 137
Bibó, Istvan 158, 162 Britain 4, 9, 18, 62, 89, 162, 179, 194, 206
biological determination 21, 49, 58, 76, 80, passim;
82 fascist movement in 210, 231;
Bittner, Christopher J. 198 Guild Socialists in 210;
blacks, attitudes to 210 hostility to in US progressive circles
Blaschke, Wolfgang 148 179, 195;
Blumer, Herbert 193, 200 labour movement in 174
Bobbio, Norberto 61, 75, 77, 80 Britt, Steuart Henderson 191, 203
Boehm, Max Hildebert 136, 138, 140 Brussels, Free University of 78
Bogardus scale 171, 199 Bryant, Christopher G.A. 198, 202
Bogardus, Emory S. 167, 171, 202 Budapest 163;
Böhm, Franz 115 culture of 161;
Boldrini, Marcello 55, 59, 78, 80 University of 162
Bologna, University of 43 Bukharin, N. 64
Bolshevism 23, 27, 32, 35, 90, 93, 97, 101, Bull Moose Party 178
104, 161, 174, 201, 204, 211, 218, 223, Bülow, Friedrich 142
225; Bunzel, Julius 32, 36
as a political experiment 91 Burgess, Ernest W. 198, 204
Bonn, Moritz Julius 98, 116, 121 Burleigh, Michael viii, 12
Bonn, University of 142 Burnham, J. 68, 80
book burning 21 Burzio, Filippo 47, 68, 74, 79
Boran, Behice 200, 202 business 6, 18, 190, 192, 197, 216, 227;
Borbándi, Gyula 154, 164 see also capitalism
Borgese, G.A. 160 Butler, R.D’O 212, 230
Buxton, William 7, 12, 201 Catholic weeklies 122

Catholic youth 163
Caboara, Lorenzo 54 Catholicism and Catholic institutions 22,
Caesarism 227 25, 36, 44, 55, 61, 67, 102, 107, 117, 121;
Cagliari 48, 65; Austrian 26;
law faculty of 48 conservative 55;
Cambridge University 225 hierarchy 56;
Campanini G. 62, 80 journalists 26;
Capannari, S.C. 84 political 26;
capital 212; sociology 56, 62;
agrarian 88; theorists 26
industrial 88; Cavaglieri, Guido 44, 46
monopolistic 113 Cavallari, G. 74, 80
capitalism and capitalists 11, 19, 25, 31, 36, Cehak, Gerd 136, 143
55, 79, 89, 92, 100, 108, 114, 146, 154, Central Place:
160, 192, 212, 217, 222; concept of 142;
American 174; workgroup 142
classical 216; centralization, administrative 9
crisis of 231; Cesca, Giovanni 44
decline of 100, 220; Chapin, F.Stuart 167, 185
democracy of 216; charisma 59, 88;
development of 2; of elites 84;
final stage 2; leader 6, 188
interests 70, 179; Charny, Israel W. 202
Italian 55; Chautauqua lecture circuit 178
logic of 169, 193; Chiavari, University of 122
mode of production 29; Chicago 172, 191;
monopoly 176, 188, 213, 216, 220; see also University of Chicago
new phase in the development of 31; Christian Democratic Party (Italy) 55, 62
plutocracy 65; Christian Socialist Party 23
rise of modern 55; Christianity and socialism 26, 32, 38, 211
social 109; City College of New York 175
system of 113; civil liberties 71, 176, 195;
urban 154; see also rights
welfare 126, 195 civil service and civil servants 63, 89, 106,
Cappellazzi, A. 80 140, 162;
Carle, Giuseppe 43, 77 politically undesirable 127
Carli, Filippo 47, 49, 51, 52, 57, 78, 80 Civil War 180
Carsten, Frederick L. 198, 202 Claar, M. 117
Carta del Lavoro 22, 95, 99, 120 Clark, Terry N. 199, 202
Casanova, E. 54, 59, 80 Clark University 187
Castrilli, V. 43, 50, 80 class and classes 5, 10, 24, 107, 221, 226;
Catania, University of 44 capitalistic 100;
Catellani, E. 53 conflict 230;
Catholic Union for the Social Sciences 54 contrasts 26;
Catholic University of Milan see Milan, dictatorship by 88, 96, 100;
Catholic University of dirigente 101;
distinctions 224;
INDEX 237
employees, salaried 106, 113; Cologne:

entrepreneurial 56, 67, 89; University of 121, 128, 137, 225;
estate owners 151; Sociology Department of 127, 142, 146
interests, reduction of politics to 10; Columbia University 166, 173, 175, 181,
managerial 60; 187, 189, 193
middle 23, 29, 51, 69, 92, 109, 111, 169, Commercio 51
212; communism and communists 26, 35, 63, 67,
bureaucratic 151; 79, 107, 162, 172, 174, 184, 208, 212,
crisis of 67, 69, 106, 117; 214, 217, 220, 223, 226;
enlightened 67, 70; Hungarian 156;
intellectuals 87; intellectuals, young 156;
lower 151, 192, 228; of Italy 65;
‘new’ 10, 105, 212, 220; natural hostility to personal leadership
old 108; in 224;
petite bourgeoisie 67, 107, 199, 212, Parisian Group of 63;
216; similarities to fascism of 207, 214, 219
political 59, 60, 67, 72; Communist Party 64, 66, 115, 211;
concept of 76; German (KPD) 101, 112, 121;
propertied 109, 222; organizational purity of the 66;
relations in Italian cities 63; policy of revolutionary defeatism 214;
rentiers 28, 223; Russian
retailers 113, 228; see also Bolshevism;
ruling 52, 54, 67; system in Russia 229
aging of 58; community 20, 103, 154, 158;
agrarian 67; as Blutsgemeinschaft 110;
birth rates 78; romantic idea of 99;
capitalist 67; spiritual 19;
historical, political, economic see also Gemeinschaft and Volk
maturity 67; ‘community of the people’ sociology see
oligarchic 160; Volkstumssoziologie
social 50, 52, 67, 97, 219, 226; Comte, Auguste 45, 168
tenants 89; Concentration Camps 25, 34;
struggle 101, 109, 169, 188, 213; see also Atrocities
war 213, 225; Concordat of 1855 25
white collar 109; Confederazione Nazionale Fascista del
working 13, 23, 28, 31, 35, 50, 61, 63, Commercio 22
65, 70, 89, 93, 97, 108, 111, 151, 160, Congresso della Societá per il progresso
178, 208, 212, 216; degli studi economici 77
see also Proletariat conservatism 12, 26, 66, 79, 98, 101, 152,
Cobet, Christoph 150 206
Codignola, E. 53 constitutionalism 178, 228
Colajanni, N. 80 Converse, Jean M. 11
Cold War 10, 195, 201, 207 Cooley, Charles Horton 166, 188
Coles, the (G.D.H. and Margaret Isabel) corporations 23, 78, 88;
209, 218, 222, 224, 230 the order of 22;
collectivism 211, 215, 218 sectorial 57;
Collini, S. 209, 230 traders’ 57
Collins, Seward 204
corporatism 17, 22, 49, 51, 55, 57, 79, 83, De Marchi, F. 72, 81
85, 87, 140, 223, 227; De Maria, Giovanni 55
conception of economic organizations De Marinis, Errico 43, 46, 81
87; De Rosa, G. 62, 83
doctrine 54, 57, 73, 119; De Sanctis, Sante 47, 53
economy 60, 116, 119; De Seta, Stefania 79, 81
fascist 49, 55; De Stael, Mme 188
functional representation 57; Declaration of Independence 190
general theorem of Pietri-Tonelli 51, Dékány, Istvan 152, 162, 164
73, 83; Del Vecchio, Giorgio 53
ideas of community 95; demagoguery 67, 71, 107
organic 57; democracy 15, 17, 20, 22, 26, 30, 88, 96,
reconstruction of Germany 24; 99, 118, 158, 182;
representation 57, 226; aristocratic 98;
science of 48, 50, 72, 73; decline of 161;
society 32, 141; as a disease 26;
state 37, 100, 212, 230; elites in 74;
structural 57; forms of 26;
theory 49, 51, 57; ideal 218;
see also St nde conception movement for 171;
Cosentini, Francesco 43, 78, 80 negative views of 97;
Cotta, M. 57, 80 order 88;
Coudenhouve-Kalergi 160 parliamentary 17, 32, 98, 220;
Counterreformation 55 party 23;
Crick, B. 208, 230 political 67, 160;
criminology 54, 77, 80, 84, 175 sociological analysis of 67;
Critical Reason 169 repudiation 169;
Critical Theorists 9, 116; social 29, 101;
see also Frankfurt School societies 70, 100, 178, 225;
Croce, Benedetto 44, 48, 53, 55, 75, 78, 80 spirit of 23, 160;
Crossman, R.H.S. 207, 230 state 91, 97;
Csécsy, Imre 160, 163, 164 system 100;
cultural lag 181 ‘true’ 23;
Curcio, C. 73, 81 values of 161
Curiel E. 64, 81 demography and demographic 41, 48, 50,
Currey, M. 210, 230 54, 78, 83, 128;
Czatania, law faculty of 48 crises of late nineteenth century 58;
Czechoslovakia 195 cycles 59;
policy 58, 60;
Daily Worker 211 senescence 58
Dartmouth College 174 Der Arbeitgeber 95, 119
Darwin, Charles 45 Der Morgen 101, 120
Darwinism 84; Deutsche Arbeitsfront 24
Social 58, 168, 198, 203 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie see
Davis, Jerome 173, 179, 199, 202 German Sociological Society
De Felice, Renzo 198, 200, 202, 206, 230 Diamant, A. 26, 36
De Man, Hendrik 3, 5, 6, 9, 12, 112, 119, 122 dictatorship 30, 67, 79, 88, 94, 96, 118, 121,
161, 164, 178, 223, 230;
INDEX 239
concept of 97; see also Bolshevism, capitalism,

economic 67, 119; communism, corporatism, fascism,
French Bonapartism 30, 118, 164; planning, socialism
Hellenic 217; Ehrlich, Eugen 15
by the party 90; Einaudi, Luigi 54, 60, 81
of the proletariat 65, 224 Eisler, Rudolf 15
Die Arbeit 92, 105, 107, 113, 120 Eley, G. 201
Die Tat 92, 104, 121 Elias, Norbert 114
Die Zeit 93 elites 8, 20, 58, 61, 67, 72, 74, 192;
Dies, Martin 175, 177, 202 agrarian 63;
Diggins, John P. 170, 198, 202 charismatic 84;
Dirks, Walter 106, 121 circulation of 58, 73;
Dobbert, G. 83, 102, 117 economic 57, 76;
Dobretsberger, Josef 27 heterogeneity of social groups 74;
Dollfuss, E. 13, 23, 26 political 57, 63, 68, 72, 76;
Dorfman, Joseph 11 see also class, political ruling
Dorso, Guido 68, 74, 79, 81 Ellenbogen, Wilhelm 29, 36
Duke University 166, 171 Elliott, William Y. 175, 202
Dumbarton Oaks Accord 180 Ellwood, Charles A. 9, 166, 168, 170, 178,
Duncan, Otis Dudley 200, 202 197, 199, 202
Duprat, G.L. 53 Emge, Carl August 135, 147
Durkheim, Emile 5, 8, 12, 43, 62, 136, 153, emigration 5, 11, 32, 34, 39, 61, 63, 73, 110,
168, 192; 127, 146, 159, 163, 168, 179;
social realism of 54 anti-communist 163;
Düsseldorf 24; intellectuals 197;
Institute for the Study of Ranks (Institut to Paris 163;
für St ndewesen) 24, 140 to the USA 114, 116, 162, 164
Dutt, R.Palme 176, 211, 212, 224, 230 empiricism 18, 19, 26, 179
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 53, 91
Eastern Europe 136, 139, 147, 195; Energiie Nove 67
demographic trends in 58; entrepreneurship, modern 55;
occupation of 141; see also class and classes,
see also Ostforschung entrepreneurial
Easthope, Gary 181, 202 epistemological debate 79;
Eberswalde, School of Forestry of 142 assumptions 73;
Ebert, F. 111 see also sociology, methodology of
Eckardt, Hans von 87, 117, 121 equality 20, 192;
Eckert, Christian 90, 99, 115, 117, 121 see also socialism
École libre des sciences politiques (Paris) Equilibrium 56, 73
43 Erdei, Ferenc 154, 159, 162, 164
economic crises 66, 69, 71, 106, 154 Erlangen, University of 142
economic man, end of 9 Eschmann, Ernst Wilhelm 91, 96, 99, 102,
economics and economists 34, 48, 51, 54, 105, 108, 115, 120
57, 74, 101, 121, 135, 152, 162, 189, 209; Espinosa, Agostino degli 51
Austrian School 16; ethics 8, 20, 56, 94, 104, 162;
political 17, 36, 41, 43, 51, 69, 71, 118; see also fascism, analyses of, as an
ethical-spiritual phenomenon
ethno-sociologist 136
ethnography 44 doctrine 101, 159, 173;

ethnology and ethnologists 54, 134, 136 economics of 89, 102, 115, 221;
Eubank, Earle Edward 20, 199 see also corporatism, planning
Eugenists 12, 123, 168 Italian 2, 9, 13, 22, 29, 41 passim, 94,
exile see emigration 114, 119, 171, 229;
as a model 90, 97;
Fabian Society 218 party 65, 67, 71, 96
Fallada, Hans 199, 203, 204 laws of labour see Carta del Lavoro;
Fanfani, Amintore 55, 81 meaning of the term 219;
Fantini, O. 83 policy of political and ideological
fascism 94, 120, 161, 178, 202, 207, 214, repression 72;
219; trade unions 87;
ambivalence toward 5, 210; Weltanschauung of 32;
analyses of 8, 31, 61, 64, 70, 72, 86, 95, youth and 92, 117;
98, 157, 161, 177, 229; see also National Socialism
as anti-parliamentary movement 224; Fassler, Manfred 147
as anti-socialist movement 219, 221; Fauconnet, P. 53
as class-dictatorship 88; Fay, Sidney B. 174
as development from syndicalist Feder, Gottfried 24
socialism 59; Federal Bureau of Investigation 184
as an ethical-spiritual phenomenon 87, Feingold, Henry L. 200, 203
89, 92, 94, 98, 107, 119; Féja, Géza 154, 164
as a form of capitalism 87, 88, 99, 183, Fejtō, Ferenc 156, 163, 164
211, 213, 218, 220, 226; Ferrarotti, F. 49, 81
frustration-aggression model of 193; Ferrero, Guglielmo 53, 61, 63
insufficiency of class analysis of 226; Ferri, Enrico 46
as new form of party 214; Fiamingo, G.M. 47
normalizing 10; financiers 212
as party dictatorship 87, 101, 193, 217; Finer, H. 211, 230
political 65, 67, 84, 88, 96, 101, 217; Finland 29
as product of New Middle Class 10, Fiorot, D. 72, 81
209; First World War 15, 29, 35, 170, 182, 185,
see also class and classes, ‘new’ 187;
middle; veterans 147
psychological approaches 1, 12, 112, Fischer, Erika 142
158, 193, 198; Fleck, C. 36
as radicalism of the right 65, 192; Fleming, D. 37
as regression to tribal group intimacy Florence 48, 69;
188; Institute Cesare Alfieri 47
self-interpretation of 95, 98, 100; Fornefeld, Gabriele 147
social origins 91, 108; Fossati, Antonio 50, 81
as state-economic system 99; Fox, Edward W. 203
see also corporatism; France 15, 18, 89, 179;
as Weltanschauung 89, 108, 126, 134; revolution 61, 204, 222
appeal to women of 216; Frank, Hans 126, 147
British 210, 230; Frankfurt 1, 127, 144, 149;
cultural policy 50, 56; University of 110, 122, 136, 143;
INDEX 241
Institute for Economic Area Studies at German Society for Population Studies 143
142; German Sociological Society 15, 21, 28, 37,
Institut für Sozialforschung; 118, 131, 132, 136, 143, 147;
see Frankfurt School; cleansing of (S uberung) 131;
Sociographical Institute of 126, 128, Fifth Convention (1926) 21
131, 143, 149; Germanization (Eindeutschungs or
Working Group for Social Science Germanisierungs) policy 141
128, 131 Germany 2, 4, 7, 17, 21, 29, 31, 33, 59, 86
Frankfurt School 2, 17, 54, 114, 123, 126; passim, 155, 169, 175, 178, 181, 185,
see also Critical Theorists 196, 219, 220, 228;
freedom of expression 29, 71, 75, 183, 185, assimilation policy of
195 (Volkstumspolitik) 147;
Freedom of Information Act 184 Federal Republic of 7, 126, 143, 146;
Freiburg, University of 123 Americanization of sociology in 125;
Freud, S. 197 law 123;
Freyer, Hans 11, 12, 129, 132, 138, 142, nationalism 179, 193;
147, 153 political tradition of 160, 227;
Frodl, Ferdinand 26, 36, 40 postwar reconstruction of 170;
Fromm, Erich 2, 114, 117 propaganda 182, 196;
Frōschl, E. 36 rearmament of 123;
Fuchs, A. 36 social structure of 192, 201;
F hrerprinzip 152 trade unions 102;
Furiozzi, G.B. 84 universities 102;
see also specific locations;
Gaal, Gabor 156, 164 Volksstaat 90;
Galliher, John F. 200, 203 Wilhelminian 10;
Gangale, G. 79, 81 see also National Socialism, Weimar
Garofalo, R. 46, 81 Republic, Nazi era offices and
Garzia, M. 53, 81 organizations;
Gasset, Ortega y 192 Ancestral Heritage (teaching and
Gehlen, Arnold 134, 136 research Society of the SS) 135;
Geiger, Theodor 105, 108, 117, 121 Archive for Maps and Surveys (later
Gelsenkirchen, Research Group on Rural Archiv für r umliche Sozial-Struktur)
Populations in 126 145;
Gemeinschaft 5, 103, 110, 168, 192; Book Department of the Agency for
see also community the Support of German Literature
Gemelli, Agostino 54, 58, 75, 81 (Reichsstelle zur Förderung des
Geneva 163; deutschen Schrifttums) 134;
University of 53, 61 Central Office for Regional
Genoa, University of 43; Administration (Reichsstelle für
law faculty of 48 Raumordnung [RFR]) 141, 144;
Gentile, Giovanni 48, 60, 75, 78 Central Security Office
George Washington University 191 (Reichssicherheitshauptamt [RSHA])
Georgia 181 136, 139;
Gerhardt, Johannes 136 Chamber of Culture
Germans: (Reichskulturkammer) 138;
minorities in foreign countries 122, 152 Culture Office of the Central Security
Office (Hauptstellenleiter Kultur) 140;
Foreign Office 136, 138; Rosenberg office 133, 138, 143;

Foundation for Research on the SA, University Office of 136;
German People (Stiftung zur SD 132, 139;
Erforschung des deutschen Security Police 139;
Volksaufbaus) 143; see also Geheime Staatspolizei;
Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) 25, Social Welfare Administration 129;
139; Society for Germany Culture
Grossdeutscher Pressedienst 24; (NS-Gesellschaft für deutsche Kultur)
‘Hohe Schule’ of the NSDAP 134; 24;
Institute for Research for Military Use State Farm Organization 144;
(Institute für wehrwissenschaftliche Teacher’s Union
Zweckforschung) 135; (National-sozialistischer Lehrerbund)
Ministry of the Interior 132; 136;
Ministry for the Occupied Eastern University Instructors League
Territories; (Reichsministerium für (Dozentenschaft) 133;
die besetzen Ostgebiete) 134, 136; Worker’s Party (NS-Deutsche
Ministry for Science, Education and Arbeiterpartei) 100;
Adult Education 129, 132, 137, 139, Workgroup for Area Studies
147; (Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für
Ministry of Economics 140; Raumforschung [RAG]) 126, 128,
Ministry of Popular Enlightenment 141;
and Propaganda 130, 132, 138; Working Group on Psychology
National Farmers Association 129, (Fachschafts Kreis Psychologie) 136;
143; Working Groups on Rural Problems
Office for Scholarship within the (Reichsarbeitgemeinschaften der
Youth Administration; Landwirtschaftswissenschaft) 144;
(Reichstelle des Amtes Wissenschaft Wehrforschungsgemeinschaft 145;
der Reichsjugendf hrung) 137; Wehrmacht 136, 138;
Office for Strengthening of the Youth Organization
German Peoples (Reichskommisar für (Reichsjugendf hrer) 138;
die Festigung deutschen Volkstums) see also Academy for German Law
131, 135, 141, 144, 147; Gerth, Hans 197, 203
Official German Trade Unions, Gesellschaft für Ganzheitsforschung 34
Scientific Research Institute of 131; Gesellschaft, Die 103
Official Party Control Commission for Gesellschaftslehre 16, 18, 26, 36, 39
the Protection of Nazi Literature 133, Geuter, U. 11
138; Gibbons, Don C. 176, 199, 203
Organization to Protect the Law Giddings, Franklin 166, 181
(NS-Rechtswahrerbund) 136; Gierlichs, Willy 128, 137
Prussian Population Office, Secret Giessen 17, 142
State Archives on the Population Gini, Corrado 41, 47, 50, 52, 54, 58, 62, 75,
Policy of 145; 78, 81;
Reich Research Council demographic sociology of 58;
(Reichsforschungsrat) 140; evolution of conception 50;
Reichskommissariat (RFV) 141; neo-organicism of 54
Reichstelle far Raumordmmg (RFR) Ginsberg, M. 209, 230
130, 141; Giolitti 66
SS 130, 135, 139, 144, 195;
INDEX 243
Giornale degli economists e Annali di Hagan, Robert A. 200, 203

economia 79 Hagemann, Walter 100, 117, 121
Giustizia e libertá 79 Hagtvet, V. 37
Glatz, Ferenc 152, 164 Hajnal, Istvan 152, 158, 162, 164
Gleitze, Bruno 106, 117, 121 Halladay, Terry 12
Goad, H.E. 210, 230 Halpern, Ben 201
Gobetti, Piero 47, 61, 64, 67, 72, 74, 77, 79, Hamburg 129;
82, 84 University of 110, 122, 127, 146;
Goebbels, J. 184, 194 Faculty of Philosophy of 129;
Goldscheid, Rudolf 15 German Center for Population Studies
Gōmbōs, Gyula (political figure) 153, 156 at 143;
Gombos, Gyula 151, 155, 164 as ‘F hrerstadt’ 129
Goode, P. 36 Hamilton, Peter 200, 203
Gōring, Hermann 145 Handwōrterbuch der Soziologie 91
Görög, Janos 161, 164 Hanisch, E. 39
Gōttingen, University of 122 Hanover:
Gottlieb, Alan 201 Center for Area Studies and Regional
Govi, M. 48, 54, 82 Planning in 126, 143;
Gow, David J. 181, 203 Department of Empirical Sociology
Grabowsky, Adolf 91, 95, 100, 103, 115, 143;
117, 121 Institute for Studies of Intelligence 143
Graeber, Isacque 191, 201, 203 Harmjanz, Heinrich 133, 135
Gramatica, F. 54 Harrisson, R. (Tom) 209, 230
Gramsci, Antonio 60, 64, 72, 74, 76, 79, 82, Hartung, Frank E. 169, 187, 203
84 Harvard Defence Committee, Morale and
Granzow, B. 207, 230 National Service Subcommittee 193
Grato, Cossila S. 78 Harvard University 175, 180, 189, 195;
Graz, University of 15, 17, 24, 27; Russian Research Center 195;
Sociological Society in 32 Student Union 194
Graziani, Augusto 47, 53 Haselbach, Dieter 115, 117
Greffrath, Mathias 147 Haufe, Helmut 138, 142
Gregor, A.James 198, 200, 203 Hayek, Friedrich A.von 32, 167, 203, 214,
Gregorian University (Vatican) 62 230;
Groppali, Alessandro 44, 82 argument against
Grothusen, Klaus-Detlev 147 planning 214
Gruber, Carol S. 182, 203 Heberle, Rudolf 103, 115, 118, 122
Gr nberg, Carl 17 Hebrew 185, 190
Grünfeld, Judith 110, 117, 121 Hegel 98, 171
Guggenheim Fellowship 174, 187 Heidelberg, University of 121, 127, 137,
Guha, Anton-Andreas 148 146, 148, 192;
Gumplowicz, Ludwig 15, 38, 54, 168 Department of Social Science and
Gundlach, Gustav 26 Government 130, 140, 142
G nther, Adolf 17, 36, 142 Heim, Susanne 125, 148
G nzel, Karl 136 Heimann, Eduard 110, 118, 122
Heimwehr see Austria
Haag, J. 36 Heinrich, Walter 17, 22, 33, 37, 94, 96, 98,
Haberler, Gottfried 33 102, 118, 122
Heinz, K.H. 26, 37
Heisz, G. 37 Huff, Toby E. 200, 203

Heller, Hermann 97, 100, 111, 115, 118, 122 Hufner, Adam 109, 118, 122
Hellpach, Willy 101, 118, 122 H lsd nker, Josef 148
Hensel, Olaf 148 Hungary 4, 150 passim;
Hermens, Ferdinand Aloys 100, 115, 118, academic sociology in 150;
122 anti-Jewish legislation of 153;
Herre, P. 90, 118 fascists of 156;
Herrmann, Walter 136, 142 fascist-type system of 151;
Hertzler, Joyce O. 192 Institute of the Study of the Economy
Hilberath, Leo 142 162;
Hildebrandt, Walter 142 National Museum 162;
Himmler, Heinrich 131, 135, 139, 141, 145, National Peasant Party 162;
196 ‘New Spiritual Front’ in 156;
Hirsch, J. 31, 37 patriotism 152, 157;
Hirschberg-Neumeyer, Margherita 99, 102, peasantry 154, 157;
115, 118, 122 populism 154;
historiography 2, 4, 125, 168 Radical Party in 163;
history and historians 48, 61, 63, 67, 152; right-wing radicalism in 156;
comparative 4; Social Scientific Association of 162
economic 52, 54, 152, 162; Hunter College 187
laws of 3, 114, 161; Huszadik Század 159, 163
philosophy of 62; Huszár, Tibor 158, 164
social 54
Hitler 5, 9, 11, 12, 24, 86, 101, 166, 170, Ickes, Harold 199
178, 180, 183, 188, 199, 201, 203, 208, ideal type 21
216; idealism 19, 108, 168, 179;
actions against the SA 221; German 19;
Austria’s annexation by 27; philosophical 45, 49, 78
hero role of 179; ideology viii, 3, 6, 31, 50, 71, 74, 90, 96,
Mein Kampf 115, 146; 105, 125, 136, 154, 157, 207, 228;
Order on the Protection of Research anti-socialist 28;
Indispensable for Warfare (Befehl zur nationalist 28;
Sicherstellung der für die of Planism 12;
Kriegsf hrung unentbehrlichen of Ranks 141;
Forschung) 145 see also St nde conception;
Hitler-Stalin pact 141, 214 sociology and 60, 63, 6;
Hobbes, T. 208 see also specific ideological movements
Hochschule für Welthandel 34 Ignotus, Pál 156, 164
Hofstadter, Richard 168, 203 Illinois 172
Höhn, Reinhard 132, 139, 145 Illyés, Gyula 154, 164
Holocaust 2, 10, 125, 189, 200, 203, 205; immigration 171, 174
see also Atrocities Imperialism:
Holt, John F. 173, 204 British 179;
Honigsheim, P. 62, 82 German 179
Honnegger, H. 115, 119 individualism 18, 21, 34, 55, 161, 176, 192,
Hope, North Dakota 185 209, 215, 230
Horkheimer, Max 126, 160 industrial work 106;
Horváth, Barna 152, 158, 162, 164
INDEX 245
physiology of 55; ministry of national education 57;

psychology of 56; National Institute of Agrarian
psychophysical adaptation to 75 Economy 52;
industrialization 15 Parliament 67, 69;
industry 15, 24, 29, 67, 87, 107, 111, 146, petite bourgeoisie 68;
172, 227; post-war 68;
big 160, 212; Senate 69, 74;
heavy 24; socialist party 65;
sociology of 136 Sociological Association 50;
inflation 69 see also specific names of
Innsbruck 15; organizations;
University of 17 Southern 61;
Institut International de Sociologie 46, 53, Universities of 41, 43;
54, 179 see also specific locations;
Institute for Sport 136 worker’s laws 120;
institutions, parliamentary 69 see also Carta del Lavoro
intellectuals 8, 107, 120, 155, 219; Izzo, A. 82
déclassé 216;
populist 156 Jaeggi, U. 146, 148
International Federation of Sociological Jahoda, Marie 16, 33, 37
Societies 172, 179 Jander, W. 18, 37
Internationale Kommission zur Abwehr des Janowitz, Morris 12
Faschismus 31 Jantke, Carl 136, 142
Internationalism 185, 195 Japan 18, 173
Invernici, F. 75, 82 Jarno, W. 118
Ipsen, Gunther 133, 138, 143 Jászi, Oszkár 159, 163, 164
isolationists 169, 183, 194, 197 Jena: University of 121, 128, 131, 136, 139
Istanbul 175 Jennings, Humphrey 209
Istituto di Sociologia Luigi Sturzo (Rome) Jerusalem, Franz 136
62 Jerusalem, Wilhelm 15
Italy 4, 6, 9, 22, 29, 41 passim, 89, 93, 94, Jessenjens 115, 118, 122
96, 98, 120, 151, 169, 171, 174, 179, 181, Jews 21, 24, 26, 51, 102, 107, 118, 125, 127,
182, 202, 210, 219, 221; 132, 136, 145, 153, 170, 181, 189, 190,
backwardness of 67; 192, 194, 200, 210, 215;
bourgeoisie: inadequacy of the 51; American 2;
capitalism 55; attitudes to 210;
Central Institute of Statistics 58; foundations 143;
corporatism, legal framework of 56; Gentile relations to 191;
see also corporatism; intellectuals 102, 159;
fascism in 98, 101, 110, 152, 168, 169, Italian 102;
175, 219, 226, 227, 228; sociologists 127, 128, 136, 147;
see also fascism, see also anti-semitism
Italian; Jewish question 156
as social experiment 210; Johnson, A. 39, 53
foreign policy 92; Johnston, W.M. 37
intellectual life, influence of the First journalism 34
World War on 78; J rgens, Hans Wilhelm 150
Jews 102;
jurisprudence 34, 43, 139 Kroll, Jurgen 12

jurists 56 Kroner, Richard 160
Kr ger, Gerhard 138
Kampf Der 31 Ku Klux Klan 174
Kant, I. 28, 68 K hne, Otto 134
K sler, Dirk 3, 5, 6, 9, 16, 20, 37, 102, 118, Kuznick, Peter J. 198, 203
114, 131, 147, 148
Katholisch-Soziale Nationalpartei 24 L’Ordine Nuovo 65
Katholische Wochenschrift für Religion, La Critica 45
Kultur, Soziologie und Volkswirtschaft La Rivoluzione Liberate 68
26 Labour Party 213, 215
Kaufmann, Felix 16, 22, 32, 37 Lachmann, Ludwig 99, 115, 119, 122
Kaupen-Haas, Heidrun 148 Lackó, Miklós 151, 154, 165
Kecskemeti, Paul 163; Lacqueur, Walter 202
under pseudonym Peter Schmidt 160 land reform 162
Keiser, Gunter 111, 118, 122 Landauer, Carl 87, 115, 119, 122
Kelsen, Hans 17, 26, 30, 35, 37, 57 Landheer, B. 37
Kendall, Patricia L. 37 landowners 66, 212, 227
Kentucky 177 Landshut, Siegfried 127
Kerék, Mihaly 155, 162, 164 Langer, J. 33, 37
Kerékgyártó, Béla 160, 165 Lanzillo, A. 57, 82
Kern, Horst 125, 148 Larsen, O.N. 191, 203
Kiel, University of 122 Larsen, S.U. 13, 36, 37
Kiev 196 Laski, H.J. 209, 215, 224, 230
Kirkpatrick, Clifford 12, 187, 203 Laslett, Barbara 200
Kisfaludy, Gyula 155, 165 Lassman, P. 10
Kiss, Endre 158, 165 Lausanne University 69
Klagenfurt 26 law and lawyers 41, 48, 55, 75, 122, 152,
Klein, Josef 24 162;
Klingemann, Carsten 4, 7, 127, 128, 130, conservative 115;
136, 137, 142, 144, 148 penal 44;
Klocke, H. 143 social-democratic 115;
Klopp, W. 35, 37 sociology of 15, 48;
Kluckhohn, Clyde 196 see also jurists, jurisprudence
Klutentreter, Willy 136 Lazarsfeld, Paul F. 16, 32, 37
Knoll, August Maria 17, 27 Le Bon, Gustave 192
Knospe, Horst 126, 147 leadership 20, 94, 95, 153, 188, 223, 227;
Koestler, A. 208 attempts at ideological 33;
Kogon, Eugen 34, 37, 98, 115, 119, 122 charismatic 6, 188;
Kolnai, Aurel 160, 163, 165 heroic 95;
Kōnig, René 13, 125, 127, 146, 149 moral 59;
Kōnigsberg, University of 138 racial bond as basis of 228;
Konrad, H. 40 working-class 67, 112
Kovács, Imre 154, 156, 158, 163, 165 Lebensraum 153
Kovalewski, Massimo 78 Lederer, Emil 193
Krieck, Ernst 140 legitimation viii, 3, 6, 11, 51, 60, 70, 73, 76
Krohn, Claus-Dieter 147, 149 Lehmann, Gerhard 134
INDEX 247
Leichter, O. 37 Lundberg, George A. 167, 169, 184, 185,

Leipzig 43, 127, 129, 138, 142, 146; 190, 193, 195, 197, 200, 203
Bibliographisches Institut in 138; Lundgreen, P. 38
Business School of 142; L schen, G nter 149
University of 121 Luther, M. 203
Leningrad, University of 195
Lentini, O. 50, 52, 56, 63, 65, 72, 80, 84 Machlup, Fritz 33
Leone, Enrico 73, 82 Mackenroth, G. 142
Leoni, Bruno 50, 77, 82 Madge, Charles 209, 230
Lepenies, Wolf 11, 147, 149, 209, 230 Magnino, B. 82
Lepsius, M.Rainer 37, 146 Magyary, Zoltan 153
Leser, N. 38 Malraux, A. 208
Levi della Vida, G. 52, 74, 78, 82 Mannhardt, Johann Wilhelm 86, 96, 98,
Levy-Bruhl, Lucien 136 115, 119, 122
Lewis, David J. 198, 203, 210, 230 Mannheim, Karl 1, 127, 128, 160, 193, 214,
liberals and liberalism 10, 26, 53, 64, 67, 230
68, 74, 76, 79, 89, 99, 118, 132, 157, 176, Mannzen, Walter 111, 119, 122
177, 184, 190, 204, 206, 215; manufacturers and manufacturing 63, 67,
adversaries of Mussolini 76; 113, 147;
American 169, 202; see also capitalism, industry
Authoritarian 118; Marburg, University of 122
conception of social and political life Marchi, Vittore 53
67, 69, 161, 227; Marck, Siegfried 100, 115, 119, 122
corporate 195 Marcuse, Herbert 2, 160, 168, 179, 186, 203
Lichtenberger-Fenz, B. 38 Marotta, M. 82
Lindberg, Charles 186 Marr, Heinz 128
Linde, H. 142 Marschak, Jakob 86, 96, 119, 122
linking fascism: Marshall, Harvey 115
positivism 179 Marshall, T.H. 209, 230
Linz, J.J. 59, 82 Martiis, Salvatore Cognetti de 43
Lipset, Seymour Martin 193 Martindale, Don 200, 203
literary circles 153, 162, 208 Marx, Karl 28, 168, 197
literature 65, 67 Marxism and Marxist approaches 2, 6, 9,
Livi, L. 59, 82 16, 21, 28, 34, 65, 67, 80, 87, 100, 108,
Locke, John 190 110, 112, 132, 154, 160, 194, 206, 211,
Logos 95 215, 218, 225, 227;
London 46, 62, 163, 175; democratic 215;
University of 219; optimism of 211;
King’s College 225; orthodox 66, 112, 218, 223
School of Economics 172, 185, 192, Marxist-Leninism 65
209, 215 Masci 57
Longert, Wilhelm 38, 135 mass observation 209, 230
Lorenzoni, G. 48, 82 masses 29, 74, 89, 113, 120, 192, 193
Loria, Achille 44, 82 materialism 9, 21, 34, 171
Losito, M. 6, 9, 53, 81 Matolcsy, Matyas 155, 162, 165
Luigi Sturzo Foundation for Sociological Matthes, J. 16, 38
Studies (New York) 62 Matthews, Fred H. 198, 203
Lukács, Georg 6
Maus, Heinz 181, 203 fashion 104;

Mayer, J.P. 119 political influence by 151;
McCarthy, J. 194 routine of 185;
McCarthyism 195 virtues of 211
McGovern, William Montgomery 168, 203 militia 31, 88;
McKenzie, Roderick D. 186 see also Austria, Heimwehr
medical experiments on humans 1, 135 Miller, Herbert A. 175, 203
medieval society 153 Mioni, U. 83
Mehlis, Georg 95, 98, 115, 119, 122 Mises, Ludwig von 32, 35, 38
Meliorists 176 Miskolc: law school of 17
Melvin, Bruce 200 Modena, University of 54
Mencken, H.L. 198 modernity 11
Menzel, Adolf 32, 38 Mohme, Erwin T. 172, 203
mercantilism 99 Mokre, Johann 27
Mertens, Lothar 146, 149 monarchy 26, 159
Messina 44; Mondolfo, Rodolfo 61
law faculty of 48 Mongardini, C. 82
Messner, Johannes 27 morale surveys 7, 11, 139
metapolitical outlook 157, 162 Morgen, Herbert 119, 143
methodology 22, 49, 59 Morgenstern, Oskar 33
Metron 54 Morra, G. 62, 83
Meusel, Alfred 52, 112, 119, 122 Morse, Arthur, D. 200, 203
Meyer, Konrad 144 Morselli, Emanuele 54, 73, 83
Miami University 167, 185 Morselli, Enrico 43, 78
Miceli, Vincenzo 44, 82 Mosca, Gaetano 6, 60, 67, 68, 72, 74, 79
Michel, Ernst 101, 119, 122 Mosley, O. 230
Michels Roberto 6, 41, 49, 50, 53, 59, 63, Moss, L. 84
68, 72, 76, 78, 80, 85, 93, 98, 102, 115, Mozetič, Gerald 5, 16, 28, 35
120 Mueller, F.H. 62, 83
Michigan, University of 166 Munster, University of see Dortmund,
middle class see class and classes, middle University of Munster
middle-class parties 30 Mühlmann, Wilhelm Emil 134, 136
Middle Way 195; M ller, Adam 18, 25, 35
see also Third Way M ller, Jerry Z. 11, 129, 149
Mierendorff, Carl 103, 111, 120, 122 M ller, Karl Valentin 126, 140, 142
migration, inner viii, 4; M ller, R. 33, 38
see also emigration M ller-Armack, Alfred 115
Milan 43, 48, 53, 77; Munich, University of 24
Catholic University of 47, 50, 56; Munich Accords 178, 193;
Research Center for Applied see also appeasement
Psychology 56; Mussolini, B. 6, 9, 22, 29, 50, 59, 62, 67,
Bocconi University 55, 69; 73, 81, 88, 93, 96, 98, 116, 119, 169, 178,
University of, law faculty of 48 208, 216, 230;
militarism 188 conservative orientation of 67;
military 29, 31, 63, 138, 211; as ‘hero’ 60, 95;
armed forces 30; dictatorship of 64, 73, 97;
Army 136; legal reforms of 74;
conscription 171; opposition to 61;
INDEX 249
program of 172; terrorization 179;

regime of 62, 67, 95; true doctrine of 135, 136;
reliance on the use of force 70; as Utopian action 106;
traditionalist economic orientation of Weltanschauung 25, 123, 133, 135,
67; 137, 146, 229;
see also Italy, Fascism in women and 110, 188
Myklebust, J.P. 37 nationalism 3, 54, 107, 116, 168, 176, 178,
179, 196, 207, 216, 222, 227;
Nagy, Endre 152, 165 as compensatory idea 112;
Nagy, Imre 163 false 112;
Nagy, Péter 155, 165 German 27
Naples, University of 43; Nationalwirtschaft:
law faculty of 48 Blätter für organischen
National Socialism (Nazism) 7, 11, 13, 21, Wirtschaftsaufbau 18, 34, 37
24, 26, 31, 34, 38, 86, 93, 100 passim, Neisser, Hans 107, 120, 122
152, 158, 169, 171, 175, 178, 180, 187, Nell-Breuning, Oswald von 26
191, 192, 194, 203, 210, 214, 215, 226; Némedi, Dénés 5, 154, 157, 165
anti-semitism of 102; Németh, Laszlo 157, 163
see also anti-semitism, Holocaust; Nemzet, Magyar 157
atrocities committed, see Atrocities; Neo-Kantianism 26
bookburning 176; Neo-Thomism 55
as capitalism with the lid off 208; Neue Blätter far den Sozialismus 110
collaboration with 11; Neugebauer, W. 39
economic program of 110, 118; Neumann, F. 2
see also planning; Neumann, Michael 147, 149
economy and 120; Neumann, Sigmund 103, 120, 122
followers 108, 112; Neumeyer, Martin H. 199, 204
see also NSDAP, membership of, and Neundörfer, Ludwig 143
class; Neurath, Otto 16, 33, 38, 40
law, concepts of 110; New Deal 176, 178, 181, 223;
leadership 101, 102; as fascism 115, 161, 180, 222
‘Lebensraum’ policy of 142; New Hampshire 174
literature of 138; New Left 209
mass basis of 113; New Mexico 187
as movement for ‘freedom’ 111; New School for Social Research (New
party see NSDAP; York) 27, 162
philosophy of 140; New York 62, 187
racism and racial policy 136, 153; Niceforo, Alfredo 46, 83
science 129, 134, 137, 185; Nielsen, Jens Kaalhauge 196, 201
seizure of power 103, 127, 136, 218; Nietzsche, F. 32, 98
as socialism 163, 208, 221, 226, 228; Nihilism 217
staffs and advisory boards 126; Nimkoff, Meyer F. 204
see also Germany, Nazi era offices and Nisbet, Robert A. 198, 204
organizations; Nitti, Francesco 160
state, conceptions of 123, 228; Nobility 23, 151, 157
state intervention in 60, 123; Nordskog, John E. 172, 204
technocrats of 125; North American Review, The 177, 204
Northwestern University 171
Notre Dame University 187 Papal Encyclical Quadragesimo anno 23

Novalis 18 Papcke, Sven 38, 115, 148, 149
Novick, Peter 199, 204 Pareto, Vilfredo 6, 8, 44, 47, 50, 57, 60, 62,
NSDAP 24, 102, 108, 112, 115, 134, 137, 64, 67, 68, 78, 81, 168, 192;
206, 228; concept of non-logical action 74, 79;
b ndisch character of 104; concept of persistence of aggregates 52;
membership in 25, 136, 187; concept of residues and derivations 51,
as monarchist party 108; 76, 79
Party Council 129, 133 Paris 43, 53, 61, 63, 67, 69, 79;
nudism 175 University of 191
Nuremberg: Park, Robert E. 166, 170, 198, 204
Academy of the Social Sciences in 128; parliament and parlimentarism 3, 17, 29,
Organization for Consumer Studies 36, 69, 72, 74, 99, 113;
126, 131, 142, 143; failures of 67, 71, 74, 97, 101;
tribunal 147 strengthening of 105
Parmelee, Maurice 173, 175, 178, 191, 199,
O’Connell, Charles 201 203
O’Sullivan, N. 206, 221, 230 Parsons, Talcott 7, 170, 189, 192, 200
Oberkofler, G. 38 Partito Popolare Italiano 61
Oberlin College 163 party politics 59, 88, 96, 121, 213;
objectivism 8, 63, 102, 154, 161, 170, 180, fascist 50, 96;
184, 188, 194, 197 German 104, 120
Odum, Howard W. 166, 170, 193, 198, 202 Pascal, R. 212, 230
Ogburn, William F. 166, 180, 183, 187, Pasemann, Dieter 132, 149
189, 193, 195, 197, 200, 204 patriotism 163, 211;
Ohio State University 175 see also nationalism
Ohlendorf, Otto 139 patronage 7, 50
Olberg, O. 115, 120 Pauley, B.F. 38
operationalism 169 Pavia, School of 47
Oppenheimer, Franz 22, 101, 120, 122 Pearl Harbor 183
Orano, P. 72, 83 peasantry 26, 31, 66, 151, 154, 228;
Orel, Anton 26 cult of the 155, 162;
Ormos, Mária 151, 165 right-wing radicalism in 156;
Ornaghi, L. 49, 55, 73, 83 see also agriculture and agrarian issues
Orwell, George 10, 207, 211, 230 Pellizzi, C. 83
Ostforschung viii, 12, 126 Pels, Dick 3, 12
Osterle, J. 62, 83 pensioners 106
Oxford University 209, 211, 218 persistence of aggregates 52
Perugia 47;
Padua: University of 44, 48; University of 122;
‘Schools’ of 47, Faculty of Political Sciences of 49, 56,
Pahl-Weber, Elke 129, 149 78
Palermo 44, 46, 69; Pesch, Heinrich 26, 163
law faculty of 48 Peters, Alfred 34
Palomba, Giuseppe 50, 73, 83 Pfeffer, Karl Heinz 134, 140, 143
Pan-Germanism 22, 31 Pfeil, E. 143
Panunzio, S. 57, 78, 83 Philippovich, Eugen von 16
philosophical studies 163
INDEX 251
philosophy and philosophers 41, 49, 54, 65, history of 50, 69;
81, 111, 122, 132, 135, 152, 159, 163, sociological 209
168, 213, 217; polling, political 11
authoritarian social 56; Poppe, N. 195
cognitive 48; Popper, Karl 32, 215, 231
field of 24; population see demography and
of law 64, 77, 162; demographic
moral 48; populists 153, 156, 162, 179, 190
neo-Thomist 54; Portinaro, P.P. 49, 60, 71, 74, 84
political 140; positivism 18, 39, 45, 78, 81, 168, 186;
scholastic 19; linked with fascism 179
social 41, 56, 127, 171; pragmatism 176;
of the State and Culture (Staats- und relativism of 198
Kulturphilosophie) 140 Prague, University of 127, 196
physicians 123; Prague Manifesto 196
see also medical experiments on Preglau-H mmerle, S. 27, 38
humans primary group 188
Pichler, J.H. 34, 38 Princeton University 183
Pietri-Tonelli, Alfonso de 50, 74, 83 Proctor, Robert 1, 12
Pinchot, Gifford 199 progressivism 169, 178, 197, 205
Pisa: Proletariat 2, 26, 29, 64, 67, 84, 98, 106,
law faculty of 48; 111, 212, 223;
università populari of 43 industrial 66, 67;
planning 9; new 107;
‘democratic’ 214; rural 66, 67;
economic 94, 100, 115, 117, 177; revolution 64, 213
fascist, admiration for 173; propaganda 8, 31, 50, 107, 178, 182, 188,
‘freedom at the level of 215; 198
industrial 143; property 208
regional 143, 149, 155; Protestantism 102;
for North Baden 143; American 181;
reorganizational, Nazi 130, 144; culture of 79
rural 144; Prussianism 227
of science 131 psychological warfare 130
Plato 19, 26 psychology 11, 49, 77, 82, 122, 191;
Pleyer, Kleo 138 applied 56;
Plutocracy 87 class-specific 10;
Plutocratic ruling class 70 collective 44, 77;
Poland 126, 145, 147, 187; experimental 54;
Poland Memorandum mass 10;
(Polen-Denkschrift) 147; social 4, 49, 85, 112, 122, 136, 159
‘Rest-Polen’ 144, 147 public administration 115, 122, 143
Polanyi, Karl 32, 38 public opinion research 139
political science 16, 18, 34, 47, 59, 75, 77, Puglia, Ferdinando 44, 84
81, 121, 123, 158, 163, 207; Puritanism 89
authoritarian 73
political theory 41, 61, 83, 89, 209, 218, Quebec 163
230;
Quilici, Nello 51, 73, 84 constitutional 82;

economic 51;
race and racialism 12, 21, 25, 36, 101, 103, human 13;
123, 148, 156, 168, 171, 173, 179, 198, natural 18, 161;
205, 226, 228 political 69;
Racheli, Attilio 51 to strike 213
Radice, G.Lombardo 53 Rignano, Eugenio 79, 84
Radt, Jenny 110, 120, 122 Ripepe, E. 68, 75, 84
Rammstedt, Otthein 13, 38, 127, 146, 149 Rivista di Psicologia 56
Rand Corporation 163 Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia del
Ranks see St nde conception Diritto 54
Ranulf, Svend 5, 8, 12, 168, 204 Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia Politica
Rapport, V.A. 84 e Sociale 54
Rathkolb, O. 38 Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali
Ratzel, F. 54 54, 79
Ratzenhofer, Gustav 15 Rivista Italiana di Sociologia 44, 53
Rauecker, B. 142 Rivoluzione Liberale 47, 67, 79
Raupach, H. 142 Roberts, Stephen H. 178
reformism 168, 170, 199, 213 Robertson, Roland 201
refugees see emigration Rockefeller Foundation 130, 176
Regia Università (Rome) 78 Roeder, Hermann 17
Reich, Wilhelm 1, 10 Roehm, E. 216
Reinhard-Heydrich Foundation (Prague) Romanticism 18, 38, 108, 168, 227;
131 idea of community 99;
relativism, moral 21, 161 populism 155;
religion 21, 119, 168, 191, 192; see also community
animus toward 190; Rome 22, 46, 47, 78;
of humanity 169; ancient 61;
sociology of 21, 34 Italian fascists’ march on 28, 86;
Renner, Karl 15, 30, 33, 38 University of 46, 49, 69, 75;
representation: law faculty of 79
economic 58; Ronneberger, Franz 138, 140
of interests 56; Roosevelt, Franklin D. 9, 11, 178, 184, 199,
political 58; 203, 219, 223;
proportional 67 economic policy of 115
Rerum novarum 26 Roosevelt, Theodore 178
Reupcke, Hans 109, 120 Röpke, Wilhelm 115
Revisionism 199; Rosenberg, Alfred 24, 133, 135, 216;
post World War I 195 see also Germany, Nazi era offices and
Rhoden, Peter 120 organizations, Rosenberg office
Ricardo, David 18 Rosenstock, Eugen 87, 120, 123
Rice, Stuart 167, 200 Ross, Edward A. 166, 171, 185, 199, 205
Riehl, Hans 17, 23, 27 Rosselli, Carlo 74
Riemer, Svend 105, 107, 120, 123 Rossi, G.Cesare 51
Riesman, David 201, 204 Rossi, Luigi 51
rights 70, 89; Rössler, Mechthild 149
civil 31, 69; Rostock, University of, Department of
Economic Area Studies 142
INDEX 253
Roth, Karl Heinz 125, 129, 147, 149 Schmitt, Carl 10, 98, 115, 120, 123, 160,
Rothacker, Erich 132 215, 225, 228
Rugarli, Sincero 53, 84 Schmollers Jahrbuch 91, 115
ruling class see class and classes, ruling Schopenhauer Society 135
Rumpf, Max 134, 142 Schotthöfer, F. 90, 120
rural life, first-hand observations of 154 Schubert, Dirk 129, 149
Rurali 84 Schumpeter, Joseph 15, 32, 39, 55
Russell, B. 212, 231 Schuschnigg, Kurt von 27
Russia 94, 101, 112, 151, 174, 179, 180, Schuster, Helmuth 128, 149
183, 196, 207, 214, 219, 220, 230; Schuster, Margrit 128, 149
Committee for the Liberation of the Schutz, Alfred 16, 32, 39
Peoples of 196, 201; science see specific fields;
narodnichestvo 154; philosophy of 19
see also Bolshevism scientific culture 27, 192
Rüstow, Alexander 115 scientists, as political activists 203
Sebéstény, Sándor 155, 165
Saád, Jozsef 152, 165 Segre, S. 6, 9, 84
Salamon, Konrad 165 Seiler, Karl 128, 142
Salin, E. 38 Seipel, Ignaz 23, 26
Salomon, Gottfried 101, 120, 123 Seligman, E.R.A. 38, 53, 55
Salvadori, M. 74, 84 Sereni, E. 63, 84
Salvemini, Gaetano 61, 160, 173, 204; Sergi, Giuseppe 44, 46
intellectual leadership of 61 Serpieri, Arrigo 52, 84
Samuelson, Paul 189 Siciliani, Pietro 43, 84
sanitization 129 Siegfried, Klaus-Jōrg 24, 39, 135, 141, 150
Santarelli, E. 65, 72, 84 Siena, University of 44;
Sardinia 65 law faculty of 48
Sarfatti, M. 53 Sighele, Scipio 78
Sassari, Universita Populari of 43 Silone, I. 208
Saturday Review of Literature, The 177, 204 Simmel, Georg 43
Sauermann, H. 142 Simpson, Christopher 201
Sauter, Johann 17, 18 Singer, Kurt 98, 115, 120, 123
Savorgnan, Franco 54, 59, 84 Six, Franz Alfred 130, 140
scepticism 21, 34 Skotheim, Robert 198, 204
Sch fer, Gerhard 129, 134, 149 Slavs 136
Scheler, Max 110 Small, Albion 166, 177
Schellhase, Rolf 148 Smith College 189
Schelsky, Helmut 134 Smith, Adam 18
Schering, Walther M. 129, 136 Smith, Richard L. 198, 203
Scheringer, R. 112 social change 52, 73, 181
Scheunemann, Walther 115, 120, 123 social contract theory 18
Schiattarella, Raffaele 44, 84 social control 167, 178, 180
Schleswig-Holstein 115 Social Darwinism see Darwinism, Social
Schlick, M. 40 Social Democracy 35, 102, 105, 107, 110,
Schmid, Emil 115, 120, 123 113, 117, 156, 163;
Schmidt, Péter 165 Austrian 29;
failures of 110;
ideological petrification of 107;
left-wing of 115; Solari, Gioele 45, 50, 54, 59, 77, 84

revisionist 212 solidarism 26, 98
Social Distance Scale see Bogardus Scale solidarity, mechanical 168;
social evolutionism 168, 170; tribal 222
see also Gini, Corrado Solms-Roedelheim, Max Ernst Graf zu 143
Social Forces 166, 193, 198 Sombart, Werner 51, 55, 91, 115, 130, 160
social mobility 54, 60; Sorel, G.E. 62
see also elites, circulation of Sorokin, Pitirim 175, 204
social psychology see psychology, social Soziologische Gesellschaft (Vienna) 15
social question 61, 99 Soviet Communism see Bolshevism
social realism see Durkheim, Emile, social Spanish Aid Committee 184
realism of Spann, Othmar 5, 6, 16, 21, 24, 34, 38, 94,
social research, empirical 8, 12, 38, 50, 56, 135, 140;
63, 75, 78, 114, 128, 130, 148, 154, 167, followers of 23, 33, 94;
172, 174, 179, 182, 197, 203; NSDAP application of 25
practically oriented 128; Spann, Rafael 24
support for 129 Spencer, Herbert 45
Social Science Research Council 181 Spengler, Oswald 160
social stratification 192; Spirito, Ugo 49, 56, 58, 74, 84
see also class and classes Spitzer, Hugo 32;
Social Trends, Committee on 49 in Graz 16
social workers 176 Spriano, P. 65, 72, 82, 84
socialism 3, 10, 26, 28, 32, 44, 67, 80, 90, Squillace, Fausto 46, 78, 84
93, 101, 107, 112, 156, 158, 166, 174, SRA 179, 200
178, 182, 195, 206, 213, 220, 231; Srubar, Ilja 147, 150
egalitarianism of 223; Staat, concept of 102;
nationally oriented 109; see also Volksstaat
non-working class 228; Stadler, F. 36, 39
paramilitary associations of 35; Stalin, J. 9, 176, 196, 224
proletarian 26; Stalinism 32, 150, 195
religious 26, 110 St nde conception 20, 23, 94, 99, 113, 117
Società italiana di scienze sociali 77 Starhemberg 23
Società Italiana di Sociologia 46, 49, 54 statistics and statisticians 48, 54, 58, 78,
sociographers 155, 158, 163 125, 183
sociography 154, 162; Steinberg, Wilhelm 99, 115, 120, 123
political 157 Steiner, Thomas 3, 5, 6, 9
Sociological Research Association 179, 181 Steinert, Heinz 149
sociology and sociologists passim; stereotypes 189
German version of 131, 146; Sternberg, Fritz 113, 120, 123
methodological and epistemological Stōking, Erhard 131, 150
issues 19, 28, 48, 62, 73, 84; Stone, Albert 198, 204
rural 52, 128, 136, 144, 176; Stouffer, Samuel 189, 200
positivistic 16, 170, 186; Strachey, J. 178, 210, 213, 220, 231
‘fascist’ character of 168 Strachmann 100
Sociology and Social Research 167, 172, Strachwitz, Maria Luise 99, 115, 120, 123
198, 204 Strasbourg 127
Sociology of the Volk see stratification 20, 52, 54, 192
Volkstumssoziologie Strele, Kurt 100, 115, 121, 123
INDEX 255
students 153, 156, 227 totalitarianism 10, 101, 150, 159, 162, 171,
Sturzo, Luigi 61, 63, 80, 82, 85, 160; 182, 183, 193, 201, 206, 211, 214, 218,
rejection of the totalitarian state by 62 223, 225, 226, 228;
Sumner, William Graham 188 limits to 211
Suranyi-Unger, T. 17, 34, 39 trade unions 24, 70, 87, 88, 93, 105;
Swarthmore College 200 see also specific organizations
Sweeney, J. 33, 39 Treves, Renato 63, 77
Switzerland 53 Trianon Treaty 152
syndicalism 59, 80, 210 Trier 128
Syracuse University 34 Trieste, law faculty of 48
Szabó, Dezso 154, 155, 157, 162 Tulane University 189
Szabó, Miklós 165 Turi, G. 50, 85
Szabó, Zoltan 157, 163, 165 Turin 43, 67, 78;
Századunk 159 University of 43, 65, 69, 77, 79;
Szeged 163; law faculty of 48, 68
University of, law faculty of 162 Turner, Bryan S. 201
Szekfu, Gyula 165 Turner, Stephen P. 7, 12, 199, 200
Szep Szo 163
Szombatfalvy, Gyorgy 153, 162, 166 united bourgeois front 66
United States 2, 4, 7, 9, 15, 29, 34, 44, 62,
T., K. 90, 121 149, 162, 164, 166 passim, 179;
Talos, E. 39 agencies of:
Tangorra, V. 44 Board of Economic Warfare 175;
Tarde, Gabriel 43 National Recovery Program 219;
Társadalomtudomány 152, 158, 162, 164 Railroad Retirement Board 175;
Tatarin-Tarnheyden, E. 115, 121 State Department 175, 195;
technocracy 125, 177 War Department 7
Tedeschi, E.E. 44 universalism 17, 21, 22, 27, 34, 39, 140
Teutonic Order 145 University of Birmingham 212
Texas 177 University of Chicago 58, 128, 166, 170,
Thalheim, Karl-Christ 121, 123, 134, 142 172, 176, 181, 190, 200
theocracy 25 University of Kansas 175
theological 168 University of Minnesota 167, 175, 185, 187
theology, social 26 University of Missouri 171, 175, 177
Third International 65 University of Munster in Dortmund:
Third way 95, 154, 157 Social Research Center at 126, 136, 147
Thomas, William I. 166, 200 University of Nebraska 171, 192
Thurlow, R. 210, 231 University of North Carolina 166
Thurnwald, Richard 127, 130 University of North Dakota 185
Thyssen, Fritz 24, 140, 208 University of Pennsylvania 167, 187, 200
Tillich, Paul 110, 121, 123 University of Tucuman (Argentina) 64
Timasheff, N.S. 62, 85 University of Washington 184, 186, 195
Tinti, A.R. 85 University of West Virginia 43
Tönnies, Ferdinand 5, 8, 15, 32, 39, 105, University of Wisconsin 185
107, 121, 123, 131, 153, 168 urban sociology 64, 128
Torrance, J. 33, 39 Utermann, Kurt 134
utilitarianism 18, 20
Vadala-Papale, Giuseppe 44, 85 war economy 123, 146

Valosag 163 War Trade Board 175
value-free ideal 26, 169, 197; Ward, Lester F. 43
see also objectivism Wartofsky, M.W. 33, 39
Vámbéry, Rusztem 161, 164, 166 Washington D.C. 173
Vanderbilt University 171 Washington University in St Louis 167, 177
Vanguard Press 174 Wassner, Rainer 129, 150
Vanni, Icilio 44, 85 Webb, E. 40
Vardaro, G. 85 Weber, Max 6, 8, 21, 34, 39, 47, 55, 57, 59,
Vatican 55, 62; 68, 76, 83, 87, 153, 188, 192, 193, 197;
see also Gregorian University concept of Herrschaft 59
Veblen, Thorstein 11 Weber, Alfred 92, 121, 123;
Vecchio, Giorgio del 54 dismissal of 130
Veltzke, Gardy Gerhard 136 Weidenholzer, J. 33, 39
Veres, Peter 154, 156, 163, 166 Weigle, Dean 199
Versailles, treaty of 29, 88, 112, 185 Weigmann, H. 142
victimization claims viii, 25, 136 Weimar Republic 6, 86, 90, 92, 97, 101,
Vienna 15, 21, 27, 46, 127, 135, 144; 105, 127, 129, 131, 141, 148, 150, 194;
University of 16, 18, 27, 32, 123 political elite of the 102;
Vienna Circle 16, 33, 39 social scientific gravediggers of the 127
Vierkandt, Alfred 34, 39, 91 Weinberg, Julius 199, 205
Vincent, George 199 Weiner, Jon 201, 205
Virgili, Filippo 44, 85 Weinert, W. 40
Vito, Francesco 47 Weingart, Peter viii, 12
Vlasov, Andrey A. 196, 201 Weinzierl, E. 40
Vleugels, W. 142 Werder, Peter von 134
Vochting, Friedrich 98, 102, 115, 121, 123 Wess, Ludger 150
Voegelin, Erich 17, 33, 40 Westphalen, Ferdinand A. 17
Vogelsang, Karl von 25, 35 Wichterich, R. 115, 121
Volkisch ideas 89, 93, 95, 98, 100, 103, 118, Wiener, Jon 195
125, 128, 136, 155, 227 Wiener, M. 115, 121
Völkischer Beobachter 132 Wiese, Leopold von 22, 26, 40, 53, 128,
Volksdeutsche (Settlers of German 131, 137
descent) 141 Wieser, Friedrich von 15, 87, 88, 121, 123
Volksforschung (Research on German Wiggershaus, Rolf 147, 150
Peoples) 135 Wilbrandt, Robert 22
Volkskunde 133; Willeke, Eduard 136, 147
Society for Research on 136 Wilson, Edwin B. 200
Volksspiegel 136 Wilson, Francis G. 205
Volksstaat 89, 90, 98, 171 Wilson, M. 114, 121
Volkstumssoziologie 127, 136, 146 Winter, Ernst Karl 26, 37
Wirth, Louis 189, 190
Wagner, Friedrich 140, 143 Wittfogel, Karl August 101, 121, 123
Walker, Mary Sims 200 Wolf, J.A. 199
Waller, Willard 204 Wollenweber, Hellmut 136, 142
Walther, Andreas 128, 150 women 110, 192, 203
war 114, 123, 171, 178, 217, 220, 225 World Congress of Sociology (1959) 78
Wright, A.W. 210, 231
INDEX 257
Wurzbacher, G. 142
Wyman, David S. 200, 205
Yale University 174, 196

Yankwich, Leon R. 172, 205
youth 107
youth-movement 111, 138, 155
Yugoslavia 151
Zeisel, Hans 16, 37

Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und
Agrarsoziologie 136
Zeitschrift für Ganzheitsforschung 34
Zeitschrift für Politik 103
Zilsel, Edgar 16, 33, 40
Zoitl, H. 36
Zurich, University of 123

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SOCIOLOGY RESPONDS TO FASCISM

‘Turner and Käsler have done professional social science a profoundly

Stephen Turner is Distinguished Research Professor at the University of South

Stephen P.Turner and Dirk Käsler

London and New York

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

ISBN 0-203-16907-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-26443-6 (Adobe eReader Format)

1 SOCIOLOGY AND FASCISM IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD: THE 1

Robert C.Bannister, b. 1935, Scheuer Professor, Dept. of History, Swarthmore

There is a well-entrenched belief that sociology is intrinsically an ‘oppositional

SELECTIVITY AND MYTH

circumstances. Analyses of theoretical positions stress the complexity and

THE STRATEGY OF THE VOLUME

THREE STAGES IN THE RELATIONSHIP

THE ROLE OF THE SOCIOLOGIST

THE CONDITIONS OF ANALYSIS

BEGINNINGS AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

widespread aversion to or at least scepticism towards parliamentarism—a fact

sociology influenced by positivism or naturalism. Spann completely agreed with

OUTLINE OF OTHMAR SPANN’S SOCIOLOGY

SPANN’S CIRCLE AND FASCISM

CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGY AND FASCISM

1984:335). Winter, who repeatedly called himself a sociologist, wanted to ally

AUSTRO-MARXISM AND FASCISM

Wilhelm Ellenbogen, one of the leading social democrats in Austria’s First

The most comprehensive and theoretically most pretentious analyses of fascism

THE HELPLESSNESS OF SOCIOLOGISTS IN THE

Lundgreen, P. (ed.) (1985) Wissenschaft im Dritten Reich, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

Siegfried, K.-J. (1974) Universalismus und Faschismus. Das Gesettschaftsbild Othmar

Weinert, W. (1983) ‘Die Massnahmen der reichsdeutschen Hochschulverwaltung im

Marta Losito and Sandro Segre

THE INSTITUTIONAL AND THEORETICAL

Italian sociology before fascism

Italy, held in Genoa 23–29 October 1899.3 Filippo Virgili taught an

Sociology during fascism

considerable institutional development of the Italian social sciences in the interwar

corporatist doctrine became quickly institutionalized, and a number of university

In other words, despite Gini’s international reputation and personal relations

contributed in French or English. Among the Italian contributors, Rugarli himself

sciences, including sociology and social anthropology. His collected sociological

National Education in Mussolini’s government and an exponent of this theory (see

THE DEMOGRAPHIC SOCIOLOGY OF CORRADO

particular with faculty members of the University of Chicago. As an eclectic social

MICHELS AS A STUDENT OF FASCISM

THE CONSTRAINED VOICES OF THE OPPOSITION

opposition movement to fascism. But as an émigré he could not carry on his

association produce social evolution or stagnation, according to their interaction

Gramsci as a student of fascism

Gramsci’s analysis articulated and buttressed this conception by bringing into it

Gobetti as a student of fascism

Mosca and Pareto as students of fascism

are Teorica dei governi e governo parlamentare (1884), Elementi di Scienza

ultimately social forces. This model, he thought, might be implemented under

THE RECEPTION OF GRAMSCI, GOBETTI,

dictatorship (see De Pietri-Tonelli (1939) 1961:49–52; Morselli 1928; Quilici

1973:255–256), Mosca’s development of his ‘political class’ theory within the

social-science schools at the University of Rome and the Catholic University of

11 Roberto Michels, a scholar of European education, lived in Italy first at Cossila S.

——(1978) Gaetano Mosca, Milan: Giuffré.

Carli, F. (1925) Le teorie sociologiche, Padua: Milani.

Garofalo, R. (1906) ‘Della sociologia come scienze autonoma e delle cattedre di