French Socialists, German Social Democrats and the Origins of European Integration, 1948-1957

Estrangement and Reconciliation: French Socialists, German Social Democrats and the Origins of European Integration, 1948-1957 by Brian Shaev B.A., New York University, 2006 M.A., University of Pittsburgh, 2009 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History University of Pittsburgh 2014 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Brian Shaev It was defended on April 3, 2014 and approved by Seymour Drescher, Distinguished University Professor, History Alberta M. Sbragia, Vice Provost for Graduate Studies, Professor, Political Science Gregor Thum, Assistant Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, History Dissertation Director: William Chase, Professor, History ii Advisor: William Chase Estrangement and Reconciliation: French Socialists, German Social Democrats and the Origins of European Integration, 1948-1957 Brian Shaev, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2014 French Socialist (SFIO) and German Social Democratic (SPD) responses to early European integration initiatives indicate that there was a postwar generation of SFIO and SPD leaders who were informed by similar experiences rooted in memories, policy proposals, and outcomes from the interwar period. They formulated similar visions of the postwar period that drew upon existing socialist ideology and narratives, but at crucial moments they were perplexed as to how to respond to dilemmas that placed different socialist objectives in conflict with one another. When devising proposals and responding to policies generated by other parties on European integration, French Socialists and German Social Democrats considered the potential repercussions of supranational institutions not only for processes of French-German reconciliation, but also for a wide range of domestic, geopolitical, economic, and at times regional party objectives. As they had to make choices between competing domestic priorities in the early postwar period, conflicts emerged between the SFIO and SPD, as was the case over the proposal to create a European Coal & Steel Community. Conflict between the parties was paralleled by conflicts within the parties. The minority view in one party often shared the assumptions, logic, and viewpoint of the majority of the other party, as the raucous debate over the European Defense Community made clear. By 1954, however, French Socialist and German Social Democrat deputies in the Common Assembly of the European Coal & Steel Community had achieved a working relationship increasingly marked by good will, cooperation, and a mutual respect for each other’s positions. Inter-party cooperation at the supranational level created a form of Socialist consensus politics. These developments facilitated a SFIO-SPD entente in the form of European economic integration as embodied in the Treaties of Rome. Decisive for the parties’ support of these Treaties was the Socialist parties’ view that some form of trade liberalization within an organized market was a precondition for peace, economic expansion, and international competitiveness. Hence French iii Socialist and German Social Democratic leaders developed a common approach to issues of European economic integration that created opportunities and conditions necessary for the success of the Treaties. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................1 2. Visions of the Postwar Order: European Reconstruction, Socialist Internationalism, and the Domestic Politics of Heavy Industry...........................................................................31 3. Convergence and Divergence: The Industrial Policies of the French Socialist and German Social Democratic Parties, and the Debate over the Schuman Plan, 1948 1951..............83 4. Cold War Politics and a Crisis of Conscience: The SFIO and SPD Debate German Rearmament and Defense Integration, 1950-1954..........................................................139 5. Institutional Loyalty and Socialist Consensus Politics: SFIO and SPD Deputies in the Common Assembly of the European Coal & Steel Community, 1952-1957.................201 6. A Socialist Approach to European Economic Integration: French Socialists, German Social Democrats and the Treaties of Rome, 1955-1957................................................229 7. Conclusion.......................................................................................................................287 v 1. INTRODUCTION Fifty-seven years have passed since six European nations ratified the Treaties of Rome to set up the European Economic Community, the antecedent to today’s European Union. Much has changed over this time period. The Community has experienced several waves of enlargement and now incorporates much of the former Soviet sphere of influence in East-Central Europe. As it has done so, it has sought to strike a balance between proposals to “widen” its territorial borders and to “deepen” the Community’s competences. The challenges of enlargement, substantial in their own regard, have been accompanied by a series of challenges that have struck at core features of the ideals that the European Union purports to encompass: economic solidarity among rich and poor states, and a transcendence of nationalism in favor of a “European identity” that has proven difficult to inculcate in the minds of a reluctant public. Nonetheless, that the European integration process has survived despite the challenge posed by French President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s, monetary instability and the oil crisis in the 1970s, the rise of neoliberal economics in the 1980s, and the end of the Cold War in the 1990s is a sign of its continued ability to elicit substantial support among political and economic elites or, at the least, indicates a fear among these elites of what might happen if the European project came to an ignominious end. The EU’s longevity has been in large part due to its success in sustaining a centrist political consensus that incorporates much of the principal political groups of “core Europe,” the Christian Democratic or People’s Party, the European Socialists, and, to a lesser extent, the European Liberals and Green Party.1 It is also widely celebrated for its success in creating a system that reconciled the French and German governments and stabilized Europe’s economic and political reconstruction after the cataclysmic period of 1914 to 1945. 1 The strength of right-wing populist parties makes it possible that they will upend this consensus, but their steady rise in recent history is not the subject of this study. 1 The creation of the European Coal & Steel Community in 1952 after the ratifications of the Treaty of Paris and its successor, the European Economic Community in 1958, are generally considered children of postwar European Christian Democracy. This perception, present in public discussions and in scholarship, is correct but the disarray of the Socialist parties in this period has lead scholars to overlook how Socialist traditions, policies, and politicians were instrumental in the creation of important parts of the early Community’s features, as well as in channeling the European integration process away from areas that conflicted with some Socialists’ ideals, such as the European Defense Community, which failed to pass the French National Assembly in 1954. Here I examine the processes of policy formation and the transnational relations of the socialist parties of the two largest states of the early Community, the Section française de l’Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO) or French Socialist Party and the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) or German Social Democratic Party. I consider how the European integration process at times engendered an estrangement and, at other times, a reconciliation between the two parties and, in turn, how the Socialist parties themselves contributed at times to the estrangement, but more often to the reconciliation process that developed between the French and German governments and their peoples. In this introduction, I lay out the argument of this dissertation by placing it in an extended conversation with the most prominent literature in the field of European integration studies. The European Union has understandably attracted a great amount of scholarly attention due to its unique design and wide ambitions. In turn, scholars have long been fascinated by European socialism, though the European policies of the socialist parties have attracted less attention. Though the role of the SFIO and SPD in the early European integration is not terra nova, my combination of a transnational approach and attention to how continuities in the Socialist parties’ policies in concrete fields (heavy industry, defense policy, trade liberalization, etc.) influenced the parties’ participation in the creation (and rejection) of specific supranational European institutions allows me to offer an original account. My intention is to revise existing scholarly narratives on the French Socialist and German Social Democratic roles in these processes that were often constructed before the relevant historical archives opened. As my account makes clear, at times historical arguments, like institutions, have developed their own forms of path dependency. 2 1.1 FRENCH SOCIALISTS AND GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS IN POSTWAR

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