European Socialists Respond to Fascism: Ideology, Activism and Contingency in the 1930s

by Gerd-Rainer Horn

Overview

Based on documents collected in six European countries, European Socialists Respond to Fascism: Ideology, Activism and Contingency in the 1930s is a transnational study of largely parallel developments in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and Spain in the years 1933-1936.
Triggered into action by the shock effect of the Nazi rise to power in Germany, socialists throughout Western Europe entered an unusually active period of practical reorientation and debate over political strategy which helped determine the contours of European politics up to the outbreak of World War II and beyond. Stressing the transnational dimension of this process while simultaneously integrating local, regional, and national factors, this work finds that it was social democracy, rather than communism, that acted as the primary vehicle for radical change among European marxists during the 1930s.
Following major figures within the European left and the significant events that made up the inter-war period, Gerd-Rainer Horn demonstrates the interconnectedness of Europe's interwar socialists. Finally, Horn manages to relate these findings to the ongoing interdisciplinary debate on structure, agency, and contingency in the historical process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195093742
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/21/1996
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.92(d)
Lexile:	1660L (what's this?)

About the Author

Gerd-Rainer Horn, Professor of Political History, Sciences Po Paris

Gerd-Rainer Horn has been Professor of History at Sciences Po, Paris, France, since 2013. He has previously taught at Western Oregon University, the University of Huddersfield, and the University of Warwick. His area of research expertise is the twentieth century history of transnational social movements in continental Western Europe. His other publications with Oxford University Press include The Spirit of Vatican II: Western European Left Catholicism in the Long Sixties, 1959-1980, Western European Liberation Theology, 1924-1959, The Spirit of '68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956-1976, and the forthcoming The Moment of Liberation in Western Europe: Power Struggles and Rebellions, 1943-1948.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations1. Introduction2. The Itineraries of the LSI and the Comintern3. An International United Front? 4. The Era of United Fronts5. The Promise of the Plan6. The Nature of a Popular Front7. Transnational Consciousness Within the European Left8. Piston-Box and Steam9. Contingency in the Historical ProcessNotesIndex

Editorial Reviews

"Important, insightful arguments abound in this work."—CHOICE

"This book will be read with profit by specialists in the politics of the twentieth-century European Left."—History

"[I]t should be required reading not only for all those who seek to understand the West European Left in the 1930s but also for all those interested in the more fruitful products of comparative history."—Journal of Modern History

"...Gerd-Rainer Horn has made an important contribution to the history of the workers' movement in an extremely complex and exciting period in which socialists and communists were suddenly faced with an array of unexpected challenges and choices."—Against the Current

From the Publisher

A transnational study of largely parallel developments in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and Spain in the years 1933-1936, based on documents collected in those countries. Triggered into action by the Nazi rise to power in Germany, socialists throughout Western Europe entered an active period of reorientation and debate over political strategy which helped determine the contours of European politics up to the outbreak of World War Two, and beyond. In this study, the author stresses the transnational dimension of this process, while integrating local, regional, and national factors, and suggests that it was social democracy, rather than communism, that acted as the primary vehicle for radical change among European Marxists during the 1930s. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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