When Marx wrote, in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, that ‘Men make their own history,... more When Marx wrote, in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, that ‘Men make their own history, but not of their own free will’ (1973; orig. pub. 1852), he posed a whole series of theoretical problems for the historian in the pursuit of his or her discipline. In Italy, Germany, and to a lesser extent in France, generations of intellectuals responded to the challenge by re-defining their relationship with history and attempting to re-think the mechanisms of the historical process. Novel ideas concerning historical materialism, economic determinism, and the historical role of the working class profoundly affected the vision of history and provoked radical reassessment among a large number of European intellectuals. In Britain, despite the attention which both Marx and Engels had devoted to the condition of the English working class (Marx and Engels, 1971; orig. pub. 1844–45), this sea-change in historical thinking went largely unnoticed. The consequences are, at least in part, still with us; only in recent years have there been significant developments in the direction of change. The extent of these developments is perhaps best measured by reference to two quotations.
Part 1 Introduction. Part 2 Peasant families and rural labour 1815-90: Grain rents, silk, and pea... more Part 1 Introduction. Part 2 Peasant families and rural labour 1815-90: Grain rents, silk, and peasant poverty Peasant families and rural manufacturing Woman's labour and peasant survival Family roles and peasant conservatism A social form, a pattern of behaviour. Part 3 Agrarian crisis and the end of the equilibrium 1890-1915: The impact of crisis From peasant-worker to worker-peasant Family mentalities and resistence to proletarianisation Peasants and proto-industrialisation. Part 4 War and fascism - peasant independence and new directions: The war as watershed Postwar independence - family and freedom The decline of the silk industry Peasants and small businesses - the interwar experiment Small firm foundation and "historic breaches" with the past. Part 5 Peasants and entrepreneurship - from fascism to the present: Social and economic trends The marginalisation of agriculture The fascist period Postwar economic development Como today - entrepreneurship and society Di...
The article examines certain of the more recent perspectives on twentieth- century dictatorship, ... more The article examines certain of the more recent perspectives on twentieth- century dictatorship, looking in particular at the complex relationship between the dictator and the people. Extending its range beyond that of the ‘classic’ totalitarianisms, the paper argues for a more nuanced approach to the question of popular support for or resistance to regimes and suggests that many of the old binaries concerning popular attitudes need to be revised, with a consequent readjustment of the roles often attributed to violence, to ideology and other cultural factors, and to the varied seductive attractions of mass mobilisation. While pointing to the difficulties of reaching any very definite conclusions in an area characterised by ambivalence and ambiguity, the paper attempts to suggest certain variables related to popular behaviour that may have determined the degree to which regimes were able to impose domination.
nian Legion’) (p. 111); whereas ‘antagonism and frequently violence towards internal minorities, ... more nian Legion’) (p. 111); whereas ‘antagonism and frequently violence towards internal minorities, enemies and dissidents’ were (p. 111). Fourth, though Nazism had obvious differences with Italian Fascism (the former’s racism, more aggressive expansionist drive, etc.), these ‘major behavioural differences’ should not obscure that they belonged to the ‘same family’. Just as Fascism was ‘more extreme’ than the authoritarian Right, so Nazism was simply ‘more extreme still’ (p. 111). Fifth, the terrible history of Nazism and the Third Reich does not ‘invalidate the “compromise” argument that has run like a thread through the book’ (p. 111) (that is, the argument that ‘invariably, in order to win even a share of power, fascist movements must compromise with established elites and interests’ (p. 116) and that this resulted in policies that fell substantially from fascist aspirations). Rather, Nazism was both an ‘extreme exception’ (p. 112) to this rule and an ‘appalling illustration of what, in an exceptional form, fascism can be and can do’ (p. 112). In this respect, whether the Nazi leadership was determined ‘from the start’ on genocide against the Jews ‘remains in dispute’ (p. 73). Nevertheless, while the Holocaust emerged out of the unique war conditions in the east and the radicalizing effects of administrative chaos, it derived most profoundly from ‘Nazism’s characteristically “fascist” notion that war was the best and healthiest way of achieving national (and in this case) racial goals. The Holocaust, and the war that made it possible, were natural outgrowths of Nazism itself’ (p. 77). It should be obvious by now that Blinkhorn’s book has many, substantial merits. It is a clearly written, concise guide to a huge literature characterized by a bewildering variety of interpretive approaches. Its ‘template’ (pp. 115–6) provides a useful way to think about Fascism that, in stressing its diversity and ‘metamorphoses’ (p. 115), avoids the static and overly schematic definitions that have often vitiated accounts. It puts Fascism in its place, suggesting that the interwar period in Europe was, rather than an age of Fascism, instead an age of anti-democratic right-wing authoritarianism where Fascism was a lesser player until 1939. To be sure, some quibbles could be made. There are limitations to Longman’s Seminar Studies in History format. The brevity of the discussion does leave one looking on occasion for more depth and even for the telling illustration, story or anecdote. Also, the documentary section is heavily weighted to political–intellectual texts; one is given little sense of the social, day-to-day realities of living under the Fascist or right-wing regimes of the era. However, within the obvious, and probably inescapable, editorial constraints, Blinkhorn has given us a fine account, alive to the diversity and fluidity of the phenomena he is analysing and to the tragic contingency of the events he describes. In the end, he concludes: ‘had a few establishment figures behaved differently in the Italy of October 1922 and the Germany of January 1933, not only would the history of the twentieth century have taken a very different course, but fascism might have been a mere historical footnote’ (p. 109).
Notes on Contributors 1. Introducton PART I: TWO OVERVIEW 2. Popular Opinion in Russia under Prew... more Notes on Contributors 1. Introducton PART I: TWO OVERVIEW 2. Popular Opinion in Russia under Prewar Stalinism 3. Consensus, Coercion and Popular Opinion in the Third Reich: Some Reflections PART II: THE FIRST DICTATORSHIPE 4. Liberation from Autonomy: Mapping Self-understandings in Stalin's Time 5. Beyond Binaries: Popular Opinion in Stalinism 6. Popular Opinion in Nazi Germany as a Factor in the Policy of the 'Solution of the Jewish Question': The Nuremberg Laws and the Reichskristallnacht 7. Popular Opinion in Nazi Germany: Mobilisation, Experience, Perceptions. The View from the Wurttemberg Countryside 8. Fascist Italy in the 1930s: Popular Opinion in the Provinces PART III: DICTATORSHIP AFTER 1945 9. Poland: The Silence of Those Deprived of Voice. 10. Consent in the Communist GDR or How to Interpret Lion Feuchtwanger's Blindness in Moscow 1937 11. Demography, Opportunity, or Ideological Conversion? Reflections on the role of the 'second Hitler Youth generatio...
When Marx wrote, in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, that ‘Men make their own history,... more When Marx wrote, in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, that ‘Men make their own history, but not of their own free will’ (1973; orig. pub. 1852), he posed a whole series of theoretical problems for the historian in the pursuit of his or her discipline. In Italy, Germany, and to a lesser extent in France, generations of intellectuals responded to the challenge by re-defining their relationship with history and attempting to re-think the mechanisms of the historical process. Novel ideas concerning historical materialism, economic determinism, and the historical role of the working class profoundly affected the vision of history and provoked radical reassessment among a large number of European intellectuals. In Britain, despite the attention which both Marx and Engels had devoted to the condition of the English working class (Marx and Engels, 1971; orig. pub. 1844–45), this sea-change in historical thinking went largely unnoticed. The consequences are, at least in part, still with us; only in recent years have there been significant developments in the direction of change. The extent of these developments is perhaps best measured by reference to two quotations.
Part 1 Introduction. Part 2 Peasant families and rural labour 1815-90: Grain rents, silk, and pea... more Part 1 Introduction. Part 2 Peasant families and rural labour 1815-90: Grain rents, silk, and peasant poverty Peasant families and rural manufacturing Woman's labour and peasant survival Family roles and peasant conservatism A social form, a pattern of behaviour. Part 3 Agrarian crisis and the end of the equilibrium 1890-1915: The impact of crisis From peasant-worker to worker-peasant Family mentalities and resistence to proletarianisation Peasants and proto-industrialisation. Part 4 War and fascism - peasant independence and new directions: The war as watershed Postwar independence - family and freedom The decline of the silk industry Peasants and small businesses - the interwar experiment Small firm foundation and "historic breaches" with the past. Part 5 Peasants and entrepreneurship - from fascism to the present: Social and economic trends The marginalisation of agriculture The fascist period Postwar economic development Como today - entrepreneurship and society Di...
The article examines certain of the more recent perspectives on twentieth- century dictatorship, ... more The article examines certain of the more recent perspectives on twentieth- century dictatorship, looking in particular at the complex relationship between the dictator and the people. Extending its range beyond that of the ‘classic’ totalitarianisms, the paper argues for a more nuanced approach to the question of popular support for or resistance to regimes and suggests that many of the old binaries concerning popular attitudes need to be revised, with a consequent readjustment of the roles often attributed to violence, to ideology and other cultural factors, and to the varied seductive attractions of mass mobilisation. While pointing to the difficulties of reaching any very definite conclusions in an area characterised by ambivalence and ambiguity, the paper attempts to suggest certain variables related to popular behaviour that may have determined the degree to which regimes were able to impose domination.
nian Legion’) (p. 111); whereas ‘antagonism and frequently violence towards internal minorities, ... more nian Legion’) (p. 111); whereas ‘antagonism and frequently violence towards internal minorities, enemies and dissidents’ were (p. 111). Fourth, though Nazism had obvious differences with Italian Fascism (the former’s racism, more aggressive expansionist drive, etc.), these ‘major behavioural differences’ should not obscure that they belonged to the ‘same family’. Just as Fascism was ‘more extreme’ than the authoritarian Right, so Nazism was simply ‘more extreme still’ (p. 111). Fifth, the terrible history of Nazism and the Third Reich does not ‘invalidate the “compromise” argument that has run like a thread through the book’ (p. 111) (that is, the argument that ‘invariably, in order to win even a share of power, fascist movements must compromise with established elites and interests’ (p. 116) and that this resulted in policies that fell substantially from fascist aspirations). Rather, Nazism was both an ‘extreme exception’ (p. 112) to this rule and an ‘appalling illustration of what, in an exceptional form, fascism can be and can do’ (p. 112). In this respect, whether the Nazi leadership was determined ‘from the start’ on genocide against the Jews ‘remains in dispute’ (p. 73). Nevertheless, while the Holocaust emerged out of the unique war conditions in the east and the radicalizing effects of administrative chaos, it derived most profoundly from ‘Nazism’s characteristically “fascist” notion that war was the best and healthiest way of achieving national (and in this case) racial goals. The Holocaust, and the war that made it possible, were natural outgrowths of Nazism itself’ (p. 77). It should be obvious by now that Blinkhorn’s book has many, substantial merits. It is a clearly written, concise guide to a huge literature characterized by a bewildering variety of interpretive approaches. Its ‘template’ (pp. 115–6) provides a useful way to think about Fascism that, in stressing its diversity and ‘metamorphoses’ (p. 115), avoids the static and overly schematic definitions that have often vitiated accounts. It puts Fascism in its place, suggesting that the interwar period in Europe was, rather than an age of Fascism, instead an age of anti-democratic right-wing authoritarianism where Fascism was a lesser player until 1939. To be sure, some quibbles could be made. There are limitations to Longman’s Seminar Studies in History format. The brevity of the discussion does leave one looking on occasion for more depth and even for the telling illustration, story or anecdote. Also, the documentary section is heavily weighted to political–intellectual texts; one is given little sense of the social, day-to-day realities of living under the Fascist or right-wing regimes of the era. However, within the obvious, and probably inescapable, editorial constraints, Blinkhorn has given us a fine account, alive to the diversity and fluidity of the phenomena he is analysing and to the tragic contingency of the events he describes. In the end, he concludes: ‘had a few establishment figures behaved differently in the Italy of October 1922 and the Germany of January 1933, not only would the history of the twentieth century have taken a very different course, but fascism might have been a mere historical footnote’ (p. 109).
Notes on Contributors 1. Introducton PART I: TWO OVERVIEW 2. Popular Opinion in Russia under Prew... more Notes on Contributors 1. Introducton PART I: TWO OVERVIEW 2. Popular Opinion in Russia under Prewar Stalinism 3. Consensus, Coercion and Popular Opinion in the Third Reich: Some Reflections PART II: THE FIRST DICTATORSHIPE 4. Liberation from Autonomy: Mapping Self-understandings in Stalin's Time 5. Beyond Binaries: Popular Opinion in Stalinism 6. Popular Opinion in Nazi Germany as a Factor in the Policy of the 'Solution of the Jewish Question': The Nuremberg Laws and the Reichskristallnacht 7. Popular Opinion in Nazi Germany: Mobilisation, Experience, Perceptions. The View from the Wurttemberg Countryside 8. Fascist Italy in the 1930s: Popular Opinion in the Provinces PART III: DICTATORSHIP AFTER 1945 9. Poland: The Silence of Those Deprived of Voice. 10. Consent in the Communist GDR or How to Interpret Lion Feuchtwanger's Blindness in Moscow 1937 11. Demography, Opportunity, or Ideological Conversion? Reflections on the role of the 'second Hitler Youth generatio...
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