geof eli-defining social imperialism

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Defining Social Imperialism: Use and Abuse of an IdeaAuthor(s): Geoff EleySource: Social History, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Oct., 1976), pp. 265-290Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

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Geoff Eley

ef in ing s o c i l imperialism

u s n d b u s e o f n ideal

I

A new term has invaded the pages of German historiography. Since the publication of

Hans-Ulrich Wehler's BismarckundderImperialism s n I969 he ideaof social imperialism

has achieved a striking popularity amongst West German historians, passing into the

common vocabularyof historical discourse to become an essential item in the conceptual

repertoire of the profession. For Wehler it means a Machiavellian 'technique of rule'

involving 'the diversion outwards of internal tensions and forces of change in order to

preservethe socialandpolitical status quo'.2 The primarycontext is the GreatDepression,

when chronic overproduction combined with fears of social revolution to produce a

massive demand for imperialist expansion into captive markets. In a magisterial surveyof Bismarck's colonial policy, Wehler describes first the steady accumulation of pressure

for positive intervention by the state, and then the sophisticated attempts of Bismarck

to turn this to an ulterior purpose. The ideological consensus behind the demand for

colonies and the apparent ability of imperial pretensions to capturethe popular imagina-

tion suggested an excellent opportunity for attracting support away from the left-wing

parties and towards the unreconstructed monarchy. Under the disorienting impact of

an economic crisis, which placed severe strains on the existing fabric of German society,

the colonial project easily assumed the guise of a universal panacea, which 'widened the

market, treated the economy, facilitated its further growth, thereby withdrawingsocietyfrom its ordeal and stabilizing the inner power relationships anew'.3 The resulting

political configuration, fashioned from the twin coordinates of 'irregular growth and

power legitimation', was social imperialism.4

In this current view social imperialism is inseparably bound up with the political

dynamics of an economic crisis, simultaneously an attempted solution to economic

difficulties and a response to threatening social unrest, a means of consolidating the

undemocratic structures of the newly founded Prussian-German state. But far from being

I The argument f this paperhasbeen refined n

a numberof seminars nd countlessdiscussions.FortheircriticaladviceI would ike ogivespecial hanksto D. Blackbourn,H. PoggeandF. Taylor.

2 H.-U. Wehier, Bismarck ndder Imperialismus

(Cologne,i969), 115.

3 Ibid.4 Wehler, Das DeutscheKaiserreich187i-ig98

(Gottingen, 973), 172.

265







266 Social History NO 3

a recent invention, the term boasts a long line of intellectual descent, beginning with

the socialist polemics of the Great War. 'Social imperialism' began life as a caustic

shorthand for the reformist politics of those socialists who chose to support that war,

a sarcastic play on the discredited name of Social Democracy and interchangeable n the

parlance of the left with the similar nicknames of 'social patriotism' and 'social

chauvinism'.5 It was used to describe those Marxists of the Second Internationalwho

acquiesced in the violent escalation of national rivalries in 19I4: who made their peace,

in other words, with the imperialist characterof their respective nation-states. This was

also an option for reform nstead of revolution, an explicit legitimation of the gradualist

practice into which most of the socialist parties had comfortably settled. For some, like

the ex-radicalsHaenisch, Herve or Mussolini, the apostasywas spectacular.6But forlarge

numbers of bureaucrats, trade unionists and parliamentarians his was just the chance

they were patiently awaiting, a welcome confirmation of the reformist logic of their

politics. In its original meaning, therefore, social imperialism referred to the decline of

revolutionary commitment in the European labour movements.

Wehler's definition differs from this earlier one in two important respects. The first

he has formulated himself: unlike the participants in 'the older Social Democratic and

Leninist polemics' he is concerned 'more with the intentions of the ruling strata than

the collaboration of the working population'.' His interests lie with the policy-makers,

the men at the top, the apostles of stability with a standing brief for the existing

institutions of German society. His theme is the recurrent attempt of German govern-

ments to duck the pressure for change by advocating an alternativesystem of priorities

in the sphere of foreign policy. The line of reasoning was familiar: Germany was

vulnerable to aggression, thanks to an exposed strategic position in the centre of Europe;

consequently, plans for reform must be sacrificed to the more urgent requirements of

national defence. In the age of imperialism this acquired a further dimension, for

national survival became conventionally linked with sea power, colonies and economic

expansion in the world. The result was a system of prioritiesfrom which democratization,

social welfare and redistribution of wealth were effectively excluded. This ideological

Primat des Nationalenwas intended to reduce the potential constituency of the left and

to militate against the vigorous pursuit of reforming programmes.8

5 The term social mperialism'eemsfirst o have

beenusedin autumn1914by Trotsky:Socialrefor-

mism has becomeconverted n practice nto social

imperialism.'ee I. Deutscher ed.), TheAgeofPer-

manentRevolution: TrotskyAnthologyNewYork,

1964), 78. Lenin was using the termby I916: e.g.

ImpenralismndtheSplit nSocialismMoscow, 972),

i . B. Semmel,ImperialismndSocialReformi96o),

14,wrongly ttributesheterm oKarlRennern1917.The exactauthorshipwouldrequirepainstakingeri-

fication,but is in any case less important hanthe

slogan'sapidpassagentogeneral olemicalurrency.

'Social patriotism'can alreadybe found in Rosa

Luxemburg'sarlywritings:e.g. 'Der Sozialpatriot-

ismus in Polen', in GesammelteWerke,/i (Berlin,

I970),37-51-6 For Haenisch, see G. Kruschet, 'Ein Brief

KonradHaenischs n KarlRadek.Zur Politikdes 4August', InternationaleWissenschaftlicheorrespon-denz,xiv (Dec. i9i), I-17.

7 Wehler,Bismarck ndderImperialismus,6.8 See H. Poggevon Strandmann,NationaleVer-

bandezwischenWeltpolitik ndKontinentalpolitik',

in H. Schotteliusand W. Deist (eds), Marnne ndManrnepolitikm kaiserlichenDeutschland 1871-1914

(Dizsseldorf, 972), 299-301; Wehler,Radikaldemo-kratischeGeschichtswissenschaft:ckartKehr', inKn'senherde des Kaiserreichs 1871-1918 (Gottingen,

1970), 259-0.







October 976 Defining social imperialism 267

Thus far Wehler's hinkingclearlyoverlapswith that of his Marxistpredecessors.

Throughsocialimperialismnergieswouldbe deflected romdisruptiveoppositionand

rechannellednto patrioticoutlets, thus leaving he statusquo comparativelyreefrom

attack.In the handsof astutepoliticians ike Bismarck nd laterBulowandTirpitz, ithas been argued,this was elevated nto a cynicalmanipulation.Nationalist entiments

were deliberately timulated o cut the groundfromthe feet of the oppositionandto

increasethe supportof the right-wing parties.9If this is an accurateexpositionof

Wehler'smainconcern, t isdifficultosustainhisdisclaimerofnterestntheworking-class

movement.The elaboration f policycannotbe divorced romtheproblemof its impactin societyon differentcategoriesof people f we are to evaluate t properly,andWehler

himself devotes much space to the social psychologywhich allegedlygenerated he

colonialenthusiasm.10 he significance f anysuggested socialimperialist alculation'mayonlybe gaugedbyacarefulanalysisof thepopular eceptionof imperialistdeology,its extentand mplications.Thesubstance fWehler's laims,afterall,isthat hefull-scaleexploitation f imperialist emands naneconomic risiswasabletodistractpeople romreformistpolitics, or at least to immunizethem against he latter'sattractions.At theveryleast, this impliesthe ability of the state to retain he loyaltyof peoplewhomight

otherwisehavegrowndisaffected.Yet despitethe strategic mportance f this ideaforthe reformingpotential or lackof it) of Wilhelmineocietyandfor thehistoricweaknessof democraticorces before1914, Wehler s surprisingly eticentabout the sociologyofthe imperialistdeain Germanpolitics.

There is no clearexposition, n otherwords,of socialimperialism'socialfunction,in the sense of the precise social groups it was intendedto mobilizeand actually

succeeded n mobilizing.The overalldirectionof Wehler's rgument theidentificationof social imperialismwith 'conservativepoliciesof diversionand constraint'aimedat

blocking'reformistaspirationsdangerous o the system ' - certainlyprovidessomegeneralclues. It is safe to assume,forinstance, hat he is thinkingofthosegroupswhoseinterestswere nadequatelyccommodatedy theexisting et-upratherhan hosewhoseinterestsweremoreorlesswellserved; hosegroups, hat s, withagrievancearge nough

to posea seriousthreatto thestatusquo- 'the emancipatoryorcesof liberalism r theorganized ocialist abourmovement', to use his own words.'2But even herethere ismuchambiguity.Weneedto knowpreciselywhich energies'wereto bediverted broad,those of workersdemanding he right to meet, speak,strikeandorganize,or those ofbourgeois iberalswhowanted ustthe concessionof limitedparliamentaryontrolsandthe ruleof law. Weneed to knowhow fardiscontentbecamearticulated oliticallybeforebeing assuaged n the way Wehlersuggests, and how far it was nipped in the bud by

material melioration. hesematters recrucial otheevaluation fWehler'swork.Before

9 Wehler,Bismarck ndderImperialismus,80-93,454-502; V. R. Berghahn, Der Tirpitz-Plan (Dussel-dorf,1971), 4-20; D. Stegmann,DieErben ismarcks(Cologne,1970), 05-12; P. Kennedy, GermanColo-nial Expansion. Has the Manipulated SocialImperialism eenante-dated?', astandPresent,IV

(1972), i34-4i; H. H. Herwig, The GermanNaval

Officer orps:A SocialandPoliticalHistory890o-9i8,(Oxford, 1973), i-A6.

10Wehler,BismarckndderImperalismus,1 -26,

454-502.11Wehler,Das DeutscheKaiserreich,73.12 Ibid.








we accept hat social mperialism ad the functionof 'slowingdownthe processofsocial

and politicalemancipation',we need to knowwhich forcesof change'were'diverted

outwards', and exactly how this happened in concrete social process. 3 As it stands, the

incompleteness f the analysis uggeststhe kernelof a critique.

The linesof this critiqueappearmoresharplywhenweconsider heseconddifference

betweenWehler'sdea of social imperialism ndthe earlierone. The latterpostulated

a processof calcificationn the constituentpartiesof the SecondInternational,esulting

in a definitiveretreat romrevolutionary erspectivesn favourof collaborationwithin

the given framework f capitalistsociety. It described he penetration f imperialist

ideologyntothe labourmovement'snner ancta, uggestinghat oyaltyo thenation-state

was the thin end of a wedgewhich prisedapart he revolutionaryonventions f Social

Democracy o reveala functioning eformistpracticebeneath.Heresocial imperialism

denotedthe substitutionof reformist or revolutionaryocialismand its simultaneous

convergencewith a regenerateeft liberalism.Wehler's rguments ave ittle to do with

this reformistcoalescence.His preoccupations re altogetherdifferent.They concern,

as suggested,the intentionsof policy-makersather hanthe impactof policyon the

ordinarypeople.But they alsoassume hat theentryof theimperialistdea ntodomestic

politicswas conservative y intent andeffect. He sees socialimperialism s a meansof

stabilizing he institutionsof Wilhelmine ocietyas they were, rather hana vehiclefor

'modernizing'and reforming hem. It was a meansof preventing eformsrather hanof preparinghe groundfor their introduction.

These remarkshould ndicate hatthesame erm- 'social mperialism' hasactually

concealed wo separatemeanings,which overlapat certainpointsbut whichalso differ

fundamentallyn theirapplication.One,theearlierMarxistdefinition,s mainlyameans

of explaining he weaknessof revolutionaryocialism n the workingclass;the other,

that more recentlyproposedby Wehler,the weaknessof liberalismn the bourgeoisie.

The first suggests that social imperialismregistered he triumphof reformand the

negationof revolutionas the dominant endencyof the working lass;the secondthat

it led to the negationof reformand the consolidation f conservative ositions n stateandsociety.Botharemeantasgeneraldescriptions f the political ystemsof theirday,

andboth claim ohavepinpointedheirdominant haracteristic. othareconcernedwith

the impactof the imperialistworldeconomyon thedomestic ife of the metropolis,and

bothclaimto haveelucidatedprinciplesof developmentwith a universal ignificance y

no means confinedto Germany.14Yet for the Marxistpioneersof the term, social

imperialismdescribedthe dissolutionof existing class fronts into a new and more

advanced ynthesis,in which socialstabilitywasboughtonlyat theexpenseof strategic

concessions o key groupsof the disaffected nd at the costof structural djustmentso

the political ystem.ForWehler,on the otherhand,social mperialismmeans hefurtherrigidificationf existingstructuresandthe perpetuation f a sterileconfrontation.

13 Wehler, IndustrialGrowthandEarlyGerman

Imperialism', n R. Owen and B. Sutcliffe (eds),

Studiesn theTheory f ImperialismI972), 89.14 Wehler,Bismarckndder mperialismus,12-26;

Wehier, 'IndustrialGrowth', go-i; Wehler, 'Der

amerikanischemperialismus or 1914', in W.J.Mommsen ed.), Der ModernempernalismusStutt-gart, i97i), 172-92.








The purpose of the following pages is to unravel this confusion of meanings. The more

recent formulation must be tested empirically by examining the popular resonance ofimperialist propagandamore concretely than has previously been the case. On the one

hand, an analysis is required which not only unravels the threads of official motivation,

but also investigates the actual effectiveness of social imperialist initiatives in socializing

dissident groups into the dominant political value-system. There is still no adequate

sociology of social imperialism in this sense, despite the idea's popularity, and our

knowledge remains rudimentary. On the other hand, existing worktends to oversimplify

the function of nationalismin political life by fudging over the conflicting purposeswhich

support for imperialism could be made to serve and the unpredictable character of

appeals to nationalist sentiments at the turn of the century. Further case studies areimportant, but our understanding will not be advanced unless the issue is also tackled

on the theoretical level. Here the intersection of meanings indicated above becomes of

paramount importance. For we cannot understand the particular forms of the social

imperialist nexus in Wilhelmine Germany - meaning here the general impact of the

imperialist economy on the political life of the metropolitan society'5 - unless we differ-

entiate within the underlying consensus between variantsof social imperialist strategy,

between competing attempts to link the acquisition of empire to domestic policy. The

nation-state in its imperialist guise was the inescapable context within which all political

action necessarily took place: it determined the range of possibilities against which theleft as much as the right were compelled to define their positions. To understand the

full complexity of this relationship, it will be argued, it is necessary to recover the

original meaning of social imperialism and to revise the terms of the discussion

accordingly.

The central issue may perhaps be recapitulated by the following illustration. On 30

April i898 Victor Schweinburg, a Berlin journalist with many friends in high places,

addressed a small meeting of businessmen, landowners and conservative politicians

convened for the foundation of the German Navy League. After a routine rehearsal of

the argumentsfor greaternavalarmaments, Schweinburg proceeded to discuss the largerimplications of an ongoing naval agitation in terms which corresponded almost exactly

to those described by Wehler. The crucial issue of the day, he argued, was the political

integration of the new industrial masses and their immunization against socialist ideas.

For this purpose the national idea was the state's greatest asset, and the agitation for

a big navy could play a key part in the nationalist recasting of the popularconsciousness.

The British Navy League could meanwhile stand as a shining example of just how much

could be achieved. Across the North Sea, Schweinburg claimed, the national idea could

register the ultimate achievement, for 'there even the social democrat is in the first

instance an Englishman'. The problem for German nationalists, he concluded, was howto reacha similarplane of national concord, and this was where the German Navy League

could make its contribution.16The problem for German historians is that by August I914

's See herethesatisfactoryeneral efinitionn G.Lichtheim,mperialismi'7i), io.

'6 Schweinburg'sddresswasprintedn full in the

confidentialStenographischerericht f the 30 AprilJ898 meeting. Copy in FurstlichWiedischeRent-kammer, Neuwied, WiedPapers.








the moral and political incorporation of the German working class had been achieved

in a novel and manifest way.The idea of social imperialism was originally offered in

explanation of this development. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the relevance of

the term'scurrent, ratherdifferentusage to an understandingof the same process, namely

the absorption of the left into a nationalist consensus which defused the militancy of its

opposition. 17

II

In assessing the popular impact of the conservative social imperialism described by

Wehler - the diversionary model where the attractions of empire were offered as a

surrogate for meaningful change of a socialist or liberalkind - the nationaleVerbanderean indispensable guide. With the officialpurpose of mobilizing popularsupport around

exclusive nationalist priorities, and in the absence of adequate electoral studies or

analyses of the informal penetrationof imperialist ideology through the educational and

cultural apparatuses, they provide by farthe best means of testing Wehler's thesis.18The

major examples may be quickly enumerated. The first chronologicallywas the Colonial

Society of I887, followed by the Pan-German League in i8gi.19 Then came the Society

for the Eastern Marches in I894, the Navy League in I898 and the Defence League in

I9I2. To them may be added organizations operating mainly in the cultural field, like

the Society for Germandom Abroad (founded in i88i as the General German SchoolSociety), the Patriotic Book League (I908), the Christian Book League (I88o), and

Friedrich Lange's German Union (i894); the state-sponsored Young Germany Union

launched in I9I I; the veterans'associations; the anti-socialist labour organizations,from

the Evangelical Workers'Associations to the company unions and the Imperial League

Against Social Democracy (1904). Despite prodigious literaryoutputs, most found it hard

to achieve an ongoing mobilizationof anymagnitude. The GermanUnion, with its mystic

17 For reasonsof spacethe analysisconcentrates

mainlyon establishinghe deficiencies f thecurrent

definitionof socialimperialism y examiningambi-guitiesof theoryandevidence.Although havebeen

unable o devotesimilarattentiono theproblems f

applying he oldermeaning n this paper,I intend

to return o the problemn the future: hefollowing

critiqueshouldbe seen as clearing he groundfor

furtheranalysis. havegiventheproblem f a refor-

mist socialimperialismomepreliminaryonsidera-

tion n' Sammlungspolitik,ocial mperialismnd he

NavyLawof 1898',Militargeschichtlicheitteilungen,

I (1974), 33-48,and nacontributionotheforthcom-

ing Festschriftfor G. W. F. Hallgarten,Imperial-

ismusm20. Jahrhundert.18 Therewerefiveelectionsnwhichnationalistr

imperialistssuesarecommonlyheldto haveplayed

a dominant ole:1884,887, 1893,898andi9o7. With

the partial xceptionof igo7,none of these nstances

hasbeen subject o empiricalnvestigation. his is a

serious acuna, orwhereasBismarck'sntentions re

relatively learin I884, for instance,we arestill ig-

norant f the popular esponseo thecolonialssueat

thelevelof the constituencies.Myresearchesor

x898suggestthatthere are seriousdiscrepanciesetween

whathistoriansssumewere hemajorssuesandwhat

actually happenedduring the campaigning.The

problemof the transmissionf the dominant alues

through he educational ndculturalapparatus nd

the degreeof efficiencywith which potentialdissi-

dentsweresocializednto heprevailingystemseven

moreof a closedbook.19 TheColonial ocietywasan uneasyunionoftwo

earlier roups, heColonialAssociation1882) nd he

Society for GermanColonization(I884), andthe Pan-

German League (originallythe GeneralGermanLeague)was n effecta regroupingf the latter.For

basicdetailon theseand he otherorganizations en-

tioned,seethe relevantntriesnD. Fricke ed.),Die

BurgerlichenarteiennDeutschland83o-I945, VOIS

(Leipzig, 1f-70).







October i976 Defining social imperialism 27I

commitment to racial preservationand national solidarity, was undoubtedly the smallest:

by I9I3 it had fifty-four branches with I,ooo members.20The Pan-Germans stabilizedat around 20,000; the Colonial Society around 4o,ooo. The Society for the Eastern

Marcheshad s4,ooo by 19I4, and between ig9o and I915 the Societyfor Germandom

Abroad expanded from 45,000 to 57,000. Some of these organizations were merely

propaganda centres with no interest in accumulating members, and others like the

veterans' associationshad a recreationaland 'club' characterwhich drasticallydiminishes

the significance of their massive membership.21

In this respect the Navy League was in a classof its own. By I9I4it had33I ,ooofee-paying

members with an additional 776,ooo in corporately affiliated organizations.22Far more

than the colonial issue, the appeal of the navy was successfully anchored in a genuinemass movement. The Navy League kept a fully staffed central office and a regional

apparatusstretching to all corners of the land at the most parochial level. It published

a monthly journal, an irregularpress-sheet, agitational handbooks, hints for careers at

sea, a guide to the seaside, a range of naval posters and postcards, and diagrammatic

presentations of Germany's relative naval strength in pamphlet, leaflet and poster form.

It organized naval exhibitions and school trips to view the fleet. It possessed a large

collection of slides, installed slot-machines with moving pictures on railway stations,

organized travelling film shows, and ran a list of some 250 speakers. To maximize the

pressure for naval legislation it would lobby the parties, deluge the press with articles,organize petitions and issue leaflets by the million. For long periods after i897 the navy

tended to dominate political debate and conservative nationalists - not surprisingly

perhaps in view of its size - placed exaggerated hopes in the naval movement's political

potential, its 'power to unite the nation'.23 For General August Keim it was 'the

National Organization we need so bitterly in Germany', and such statements are easily

duplicated.24As one newspaper article put it, 'there was no other great national goal so

well-suited for getting rid of all party quarrelling' 25

Here, it might be thought, is a classic illustration of the Wehler thesis, for the

diversionary model of social imperialism appears to fit the Navy League's self-imageextremely well. Its fundamental aim was to mobilize the masses,specially the industrial

workers, and it was here, until the winter of I905-6, that the main weight of the

U. Lohalm,VolkischeradikalismusHamburg,

97o), 34 (note 13).

21 Thispoint, concerninghe qualityofexperience

offeredby the so-called nationaleVerbdinde,s generally

neglected.For a typicalexample, ee K. Saul,'Der

Deutsche Kriegerbund. Zur innenpolitischen

Funktioneines nationalen Verbandesm kaiser-

lichen Deutschland',Militdirgeschichtlicheitteilun-

gen, 11(1969), 95-160.22The following details are compiled from a

number f sources e.g. annual eports, tatementso

annual meetings, etc.), and can be verified by

reference o my unpublished hesis: 'The German

NavyLeague n GermanPolitics,1898-1914' (Sussex

PhD, i974)23Memo by Hollweg or the Propaganda ection

of the Navy Office, early 1902: 'Ergebnisse der Erfah-

rungen 1900i0goi', Bundesarchiv-Militiirarchiv sub-

sequentlyBA-MA),F.2284, 94272.

24 Statement o the GeneralBoard, Munich,27

March1903, cited by A. Wulf, 'DeutscherFlotten-verein', n DieBurgerlichenarteien,,

44o.Keimwas

the dominantpersonalityn the Navy League's xe-cutivebetween 90I andiqo8,representingheradicalnationalistendency.

25 Weimarischeeitung, 8 July 1902: 'PatrioticOrganizations'.For furtherillustration, ee Eley,'GermanNavy League',192-200.








organizationaleffort was placed.26Yet the evidence reveals a wide discrepancybetween

ideal and reality. Populist rhetoric notwithstanding, the Navy League apparently con-

formed to the normal pattern of the nationalist pressure groups in the recruitment of

its leadership. On the first executive sat a leading political journalist, a retired general,

a banker, heavy industry's leading functionary, a technical adviser to the shipbuilding

industry, the effective leader of the Free Conservative Party, and two princes.27This

underwent little change: of 26 executive members between I900 and I908, io were

big-businessmen, 5 landed aristocrats, 2 admirals, 7 ex-army officers, i a professor and

I a retired civil servant.28 Activists were typically older men of independent means:

retired officers, a few landowners, successful businessmen and professional men able to

organize their own time, resident in Berlin, 'hungry for action' with 'a genuine mania

to get involved .29 In practice these were the men who shouldered the organization.The

regional leadership reflected exactly that at the centre: in the Rhineland, which set the

patternfor regional foundations, the inauguralconference was attended by 24 of the senior

provincial bureaucracy, 4 senior churchmen, 23 of the leading businessmen and I3 big

landowners.30Further down, the leadership devolved onto a succession of local elites:

industrialists, bankers, senior government officers and successful professional men in the

cities; lower officials, the professions and the commercial petty bourgeoisie of hoteliers

and small businessmen in the towns; local and district officials, landowners and village

notables (teachers, priests, tradesmen) in the countryside.31On this evidence the Navy

League was imprisoned by the conventional structure of the Honoratioren-Verein the

'society of notables' - it was pledged to transcend.2

Although the naval movement considered 'the enlightenment of the workers' the

'special task of the organization', there is little evidence of a significant working-class

presence.33Among 9,ooo local representativesin 19I2 there were only twenty-six workers,

or 0-2 per cent of the total. They were nearlyall railwaymen,and the only 'factory-worker'

26 See, for instance,Schweinburg'somments othe foundationmeeting,30 April 1898,Stenographis-

cher Bericht, o, FurstlichWiedischeRentkammer,Neuwied, Wied Papers; Erwin von Bressensdorf's

statement o the GeneralMeeting,12 January 900,

Die Flotte(Jan. I9oo), 15; circular to the membership,

Octoberigoo, StaatsarchivMunster,Kr. Steinfurt,Landratsamt, 54; circular,October 1904,BA-MA,

F.2276, 94229; circular, 6 December 911, BA-MA,

F.2277, 94231; address by von Spies to the Munich

branch, 17 June 1907, AugsburgerAbendzeitung i8

June 1907).

27 They were, respectively,Victor Schweinburg,

Lieutenant-Generalriedrich onDincklage-Campe,Robertvon Mendelssohn,Henry Axel Bueck,CarlBusley,OktavioFreiherr on Zedlitzund Neukirch,Alexander Erbprinzzu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurstand Furst Wilhelm u Wied.

w The officerswerealsolandowners,ust as some

of the businessmen ad titles. Fora detailedbreak-down, see Eley, 'GermanNavyLeague',ioo-6.

29 Lerchenfeldo Podewils, l December 9o7, andSternto the Navy LeaguePresident, 3 April1907,

Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv,I, Gesandschaft

Berlin,I158.30 Fordetails f thisandother egionaloundations,

see Eley, 'German Navy League', 123-30.31 Ibid.130-532 See, for instance,Eduardvon Liebert's tate-

ment to the GeneralBoard,2 December1905: Wemust nfluencehe Volk, hegreatmasses, ndnot usttheintelligentsia, hosometimes on'tevenbother ovote in elections' (BA-MA,

F.2277,94234, Verhand-

lungen, ). For furtherdiscussion f this point, seeEley, 'GermanNavy League', 173-5,236-51, 253--9

3 Addressby von Spies to the Munichbranch,17

June 1907, AugsburgerAbendzeitung i8 June 1907).







October976 Defining social imperialism 273

was listed for the village of Reudnitz in Reuss a. L.34 Industrial workers were badly

under-representedin the ordinary membership, whereassmall businessmen, independentcraftsmen, shopkeepers and petty producerswere disproportionatelyprominent, as were

teachersand other professional groups. In asampleof six branchesin northernWestphalia

between Munster and Osnabruckthe working-class membership was negligible; only in

Ochtrup were there any factory workers or labourers, comprising some io per cent of

235 members in I9oo. Otherwise members came from the strata known collectively as

the petty bourgeoisie: hoteliers, bakers, tailors, watchmakers, cobblers, bookbinders,

barbers, clerks, chimney-sweeps, policemen and so on.35 Evidence for industrial centres

points in a similar direction: a list for Sulzbach in the Saar reveals only one worker, a

miner, in a total of fifty-five.36Agitators often complained of indifference amongst the

common people, particularly the 'real factory-workers', as one of the most energetic

recorded.37 When some success was achieved it normally involved workers who were

notoriously vulnerable to intimidation: state employees, those in industries where

paternalism and the black-list were especially well organized, and those in plants with

a strong company union.

State employees were a vital area of recruitment. In Versmold the only worker in 6i

members was a postman, and the iS in the 75 at Rheine consisted of engine-drivers and

stokers.- For a time the Navy League ran a special railwaymen's section: by its

dissolution in I90I it had 135 branches and 6,5oo members.39In the campaign for the

Second Navy Bill masses of postmen, telegraphistsand railwaymenwere dragooned into

membership by the state bureaucracy.4'This occurred at a time of systematic intimida-

tion. The attempt to launch an SPD railway union in I896 was met with massive

victimization and after i9oo railwaymen were increasingly pressed into state-sponsored

associations.41 The 200,000 Prussian postal workerswere subject to similar intimidation

34This is basedon an exhaustive ccupationalna-lysis of the complete ist of localofficersntheofficial

Navy LeagueHandbuchor 1912, copy in Bundes-

archivCoblenz subsequentlyBA), ZSg 1, 195/2. Formoredetail,seeEley, GermanNavy League',13o-3.35 The six brancheswere:Borghorst,Emsdetten,

Ochtrup,Rheine,Versmold ndWettringen. eethelists in Niedersachsischestaatsarchiv etmold,M 2

Halle,Amt Versmold,67and StaatsarchivMunster,Kr. Steinfurt,Landratsamt,54.

Membership ist, LandesarchivSaarbrucken,

Depositumulzbach.37 Rassow o Hollmann,3 June i897,BA-MA,F.

3136, II 2 1 4d. Rassow'scommentconcerned heEvangelicalWorkers'Association,with which the

Navy Leaguehad a close relationship.For similarcomplaints, see Eley, 'German Navy League', 139-41.

3' Membershipist, Niedersachsischestaatsarchiv

Detmold,M 2 Halle,AmtVersmold,67.31 Jahresbericht901, BA, ZSg 1, 195/2.

4 For examples f coercion, eedetailed eportsn

Freisinnige eitung,15November 899,26 November

i899, 8 December i899. Over700,000 copies of a leaflet

calledArbeiterndFlotteweredistributed ythe Rail-

way Committee n four daysin February goo. Fordetails, see the reportof Sewerin,Chairman f theCommittee, o theNavyLeagueChairman,9MarchIo00, Furstlich WiedischeRentkammer,Neuwied,WiedPapers.

4' Localmanagement as encouragedrom 897 oshieldbothworkers ndclerks gainstocialist ecruit-ment, and a more intensive campaignbegan in 1902-3.

In Februaryqo4 he Prussian-HessentateRailwayshad organized i7o,ooo of their employees into 267

branches, by March 1905 310,i66 into 564,and by 1913

515,000 into 8oo. It employed a totalof 2I2,0ooworkers

and 133,400clerks by igoo, and in the whole of Ger-many there were over 750,000 workersand clerks by

1914. See K. Saul, 'Der Staat und die Machtedes

Umrsturzes ', rchivur Sozialgeschichte,ii (1972),

317-31.








aftermid- 897,aswere orestryworkers ndstateminers.42he experiencewasduplicated

in the privatesector, where companyunions and 'patrioticworkers'associations' er-formed a similar coercive role. This was certainlytrue in Silesia, where industrial

paternalismwas deeply mplanted,and here the Navy League'sbranchorganization as

dominatedby managers, oremen,estate officialsand the allied localbureaucrats.43 n

I904 Otto Stern, a district judgein Beuthen,revivedthe flaggingbranchof Rudaby

winningthe supportof the Ballestremminingestate. In general, he navalmovement

was heavily dependenton organizationswhich alreadyclaimed some roots amongst

workers.Relationswith the EvangelicalWorkers'Associationswereespecially ruitful:

the national ederationwascorporately ffiliated nd its Chairman,LudwigWeber,was

an active member of the GeneralBoard.45HermannRassow,one of the movement'soutstandingpropagandists,worked hroughthe EvangelicalWorkers'Associationand

RoyalistAssociationof RailwayCraftsmen700 and200 members)n Elberfeld,and on

moving to Burgin I9OI directedhis effortsthrough he Workers'Association f Tack

& Co., a shoe factory,which broughtthe branchmoney, facilitiesand ioo factory

workers46

The mosttellingevidenceof the Navy League'simited mpacton workers s negative:

its failure o co-opt workers ntothe activecadredespitethe propagandistalue.47Only

a tiny minorityof brancheshadworkingmen on theircommittees,only twenty-sixout

of9,ooocommittee-menn I912.48 The Elberfeld ranch,with349membersn 1904, prideditself on its workamongthe commonpeoplebut saw fit to include none of the latter

on its committee, which comprisednine businessmen,the Mayorand two senior

officials, woteachers,a bankofficial,andHenryBoettinger,heNationalLiberaldeputy

and directorof Bayer.49n 1912 there was no workeramongst he localcommittee-men

in Westphalia,and with the exceptionof a minerin I90I there was none amongst he

local delegatesto annual provincialconferences.' No manualworker,even a skilled

artisan,ever attendeda nationalnavalcongress.Amongst238voluntaryecturers here

42 J. C. G. Roehl, Germany Without Bismarck

(1967), 257.43 See, forinstance,EineAbrechnungitdenFurst-

lich Pless'schenGrubenverwaltungeniederschlesiens.Zur Aufklarungur Reichstags-ndLandtagsabgeord-

neten,Behorden,BurgerundArbeiterWaldenburg,

I911), For massivedetail,K. Saul, Staat,Industrie,

ArbeiterbewegungmKaiserreich. ur Innen-undSo-zialpolitik des WilhelminischenDeutschland1903-I914

(Dusseldorf, 1974), 51-187.

44 Sternto NavyLeaguePresident,4 April 9o7,

BayrischesHauptstaatsarchiv,i, Gesandschafterlin,

58.45 Eley, 'German Navy League', 139, i42. For

Weber, ee A. Bohmer,PfarrerDr LudwigWeber',BeitrageurHeimatkundeerStadtSchwelm ndhrer

Umgebung Schwelm, i96i), 77-89.

46For details of Rassow's activities,see Eley,

'Germnan avyLeague', 138-40, 172-3.

4 This was fully appreciated y the leadership,

which madeseveral ttemptso getworkers ndarti-sans on to localcommittees.See, for instance, hediscussion n the branch ommitteen Nuremberg ni6 October oo, Stadtarchiv uremberg,Vereine,9,

i: Protokolibuch.* See note 34 above.49 List in StadtarchivWuppertal, III, I91.

50In 1906he delegateso theprovincialonference

comprised wentybusinessmen,wo landowners,woofficers, hree seniorofficials, ighteen eachersand

two professors,a lawyer,an engineer,eight minor

officials, our clerks, wo foremenand a brickmaker.In 1913, when there were a hundreddelegates, hepicturewas the same. See the lists of delegates n

StaatsarchivMunster,Kr.Steinfurt, andratsamt,54(i i January 1901); Niedersachsisches Staatsarchiv

Detmold, M 2 Halle, Amt Versmold,867 (30 June

1906);and BA-MA,F.2275, WZ245 July 1913).







October976 Definingsocialimperialism 275

was no single workman.5' Fixed notions of social value underlaythis situation. Thus the

leader of the Duisburg branch, who insisted that the Navy League must 'penetrate intothe broadest masses of the people', could in the next breath argue that the branch

committee should 'come from the best quarters of town, be well-liked in society, and

where possible should have acquired a privileged position through amiability and excel-

lence in their profession'. 2 His stricture seems generally to have been followed. The

branch of Stadtilm near Rudolstadt displayed the characteristic sociology of the naval

movement: it was chaired by the Mayor, and its seventeen members included 'the

complete notables, from the assistant judge, the district judge, the court clerk, the most

important businessmen, the district physician, various factory-managers,right down to

the chimney-sweep'.53

The insignificanceof the working-classpresencein the Navy League becomes especially

obvious when we consider what membership actually meant in terms of political commit-

ment. The organization's impact on ordinary social life was extraordinarilylimited. At

the national centre it was clearly a permanent feature of the political system. But locally

its impact was more sparse. The Nuremberg branch, a large one with I,o00 members,

affords a useful insight into the general level of activity. In I900, the foundation year,

it met nine times, but by I90I this had sunk to five, and until I908 meetings of all

descriptions rarely exceeded four.54 The lecture meeting was the principal vehicle of

agitation, invariably institutionalized as a special celebrationwith slide-shows, songs and

late-night dancing.55In Nuremberg there were two such meetings in I900, one in each

of the next two years, and two in I903; the national agitation pushed this up to three

in I904 and I905, but by i9o6 it was again down to a single meeting. Even the most

vigorous branches struggled to exceed this performance.56Participation in organized

activity was an occasional experience. The ordinarymember would receive the monthly

journal and attend the odd lecture. If lucky he might see a film-show. He might also

use the slot-machine on the station and would almost certainly notice the so-called

'Rassow-Tables' in the booking-hall or his doctor's surgery.57During special campaigns

5' Jahresbericht 904, BA, ZSg 1, 195/2.

52 RichardCarstanjen, Duisburg ndustrialistn

his pamphlet,Erfahrungenber ieBildunginerOrts-

gruppe neinergrosserenabrikstadtBerlin,1904).

53Gerhard to Class, 2 February I909, Deutsches

ZentralarchivotsdamsubsequentlyDZA), Aildeut-scherVerband,93.

54 This is based on an analysisof the branch'sminute-book. wo explanatoryotesareapposite:he

high numberof meetings n igooresulted romthe

special dministrativeequirementsf thefoundation;

and n i9o8the number ose harply ue o the nternalcrisisof the Navy League.See StadtarchivNurem-

berg, Vereine,9, 1: Protokollbuch.55For typicalexamples ee the reportsof branch

meetingsn Weimar,Weimarischeeitung,oJanuaryand 6 June 1905.

56 In 1904 the Weimarbranch, one of the main

centres of activism n the Navy League,held onlythreemeetings:aconcert, he annual eneralmeetingand a lectureeveningaddressed y EduardvonLie-berton 'The Influence f SeaPowerontheDevelop-ment of a Nation's Strength'. See WeimarischeZeitung, i6 February,14Mayand 9 November 904.

In 1905there were still only two lecture meetings,ibid., 6 June and 15December1905.These remarksarebasedon anexhaustive urveyof the WeimarischeZeitung.

57 The 'Rassow-Tables'were representations fGermany'srelative naval strengthin poster form,compiledby HermannRassow.Theywerealsoavail-able as leaflets and as part of a more substantialpamphlet.In I905, Soo,ooo opiesof the pamphletwere producedunder he title Deutschlandseemacht








he might read a few leaflets. If rich he might join a trip to view the fleet, and woulddoubtless buy the organization's andbooks,postcards,postersand emblems. But in

general these acts made few demands on an individual's ime, intellect or politicalengagement.Quitethe contrary, or the movement's onstitutional bligation o preserve

party-political eutrality avoured built-in endency or branches o takerefuge n lavish

social events with minimal political content. The following complaintwas probably

typical: . . . nothingas happened or ten fullyearsapart rom the worthless ilm-shows

for the children'.58

In itself, to join the Navy League was not a significantpolitical act. When the

movement was getting off the ground it was an almost routine acknowledgement of

existing oyaltiesat a timewhenthe political onjuncture the uncertain assage f naval

legislation - required their public affirmation. When the membership drive occurred

beneath the auspices of the state amidst criticism from the centre and the left the appeal

to conservative loyalties was even stronger. The early membership was actuated less by

burning commitment to some social imperialist model of popular mobilization thanfrom

a broad patriotic obligation to an enterprise legitimated by the Kaiser's blessing and the

SPD's hostility. In Pomerania, for example, the 'provincial chief called fifty men

together and asked them to sign a manifesto. These men regarded themselves as a

committee ... and formed a provincial executive which enlarged itself by co-option. The

district officials and mayors were asked to form local committees.'59 The process was

repeated throughout the country.60Prospective committee-men came from a select circle

of businessmen, landowners and other dignitaries 'qualified by their social position to

undertake a certain role of leadership'.61 One meeting to form a branch in Crefeld

consisted of farmers convened by the district official,another in Schwelm attracted some

thirty representatives of 'the first ranks of society, from postmasterto lieutenant of the

reserve, foreign consuls, factory-owners, senior teachers and so on'. 2 Such people made

little contribution to the movement's active life, lending only the prestige of their names,

a larger subscription and perhaps some extra facilities like office space and clerical

personnel.63Their patronagewas often transparentlyselfish. The Navy League presented

annual rolls of honour for the Kaiser'sdecoration, and inclusion was often a reward for

services rendered. The Berlin tycoon Friedlander offered to assume the organization's

entire financial responsibility if this brought ennoblement in return.C

(Berlin,1905) nd his wasexcerptedntotwoleaflets,in editions of 470,ooo and 516,ooo. For a description

of Rassow'sassiduity in distributing opiesof hisposter around he town, see his report o the NavyOffice 5 November i1oi, BA-MA, F.2257, 94136.

58 Erdmann to Boy-Ed, 7 April I9o8 (concerning

the branch at Weissenfels), BA-MA, F.2259, 94147.

Descriptionby Hagen, a seniorofficial n thePomeranian rovincial dministration,o the NavyLeague'sGeneralBoard, 8 February 902, BA-MA,F.2276, 942z8, Verhandlungen,4.

60 For details,see Eley, 'GermanNavy League',123-7.

81 Report by the district official in Melsingen

(Rhineland),15 November1898,HessischesStaats-archivMarburg, 50,650.

62 Freisinnige eitung, 6 and 23 December 899.63 Thus the Essenbranchwas based n the offices

of the Essener Credit-Anstalt, ts administrativeofficerwas an officialof the bank and its honorarychairman he bank'shead.

64 Undatednote by Wied,summer 1oo, FurstlichWiedischeRentkammer, euwied, WiedPapers.FortheNavyLeague's nnualhonours ist,seethegeneralmaterial n BA-MA, F.2312, 94423. For a cynicalcommenton this type of motivation, ee H. Class,Widerden Strom (Leipzig, 1932), 83.








Prevailing social norms accordingly brought large numbers of the upper strata into

the new organization. But as an occasional institution capable only of spasmodic publicactivity it was hardly a decisive focus for the political aspirationsof the membership in

general: lying outside the everyday practice of economic and political struggle it was

necessarily somewhat tangential to the main concerns of businessman and worker,

landlord and peasant, merchant and Mittelstandleralike. This is a vital point, for the

nationale Verbandeperformed quite different functions from the other mass movements

of the time. They were firmly rooted in neither material not cultural production.

Organizationslike the trade unions or the economic defence leagues of the peasantryand

Mittelstandwere located at the very heart of their members' social existence, with a

variegated practice closely attuned to their social needs, from organized protection bystrike and boycott to the formation of co-operatives, the provision of insurance, the

organization of opinion through an independent press, and the general arrangementof

leisure. Culturally they interlocked with political movements: the SPD and the centre

each intervened in the educational and recreationallives of their membership through

music, song and sport, evening classes, and not least through the effective control of ale

houses. For the non-Catholic peasantry and Mittelstand here were choral and athletics

clubs, veterans' associations and eventually the Young Germany Union. A similareffect

of greater political ambiguity may be glimpsed in the activities of the Wandervogel nd

of the Pan-Germans in areasof embattled Germandom. All were an organic part of theirmembers' lives, deeply embedded in the social fabric of their daily existence.

The same cannot be said of pressure groups like the Navy League or the Colonial

Society, which rarely impinged directly on the ordinary affairsof their membership: once

a month with the arrival of the journal, half a dozen times a yearwith an organizedevent.

This was partly because they were single-issue pressure groups, but even where they

pooled resources in informal local cartels, as in Lubeck, they still remained an occasional

discussion circle borne by the local oligarchy and its hangers-on.65To breakthis barrier

something like the continuous interventions of the Imperial League Against Social

Democracy was necessary, with its more systematic penetration of the working class, itssponsorship of patriotic fronts on socio-economic matters, its speakers'schools and its

labour secretariats. Otherwise they would go on drawing their support from a class

whose solidarityrequiredlittle formal organizationbut arosenaturallyfrom the conditions

of abundance to which it was accustomed, moulded by common possession of power,

wealthand culturalprivilege.The nationalist ressure roupswerejust one of thepoints

aroundwhich this underlying class unity was able to crystallize. They reinforced the more

pompous symbolism of patriotic occasions like Sedan Day, the Bismarck Festivals or the

5The so-called 'German evenings' were in-

auguratedn Lubeck n i8q2and weresupportedbythe ColonialSociety, the Pan-Germans, he NavyLeague, the EvangelicalUnion and the Society forGermandom broad.Similar rrangementsxisted nBarmen,Dortmund,Dresden,Kassel,Magdeburg,Mainz, Potsdamand Stuttgart. See Der Deutsche

AbendnLiibeckn denersten ehnJahren einesBeste-

hens Lubeck,1902).

ImFor nformationoncerningheImperialLeague

AgainstSocial DemocracyI am gratefulto Fred

Taylor,who is preparing thesison thesubject.See

also Saul, Staat, Industrie, Arbeiterbewegung,

115-87.








Kaiser's Birthday.67 The Navy League was far less exclusive than most of its sister

organizations, but it remains to be demonstrated that the subaltern groups in itsmembership introduced any effective plebeian element into its make-up.

These observations are crucial to the argument. They suggest some vital modifications

to the model of social imperialist mobilization currently accepted by most Wilhelmine

historians. There is no doubt that the Navy League was one embodiment of an attempt

to demonstrate the overriding economic and cultural value of empire and thereby to bind

to the 'status quo' the subordinate classes of Wilhemine Germany: the peasantry, the

Mittelstand,and especially the industrial proletariat. But the efficacy of this offensive,

contraryto received assumptions, seems to have been very limited. The ruralpopulation

apparently remained largely indifferent to the attractions of Weltpolitik,and the samemay also have been true of parts of the urban Mittelstand.68Workers were heavily

under-represented in the membership and played little part in the movement. Craftsmen

had a proportionately larger presence, but again had little visible impact. Moreover,

because of a public activity necessarily confined to desultory and fitful interventions, it

probably made little constructive contribution to the mental formation of the mass of

the membership whatevertheir social origin. The political consciousness of the bourgeois

strata from which this was recruited was formed elsewhere, in family, school, church,

army and navy, university, professional life, and in negative definition against the

uncomfortable pressures exerted by the subordinate classes. Here the general effect of

the Navy League's activities was reinforcingand affirmativeratherthan constructiveand

formative in its own right. It was perhaps to this extent an effect ratherthan a cause,

a vehicle for the elaboration of views and the confirmationof loyalties formed elsewhere,

but which were doubtless hardened or modified in the process.

To identify the real contribution of the naval movement to the political life of the

Kaiserreich we must turn to a very specific group of highly conscious politicians

comprising a small minority of the overall membership: those who shouldered the real

burdens of agitation by filling the key posts and by throwing themselves wholeheartedly

into the minutiae of propaganda in the localities, the genuine activists who attended

congresses, gave lectures, wrote pamphlets and lobbied the parties. In other words, we

must examine not so much the general level of commitment as the particularengagement

of those who wished to exploit the opportunitiesof the nationale Verbandeor some more

concrete purpose. These were invariably men who gave their whole time to the cause,

supporting themselves from a salary provided by the organizationitself or the proceeds

of a multifarious journalist activity. They might also have a pension or a successful

67 See K. Stenkewitz,GegenBajonettund Divi-dende.Diepolitische risenDeutschlandmVorabend

des ersten Weltkrieges (Berlin, 1960), 77--5; K.Retzlaw, Spartakus:AufstiegundNiedergang. rin-nerungen ines ParteiarbeitersFrankfurt, 197 ), 15(for

the socialfunctionof suchannual itesin Schneide-miihl, a small East Prussiangarrisontown); N.Birnbaum, Monarchs nd Sociologists:A Replyto

ProfessorShils and Mr Young', Towarda CriticalSociologyOxford,1971), 708. This isnottosay hat

such occasionscouldnot be used for morepositivepolitical tatements,merely hattherewas nothingnthe occasiontselfwhichnecessarily eterminedhis.

' See E. Bohm, Uberseehandelnd Flottenbau(Dusseldorf, 972), 183-263;R. Gellately,ThePoliticsof Economic espair1974), 2, 96.







OctoberI976 Defining social imperialism 279

business.A newtypeof political unctionary, heymovedeasilybetweenorganizations.

AugustKeim, AlbertBovenschen,FriedrichHopf,LudwigSchaperandthemysteriousDr Gerhardall, in their differentways,typified hismilieu.69t wasin cases ikethese,

where energycombinedwith a coherent deologyof the PrimatdesNationalen,hat the

movementthreatened o achievea larger mpact.70Throwntogether argelyby their

experience n the Navy League itself, they came to form a radicalnationalistphalanx

united by impatiencewith the tempo of official naval policy and contemptfor the

political partieswhich obstructed ts acceleration.After a bitter crisis in I908 these

elements usedwith thePan-Germans,whodisplayed nanalogousommitment,o form

the kernel of a so-called nationalopposition'to the rightof the governmentand its

natural llies. So whilsttheNavy Leaguehadperhapsittleresponsibilityorcommittingpeopleto right-wingpositions n the firstplace,still less forwinningthem awayfrom

left-wingones, its partwas crucial n deciding which particularendency of the right

they choseto support.This caststhe acceptedmodelof social mperialismnto anironic

light: for rather than consolidating he politicalauthorityof the hegemonicbloc of

industryand agriculture s Wilhelminehistoriansmaintain, he navalmovement eems

to havecomplicatedhatprocess,evento havedisruptedt, bystimulating moreradical

form of conservatismwhichcouldnot be accommodatedo the old style of practice.

III

On this evidence the politicaluniformityof the socialimperialist alculationhasbeen

badlyexaggerated.The basic aim of using an imperialistprogramme o achievethe

political ntegration f the industrialmasseswascertainly ommongroundof a sort.But

there weredifferentwaysof approachinghis project.The clearestdivisionwasstated

6 Keim'scareerwas chequered:on leavingtheNavyLeague n 1908he entered he executiveof the

Pan-German eagueandlaunched hreeneworgani-zations: the Patriotic Book League, the GermanYouth League and the General GermanWritingAssociation. n I909 he became provincialhairmanof the ImperialAnti-Ultramontaneeague and in1912 launched he DefenceLeague.BovenschenwasappointedGeneralSecretaryof the Society for theEasternMarchesn 1898 ndin 1904 ookup thesamepost in the ImperialLeagueAgainstSocialDemo-cracy.Hopf wasamember fboththeNavyLeague'sGeneralBoardand the Pan-German xecutive. Heco-operatedwith the NationalLiberalgroupin the

DresdenCityCouncil,and n i9o7formed 'NationalLeague toco-ordinateationalistgitationnthearea.Schaper, a formerNationalLiberal unctionarynBochum,becameSecretaryof the HamburgEcon-omic Defence Leagueand then Chairmanof theUnionof PatrioticWorkers' ssociationsn 1907.He

left in 1908,becoming uccessively n officialof theImperialLeagueAgainstSocialDemocracy nd the

editorofaFreeConservativeeeklyn Kiel. Gerhardwas a salariedofficial n the Navy League'sCentralOfficeuntil 1908,when he becameSecretary f thePan-GermanLeague.He workedfor the NationalLiberals in the i907 elections and in 1909 became a

provincial committee-member of the Anti-Ultramontane eague.

70 ThecaseofTheodorReismann-Gronesinstruc-tive: a founder of the Pan-GermanLeagueand asupporter f the NavyLeague'sradicalnationalists,hesuccessfully onvertedhe radicalnationalistom-mitmentnto a set ofprescriptionsorregular ctivity- by Pan-Germanpeaking ours,historyclasses orhis print workersand the infiltration f the EssenNationalAssociation, hecommonorganof the bour-geoispartiesn the town.Fordetailsofhiscareer, eeEley,'GermanNavyLeague',39-40, 234, 240, 254.







z8o Social History NO 3

in the introduction o this paper:between hoseaimingat the obstruction f reform nd

those trying o promote t.71Butthesedomesticpossibilities lsoprovoked contradictoryresponseeven within he ranksof the right. Thus for those who took theircue fromthe

government he strategywas double-edged: s well as reconciling he workingclass to

the system it would also smooth the differencesamong the non-Socialistparties. By

stressing he prioritiesof Weltpolitikhey hopedto entice the centreand the left liberals

out of their traditional pposition,not only on foreignaffairsbut on other matters ike

taxationand socialpolicyas well. If residualparticularistnd confessional ntagonisms

andactual ectionaldifferenceswere to be overcome,moreover, he nationalistrickhad

to be performedwithgreattact.72Yet the moreradical onservatives ad little time for

the conciliationist pproach his implied.On the contrary, hey demanded combativeattitudetowards he bourgeoiscriticsof the fleetandcolonies.Thus the effortsof the

right engenderedas much tension as solidarity n this areaof policy.73The historyof

their imperialistagitation was defined by the competitionof moderateand radical

tendencies,one cautiousof agitational xcesses and mindfulof the government's ip-

lomatic and parliamentary roblems, the other deliberatelyntolerantof them. This

tensionperiodically xploded nto full-blown ivalry: he foundation f the Pan-German

League n i89i marked ne of these explosions, he conflict n theNavy Leaguebetween

I904 and I908 was another.74

Takenas a whole the historyof the nationaleVerbandeuggestsa distinctivepatternof disruptiveright-wing ectarianism.Thus the colonialmovementwasalwayssubject

to internaldivisions,and after i89i the existenceof the Pan-Germansnstitutionalized

them. The scenariowas at its sharpest n the Navy League.Formed n I898 fromthe

nervous oalescence f separatenitiatives ndconvulsedbyasharp risiseighteenmonths

later, it was constantly he sceneof bitterdisputesbetween he radicalmajority ndtheir

moderate pponents; heyended n I908 onlywiththe withdrawalf themostpronounced

radicalnationalists,hopelessly lienated y the enforced entristmanoeuvringfgovern-

mentalconservatism, ndrapidlypropelled nto a coherentPan-German hilosophy f

opposition.75Thisdichotomy fconservative ationalisms onegovernmentalndelitist,the otheroppositionaland populist also appearedn the anti-governmentalgitation

of the AgrarianLeagueand the Anti-semites, houghhere it assumeda specialsectional

colorationbasedon the fearsof smallproducersnthe threatened grarianector.76 his

7' See note 17above.72 The typicalexponent f thisgovernmentaliew

was LuisFreiherr onWurtzburg Bavarianristo-

crat who dominatedthe Navy League'sBavarian

organizationndworked loselywiththeNavyOffice.

Fora detailed nalysis f hisposition, eeibid. 04-23.

73 Ibid. 224-53.

E. Hartwig, Zur Politikund Entwicklung es

AlldeutschenVerbandesvon seiner Grundungbis

zumBeginndesErstenWeltkrieges,891-1914' (PhD

thesis, Jena, i966), 6-z6; Eley, 'German Navy

League',26o-326.

Ibid. 224 ff., 318-26.

7 For the AgrarianLeague, see H.-J. Puhle,

Agrarischenteressenpolitikndpreussicheronserva-

tismusim wilhelminischenReich (Hanover, i966); for

the mostdetailed tudyof theAnti-semites,ee R. S.

Levy, TheDownfallof theAnti-SemiticartiesnIm-

perialGermanyNewHaven, 975); forsimilarmove-ments n the CentreParty,seeD. Blackbourn,The

PoliticalAlignmentf the CentrePartyn Wilhelmine

Germany:A Study of the Party's Emergence n

Nineteenth-CenturyWurttemberg',Historical our-nal, XVIII 4, (Dec. 195).







October 976 Defining social imperialism 28i

re-emphasizes the reductionism inherent in the present approachto social imperialism.

It suggests the political diversity which the latter engendered, nationalism's disruptive

as well as its integrative potential, its ability to divide as well as to unite the nation, even

within the limited spectrum of the right. The nationalist factorin German politics, though

linked in one particular form to intransigent resistance to democratic reform, cannot

therefore e characterizedas a stabilizing element in the political system. On the contrary,

it led to all sorts of conflicts within the right as to how far and in what ways the imperial

myth could be exploited as an integrative force.

The political import of the differences within the right was this: that any systematic

attempt to exploit the national idea as a rallying-point ran the risk of creating more

dissension than unity. For precisely this reason German governments were much more

reluctant to 'play the social imperialist card' after the I88os than recent historians give

them credit. The invariable consequence of official attempts to wave the imperialist flag

at the Socialists was an uproar of agitation to the right. This was demonstratedtime and

again before I914. The Pan-Germans- desultory collaboration with certain government

agencies notwithstanding - were notoriously disruptive, but the effect may also be seen

in the Navy League, usually taken as the classic instance of a new 'caesarism'. 7 The

radicals who controlled the organization after I9OI were always pitching their demands

in advance of the government. The result was a deteriorating official relationship with

the cadres of popular nationalism which produced an escalation of recurrent crises and

the crystallization of a strident 'national opposition' between I9o8 and I9II. Talk of

'plebiscitary dictatorship' in connexion with the Wilhelmine monarchy must be heavily

qualified, for the government was always constrained in the use of these techniques by

an inability to control the political forces they unleashed. Quite naturally it kept a

deliberately low profile in such matters.78The first major departure from this policy of

restraint, in the I907 elections, illustrated its good sense, for by stimulatingthe nationalist

right's inflamed expectations the government initiated a process of realignment which

ended with it being decisively outflanked on the right.

There is a further difficulty with the idea of the 'status quo' and the much-vaunted

desires of the 'ruling strata' to 'stabilize' it. Again, there is missing from current

discussion some recognition that these terms conceal a variety of divergent meanings.

It is instructive to remember what the status quo actually was before 1914. A minimum

definition would have to incorporate the following features: the small-German solution

to national unification; the peculiar constitutional compromise of Prussian-dominated

dynastic federalism; the partial implementation of mid-century liberalism's legal pro-

The Navy League s normallydescribed s thevehiclefor a popularmobilization ehind he'status

quo' to strengthen he monarchistentimentandtostabilizehegovernment's ositionbya newplebisci-tary mechanism.See Roehl, GermanyWithout is-marck, 254-5; Herwig,GermanNaval OfficerCorps,

7-8; Berghahn,Tirpitz-Plan, 227-30; M. Sturmer,'Bismarckstaatund Caesarismus',Der Staat, 12

(1973), 467-98. For a differentusage of the ideaofcaesarism, ee Q. Hoareand G. Nowell Smith(eds),

Selectionsrom hePrisonNotebooksf AntonioGramsci(I97I), 219-23.

78 The government'sool response o thepro-Boeragitation s a good exampleof this, as is the decisionto playdownthe naval ssue n the electionsof x898.








gramme,with limited guarantees or civil rights; universalsuffrageand embryonic

parliamentaryormsin the Reichand somestates;an economicclimateof protection,cartellizationnd ncreasingtate ntervention; ndcapitalist roductiveelationsntown

and country.Togetherthey comprisea socialandpolitical otalityvery different rom

that normallympliedby talkof a 'reactionaryPrussian-Germantate'. Few members

of the rightwishedto 'stabilize'this'statusquo'. Mostconservativeswereanxious hat

the actualconditionsbequeathedby the foundationof the Reichshouldbe modifiedor

even supersededaltogether.The compositedefinitionabove is of course itself, for

reasonsof emphasis, ncomplete.It must also incorporateeatures ike the survivalof

considerable nclavesof feudalprivilege n the military,administrativend fiscalap-

paratusof the state,the imperfectntegration f significant egionswithinthe newstatestructure,and the residual nfluenceof aristocratic alues. But the basicpoint is an

important ne: the actual tatusquoof WilhelmineGermanywas bothmoreambiguous

and less conservative than current thinking allows.79

It was reallymuchmore of a statusquoante o whichmostconservativesweredrawn

by the turnof the century,thoughone ideologically verlainwith the imaginedvirtues

of a mythicalpastutopia:the situation,that is, beforethe constitutionalormation f

the Reich,before he enforcedconcessions o the liberals,andin the mostextreme ases

before the onset of industrialization.But even here the formulaconcealsa greater

complexity.For example:once the focus shiftsfromthe morerecalcitrantectorsof thelanded interestto the industrialbaronsof the Ruhr, the Saaror Silesia, or to the

agitational adreof the nationaleVerbande,hen hostilityto the new urbancivilization

becomes more subtly mediated.Here the material onditionsof existenceno less than

the cultural uoyancywhichaccumulatednanepochofrapid conomic rowthprecluded

the anti-capitalist, ackward-lookingulturalnostalgiaof the agrarians r partsof the

Mittelstand.Acceptanceof the new environmentand its technology, he new forms of

economic ifeandthe newsocialrelationsmadesuch anti-modernisms existed n these

quartersa transparentntellectualuxury.80Middle-class onservatives roceededmore

easily from the given basis of Wilhelminesociety, but joined the agrariansn theirsuspicionof the Reichstag nd theemergingbourgeoisegality.The crucialpoint s this:

veryfew conservativesooktheir standunequivocally n the existingstatusquo. Most

demanded ar-reachinghanges n the newlyfashioned nstitutionalabricof the Reich

and differedmainlyover the extent to whichthe achievement f I871shouldbe wiped

out. Agrarians, ndustrialists,Mittelstandlernd pettybourgeois oundtheircommon

groundnot on the statusquoas then constituted,but on a programmef reconstruction

forgedfromhostilityto furtherdemocratic dvance.

The upshotof these generalcorrectivess to suggestthat like othercatch-phrasesf

recentcurrency ocialimperialismhas come to act as a substitute orgenuineanalysis'9 For a stimulating iscussion f the difficultiesf

the conceptof the 'status quo', see R. Waterhouse,'The Scapegoat. artre ntheConstitutionndEmbo-

dimentof Evil', RadicalPhilosophy, (Spring1974),

21-7.

Rathenau s the classic nstanceof this type of

thinking.For an acuteanalysis f its significance,eeR. Pascal,FromNaturalismo Expressionism.erman

Literaturend Society 8B6-iqs80973), 22-36.








rather than a critical tool. It has been loosely applied to many other forms of ideological

manipulation like antisemitism, anti-Polish agitation, or racism and social darwinism ingeneral. It has been assimilated too easily to an idea of 'secondary integration' which

attaches undue weight to the technique of diversion itself: the left hand displaying the

attractionsof foreign success, war, the Slav peril or the racialstruggle forexistence, while

the right maintainedan authoritarian ystem at home.81The search fora 'moralequivalent

to war' was certainly a powerful motif of conservative politics, but whether this merits

the description of social imperialism is another question. Diplomatic coups, dramatic

interventions and military aggrandisement have always been the stock in trade of

governments under domestic pressure.82The diversionaryaspect of social imperialism

- as Wehler says, a 'technique of rule' common to most periods and types of society83- has no necessary relation to imperialism as such and appears in any nationalism or

similar solidarist ideology. Thus while Plehve, the Russian Interior Minister before the

Japanese War, affirmedthe need for 'a short victorious war to stem the tide of revolution',

his colleagues talked of drowning the revolution in Jewish blood: neither sentiment

reflected any systematic calculation of an imperialist economy's political potential.84Such

quotations were a commonplace of political discourse then as now, and should not be

co-opted uncritically to verify an argument about the domestic feedback of imperialist

expansion. 'Diversionary techniques' were just one part of a larger structuralconfigura-

tion determined by the precise conjunctureof monopolization, political mobilization andimperialist expansion in the later i89os.

There is an important difference between the I8os and the subsequent period, in other

words, which current obsession with 'the primacy of social imperialism from Bismarck

to Hitler' tends to obscure.85Thus, although Wehlerunderstands the overdetermination

of the colonial question in the I88os by the dilemmas of the Great Depression, when

irregular growth and demographic upheaval led easily to talk of 'safety valves' and

'exporting the social question ', his successors have singularly failed to establish a similar

specificity for the social imperialism of the I89os and beyond. By I900 things have

changed. Most obviously, the end of the depression transformedthe context of politicaldiscussion, talk of crisis recedingbeforeasense of Germany'sgrowing powerin the world.

Moreover, in the i88os it had been assumed by most participantsin Wehler's'ideological

81 For some commentson the drawbacks f this

usage,see Poggevon Strandmann,NationaleVer-bande', 296-301.

82 See MaxWeber'smuch quoteddictum: Everysuccessfulmperialist olicyof forceabroad ormallystrengthens ikewise, at least initially,the domesticprestige nd consequentlyhe powerand nfluence f

those classes,castesand partiesunderwhose eader-shipthesuccesshasbeenobtained'.See WirtschaftndGesellsehaft Berlin, Cologne, i964), 673. At this level

theColdWar orthe USA in the 1950S,Arab ncircle-mentfor Israeland allegations f Tanzaniannvasion

for Uganda might all be regardedas examplesofa social imperialistmechanism. To define social

imperialismo generallyarguablydivestsit of realexplanatory alue. The phrase moralequivalent owar'comesfromWilliamJames's ssay of the samename, in Memories nd Studies New York, 1917),

267-306.83Wehler,Bismarck ndderImperialismus,15.84 S. Y. Witte, VospominaniyaLeningrad,924),

I, 239.

8 Wehler, Problemedes Imperialismus',Krisen-herdedes Kaiserreichs871-i918 (Gottingen,197o),131.Fora similar riticism, ee P. Steinbach'seviewof Berghahn,Tirpitz-Plan,Das Argument, xxxiv

('974), 151.








consensus', right and left, that once achieved regular growth would automatically

produce social and political stability. By the later i89os it was clear from labour's

continuing industrial and electoralsuccess that some moreelaboratepolitical intervention

was necessary to maximize the anticipated effects of economic improvement on the

popular mind. This produced a new type of propaganda and organization, for though

not exactly conducted behind closed doors the earlier debate had been mainly for the

political nation narrowly defined. There had been some autonomous controversy inside

the labour movement, but no systematic popular agitation, and even the future Pan-

Germans had been mainly concerned with the economics of colonial settlement.86Later,

by contrast, the shape of social imperialist intervention was necessarily affected by the

changing social context: growing internationalcompetition, the growth of monopoly and

the regulation of economic life by the state, a burgeoning cultural apparatus of books,

pamphlets, press and film, the expansion of the electorate, and the general mobilization

of the subordinate classes. Together this reflected a structuralchange in the capitalist

economy and its political institutions, which Wilhelmine historians have been struggling

to express through the concept of 'organized capitalism .87

The impact of these developments can be examined partly through the formation of

imperialist ideology and the nationalist mould in which this was cast. In advanced

capitalist societies, for instance, nationalism tends to provide the norms through which

power is universallyand publicly legitimated, becoming 'a nameforthe general condition

of the modern body politic, more like the climate of social and political thought than

just another doctrine'.88 But in a younger state like Germany at the turn of the century

the problems of exploiting a shared national tradition were clearly more complex. The

temporal proximity of unification and the acceleratedpace of Germaneconomic develop-

ment ensured the survival of strong particularist and confessional loyalties. The new

empire's heritage was still seriously disputed. The officialdoctrine of dynastic continuity

and the harsherrealityof greaterPrussianaggrandisementbehind it had to compete with

several passionately defended pedigrees, from Bavarian and other particularismsto the

biologically founded racism of the Anti-semites and their agrarian allies, the highly

intellectualized ethnic populism of the Pan-Germans,and the old republicanismof South

German democracy, merging imperceptibly into the democraticpatriotismof the SPD.89

Consequently, the agencies of civil society normally so important for the propagation

of a 'national view' - the press, the schools, youth groups, veterans' associations, the

86 Wehler, Bismarckndder mperialismus,27-93;

H.-C. Schrbder,Sozialismusnd mperialismusHan-

over,i966),125-36;H. PoggevonStrandmann,Ger-

many'sColonialExpansion nderBismarck', astand

Present, xxxii (1ig6), 140-59.87 H. A. Winklered.), Organisierterapitalismus:

VoraussetzungenndAnfangeGottingen, 1974).

T. Nairn, 'Scotlandand Europe', New Left

Review,LXXXIII (Jan.-Feb. 1974), 59. See also R.

Miliband, 7he StatenCapitalistocietyig6x), 185-9.

Of recent iteraturehe most usefulfromthispointof view includeH. Bley, BebelunddieStrategieder Kriegsverhutung1904-1913 (Gottingen, 1975);

Puhle, Agrarische Interessenpolitik, 3-1i; Wehler,

SozialdemokratiendNationalstaatG6ttingen,1971);Pogge von Strandmann,NationaleVerbande'.Fortheoreticalguidance, see E. J. Hobsbawm, SomeReflections n Nationalism',n T. J. Nossiter,A. H.Hansonand S. Rokkan eds), ImaginationndPreci-sion ntheSocialSciences1972), 385-406.








churches - failed to act in anything like a uniform way.90 Above all, the nationalist

consensus lacked an adequate historical dimension - the 'collective memory of paststruggles and the constant celebrations of past sacrifices and heroic deeds' which rein-

forces a sense of national solidarity.9 The centenary celebrations of 1913 were a striking

illustration of this. Not only were the official festivities attacked by the SPD, but the

transmutation of the historical circumstances of x8X3 nto a triumphal celebration of

dynastic traditions was criticized from other quarters as well: the left liberal press, the

cultural intelligentsia, partsof the youth movement, and also the Pan-Germanright, who

charged the government with falsifying the popular nature of the struggle against

Napoleon .92

The difficultywith nationalist deologyin the Wilhelmineperiodis its transitionalcharacter, gradually seeping into the universal consciousness, yet still hampered by

residual particularisms nd the SPD's formal internationalism, highly ambiguous

phenomenon. The special requirements of Weltpolitikboth reproduced and complicated

this situation. On the one hand, the imperialist division of the globe had gone much

further by igoo and its necessity was far less disputed. But on the other hand, the

programmes advanced to define the character,extent and general orientation of a German

empire covered a wide political spectrum. This was the central paradox of Wilhelmine

politics, the indisputable suffusion of nationalvalues through a society in which the exact

definition of the national tradition was still bitterly disputed. Thus the nation-state inits imperialist phase of development established the fixed framework inside which all

politicians, whether conservative, liberal or socialist, had to form their options, and the

growing race for the world market only increased this structural pressure. This was

precisely 'the real measure of what the age of imperialism achieved': it trapped even

the opponents of official policy into certain patterns of thought and a certain mode of

practice, so that 'anti-imperialists as well as imperialists were tarred with the imperial

brush'.9 But the historical fact of the nation-state, and the broad consonance of opinion

over the historical necessity f empire, did not mean that nationalist aspirations (i.e. those

delimited by the national context for action) were already reduced to some workablecommon denominator of political commitment. On the contrary, the above discussion

has tried to suggest the great diversity of nationalist thinking in this epoch, certainly in

the Wilhelmine aftermath of Wehler's 'ideological consensus'. The problem of social

imperialism embraced 'a profound and antagonistic dispute upon the nature and orienta-

tion of an empire, and its meaning for the quality of life in the domestic society at its

centre'. The debate 'functioned as an element of fission, favouring the profound and

90Existingwork ends o concentraten the formaloperation f theseagencieswithoutconsideringheir

actual ffects,whichareassumed atherhancriticallyreconstructedrom the evidence. The relevant ec-tionsofWehier,DasDeutscheKaiserreich,o5-41, area typical nstance,asis K. Saul, 'Der KampfumdieJugendzwischenVolksschule ndKaserne.Ein Bei-tragzur Jugendpflege m Wilhelminischen eich

1890-1914', MilitargeschichtlicheMitteilungen, (1971),

97-143.

'1 Miliband, 7heState n Capitalist ociety, 89.92 Stenkewitz,GegenBajonettndDividende,74;

Rheinisch-Westfalischeeitung,13 December 19ii:

1812-1912'.

93 G. Barraclough,Guide to Imperialism',NewYorkReviewof Books,xiii, ii (Dec. 1969),4.








fertile agitation of the period'. In other words, it served as 'a means of political,

emotional and intellectual polarization'.94This general reconstitution of the political discourse may be usefully regarded as part

of a Strukturwandelder Offentlichkeit: he erosion of one historically determined mode

of public life and its replacement by another.95 The 'public sphere' in this sense was

historically a product of the struggle against absolutism, when constitutional innovation

helped create 'a realm of private individuals assembled into a public body who as citizens

transmit the needs of bourgeois society to the state, in order, ideally, to transform

political into rational authority within the medium of this public sphere'. 6 However,

this 'classic liberal model of the public sphere' was already under attack at the point of

its formation, in both Britain and France, as the action of subordinateclasses threatenedto redefine the meaning and extent of the 'citizenry'. In the earlier nineteenth century

the development of press and propaganda, the rise of trade unions, clubs and friendly

societies, and the fashioning of instruments of self-education were all a measure of the

ability of the emergent working class to disrupt the social exclusiveness and cohesion

of the public sphere. The latter graduallyceased to mediate 'between a society of private

property-owners and the state' and became instead a field of conflict for the competing

claims of private interests.97 n Britainand Francethis was aprotractedprocess permitting

the prior consolidation of civil freedoms and a relative stabilization of representative

government before the presentationof a sustainedthreatfromthe excluded orsubordinate

groups, but in Germany there was no such distinct chronological separation. In fact,

no sooner had a public sphere in Habermas' sense begun to cohere in the middle third

of the nineteenth centurythanthe precocious development of aGermanlabourmovement

helped expand the 'public body' or the 'political nation' well 'beyond the bounds of the

bourgeoisie'. This helps explain the fragmentation of the German party system, for

the need to respond to the demands of a mass electorate fractured the confidence and

stunted the growth of the liberal and conservative blocs which seemed likely to emerge

from the i86os. The inability of traditional 'parties of notables' to adjust their practice

to conditions of popular mobilization also illuminates the relative importance of the

pressure groups as alternative vehicles for the organization of interests and opinion. Here

again the key decade was the I89os, producing a diversified movement of agrarian

protest, the consolidation of the corporate interests and the growth of the nationale

Verbdnde.oo

4 T. Nairn, TheLeftAgainstEurope?Harmonds-

worth, 1973),8.95 The term, translated s 'structural ransforma-

tion of the public sphere', belongsto J. Habermas.See Habermas, Strukturzvandeler tffentlichkeit(Neuwied, i965);0. NegtandA. Kluge, Offentlich-keitundErfahrung. urOrganisationsanalyseonburg-erlicherund proletarischer ffentlichkeitFrankfurt,1972); J. Habermas, 'The Public Sphere', New

GermanCritique, , 3 (1974), 49--55; E. Knddler-

Bunte,'The ProletarianublicSphereandPolitical

Organization', ibid. 1x, 1 (1975), 51-76.' Habermas,The PublicSphere',53.17 Habermas, trukturwandel,43.

For Britain,see E. P. Thompson, The Pecu-liarities ftheEnglish',SocialistRegister965, 1 i-62;

P. Anderson, 'Origins of the Present Crisis', P.AndersonndR. Blackburneds), Towards ocialism

(i95), I I-52; N. Young,'Prometheans r Troglo-dytes', Berkeleyournalf Sociology,ii (1967), I-27.

Habermas,The PublicSphere',54.100 Eley, 'German Navy League', 253-9.







October976 Defining social imperialism 7

This changing context of political intervention surely provides a better means of

understanding the social imperialist ferment than the attractionof some timeless diver-sionary technique of rule or Wehler'ssocial-psychologicalgloss on the Great Depression.

It was the conjunction of German industry's drive for the world market with an

unprecedented degree of popular mobilization - itself the product of Germany'saccele-

rated industrial transformation- that produced the distinctive social imperialist initia-

tives of the later i890s. From being a form of generalized speculation about the political

benefits of secure marketsabroad, social imperialismstarts to connote the moresystematic

attempt to convert this into the central organizing insight of an ideological offensive

amongst the working class. As the property of a still fairly restricted bourgeois public,

the colonial debate of the I88os had easily permitted unspecified generalizations about'diverting' social tensions overseas. But this is only a figure of speech, a metaphor, the

initial stimulus to concrete planning rather than a programmefor action in its own right.

There was much talk of the masses in the I88os, but nothing was done until the next

decade.Oncepopularmobilizationwas on the agenda,a moreelaborate ocabularywasrequired, and a new style of politics was engendered which helped transformpropaganda

into agitation.

This reappraisalwas informed by the special need at a time of legally sanctioned,

dramatically successful socialist organization to devise new ways of legitimating the

prevailing distribution of wealth, status and power. The forms of capital's dominationover labour, at the point of production and in society at large, were being modified, with

the simple mechanisms of repression giving way to more sophisticated techniques of

ideological and institutional containment. Wide circles of industry, the bureaucracy,the

parties, and above all in the army and on the land, naturallyadhered to the old coercive

habits. But the creeping legitimacy of parliamentary forms could not be ignored. The

new technology of mass communicationsdramatizedthe fact thatWilhemine politics were

becoming the scene of a battle for consent, o implant the acceptance of bourgeois values

in their specific Germanform.'0' The right's hot denials of 'unconstitutional' designs

on the franchise, or the efforts of new mass organizations like the Navy League and theImperial League Against Social Democracy to wage a battle of words and ideas, suggest

that the forms of political life were in some flux. After i897 reversion to Staatsstreichwas

politically unacceptable to all but a few rogue conservatives, and this was not to change

decisively until after I910.102 This meant partly that the right had simply modernized

its politics. But it also meant that in practiceconcessions had been made to new popular

forces, that the SPD was being fought on its own ground, and thatstate power was coming

101 This isacarefullyhosen ormulation,ntendedto avoideasy dentificationf 'bourgeois alues'with

a classic iberaloutlook.102The 'permanence f thethreatofStaatsstreich'

- a courseof confrontationwith the Reichstagandpossiblecoup d'etat is anotherphrase which haspassedinto generalusageamongstWilhelminehis-torians.It is a claim of thispaper to whichI hope

to return in the future that this threatgoes intorecessionafteri897.For the datingof its return, ee

D. Stegmann, ZwischenRepression nd Manipula-tion: KonservativeMachtelitenund Arbeiter-undAngestelltenbewegung 19o-1918', Archiv urSozial-geschichte,II (1972), 359-65;Stegmann,Erben is-marcks,I97-215.








to reston an 'equilibriumof coerciveand hegemonicnstitutions'.*03Social mperialist

thinkingreflected hese changesas much as any other areaof politics.

IV

The idea of diversion s thus a superficially ttractivemetaphorwhich the evidenceof

the nationalistpressuregroups n particular the classicattemptactually o implement

what Wehler alls a diversionarytrategy cannot ustain.Simplistic deasof continuity

and the status quo have reducedthe complexityof the evolving forms of state power

andmiss the specialdeterminants f social mperialismn the later 89os, collapsing he

latter nto an analysisderived rom he previousdecade.Like Bismarck'solonialism hislater social imperialismwas in general partof the genesisof the modern nterventionist

state'. 0 But the need to justify policy before an expanding electorate, with new

possibilitiesof mass communication nd before growing SPD competition, mposed

choiceswhichwereabsent n the I88os,and thismore hanofficialmanipulationxplains

the new style of propagandistntervention.As an attemptto rationalize he relations

between his changingdomesticcontextand the problems f German apitalism broad,

social mperialismmaymoreusefullydescribe heoverallframeworkorpoliticalplanning

thanthe specialtype of intransigent onservatismwithwhichWehler dentifiest. Any

definitionmust encompassnot only liberalversionsof social imperialism,but alsodifferentvariantsof a right-wingkind.

For this reason there is some case for returning o the originaldefinitionof social

imperialism.Despite he polemical ardness f its first ormulationhis has he advantagesof the current one without its confusions.It enablesus to see social imperialism s

somethingmore thana propagandistleightof hand.Hymnsto empirewere a striking

featureof Wilhelminepolitics,but the perspectiveswhich sustained hemdisplayeda

richervariety han Wehler'snarrow mphasison 'conservative oliciesof diversion nd

constraint'will admit.'05 They might embracewelfareconcessions,tax reform,the

illusion of participation nd the defacto acceptanceof parliamentary orms.There isalso the historicaldimension, he possibility hat social mperialismmightchangeacross

time, whichis sacrificedn Wehler'sversionto a static notionof continuity.Aboveall,

the older definitionis more flexible: it appreciates he diversityof the techniques,

programmes nd ideologiessustainedby the socialimperialistnexus,whilstthe newer

stresson the statusquo merelycrampsourunderstanding.n theendthisoriginaldea

- that at a certainpoint nationalcapitalismembarked imultaneously n a courseof

vigorousworldexpansionand a sophisticated ffort o incorporatehelabourmovement

byelaborate ropaganda,imitedrecognition nd heprospect f reform maybeabetter

starting-pointhanthesuggestion hat energies'were diverted' romreform oreaction.'03 E. J. Hobsbawm, The GreatGramsci',New

YorkReviewof Books, VI, 5 (AprilI974),42.'04 H. Medick, Reviewof Bismarck ndder Im-

perialismus,Historyand Theory,x (I97I), 236. See

alsoWehler, Der Aufstiegdes OrganisiertenKapi-

talismusund Interventionsstaatesn Deutschland',

in Winklered.), Organisierterapitalismus,6-57.105 Wehler,Das DeutscheKaiserreich,73.








The problem then becomes the competition of alternativedesigns for rationalizingthese

twin pressures, expansion abroad and the rise of labour at home.Finally, by concentratingon 'the intentions of the ruling strata'Wehlerasksthe wrong

questions, ombing selective quotation with simple quantificationto produce a misleading

picture of the 'social control' those strata allegedly exercised.106 Lacking attention for

the social identity of those who responded to social imperialist initiatives and for the

quality of experience this involved, his work remainsvague and indeterminate, preoccu-

pied with high politics and the conventional documents which litter the corridors of

power. Without convincing evidence of the real impact of imperialist agitation in the lives

of ordinary people its exact role in the inhibition of an effective reformism will never

be established.'07The final criticism of Wehler's thesis is thus methodological, for henever produces the analysis appropriate to his claims. We need to know how workers

in particular- the real backbone of the movement for 'emancipation' - were convinced

that theiraspirationscould be met within the given frameworkofthecapitalistnation-state.

The survival of 'authoritarian and anti-democratic structures in state and society '08

resulted less from some blind prostration before the imperial myth than becauseworkers

perceived good reasons for associatingthe chances of reformwith the fortunes of empire.

It is arguably on the liberal synthesis of 'power abroad and reform at home',' on the

material and cultural bases of labour reformismand on the objective constraintsto which

it was subject - its inherent limitations in the Wilhelmine context - that the analysis mustfocus. To this extent this paper prefers to close on a note of inquiry rather than

resolution. It has tried to contribute to such a future project by clearing away some of

the confusions and ambiguities from a potentially useful idea.

NOTE

In an earlierarticleI tried to indicate he dangersof ready-madeormulas ikesocialimperialism otherexamplesareSammlungspolitik,aesarism,econdaryntegration, tc. - andsuggested hattheyobscuredherealdynamics fconservativeadicalizationefore1914.Inpassing, criticizedWehler orneglecting eformist

variants f social mperialism,husconstructing falsedichotomy etweenmperialism ndsocialreformandseriouslymisunderstandinghe political unctionof navalpolicyafteri897. I havenowmyselfbeen attackedby VolkerBerghahnor exaggeratinghe importancef reformism, nd as this misrepresentshe argumentsof myearlierarticle his is a usefulchance o putthe record traight.

(i) By pickingup myremarks nsocial mperialism erghahn as gnoredmy mainpoints ora minorone,comprising nly threepages n an articleof thirty-four.Here my argument an as follows.First,Wehler's

106 The methodhasbeencharacterizedn anothercontextas resting almostentirelyon verbalcorres-pondences;t is arrived tbypiecing ogether seriesof quotations bstractedromthe contextandtreat-ed withequalweight,withoutregard orspeaker r

occasion,so as to forma whollysyntheticsystem'.See C. Lasch, TheAgonyof theAmerican eft. OneHundredYears fRadicalismHarmondsworth,973),

'7.'1' Wehlerdoesmake ertain laimsconcerninghe

sociologyof social mperialism:.g. hetalksof 'broad

social trata',ncludingthepettybourgeoisiefcrafts-men and smallbusinessmen,partsof the industriallabour orce,of theruralMittelstandndof thelargerlandowners'.Butthesearemereassertions ackedbynoempirical esearch.See BismarckndderImperial-

ismus, 80- .108 K. D. Bracher,'TheNaziTakeover',Historyf

the20th Century,xxxviii (t969), 1339.109Foundingprogramme f the National-Social

Association, &896.ee Die Burgerlichenarteien,I,

378.








definitionneglectsan alternativemeaningand is thereforepartial.Second, in a criticalperiod 1897-1900),

the Navyattractedeftliberalswho saw t asan anti-agrarianever. Third, as a resultof the latter ndbecause

both agrarians nd liberalssaw the Navy as a symbolof industrialism,t could not- contraryo received

assumptions act as the basis for a pro-agrarianammlungspolitik.hus the mereexistencef a liberal

imperialismitallyaffected he politicalroleof the Navy, irrespective f its strength.Assessinghe latter s

important,but this playedno part n this particularrgument.Berghahn'somments reconcernedess with

the argumentsfthis earlier rticle, nfact, thanwithaseminar aper f November 974n whichI didattempt

such an assessment.(2) The realpointof my articlewasto query heestablishednterpretationfGerman oliticsbetween897

and 1902, namely hat theseyearssaw the renewed onsolidation f ananti-socialist, rotectionistlliance

Sammlungspolitikin whichagricultureot thetariffs ndheavy ndustry he battlefleets partof anelaborate

package-deal.My objectionswere wofold:onthe onehand, he evidence annot ustainhis viewof theNavy's

strategicpolitical mportance,whilstits appeal o the liberals hreatenedo drivethe agrariansnd heavyindustrialistsurtherapartrather han closer ogether;on the other hand, the successof Sammlungspolitikn

theseyearshas beenexaggerated. here are otherdisagreementsoncerninghe relativenfluence f Alfred

von Tirpitzand Johannesvon Miquelon government olicy,the role of the CentreParty n the latter,and

the statusof certaindocuments.In generalI argued hat thereremaineddeepcontradictions ithin the

dominant ightistbloc- between ndustry nd agriculture,NationalLiberals nd Conservativeswhichwere

onlyovercomen conditions f crisisafter 912, thatbetween1897 nd1902 agrariansndAnti-semitesisrupted

the appeal or anti-socialist nity,and thatthese contradictionsupplied he motorof basicchanges n the

character f the Germanright.Berghahn as answerednone of thesepoints,andcompletelygnores hem

in favourof my subsidiary emarks n social mperialism.His charge hat I havediscardedhebabywith the

bathwaters hard o fathom: deliberately cknowledgedhe basicrealityof Sammlungspolitik,allingmerely

for more researchand a subtleranalysis.In his anxietyto defendWehler's evisionist redentials gainst

conservativettackBerghahn uns the dangerof substituting newdogma or the 'critical'historiographyhe claims o be defending.It is possible o deepenexistinganalysesby reflecting n newevidence,andmy

qualifyingritiqueemainso be answered.Seemy original rticle:Sammlungspolitik,ocialImperialismnd

the NavyLaw of I898', Militargeschichtlicheitteilungen, (I97), 2-63; and V. R. Berghahn,Der Bericht

der PreussichenOberrechnungskammer.Wehlers Kaiserreich nd seine Kritiker',GeschichtendGesell-

schaft,i, I (1976),125-36. eealsoT. Nipperdey,Wehlers Kaiserreich.Einekritische useinandersetzung',

GeschichtendGesellschaft,,4 (I975), 539-6o.I haveconsideredheproblem f reformistocial mperialism

in: 'Social Imperialismn Germany:ReformistSynthesisor Reactionary leightof Hand?%,. Geiss andJ.

Radkau eds), Imperialismusm 20. Jahrhundertforthcoming). hopeto return o the generalproblemof

reformismn the future.

EmmanuelCollege

Cambridge

geof eli-defining social imperialism

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