Book excerpt: A Brief History of Postwar Dutch Socialism

Socialism has been much in the American news of late. The historical and political abuse heaped on the word has been in no way reduced by its prevalence. One day I aim to write a primer on the history of socialism for confused American readers. For now, after the break, an excerpt from my forthcoming book about the postwar evolution of Dutch socialism which may offer some useful perspective.  

Discussion of Dutch politics invariably begins with the concept of verzuiling, the Dutch word for “pillarization.”[1] The pillars [zuilen] metaphor describes a differentiated society of relatively autonomous sub-cultural groups. Most observers agree that modern Dutch society has been traditionally divided along confessional and secular lines, the confessional category further divided into Catholic and Protestant pillars, alongside the secular socialist and liberal pillars. The pillars maintain their cultural integrity through networks of social and fraternal organizations, business relations, newspapers and media outlets, advocacy groups, and a representative political party. Even the trade unions were pillarized, with separate Catholic, Protestant, and socialist alternatives. The pillars have been traditionally highly cohesive, with little social contact obtaining across pillars at the popular levels. The social and cultural zuilen have been held responsible for the calcified nature of pre-war Dutch politics, but for the same reason also thwarted greater Nazification during the occupation.

The parties were living artifacts of Dutch history. Dutch Catholicism reflected the defensive establishment during the Reformation of a minority Catholic subculture against a Calvinist majority in a time of profound religious violence; until its postwar modernization, political Catholicism in the Netherlands tended to conduct itself with the provincialism that marked its minority status. The secular pillars developed later in response to the economic and political currents cascading from the French Revolution, Dutch liberalism emerging in the first half of the 19th century as a constitutionalist movement opposed to the re-installed Dutch monarchy in the aftermath of Napoleon. Protestant retrenchment against secular liberalism eventually produced two parties: the Anti-Revolutionaire Partij [ARP; Anti-Revolutionary Party], founded in 1879, whose name signaled its opposition to the liberal secularism of the French Revolution, and the Christelijk-Historische Unie [CHU; Christian Historical Union] whose doctrinal and political dissent from the ARP led to a new party formation in 1908. The socialist pillar was the last to develop, testifying to the late and partial industrialization of the Netherlands, and unlike the confessional zuilen the emergence of a socialist party defined the appearance of the socialist pillar. The Socialistische Democratische Arbeiders Partij [SDAP; Social Democratic Workers’ Party] arrived in 1894 and would remain a loyal opposition party until 1939. A small Sociaal-Democratische Partij splintered from the SDAP in 1909, recast itself as the Communistische Partij Holland in 1917 and emerged from WWII as the Communistische Partij Nederland. Though the Catholic cultural pillar was the first to develop, Catholic politics organized quite late, the Roomsch-Katholieke Staatspartij [RKSP; Roman Catholic States Party] forming in 1926 in response to mounting liberal and Protestant unity. Modern Dutch politics thus derived from the great ideological sweep of the nineteenth century. It was the alleged anachronism of this system against which wartime renewers directed their energies.

 Because the parties organized not solely to obtain political power but also to express the cultural orientation of their respective pillars, national governance tended toward quiescence. This political calm was extended, on the one hand, by the shared confessional outlook of most of the population and Dutch socialism’s consequent muted radicalism; socialist appeals to confessional workers remained taboo in this system. On the other hand, like most successful modern conservatisms, neither the Protestant nor the Catholic parties were truly reactionary. Instead, they fashioned alternatives to secular modernization that could carry their own reformist tendencies. Despite the varied cultural roots of each party, overarching middle-class sensibilities gave Dutch politics a reputation for stability bordering on serenity.[2]

During the occupation the parties were dissolved by the Nazis and thus had to be recreated after the war. While the ARP, CHU, and CPN simply reconstituted, the socialist and Catholic pillars refashioned themselves into progressive parties whose new ideological commitments pursued the welfare statism advocated by wartime renewers. Dutch social democracy would be relocated to the mainstream of Dutch politics as a governing, national party. The Catholic party, too, would shake-off its pre-war provincialism and close identification with the Catholic subculture and begin to refashion itself as a governing state party. The SDAP and the RKSP became, respectively, the Partij van de Arbeid [PvdA; Party of Labor] and the Katholieke Volkspartij [KVP; Catholic Peoples Party]. That the two most important parties would be recreated within familiar channels of verzuiling is not surprising. But while the resemblances with the pre-war parties would be clear, the ideological commitments of their successors would reflect the shared experience of the occupation.
 
Recreating Dutch Political Socialism
No aspect of the political reconstruction of the Netherlands held more long-term significance than the re-founding of the Dutch labor party in 1946. Until 1939 a perennial opposition party, the labor party became after 1946 a governing party and a generator of progressive reform, a change owing directly to socialist involvement in the resistance and ensuing calls for renewal. It was in fact Dutch social democracy’s newfound vigor in the Netherlands, and not its “weakness” that defined postwar Dutch political culture.[3] The reasons why the Americans would find in Dutch social democracy reliable postwar partners require historical explanation.

Though prior to the war social democrats in the Netherlands had maintained their generally Marxist analysis of class relations, like other socialist parties in Europe they had long since jettisoned proletarian revolution in favor of democratic participation. Throughout Europe social democrats pursued parliamentary influence rather than radical social restructuring.[4] Especially in the Netherlands, a more ecumenical socialism flourished, one that maintained socialism as an ethical principle rather than a prescription for revolution. The Belgian Hendrik de Man was highly influential in the development of this approach, which eschewed proletarian socialism in favor of “personal socialism.” Personal socialism had as its goal the marshalling of state resources to promote the personal, physical, intellectual, and spiritual health of the individual, since that individual existed in a complex network of social relations that included family, work, community, the state, and international society. Personal socialism aimed not only at political democracy, but also at economic justice attained through lawful parliamentary means; proponents therefore rejected the revolutionism of the Third International and the Soviet Union.[5] By WWII, the transition from a revolutionary working-class party to a center-left parliamentary state (i.e., rather than class) party was complete and the SDAP became Holland’s second largest party, testifying to its softened ideological stance and ability to attract middle-class voters.[6] The successor PvdA would be a party of tempered reformism, well-suited to the technocratic and democratic spirit of the postwar era.

Dutch social democracy tended not to develop important ideological innovations, generally following the lead of the more theoretically adventurous German social-democrats. But as the PvdA became a governing organ it did help advance pragmatic linkages between theory and practice. One of the key intellectual leaders was the Protestant theologian and sociologist Willem Banning, former inmate at St. Michielsgestel, key signatory to the NVB, and, after the war, chief editor of labor’s theoretical journal, Socialisme & Democratie (S&D). Banning’s prolific writings sought to anchor socialist governance within a traditional moral foundation.[7] He argued that socialism as an ethical principle was not incompatible with piety, a position that held electoral rewards in Holland. Banning’s persistent focus on spiritual themes also helped to inoculate Dutch social democracy against charges of materialism and kept intact a view of socialism as a moral ideal. Via Banning and other like-minded social democrats, the doctrines of personal socialism provided the ideological valences through which a stable postwar governing coalition with left-wing Catholics would be realized.

Labor’s annual meeting in February 1946 would yield a new party to consolidate the non-communist left. Many felt that a streamlined and well-articulated program would be supported by centrists and therefore have a chance of provoking a withering of verzuiling politics, deemed at least partially responsible for the political torpor of the crisis years. Thus was born the famous doorbraak [break-through] strategy of postwar Dutch social democracy. Gone were the red flag and “The Internationale.” Where the SDAP had been a defensive, working-class party in opposition, the Partij van de Arbeid would assert itself as a broad-based, mass party, responsible to govern and readily seeking compromise. Conservatives found doorbraak an indecorous flouting of traditional socio-political boundaries, but for proponents that was precisely the point. With the PvdA, Dutch socialists exchanged their dirigisme of the 1930s—nationalization of industry or a dictated economic plan—for industrial democracy realized through corporatist governance and a generous system of social welfare. Given the bourgeois elements in the PvdA and the platform’s acceptance of mild government control of key industries rather than full nationalization, many of the most radical elements left the PvdA to support the CPN, further moderating the party. Doorbraak would become an electoral obsession for PvdA leaders for much of the next decade.[8]

The new party’s platform revealed that however much the party embraced bourgeois reformism and parliamentary cooperation, it nevertheless retained its left-wing commitments to a planned economy, mass (rather than class) extension of social welfare, full employment, progressive taxation, and an ideological aversion to the political economy of the United States, traditionally “regarded as the bulwark of unbridled capitalism.”[9] Here the figure of Willem Drees came to the fore. If Banning was the party’s philosophical guide, Drees was the party’s preeminent political tactician and public face. He would become the leading politician of his era. Born in Amsterdam in 1886, Drees joined the SDAP at 18; he would remain a loyal party man until 1971 when he found himself alienated by younger New Left comrades. A stenographer by trade, he was educated in classic and Marxist economics. Drees first held local party offices in The Hague, then was elected to municipal, provincial, and national office. During the war he was active in the resistance and endured a year of imprisonment in Buchenwald. By his prominence in socialist circles and his wartime record, he became a key transition figure from the wartime illegaliteit to the first legitimate postwar governments. He was one of the era’s leading proponents of the “brede basis” [broad-basis] ideal in coalition government, which sought to promote consensus in Dutch politics by including as many parties in the cabinet as possible. But he was also a thorough-going party man who scarcely missed an opportunity to articulate social democratic goals.
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Drees was at once after the war the bearer of a kind of public myth, enhanced by his rejection of political theatrics. Drees’s bourgeois demeanor and tightly reined emotions belied his commitment to a planned economy and full welfare program, making him the epitome of placid Dutch politics disguising a thorough commitment to progressive change. These qualities, plus his uncompromising anti-communism, also made him a safe partner for the United States later.[10] He would remain a welfare stalwart during a period when Cold War politics and defense spending threatened it.
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That socialists overestimated their influence is certain. The 1946 elections did not result in the doorbraak for which many had hoped. Yet the proclamation in 1946 by the editorial board of Socialisme & Democratie was also true, that “the purposes of democratic socialism are now accepted by many, who earlier had not helpfully fought for those aims and who had not considered them beneficial.”[11] Socialist influence was no longer confined to the peripheries of Dutch politics, and indeed now stood very near the center of Dutch political thought. Socialists would take part in every government until 1958, their electoral tactics resonating throughout the political structure, and their ideological concerns helping to define the agenda for every postwar cabinet until the end of the period in late 1958.


[1] The term would come into currency in the 1950s, but the pattern described by the sociological vocabulary had been in the making for the better part of the previous century. For an introduction to verzuiling see J. C. H. Blom and E. Lamberts, History of the Low Countries (New York, 1999), 394–417. See also Blom, “Pillarisation in Perspective,” West European Politics 23, no. 3 (July 2000): 153–64; Michael Wintle, “Pillarisation, Consociation and Vertical Pluralism in the Netherlands Revisited: A European View,” West European Politics 23, no. 3 (July 2000): 139–152; and Eric Bax, Modernization and Cleavage in Dutch Society: A Study of Long Term Economic and Social Change (Aldershot, 1990).

[2] Blom and Lamberts refer to “the strongly bourgeois character of Dutch society” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Blom and Lamberts, History of the Low Countries, 405. The classic study of Dutch politics is Arend Lijphart, Verzuiling, Pacificatie En Kentering, 9th ed. (Haarlem, 1992).

[3] Walter Laqueur, Europe In Our Time: A History, 1945–1992 (New York, 1992), 126. Frits Rovers refers to “The Renewed Social-Democracy as Motor of the Welfare State.” Rovers, Voor Recht En Vrijheid: De Partij Van De Arbeid En De Koude Oorlog, 1946–1958 (Amsterdam, 1994), 19.

[4] “[R]evolutionary expectations were shed” in what Geoff Eley calls a “definitive ‘constitutionalizing’ of social democracy.” Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000 (Oxford, 2002), 226.

[5] Like social democratic parties elsewhere in western Europe, the SDAP increasingly saw “democracy as both means and end,” a position that orthodox Marxists rejected. Dietrich Orlow, Common Destiny: A Comparative History of the Dutch, French, and German Social Democratic Parties, 1945–1969 (New York, 2000), 17.

[6] Later CIA analysis offered a bit of historical perspective by observing that “[f]rom a Marxist, anticlerical, and anti-monarchical movement, dedicated solely to furthering the class interests of the Dutch worker, this party has developed into a progressive democratic movement which seeks to preserve many of the humanist, liberal-Protestant, cosmopolitan, middle-class traditions of the ‘regent’ class of the old Dutch Republic.” Central Intelligence Agency, “National Intelligence Survey: The Netherlands,” June 1954, section 55, 56, RG 263 Records of the CIA, National Intelligence Surveys, RSC.

[7] Banning’s attempt to link Christian morality to socialist governance parallels in important ways the work of his American contemporary Reinhold Niebuhr, though Banning retained his socialist views.

[8] Harryvan and Van der Harst, Max Kohnstamm, 65.

[9] Rovers, Voor Recht en Vrijheid, 75.

[10] Drees’s youngest son worked for the International Monetary Fund.

[11] Socialisme & Democratie 3 (1946): 1.