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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
With the publication in 1926 of Zur Psychologie des Sozialismus the hitherto obscure Belgian radical Hendrik de Man became a figure of international import in socialist circles. The work, aptly retitled in some later editions as Beyond Marxism, was a categorical and comprehensive challenge to the ideological monopoly that Marxism had long maintained on the dominant forms of the Continental labor and socialist movements. The appearance of the book in German, the author explained, was particularly appropriate in view of the role of that language in the historical development of Marxist theory, as well as because of the critical importance of Germany to the socialist movement. The treatise rapidly received broader circulation by translation into some ten European languages, and enjoyed 14 editions; it provoked the comment of just about every socialist theoretician on the Continent, excited the attention of academics, and made its author the center of violent controversy. If the declarations of Bernard Lavergne and Hermann Keyserling that it was the most important work in socialist theory since Das Kapital could be dismissed as extravagant and interested, Theodor Heuss' more modest judgment that this was “the weightiest analysis of the Marxist thinker [i.e., Marx] and his effects that up to now has been attempted from the explicitly socialist side” carried telling conviction. The stature of the author was soon confirmed by the awesomely authoritative Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik through the appearance in its pages of de Man's reviews of the newest publications concerned with the problems of the worker in industrial society, and there was even an abortive attempt made on the part of fellow-thinkers to launch a periodical with de Man as editor-in-chief.
page 385 note 2 (Jena, , 1926)Google Scholar; in the present study the English translation by Eden, and Paul, Cedar, Psychology of Socialism (London, 1928)Google Scholar, will be quoted. Hereinafter referred to as Psychology.
page 385 note 3 “Author's Foreword to the English Translation”, Psychology of Socialism (London, 1928), 7–9.Google Scholar
page 386 note 1 Lavergne's comment was in the introduction of a book he edited: André Philip, Henri de Man et la crise doctrinale du socialisme, Editions de 1'Année Politique française et étrangère: Collection des Réformes Politiques et Sociales, sous la direction de Bernard Lavergne (Paris, 1928); Keyserling's comment was in Vollendung, Weg zur B. XII (12 08 1926), 333–335.Google Scholar De Man, for some years a neighbor and personal friend of the latter, had given a positive analysis of his publications and of his Darmstadt “Schule für Weisheit”: see “Germany's New Prophets,” Yale Review, v. XIII, n. 4 (July, 1924), 665–683. Heuss' judgment was expressed in his review of the Psychology in the Berliner Börsen-Courier, 23 May 1926. (De Man Archives in the International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam).
page 386 note 2 Archiv B.LVH-LVIII (1927–1928), passim. Many of the same individuals – Paul Tillich, August Rathmann, Karl Mennicke, among others – were to revive this effort after the meeting in Heppenheim in 1928 (see Sozialismus aus dem Glauben: Verhand-lungen der Sozialistischen Tagung in Heppenheim [Zürich-Leipzig, 1929]); the first issue of the Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus, to which de Man contributed a number of articles, mostly book reviews, in his capacity as contributing editor, appeared in January 1930. (De Man Archives).
page 387 note 1 See Joll, James, The Second International 1889–1914 (London, 1955)Google Scholar; and Fainsod, Merle, International Socialism and the World War (Cambridge, Mass., 1935).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 387 note 2 An article of this title by de Man appeared in Le Peuple, [Brussels] 26 January 1919. It was signed “Un officier socialiste”. – For de Man's own ideological and personal reaction to the trauma of the war, see K Russkomu Soldatu [To the Russian Soldier] (Moscow, n.d. [1917]); The Remaking of a Mind. A Soldier's Thoughts on War and Reconstruction (New York and London, 1919); and La Leçon de la guerre (Brussels, 1920) [a reprinting of articles originally appearing weekly in Le Peuple, 7 05 – 3 06 1919].Google Scholar Further evidence is provided in his three significantly different writings of his autobiography: Apre`s Coup (Mémoires) (Brussels-Paris, 1941); Cavalier Seul – Quarantecinq années de socialisme européen (Geneva, 1948); and Gegen den Strom – Memoiren eines europäischen Sozialisten (Stuttgart, 1953). – Unless otherwise specified, all references in this article are to works by de Man.
page 388 note 1 The situational basis of de Man's impact was suggested by Frits de Jong, Aanvaardbare Vernieuwing? Het hedendaags democratisch Socialisme en de Gedachtenwereld van Hendrik de Man, in: Socialisme en Democratic, 9. Jaargang, , n. 5 (03 1952), 187–200.Google Scholar
page 388 note 2 The argument ran essentially that the corruption of the socialist movement was a consequence of the pursuit of interests – under present circumstances; and Marxism encouraged such action. The argument is most explicitly developed in “Die Begründung des Sozialismus”, Sozialismus aus dem Glauben, 27–28, but underlies the theme of the Psychology, and indeed all of de Man's work. Growing recognition of the inconsequence of Marxist theory for this development is evident, however; the despairing climax is indicated below, p. 416.
page 389 note 1 Cf. Gay, Peter, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism: Eduard Bernstein's Challenge to Marx (New York, 1952).Google Scholar
page 389 note 2 Psychology, 23.
page 389 note 3 Ibid., 24.
page 389 note 4 He is attacked as holding such a position in an interesting article by Paul Lazarsfeld, Die Psychologic in Hendrik de Mans Marxkritik, in: Der Kampf, , 20.Google ScholarJahrgang, , Nr. 6 (06 1927), 270–274Google Scholar, and in Otto Heinrich Kähler, Detcrminismus und Voluntarismus in der “Psychologic des Sozialismus” Hendrik de Mans. Zur Kritik des psychologisch begründeten Sozialismus. Inaugural-Dissertation, Rupprecht-Carola-Universität Heidelberg (Dillingen, a. D., 1929), 29–32.Google Scholar
page 389 note 5 Cf. Weber, Max, Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York, 1947), 92–93.Google Scholar
page 390 note 1 This interpretation of de Man's analysis of Marxism is based on conceptual developments that have been explicitly developed after the publication of de Man's principal theoretical works, but it is the author's contention that the full significance of de Man's contributions can be demonstrated in anachronistic terms without essential distortion of his thought. The theoretical orientation of the present article is to be found in Talcott, Parsons' Structure of Social Action (New York and London, 1937).Google Scholar
page 390 note 2 “… Au risque de surprendrc ceux de mes amis qui n'ont pas aperçu que ma critique du marxisme porte sur autre chose que 1'analyse marxienne du capitalisme, j'essaierai de montrer… pourquoi cette analyse me semble être plus près de la véritè que celle de ses antagonistes”. Le capitalisme liberal, in: Bulletin d'Information et de Documentation de la Banque Nationale de Belgique, Vl-ième année, t. I, n. 8 (25 04 1931), 270.Google Scholar
page 391 note 1 DC Man's personal experience in America undoubtedly made this problem more salient to him. See: Au Pays du Tay`lorisme, Petite Bibliothèque du “Peuple”, no. 5 (Brussels, 1919); and a series of articles under the title of “Lettre d'Amerique” or “… du Canada” appearing irregularly in Le Peuple, 8 08 1919–1931 10 1920.Google Scholar
page 391 note 2 seul, Cavalier, 114.Google Scholar The classic discussion was Werner Sombart, Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staaten keinen Sozialismus ? Durchgesehener Abdruck aus dem XXI. Bande des Archives für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (Tübingen, 1906). See below, pp. 398–399, for the alternative explanation that de Man developed.
page 391 note 3 “Die Begründung des Sozialismus”, Sozialismus aus dem Glauben, 15, indicates, for instance, that there is no question but that capitalism can satisfy the material and social needs of the proletariat.
page 392 note 1 See Lettre d'Amérique: L'Handicap Europe-Amérique, in: Le Peuple, , 2 10 1920Google Scholar (letter dated 15 September).
page 392 note 2 Au delà du nationalisme (Geneva, 1946), 237Google Scholar; this is a greatly expanded version of the brochure Réflexions sur la paix (Brussels-Paris, 1942), which had been seized upon publication.
page 392 note 3 De Man recalls the persuasiveness of Wilhelm Liebknccht's Kcin Kompromiss, kein Wahlbündnis (Berlin, 1899) in this respect. Schorske, Carl E., German Social Democracy 1905–1917, Harvard Historical Studies, v. LXV (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), 21–22Google Scholar, analyzes the radical stand of Rosa Luxemburg, who deprecated the legitimacy of the existence of trade unions on this basis.
page 393 note 1 The influence of Robert Michel's classic study of the Social Democratic bureaucracy is undoubtedly to be detected here: Zur Sociologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie (Leipzig, 1910)Google Scholar; see Carl E. Schorske, op. cit., for the historical foundations for the anti-bureaucratic animus of the German radicals, especially 316–321.
page 394 note 1 For the Gesellschaft broadside, see Karl Schr¨der, Marxismus oder Psychologismus ?, in: 3. Jahrgang, H. 3 (03 1926), 241–261Google Scholar; de Man, 1st Marxkritik parteischädigend ? Von der Kritik der Psychologie zur Psychologie der Kritik, ibid., 3. Jahrg, . H. 5 (05 1926), 458–472Google Scholar; Karl Schröder, Wer ist in der Defensive? Ein Schlusswort, ibid., 473–476; Gustav Radbruch, Überwindung des Marxismus ? Betrachtungen zu Hendrik de Man, ibid., 3. Jahrg, . H. 10 (10 1926), 368–375Google Scholar; Karl Kautsky, De Man als Lehrer. Eine Nachlese, ibid., 4. Jahrg, . H. I (01 1927), 62–77Google Scholar; and, finally, Paul Lazarsfeld, loc. cit. De Man's letter to Kautsky is to be found in the Kautsky Archives, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam; and his vain efforts to get a reply in the official journal are to be seen in the de Man archives; it was finally printed as Ant wort an Kautsky (Jena, , 1927).Google Scholar Capping the opposition came the publication of Emile Vandervelde, Jenseits des Marxismus, in: Die Gesellschaft, 5. Jahrg, ., N. 3 (03 1928), 222–230.Google Scholar This article simultaneously appeared as Au delà du Marxisme, in: L'Avenir Social, t. I, n. 3 (March 1928), 134–142, and was republished in Etudes marxistes of Vandervelde (Brussels, 1930).
page 395 note 1 Preface to the First Edition of-the German Original, Psychology, 16.
page 395 note 2 See below, pp. 397–399.
page 396 note 1 Heinrich Ströbel, Ein Kritiker des Marxismus, in: Der Aufbau (Sozialistischc Wochenzeitung), 17. Jahrg, ., Nr. 8 (19 02 1926), 29–30.Google Scholar
page 396 note 2 E.g., Kautsky, , loc. cit., 73.Google Scholar
page 396 note 3 See below, p. 416, fn. 2, for recognition that the degeneration of the socialist movement had roots other than Marxist adherence.
page 397 note 1 Kähler, , op. cit., 41.Google Scholar
page 397 note 2 De Man, Sozialismus und Gewalt, in: Neue Wege: Blätter für religiöse Arbeit, 22. Jahrg, . H. j (03 1928), 100–107Google Scholar; the same article appears in: Gewalt und Gewaltlosigkeit: Handbuch des aktiven Pazifismus (Zürich und Leipzig, 1928), 160–168Google Scholar, ed. by Franz Kobler.
page 397 note 3 De Man even went so far as to say that: “Die Devise des revolutionären Bürgertums von 1789 ‘Freiheit, Gleichheit, Brüderlichkeit’ ist niemals in der Geschichte des Abendlandes ihrer Verwirklichung näher gewesen als in den städtischen Republiken des Hochmittelalters.” Die Sozialistische Idee, 41.
page 398 note 1 Ibid., 142.
page 398 note 2 See also de Man, , Vermassung und Kulturverfall: eine Diagnose unserer Zeit (Bern, 1951).Google Scholar
page 398 note 3 Socialisme constmctif, 123. In lectures in 1895–1896 but not published until after de Man's Psychology, Emile Durkheim drew essentially the same distinction between two concepts of communal organization of society, the utilitarian (e.g., oriented to the one goal of the maximization of wealth, as in Marxism), and what might be called the “imperative” (e.g., oriented to a complex of goals, as in de Man's socialism): Socialisme (Paris, 1928). See Parsons, Talcott, op. cit., 338–342.Google Scholar
page 398 note 4 Psychology, 39.Google Scholar
page 399 note 1 Psychology, 57.Google Scholar
page 399 note 2 See Der Sozialismus als Kulturbewegung (Berlin, 1926).Google Scholar
page 400 note 1 Die sozialistische Idee, 231.
page 400 note 2 “C'est en vertu de cette fièvre religieuse, de cette croyance à 1'inéluctable nécessité d'un bouleversement de 1'ordre social, que le mouvement avait son allure héroïque d'alors. Car, il fallait, de ce tempslà, être un héros, un apôtre pour être socialiste. Tous les dirigeants aussi bien que ceux qui les suivaient, étaient imbus de ce sentiment religieux, de cet esprit de sacrifice.” Réalités et illusions du progrès socialiste, compte-rendu sténo-graphique de la conférence donnée par Henri de Man à Liège le 13 mars 1926, Education-Récréation, t. 8, n. 5 (May 1926), 67.
page 401 note 1 See Massen, und Führer, (Potsdam, 1932).Google Scholar
page 401 note 2 This conviction was illustrated especially by his interpretation and generalization of his experience in Belgium: Cavalier seul, 172–190; Oude en Nieuwe Demokratie, in: Leiding, I. Jaarg, ., N. 5 (05 1939), 290–301Google Scholar; and in a series of articles written for Le Travail (successor to Le Peuple under the Occupation) September-October 1941; and in a postwar MS entitled “Propos sur la démocratic”.
page 401 note 3 See Die Intellektuellen und der Sozialismus (Jena, 1926).Google Scholar
page 401 note 4 See Réponse à Vandervelde, in: L'Avenir Social, je an., n. 5 (May 1928), 259–268.
page 402 note 1 “La catégoric sociale, dont le type est l'ingénieur ou d'une façon plus générale le technicien, se distingue de la plupart des autres couches sociales participant à la vie industrielle, en ce que le mobile de son activité économique n'est pas en premier lieu un intérêt acquisitif.” Du plan technique au plan économique, in: Bulletin d'Information et de Documentation de la Banque Nationale de Belgique, VIIIe année, t. I, n. 10 (25 May 1933), 473; see also Les techniciens et la crise (Brussels, 1934), 7–9.
page 403 note 1 “The Age of Fear”, MS in possession of author, the original out of which Vermassung und Kulturverfall was constructed, 191.
page 404 note 1 Sozialismus als Kulturbewegung, 16.Google Scholar
page 404 note 2 Psychology, 69.
page 404 note 3 De Man's brash critique on this basis of the famous Belgian socialist complex of Vooruit, in: Die Eigenart der belgischen Arbeiterbewegung, Ergänzungshefte Zeit, zur Neuen, Nr. 9 (Stuttgart, 1911), 1–28Google Scholar, so roused the Zawrath of the veteran socialist leader Eduard Anseele that it took all the conciliatory power of Emile Vandervelde to keep the young critic in the party.
page 404 note 4 Cf. Lenin: “The spontaneous development of the labor movement leads to its becoming subordinated to bourgeois ideology…… for the spontaneous labor movement is pure and simple trade unionism…… and trade unionism means the ideological enslavement of the workers to the bourgeoisie. Hence, our task, the task of Social Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the labor movement from its spontaneous, trade unionist striving to go under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social-Democracy.” What Is to Be Done? in: Selected Works (London, 1936), v. 2, 62–63.
page 405 note 1 “Le socialismc n'cst pas un état futur, c'est un effort présent, une création perpétuelle. Le seul critérium valable des actes socialistes, ce n'est pas un idéal éloigné, c'est le mobile actuel.” La crise doctrinale du socialisme, in: Le Monde, 2e année, n. 76 (16 11 1929), 23.Google Scholar
page 405 note 2 See Warum Ueberwindung des Marxismus?, in:Neue Wege:Blätter für religiöse Arbeit, 22. Jahrg, ., H. 7/8 (07–08 1928), 536–346.Google Scholar
page 405 note 3 See Verbürgerlichung des Proletariats?, in: Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus, i. Jahrg, ., H. 3 (03 1930), 106–118Google Scholar; the Foreword to the Sozialistische Idee; and a later comment: “J'eus bientot 1'occasion de m'en apercevoir en constatant que mon livre [Psychology] avait bcaucoup trop de succès, à mon goût, dans certains milieux qui ne demandaient qu' à se contenter d'une ‘revolution des âmes’ à la portée de tous les amis du genre humain, soucieux de ne pas trop déranger leurs habitudes ni de compromettre leurs intérêts matériels.” seul, Cavalier, 149.Google Scholar
page 405 note 4 “Le grand problème technique et psychologique des révolutions victorieuses est done, dès que la tête de 1'ancien régime est tombée, de le frapper au coeur et à 1'estomac, en dirigeant 1'action vers les institutions économiques, les administrations locales, le développement de la puissance sociale autonomc des classes travailleuses.” Le Socialisme espagnol: Lettre à un jeune socialiste, in: L'Avenir Social, 8e année, n. 8–9 (August-september 1931), 519. Moreover, this follows a discussion of the unfortunate consequences of not pursuing such a policy, as evidenced by the case of the Germany of the Weimar Republic.
page 405 note 5 Sozialismus und Gewalt, in: Neuc Wege: Blätter für religiöse Arbeit, 22. Jahrg, . H. 3 (03 1928), 102.Google Scholar
page 406 note 1 (Jena, , 1927).Google Scholar
page 406 note 2 Psychology, 65.
page 406 note 3 See, e.g., Die sozialistische Idee, 328–329. The general thesis is expressed: “The relationships between the worker and his work become more and more satisfactory, in proportion as the internal organisation of enterprise gives the worker more say in the social and technical conditions of his work.” Psychology, 79.
page 407 note 1 As, for instance, the envisaged nationalization of the Banque Nationale de Belgique; see, e.g., the chapter in the study prepared under de Man's direction: Bureau d'Etudes Sociales, L'Exécution du Plan du Travail (Antwerp, , 1935), 39–82.Google Scholar
page 407 note 2 Au delà du Nationalisme, passim.
page 407 note 3 See Corporatisme et socialisme (Brussels, 1935)Google Scholar [reprinting articles originally appearing in Le Peuple, 25 07 to 3 10 1934]Google Scholar; and Hervorming van het Parlement, in: Leiding I. Jaarg, , N. 4 (04 1939), 195–205.Google Scholar
page 407 note 4 See, e.g., Psychology, 453–455.Google Scholar De Man created a characteristic uproar by insisting on this point at the first postwar Congress of the Belgian Workers' Party: Peuple, Le, 20 04 1919.Google Scholar
page 408 note 1 “L'experiencc soviétiquc en Russie a montré l'crrcur d'une interprétation vulgaire et automatique de 1'idée marxiste … de la lutte des classes comme frame de l'histoire. En supposant que les seuls antagonismes sociaux sont les antagonismes de classe, et que le seul motif des antagonismes de classe est 1'existence d'intérêts économiques opposés, on arrive à cette conclusion qu'un état où le pouvoir est entièrcmcnt aux mains de la classe ouvrière ne connaîtra plus d'antagonismes sociaux. La réalité démontrc le contraire. Ainsi, cet état peut développcr au sein de la classe dominante une bureaucratic, une caste dirigeante, un groupe d'hommes, détcntcurs du pouvoir politique, dont 1'attitude différera de la classe des autres, et entrera en conflit avec eux, mais parcc que leurs fonctions, leur jouissance d'un pouvoir, leur responsabilité, leur prestige, leur désir de maintcnir certains avantages, leur ‘déformation professionnelle’ leur donne des habitudes et des ‘complexes’ différents.” Eléments de Psychologic appliqués à la vie sociale, mimeographed syllabus prepared for the Ecole Ouvrière Supéricure, Session dc languc française du 3 octobre 1921 au ler avril 1922, 12.
page 408 note 2 See, e.g. Sokolova, Maria, L'Internationale socialiste entre les deux guerres mondiales (Paris, 1954), 160Google Scholar; but also, Drachkovitch, Milorad M., De Karl Marx à Léon Blum (Geneva, 1954), 137.Google Scholar
page 409 note 1 See Strom, Gegen den, 209.Google Scholar
page 409 note 2 Nationalsozialismus? in: Europäische Revue, 7. Jahrg, ., H. I (01 1931), 19.Google Scholar
page 410 note 1 The most concise treatments of the reasoning involved are in de Man, Pour un Plan d'action (Brussels, 1934) [a reprint of weekly articles originally appearing in Le Peuple, 24 September–6 December 1933] and Buset, Max, L'Action pour le Plan (Brussels, 1934).Google Scholar The comparatively detailed projection of the specific reforms envisaged is to be found in L'Exécution du Plan du Travail, officially authored by the Bureau d'Etudes Sociales.
page 410 note 2 Ideological embarrassment on this point is revealed by the following casuistry to which de Man resorted: “En réalité, le Plan du Travail est une planche de sauvetage tendue aux classes non ouvrières. Ce n'est pas un plan pour la réalisation du socialisms; c'est un plan pour sortir de la crise par des moyens socialistes. Ce n'est pas davantage une planche de salut pour sauver le capitalisme, c'est un effort pour sauver ce que l'on peut sauver de 1'économie nationale.” Publications de 1'Institut Supérieur Ouvrier: VI. Les problèmes d'ensemble du Fascisme. Semaine d'Etudes d'Uccle-Bruxelles (10–15 juillet, 1934)Google Scholar (Paris, n.d. [1934]), 23. (Italics in original).
page 410 note 3 Blum's conclusion is found in the last of a series of articles on the Plan du Travail that he wrote under the title Au delà du réformisme, appearing in: Le Populaire, , 4 01–26 01 1934.Google Scholar
page 410 note 4 See, e.g., letters by Joseph Trillet and E. Marchand under Notre Enquête sur le Plan du Travail, in the 16 December and 23 December, 1933, respectively, issues of the [Left] Action Socialiste.
page 411 note 1 This view is most clearly expressed in the ideological controversy with the Communists. Eugène Varga: Le “Plan” (Brussels, 1934); dc Man, Le Plan du Travail ct les communistes (Paris-Brussels, n.d. [1935]); Lucien Laurat, Le Plan du Travail vu de Moscou (Paris-Brussels, n.d. [1935]); Eugène Varga, Le “Plan” trahi: réponse à Henri de Man, ministre de la bourgeoisie beige (Brussels, 1936). The very opposition to planisme in Belgium could perhaps be taken as indicative of the radical import of the reforms projected.
page 411 note 2 Recent experience has suggested the efficacy of active and astute manipulation of the economy by government.
page 411 note 3 Maulnier, Thierry, Mythcs socialistcs (Paris, 1936), 169–170.Google Scholar See also Sturmthal, Alfred, Tragedy of European Labor (New York, 1943), 224–230Google Scholar, and Ehrmann, Henry W., French Labor From Popular Front to Liberation [Studies of the Institute of World Affairs] (New York, 1947), 59–66.Google Scholar The specific political background in Belgium is presented in Carl-Henrik Höjer, Le Régime parlementaire beige de 1918 à 1940. Thèse pour le Doctoral … d'Uppsala (Stockholm, 1946).
page 411 note 4 See Louis R. Franck, Démocratics en crise: Van Zecland, Roosevelt, Léon Blum (Paris, 1937)Google Scholar, 24–43; and *** [Marcel van Zeeland], The Van Zeeland Experiment (New York, 1943).
page 411 note 5 In interviews with the author, notably on the part of those Belgian socialists who had not been won over to the planiste movement during the ‘thirties.
page 412 note 1 The charges of his indictment and the sentence are to be found in: De Niemve Standaard, 13 September 1946. A 52 p. mimeographed “Memoire justificatif” dated 30 September 1947 summarizes de Man's defence; an earlier presentation is in the 29 p. mimeographed “De la Capitulation à 1'exil”, 20 January 1945.
page 412 note 2 It should be emphasized that the author is making no attempt at this point to determine the validity of this interpretation, nor to assess the moral and political consequences of his actions. Discussion of the ideological filiation of his conduct can be profitably carried on without commitment here – only plausibility of interpretation is required.
page 413 note 1 See articles in Leiding: Vlaamsch Socialistisch Maandschrift, Jaarg., I., N. 1–8 (01–08 1939)Google Scholar, passim.
page 413 note 2 There were of course many other elements in his motivation, above all the racking disillusionment and guilt he had experienced with regard to his participation in World War I, which made him a leading spokesman for the policy of appeasement. See the officially anonymous article Genoeg Sabotage van de Onzijdigheid, in: Leiding, Jaarg., I., N. 10 (10 1939), 605–612Google Scholar; and the brochure reprinting articles from L'Oeuvre (of Paris), Une offensive pour la paix (Paris-Brussels, n.d. [1958]).
page 413 note 3 “Discours a Charleroi”, compte-rendu sténographique, Le Travail, , 6 and 7 05 1941.Google Scholar
page 413 note 4 Vers la Démocratic autoritaire, and Echec à la peur, in: Le Travail, 13 September and II October, 1941.
page 413 note 5 See above, pp. 401 and 407.
page 414 note 1 This attitude is to be found in such an early work as Het Tijdvak der Demokratie (Ghent, , 1907)Google Scholar and underlies the analysis of English politics in the Sozialistische Reise-briefe that appeared in the Leipziger Volkszeitung irregularly from 18 January to 13 August 1910. Even at the height of his enthusiasm for what he termed “political democracy” he warned against the identification of this concept with parliamentary government: see Remaking of a Mind, 275–276. With the frustration of the Plan his anti-liberalism, as we have noted, sharply increased.
page 415 note 1 demamontagne, Cahiers (Brussels-Paris, 1944), 188–189Google Scholar; see also Die Begründung des Sozialismus, in: Sozialismus aus dem Glauben. The assumption as to the identity of religious ethics has been criticized in A. A. J. Pfaff, Hendrik de Man: Zijn Wijsgerige Fundering van het Moderne Socialisme (Antwerp-Amsterdam, 1956).
page 415 note 2 To be sure, this premise was implicit in de Man's argument – but it is an insistent note that reappears in protean form throughout his writings, as in the assumption that a commercial economic foundation vitiates the production of art: “Und das Vorhandensein dieser Motive [der Anpassung an den herrschenden Geschmack] entscheidet über die Qualität der Leistung, mit anderen Worten über ihren kulrurschöpferischen Wert”. Theaterkrise als Kulturkrise (Berlin, n.d. [1931?], 14); that social climbing was necessarily involved in social ascent: “Verbürgerlichung liegt vor, wenn das Motiv des angestrebten der Wunsch zur Verwirklichung eines bürgerlichen Lebenstils ist,” Verbürgerlichung des Proletariats?, in Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus, I. Jahrg., H. 3 (March, 1930), 114; etc., etc. Confirmation of this interpretation is found in Max Drechsel, De Man, comme je le comprends, in: L'Etudiant Socialiste, 4e année, n. 3 (December 1928), I: “Ou je me trompe fort, ou la doctrine de De Man, en gros, signifie ceci: On ne vaut que par sa qualité d'âme!” And Pieter Frantzen, Enige Vooraanstaande Denkers uit het Belgische Socialisme (Ghent, , 1952), 71Google Scholar: “Reformism and radicalism are thus not so much different systems of thinking as different ways of feeling.”
page 415 note 3 Die sozialistische Idee, 133–206 (chs. 7–11); Vermassung and Kulturverfall, throughout.
page 415 note 4 Der neu entdeckte Marx, in: Der Kampf, , 25.Google ScholarJahrg, ., N. 6 (06 1932).Google Scholar See also Le Socialisme et la culture, in: Le Socialisme constructif, 101–153.
page 416 note 1 The Age of Fear, 206.
page 416 note 2 „Dans Au delà du Marxisme [Psychology], j'étais sollicité par deux tendances contradictoires, et je n'ai trouvé qu'une solution très imparfaite du dilemme. D'une part, 1'évolution régressive du mouvement socialiste me paraissait 1'effet inéluctable de ses prémisses; d'autre part, je désirais échapper à cette conséquence décevante. En conclusion, je ne trouvai que du prêchi-prêcha: le renouvellement des mobiles. Ça pouvait intéresser et réconforter une poignée de gens, mais non changer 1'orientation générale du mouvement.… Aujourd'hui, je vois mieux pourquoi ces efforts étaient condamnés à rester stériles. En se laissant ‘reabsorber’ par le milieu, le mouvement se trouve embrayé dans 1'évolution régressive de 1'économie capitaliste, de 1'Etat national, du régime parlementaire, de la civilisation mécanisée, de 1'Europe balkanisée. II participe à une décadence générale.” Lettre du 26 Janvier 1949, in: Ecrits de, Paris, n. 117, (07–08 1954), 94.Google Scholar
page 416 note 3 Anglerfreuden: Erlebnisse eines Sportfischers in Europa und Amerika (R¨schlikon-Zürich, 1952), 44–45.Google Scholar
page 416 note 4 Cf. de Man's own statement: “Bref, il y a un fléchissement, non point de la foi dans la justice de la cause socialiste, mais dans la croyance à 1'imminence de son triomphe, à 1'applicabilité présente de beaucoup de revendications jadis immédiates; en un mot, il y a un recul de la croyance chiliaste ou messianique que nous avions 1'habitude de considérercomme le critérium de la conviction socialiste”. La crise du socialisme: conférence faite au Groupement Universitaire d'Etudes Sociales à la Maison du Peuple de Bruxelles le 21 juin 1927 (Brussels, , 1927), 5.Google Scholar
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