Europe: A History (165 page)

The correlation between liberal politics and the growth of a powerful bourgeoisie has generated much historical comment, with special reference to the contrasts between Britain and Germany. Attention has been focused on Britain’s success and Germany’s failure in building a stable parliamentary system, and hence on the differences of structure and ethos in their middle classes. Unlike their British counterparts, the new German capitalists were seen to ‘turn to the state’, supposedly shirking their democratic duty and submitting to the guidance of enlightened but essentially illiberal ministers of the Prussian imperial service. The thesis about Germany’s
Sonderweg
or ‘special path’ was inspired at a much
later date by concern over the rise of Hitler, and by the weakness of German liberalism as shown by the ‘collaboration of the capitalists’ in the 1930s.
²¹
Prussia certainly set the example of a
Rechtsstaat
which honoured legal forms but in which constitutions were subject to the authoritarian traditions of court, army, and bureaucracy. This has given German imperial government after 1871 the label of a ‘façade democracy’. On the other hand, one has to remember that the German Empire was a federal state, where several of the kingdoms were much less authoritarian than Prussia.

In any case, a slightly wider sample of comparison might suggest that Germany’s path was not so special after all. Sweden, for example, combined an expanding parliamentary system of the British type with an enlightened bureaucracy and a none-too-liberal capitalist class of the German type. Sweden’s two-chamber parliament was organized at the instigation of liberal-minded bureaucrats in 1866. A capitalist bourgeoisie, which grew with rapid industrialization in the later decades, opposed the extension of the franchise, and did not involve itself with the Liberal Unity Party that took up the torch of liberal causes at the turn of the century. Swedish capitalists were no more interested in liberalism than their German partners. Swedish liberalism was inspired by a coalition linking state ministers, the non-capitalist
Bildungsbürgertum
or ‘educated middle class’, and even peasants, who together ensured the preservation of Sweden’s evolving democracy.
²²
[NOBEL]

Of all the major powers Russia was the most resistant to liberalism. Recurrent bouts of reform—after 1815,1855, and 1906—produced impressive results in certain circumscribed spheres. After the establishment of a Council of State and the creation of state schooling under Alexander I, and the emancipation of the serfs (1861) under Alexander II, important degrees of autonomy were granted to the
mir
or peasant communes, to the
zemstva
or district councils, to the universities, and to the criminal courts. A legislative assembly or State Duma, with consultative powers, was eventually established at the second attempt. It operated in fits and starts between 1906 and 1917, and promised to set Russia definitively on the road to constitutionalism. Yet progress proved more apparent than real. No reforming Tsar was able to sustain a liberal course for long. Both Alexander II and Nicholas II seemed to be driven on to the liberal path by military defeats—the one by defeat in the Crimea and the other by the Russo-Japanese War and the subsequent ‘Revolution’ of 1905. Both were forced to reverse direction. Each bout of reform was brought to an end by
force majeure
—by the Decembrist revolt of 1825, by the Polish rising of 1863–4, and by the outbreak of the First World War. In each case periods of fierce reaction followed, when liberal forces were repressed. One hundred years after the Congress of Vienna, the Russian autocracy and its police regime remained essentially intact. Nothing had been done to dent the fundamental right of the Tsar-Autocrat to rescind any concessions made. What is more, Russia had frequently intervened to stop the march of liberalism abroad. Although Alexander III abandoned direct interventionism, the long-standing instinct had been for Russia to act as ‘Europe’s gendarme’. When Nicholas I heard
during a palace ball in February 1848 that Louis-Philippe had been overthrown, he announced: ‘Gentlemen, saddle your horses! France is a Republic.’

To a greater or lesser degree, therefore, the winds of liberalization blew through all the European monarchies. But their gusts were irregular and the effects ragged. European liberalism built up its head of steam during the reactionary decades after 1815, and made its greatest impact in the aftermath of the explosion of 1848. In the later part of the century, though liberals battled on, their uncompleted agenda was having to compete with the demands of Conservatism, Nationalism, Socialism, and Imperialism.

Conservatism
began to crystallize as a coherent ideology in conjunction with liberal trends. It was not opposed to democracy or to change as such, and should not be confused with simple reactionary positions. What it did was to insist that all change should be channelled and managed in such a way that the organic growth of established institutions of state and society—monarchy, Church, the social hierarchy, property, and the family—should not be threatened. Hence its name, from the Latin
conservare
: ‘to preserve’. Typically, its founding father, Edmund Burke (see above), had welcomed the French Revolution, before turning decisively against its excesses. Like the liberals, the conservatives valued the individual, opposed the omnipotent state, and looked for a reduction of central executive powers. Through this, they often turned out to be the most effective of would-be reformers, toning down the proposals coming from more radical points on the spectrum, and acting as the go-between with the ruling court. The leading practitioners of the conservative art in Britain were Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850) and his disciple, Disraeli. They had many admirers on the Continent. The ultimate distinction between liberal conservatives and moderate liberals was a fine one. In many democracies, the large area of agreement between them came to define the ‘middle ground’ of political life.

Nationalism
, a collection of ideas regarding the nation, whose interests are taken to be the supreme good, has become one of the elemental forces of modern times. It received its greatest single boost from the French Revolution, and was crystallized by the social and political changes of nineteenth-century Europe. It has since travelled round all the continents of the globe. It came in two opposing variants. One of them, state or civic nationalism, was sponsored by the ruling establishments of existing states. The other, popular or ethnic nationalism, was driven by the demands of communities living within those states and against the policy of their governments. In this regard, some historians have contrasted the process of ‘state-building’ with that of ‘nation-building’. The essential difference lay in the source of ideas and action. State nationalism was initiated ‘at the top’, among a political élite which sought to project its values downwards into society at large. Popular nationalism started ‘at the grass roots’, at the bottom, seeking to attract mass support before trying to influence or overthrow the existing order.
²³
Another important distinction is made between peaceable cultural nationalism of
the Herderian type, which is limited to the propagation or preservation of the culture of a national community, and aggressive political nationalism, which claims the right of self-determination to achieve the nation-state.
²⁴
The nation-state is one where the great majority of citizens are conscious of a common identity, and share the same culture.

There are as many theories on the essence of nations as there are theorists. But the essential qualities would seem to be spiritual in nature. ‘The nation is a soul,’ wrote Renan, ‘a spiritual principle. [It] consists of two things. One is the common legacy of rich memories from the past. The other is the present consensus, the will to live together…’ In order to reach that consensus, many members of the nation will have to forget the oppressions and injustices which once divided them.
‘L’oubli
, the act of forgetting, and one might even say historical falsehood, are necessary factors in the creation of nations.’
²⁵

State nationalism, which was driven by the interests of the ruling élite, is well illustrated in the case of Great Britain, even better in that of the USA. In 1707, when the United Kingdom came into existence, there was no British nation. The people of the British Isles thought of themselves as English, Welsh, Scots, or Irish. Over the years, however, the propagation of the dominant English culture, and the promotion of its loyal Protestant and English-speaking servants, gradually consolidated a strong sense of overlying British identity. In the nineteenth century, when the liberal establishment came to favour mass education, non-English cultures were actively suffocated. Welsh children, for example, if they dared to speak Welsh, were punished with the Welsh ‘Note’. All ‘Britons’ were expected to show loyalty to the symbols of a new British nationality—to speak standard English, to stand up and sing the royal anthem, ‘God Save Our Noble King’ (i745)> and to respect the Union Jack (1801). In this way the new British nation was successfully forged. Its older component nations, though not eradicated, were relegated to the status of junior and subordinate partners. (See Chapter VIII.)

Similarly, the US government was obliged to adopt an official national culture to replace those of its variegated immigrants. During the Civil War the US Congress allegedly voted for the compulsory adoption of English rather than German by the margin of one vote (though accounts of this disagree). Thereafter, before new citizens were allowed to swear loyalty to the ‘Stars and Stripes’, a knowledge of English was thought equal to a knowledge of the Constitution. The new, English-speaking American nation was forged under government sponsorship, especially by education. The adoption of the American version of English culture was put forward as the touchstone of success for all immigrant families.

One common characteristic of state nationalisms lies in their practice of equating the concepts of’citizenship’ and ‘nationality’. In official British usage, nationality has been made to mean citizenship, that is, something granted by British law. In American usage, ‘nations’ have been equated with countries or political states. Such terminology only confuses the issues, perhaps deliberately. It is partly responsible for persistent errors, such as that which has regarded all inhabitants of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union as ‘Russians’; and it contrasts
unfavourably with the practices of countries where citizenship has to be more precisely defined.
²⁶
State nationalism accepts that governments determine nationality, whilst abhorring the idea that nations can forge states. As Lord Acton wrote: ‘A State can sometimes create a nation, but for a nation to create a state is going against nature.’

Most European governments strove to strengthen the national cohesion of their subjects—by ceremonies, by symbolic art, by interpretations of history, above all by education and the promotion of a common culture. No nineteenth-century government planning to introduce universal primary education could avoid the crucial choice of language or languages in which the children were to be instructed. The Ottoman Empire, which had always granted autonomy to minority groups, was alone in never trying to enforce a common state culture. Austria-Hungary abandoned the attempt after 1867, overwhelmed by the contrary tides of popular nationalism.

Popular nationalism, which grew from the grass roots, was planted like so many acorns under the dynastic states and multinational empires of the era. Firmly grounded in Rousseau’s doctrine of popular sovereignty, it assumed that the proper forum for the exercise of the general will was provided by the national or ethnic community, not by the artificial frontiers of the existing states. It created an elaborate mythology where the ‘blood’ of the nation was inextricably mixed with the ‘soil’ of the national territory. Hence, if Italians lived on the territory of half a dozen states from Switzerland to Sicily, it was assumed that justice for the Italian nation involved the abolition of those states, and their replacement by one united Italian kingdom. Of course, most down-to-earth nationalists realized that the existence of a fully fledged nation, fully conscious of a uniform national culture, belonged largely to the realm of dreams. Once the Italian state was established, many Italian leaders knew that they would have to follow the example of other governments and use the power of the state to consolidate the culture and consciousness of its citizens. As Massimo d’Azeglio remarked in the opening session of the parliament of a united Italy in 1861, ‘Now that we have created Italy, we must start creating Italians.’

Much of the nineteenth-century debate on nationality was dominated by the conviction that the peoples of Europe could be divided into ‘historic’ and ‘unhistoric’ nations. The idea first appeared in Hegel. It was adopted by social Darwinists, who looked on the competition between nations as an evolutionary process, with some fitted for independent survival and others destined for extinction. With Marx, the economic factor came to the fore. Criteria and calculations naturally varied, and the list of potential nation-states differed widely. None the less, by the mid-nineteenth century a measure of consensus had been reached. It was generally assumed that the established Powers—France, Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Russia—possessed a historic destiny, as did the states whom the Powers already recognized—Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and Greece—and the leading national contenders—the Italians, the Germans, and the Poles. Mazzini sketched a map of the future Europe containing twelve nation-states.

In reality, the concept of historicity was entirely subjective, not to say spurious. Three of the five Powers, whose admirers assumed that they were among the most permanent fixtures of the European scene, were destined to disappear within a century. Several countries, like Denmark or Great Britain, who liked to think of themselves as cohesive nation-states, were destined to learn that they were not. Many of the nations who felt that they had an iron-clad case for self-determination were due to be disillusioned. Here, the decisive factors turned out to be neither size, nor economic viability, nor valid historical claims, but political circumstance. The German nationalists, who had little chance when opposed by the might of Prussia, were assured of success as soon as Prussia changed heart. The hopes of the Italians were dependent on the active support of France. The Poles, whose historic statehood remained within living memory until the 1860s, had no outside support, and no luck. Politics alone decided that Greeks, Belgians, Romanians, and Norwegians might succeed, where for the time being the Irish, the Czechs, or the Poles could not. At first, the crumbling Ottoman Empire offered the most obvious prospects for change. The nationalities of the Tsarist and Habsburg empires, which were to produce the largest number of nation-states, did not come to the fore until the turn of the century.
[ABKHAZIA]