BEYOND MARXISM: THE F AITH AND WORKS OF HENDRIK DE MAN HENDRIK DE MAN BEYOND MARXISM: THE FAITH AND WORKS OF HENDRIK DE MAN by PETER DODGE • MARTINUS NIJHOFF I THE HAGUE I 1966 ISBN 978-94-015-0015-9 ISBN 978-94-015-0476-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-0476-8 Copyright I966 by Martinus Nijho/f, The Hague, Netherlands All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1966 FOREWORD To recall all those who have contributed to the genesis of the present work involves pleasant reminiscence. The grey skies of Belgium come to mind with the acknowledgment that without the aid of two United States Government (Fulbright) Grants the study would have been stillborn. Both Dorothy Deflandre, Executive Officer of the U.S. Educational Foundation in Belgium, and Henri Janne, then Director of the Institut de Sociologie Solvay, used their official powers to facilitate the process of research. Another scene, equally impressed upon the memory - the placid setting of Amsterdam's Keizersgracht - arises with therecollectionofthe courtesy of the Internationaal Instituut voor Soci ale Geschiedenis, whose director, the late A. J. C. Rüter, kindly granted me access to the de Man archives. I take pleasure also in acknowledging financial support from the Research Foundation of the State University of New York, whereby I could investigate further materials later made available at the Archives Generales du Royaume in Brussels. To the various individuals in the Low Countries, France, Switzerland, and the United States whom I subjected to interviews I must extend my deepest gratitude; their numbers are so many that I hope they will forgive my resort to bibliographical annotation for individual ac knowledgment. But for understandable reasons I must single out the various members of the de Man family - M. and Mme. Yves Lecocq, M. and Mme. Gust de Muynck, and M. and Mme. J an de Man - for their many contributions to an inquiry that could not but seem impertinent. To them, more than to anyone else, pertains the usual caveat: the opinions and interpretations found herein are indeed truly original, in that they generally have been held by no one else - and would be repudiated prima facie by practically every one of my respondents. But if I have succeeded in alienating my audience, I have gratified myself, in that I believe I have arrived at an interpretation that does justice to VI FOREWORD my responsibility to history, even if the attempt to deal dispassionately and compassionately with a figure of such notoriety as the subject of this book will inevitably involve the author in charges of bias. I t is truly regrettable that the historical significance of de Man's work has been obliterated by the sensational events of his later career; and if the present volume achieves only the effect of making it possible to consider his ideological innovations in their own right, it will have served a useful purpose. Of course this is not to suggest that the ideology was irrelevant to the later course of events - but in examining this rela tionship the present study is led to explore those circumstances that gave rise not only to de Man's outstanding role in the twenties and thirties as a socialist critic of Marxism but also to his desperate and ultimately disastrous attempt, in the face of the apocalyptic menace of the late thirties and early forties, to galvanize an adequate response from a torpid sodal reality. By means of such an approach it becomes possible to distinguish the psychological from the logical level of inquiry, and thereby to reintate de Man's contribution to an important tradition of social and political analysis. In preparing at Harvard University the doctoral dissertation that forms the foundation for the present book I received the benefit of Donald McKay's warm solicitude until his guidance was cut short by death. H. Stuart Hughes was good enough to take over the burdens involved in bringing that work to completion. To make the record complete, it should be noted that certain sections of chapters four and five have appeared earlier in the International Review 01 Social History (v. In, part 3,1958) under the title of "Volun taristic Socialism: An Examination of the Implications of Hendrik de Man's Ideology." The bibliography represents an extensive revision and amplification of what has appeared as Hendrik de Man: Gesamt-Bibli ographie (VillingenjSchwarzwald: Ring-Verlag, 1962), compiled by J. and E. de Man. The reader should also understand that, with the exception of most passages from the Psychology 01 Socialism, all quotations are in my translation or in de Man's own English; and that titles cited without author always refer to de Man's writings. I thank my wife Renata for undertaking the tedious, intricate, and, indeed, thankless task of preparing the index. CONTENTS Foreword. v 1. Rebel .. 1 2. Onlooker. 21 3. Participant. 38 4. Ideologue - TheCritique . 65 5. Ideologue - The Positive Formu1ation . 90 6. Politician. . . 124 7. Knight-Errant . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Appendices A. Le Plan du Travail. . . . . 232 B. "Les Theses de Pontigny". . 237 C. Programme du I9 iuin I940 . 240 D. The Official Accusation . . 241 E. Exchange of Letters Between de Man and Mussolini. 244 F. Summary of Political Reforms Urged by de Man in 1939. 247 Bibliography Primary. . 248 Secondary. 264 Index. 273 CHAPTER I REBEL In later years filled with the turbulence and desperation of the twentieth century, Hendrik de Man was fond of recalling the secure and serene round of existence that had characterized the bourgeois environment of his childhood. Born 17 November 1885 in Antwerp, he received his first impressions from the stable, well-ordered world that his prosperous and cultured Flemish family enjoyed in the placid confidence of the era of the Pax Britannica and in the bland optimism of those carried to ever increasing well-being by the commercial and industrial affluence of Belgium. The technological innovations that underlay this pros perity had hardly penetrated to the domestic scene, and the de Mans practiced a traditionalistic and leisurely way of life infused with a sense of the values appropriate to their station. Every Thursday afternoon was set aside for the weekly marketing (for which bills were presented annually); other afternoons were dominated by social gatherings of French-speaking and Flemish-speaking circ1es; every Sunday was marked by a three-hour family feast worthy of Jordrens. In accordance with this style of life it was necessary and proper to maintain servants, who were assimilated to the patriarchal structure of the family. The universe of warm personal relations was extended outward through habitual and intimate contact with the many relatives in the Antwerp area, carried to such an extent that Robert, the younger son in the de Man family, was actually surrendered to a maternal aunt after she had tragically lost her own children. It was this background of stability, candor, and trust that formed the baseline by which the children in the de Man family were to judge the world.1 1 The material for the following biographical sketch has been drawn principally from the three versions of his autobiography that de Man published: Apres Coup: Memoires (Brussels Paris, 1941); Cavalier seul: Quarante-cinq annees ae socialisme europeen (Geneva, 1948); and Gegen den Strom: Memoiren eines europäischen Sozialisten (Stuttgart, 1953). The same environ ment is reflected in Yvonne de Man's Ons Dagelijks Brooa: De wedefwaaraigheden van een huis !I10UW van Antwerpen tot Manhattan (Brussels, 1953). 2 REBEL The distinctive character of Hendrik, the eldest child and the stam houder, was greatly influenced by the relationship with his father. The de Mans had not occupied the assured place in Antwerp society that was characteristic of the maternal side of Hendrik's family, but on the contrary were socially mobile. Although his grandfather had been a butcher by occupation, his father Adolf de Man had aristocratic pre tentions, revived with force upon the birth of a son who might fulfill his ambitions, frustrated by a slight physical disability, to make a career in an exclusive cavalry regiment. The father's own position as an executive in a shipping company was honorable enough, but suffered by comparison to those of his brother and brother-in-Iaw, both of whom were army officers. Discontent with his civilian status was solaced by an increased emphasis upon the subjective qualities of aristocracy, and the eIder son was to bear his entire life the imprint of a semi-military upbringing, evident in all his conduct but finding its clearest expression in the paradox that the later pacifist was avowedly to find the military role that he assumed in both World Wars the one most congenial to his personality. In accordance with the expectations of a military career and in view of his robust nature, Hendrik experienced a much more exacting regime than his younger brother. lee cold baths first thing in the morning in an unheated room were regarded as obligatory for the body and the character, and so deepIy was the training ingrained that it was not until after several decades of independence that it occurred to him that he did not have to undergo this jarring experience every morning. More significantly, the father used every opportunity to impress upon his son the corollaries of noblesse oblige: unwavering truthfulness, the 8acredness of the promise given, the necessity of disciplined conduct, and above all the obligation to help the weaker and less fortunate than oneself. In instilling these virtues the father had no hesitation in resorting to physical punishment, but the system was so effective that 800n the slightest hint of his father's disapproval was enough to make the young 'Rik cringe with shame. Another of the father's characteristics by which the son was to be marked throughout his life was an intense conviction of the indis pensability of communion with nature for the preservation of the physical and moral balance of the individual. His father was unusual in being a member of the Iocal athletic club, which was inspired by the model of the Turnverein, and both father and son were to par ticipate widely and intensely in such sports as hunting, skiing, REBEL 3 swimming, fencing, riding, mountain-dimbing, and fishing. In his teens the son was to venture forth from the Campine landscape where the family summered to roam in true Wandervogel fashion over much of the territory of western Europe, carefully avoiding all of those man-made monuments noted by Baedeker. And when he became a Minister in the Belgian government in later years he refused, to the consternation of his fellow-politicians, to give up his weekly regimen of horseback riding every morning, fencing several evenings a week, and trout fishing on weekends. The stamp of his severe but devoted father was apparent not only in this passion for the outdoor life but surely lay behind such traits as the scorn that familiarities invariably inspired in the son and the inner security and conviction of worth that enabled him to spurn the ex ternals of success and to cultivate an indifference to material sur roundings. From the same source surely arose also the conviction of duty that demanded a career of service to a cause and a sense of integrity that in enshrining candor viewed conventional dissimulation - above all when there was the suspicion that it might disguise self interest - as the cardinal sin. But Hendrik was not only a de Man; he received as full an inherit ance from the maternal side of the family, not only through his mother Josephine but notably through constant participation in the activities shared by the families of his mother's three sisters. The van Beers' were a leading family in Antwerp, having served in the administration and government of the city for generations; their position had recently been made notable by the leadership in the Flemish cultural movement of Hendrik's grandfather, the poet Jan van Beers, whose daughters preserved in their dosely allied households the intellectual and artistic atmosphere of their upbringing, generally dominated by the Flemish cultural predilection for the visual arts. (Josephine de Man's interests were by exception musical.) Hendrik's dosest unde, Paul Buschmann, by profession a printer of art books, enjoyed the honor of being the official printer to the Plantin Museum, and was also an amateur painter in his own right. He spent many of his weekends instructing his young nephew in the skills of the exact reproduction of the treasures of the past. In their frequent tramps through the environs of Antwerp they discussed the historical significance of various buildings testifying to the paramount position of the Flemish capital in the glorious past, and also ventured on the polderland in search of the conditions that had given rise to the characteristic qualities of the painting of the Low Countries.