Europe Swings to the Left
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
PERSPECTIVES Europe Swings to the Left By William Henry Chamberlin FOR more than a decade the principal countries of Western Europe have lived mainly under Right-of-Center administrations....
...But still more significant, in terms of long-range possibilities, has been the marked change of political climate in Britain...
...The first sign was the acceptance by the Italian Government of the support of Pietro Nenni's Socialists, hitherto close political allies of the Italian Communists...
...For another, the Conservatives seemed unable to break out of the economic cycle of abbreviated booms, leading to a drain on gold and foreign exchange reserves and periods of high interest rates and stagnation...
...On both these important issues they have changed their position, so that their differences with the CDU are much more marginal in character...
...And, if Adenauer should stay until 1965, we would win a clear majority...
...In the past the only question about the outcome of a German national election was whether Adenauer would receive an absolute majority over all other parties or only a plurality...
...The '50s, the period of the Eisenhower era in the United States, witnessed a resurgence of conservatism in Europe, though it was conservatism of a kind so mild and so heavily tempered with social legislation that it did not provoke any violent protests...
...It brought an end to autarchy and to inconvertible currencies...
...Instead of being an asset to the Christian Democrats, he has become a liability...
...Before hailing Harold Wilson as the next British Prime Minister, however, it should be remembered that the Conservative outlook was just as dark during the Suez fiasco late in 1956...
...But in three recent state elections the Social Democrats made significant gains...
...Men like Willy Brandt and Fritz Erler could easily work in a team with moderate conservatives...
...No doubt a Christian Democratic party spokesman would dispute this forecast...
...Macmillan took over from the shattered Anthony Eden and pulled a new electoral victory out of his hat in 1959...
...Yet a swing to the Left, especially in Germany, means much less now than it would have meant 10 years ago...
...This period of conservative rule coincided with a halt to nationalization of industry, a return to more orthodox financial methods, and a preference for indirect as against direct economic controls...
...In any event, one thing seems fairly certain: So much have former class and political antagonisms abated in the free countries of Western Europe that no swing of the political pendulum is likely to go beyond the bounds of a broad, comprehensive, middle-of-the-road Center...
...Disaster after disaster has hit what had seemed to be a durable and flexible Macmillan Conservative Government...
...At that time the Social Democrats were opposed to rearming and committed to nationalization of basic industries...
...One consequence of this alignment has been the nationalization of the Italian electric power industry...
...There was also the severe blow of de Gaulle's veto of Britain's entry into the EEC...
...Today, several European currencies are technically stronger than the American dollar, incredible as this would have seemed in the early postwar years...
...Now, though, it appears that the pendulum might be swinging mildly Leftward...
...In fact, it is by no means unthinkable that a "big coalition" of the CDU and the Social Democrats, on the Austrian model, might come to pass...
...We will be the largest party in the Bundestag, although we may not have an absolute majority after the next German national election in 1965," Erler told me...
...At the present time, all political omens, such as by-elections and public-opinion polls, point to a Labor victory in the next Parliamentary election, which could come at any time within the next 17 months...
...I recently talked with Fritz Erler, an old friend and one of the top figures in the Social Democratic party...
...Now Adenauer's successor to the CDU leadership cannot take political victory so much for granted in 1965...
...Erler, who has been on a lecture tour of the U.S., is a member of the Bundestag and his party's regular spokesman in defense and foreign affairs...
...For one thing, there was a perceptible rise in unemployment, though the figure is still lower than the American one...
...This was especially striking in the Rhenish Palatinate, a strongly Catholic area which had always been a CDU stronghold...
...A similar trend, though not yet so decisive as in England, may be discerned in Germany...
Vol. 46 • April 1963 • No. 9
