Etudes Lasalliennes 12 Ing:Etudes Lasalliennes 12.Qxd.Qxd

etudes Lasalliennes 12_ing:etudes Lasalliennes 12.qxd 28/03/2008 9.44 Pagina 1 LASALLIAN STUDIES 12 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE INSTITUTE OF THE BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS 20th Century 1928 - 1946 Br. Henri Bédel, FSC English translation by Br. Allen Jerzy Geppert BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS Generalate FSC - 476, Via Aurelia 00165 ROME 2 0 0 8 Lasallian Studies 12:etudes Lasalliennes 12.qxd 31/03/2008 12:37 Página 2 French version: April 2007 English version: March 2008 Suplemento al n. 2 del 2008 della Rivista lasalliana Trimestrale di cultura e formazione pedagogica della Associazione Culturale Lasalliana Via Ludovica 14 – 10131 TORINO – Tel. 011/819 51 39 / 819 52 55 0150 http://www.lasalle.it e-mail: [email protected] etudes Lasalliennes 12_ing:etudes Lasalliennes 12.qxd 28/03/2008 9.44 Pagina 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Explanatory notes ................................................................................................... 4 Introduction: The overall historical context ............................................................ 5 Continuity ............................................................................................................ 19 Chapter 1: The Institute in the world context (1928-1946) .................................. 23 1. The Brothers subject to persecution ................................................................... 39 Chapter 2: The institutional framework (1928-1946) .......................................... 51 2. The internal life of the Institute .......................................................................... 64 Chapter 3: Development and extension of the Institute (1928-1946) ................... 77 3. Aspects of the apostolic mission of the Brothers .................................................. 92 Chapter 4: The Institute during the Second World War and in the immediate post-war period (1939-1946) .............................................................................. 105 4. The 1946 General Chapter .............................................................................. 119 Epilogue .............................................................................................................. 132 Bibliography ....................................................................................................... 136 Recent Lasallian Studies publications ................................................................. 138 etudes Lasalliennes 12_ing:etudes Lasalliennes 12.qxd 28/03/2008 9.44 Pagina 4 EXPLANATORY NOTES The present volume LS 12 (1928-1946), continues the Lasallian Studies series which began in 1994 with LS 5 (1651-1726) and was followed by LS 6 (1726-1804) in 1997, LS 9 (1805-1875) in 2001 and LS 11 (1875-1928) in 2003. In the text: – Double quotation marks “” are used when a quotation comes from a document contemporaneous with the facts reported. – Single quotation marks ‘’ indicate an expression or quotation from an historian of some other period. – The surname and Christian name of a Brother are normally given the first time he is mentioned. – The word “Brother” when used on its own refers to a Brother of the Christian Schools. Whenever it refers to a Brother of another congregation, this is indicated. – The names of towns are given in the language of the country to which they belong except in cases where they are usually translated. – In the case of French towns, the département to which they belong can be located on the map included in LS 9 on page 69. – When a book is quoted or referred to for the first time, its title and author are indicated. On subsequent occasions only the author is indicated. More complete infor- mation can be found at the end of this volume. Abbreviations – GA: Generalate archives in Rome. – LS: Lasallian Studies. etudes Lasalliennes 12_ing:etudes Lasalliennes 12.qxd 28/03/2008 9.44 Pagina 5 INTRODUCTION THE OVERALL HISTORICAL CONTEXT A series of crises The 1930s were characterised by a series of crises involving the whole world. These crises overlapped one another, but in order to give a brief summary of each we will need to consider each one in turn. They laid the ground for another war which began in 1939 and which gradually spread to include the whole world. Some of the effects of these crises persisted during the conflict and at times contributed to it a rare degree of inhu- manity. The end of the war in 1945 led to a re-alignment of nations under the aegis of two dominant powers. Great economic Depression The 1920s ended with a period of economic prosperity, based on an abundance of credit, and this led to financial speculation. On Thursday August 24th 1929, an enor- mous number of shares on offer in the New York Stock Exchange found no buyers and prices fell dramatically. This crisis destabilised the whole credit system on which the American economy was based. The resulting reduction in buying brought about a fall in agricultural and industrial production. This led to the bankruptcy of many businesses and an increase in unemployment. The withdrawal of American capital in particular from central Europe and Great Britain produced similar effects throughout the world. Between 1929 and 1933, world trade was reduced by two-thirds, and production by the main industrial countries by 50%. In 1932, the number of unemployed reached a total of 30 million in the world as a whole, 12 million of whom were in the United States. The depression was too serious to resolve itself, and so governments were forced to intervene in the running of the economy. They began by reducing public expenditure in order to re-establish budgetary equilibrium, but a reduction in trading led to a decrease in fiscal revenue. The depression was thought to be also the result of over-production, and the solution adopted was to lower prices or limit production, which increased unemployment. Various countries thought the solution lay in inflation and the devaluation of the currency. The duration of the depression underlined its seriousness. The recovery began unevenly in 1933. However, in 1937, the best year before the war, industrial production in the capitalist world was only slightly better than it had been in 1929. etudes Lasalliennes 12_ing:etudes Lasalliennes 12.qxd 28/03/2008 9.44 Pagina 6 6 20th CENTURY (1928 - 1946) The situation varied from country to country. The most industrialised ones - the United States and Great Britain - initially severely affected, reacted fairly rapidly with effective measures. France, which had been affected later by the effects of the depression, found it more difficult to recover. Some countries, such as Italy, Germany and Japan, because of their lack of resources, were particularly affected by the depression. In countries such as Spain, where rural poverty was still endemic and industrialisation was cre- ating a growing proletariat, the depression served only to aggravate the instability of the situation. Countries whose main income was derived from the exportation of agricultural produce and raw materials were badly affected by falling prices and a reduction in the demand for their goods. This was the case in Latin American countries and in the colonies in which production to serve the needs of the mother country had been devel- oped to the detriment of subsistence crops. Political crisis The 1930s were marked also by a political crisis related to the economic crisis but due also to other factors, characterised by the appearance of totalitarian regimes, the desta- bilisation of democratic regimes and the development of nationalism. – The appearance of totalitarian regimes By a totalitarian regime we mean a manner of exercising political power, characterised by the desire to ensure the pre-eminence of the state, or of a race, of a social class, by a leader who considers himself to be the interpreter of the will of the people. One could say that these regimes were one of the consequences of the First World War: the Bolshevik regime resulted from it; the establishment of Fascist regimes in Italy and Germany was no doubt spurred on by the frustration created by the treaties which ended the war; and the same was true of Japanese imperialism. The economic crisis which occurred in 1929 did not affect the Bolshevik regime, given its isolation; nor did it give rise to the other totalitarian regimes either, but it did contribute to their development. Italy, Germany and Japan were among those states that could be called “prole- tarian”, because they lacked natural resources. The crisis could only provoke their leaders to apply pressure on the victims of this crisis in order to pursue their own aims. Established during the course of the First World War, the Bolshevik regime had imposed itself on the Soviet Union, formed of Russia and of the European and Asian countries it had conquered. While the crisis of 1929 had little effect on the country, that etudes Lasalliennes 12_ing:etudes Lasalliennes 12.qxd 28/03/2008 9.44 Pagina 7 THE OVERALL HISTORICAL CONTEXT 7 same year witnessed the start of the implementation of Stalin’s policy of collectivisation of land and of industrialisation. The plan to achieve these aims supposed great centrali- sation and required overriding authority. This authority was exercised by the Communist Party, itself controlled by the politburo and especially by its Secretary General, Stalin. When emulation no longer worked, leaders felt no compunction about using constraint. The regime extended its influence to include communist parties estab-

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