SOCIALISTS: Separate Roads

In Europe, capitalism has stubbornly refused to destroy itself, and Europe’s Socialists have found themselves increasingly discredited in a world they never made or even allowed for. Last week Socialists in two major countries reacted in opposite directions to their common dilemma.

Out of Date. In Britain, Labor Party Leader Hugh Gaitskell had studied last year’s disastrous election defeat and concluded that change was needed in the party’s doctrinaire constitution, which had not been basically overhauled since 1929. Specifically he called for repeal of Clause Four, which calls for “common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.” Nationalization had been tried by the Labor Party itself when it was in power and had proved no panacea. In the working man’s affluent world of “the telly, the frig and the car,” Gaitskell argued, the old slogans had no appeal.

But it is the older militant generation, weaned on Marxism, that wrote the constitution and that still controls Britain’s big trade unions and, with them, the bloc vote that dominates the annual Labor Party conference. One by one, the big unions lined up against Gaitskell. First Gaitskell backed down to an amendment “recognizing that both public and private enterprise have a place in the economy.” Last week, facing certain defeat at the October conference, Gaitskell surrendered completely. Labor Secretary Morgan Phillips announced that no Clause Four amendment will be offered “this year, next year, or even in 1962.”

Up to Date. Faced with the same problem of continuing electoral defeat, West Germany’s Social Democrats did exactly the reverse. Last November they junked nationalization in favor of a kind of New Deal capitalism, which would include “as much competition as possible, as much planning as necessary.” Three weeks ago —a major post-summit switch—they abandoned their long insistence that Germany might strike a bargain with the Russians, giving up NATO membership in exchange for a unified (if neutralized) Germany. Said the party’s Deputy Chairman Herbert Wehner: “Like the Christian Democrats’ position, the Socialist position is that the European pact system and NATO must serve as a basis for any foreign-policy and reunification efforts.” Last week the party’s seven-man electoral strategy committee, further revising the party’s face, picked Berlin’s vigorous Mayor Willy Brandt, 46, as the party’s candidate for chancellor.

Even the Socialists see little hope for victory in the 1961 elections, or as long as Adenauer is on the scene. But the latest moves seem to be on the right track. A recent poll showed the Socialists leading in popularity by a vote of 30% to 29% for the Christian Democrats. That left 12% for the small parties and a decisive 29% in the “don’t know” columns. But it was the best the Socialists had-done since 1956.