Policy movement

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The guideline movement was a non-partisan organization that wanted to form a new democratic center-left majority in Swiss politics as an alternative to the hegemony of the civic bloc in 1937–1940 to defend against radical anti-democratic parties on the right and left .

The guidelines

At the center of the guideline movement was the guideline working group, which organizations could only join after they had accepted the so-called "guidelines for economic reconstruction and securing democracy":

  1. Unreserved recognition of democracy and rejection of any ties or cooperation with any anti-democratic organization or movement.
  2. Positive attitude to military, economic and intellectual national defense .
  3. Respect for the religious convictions of the national comrades.
  4. Commitment to a common program for economic reconstruction and for the solution of social problems, which seeks to realize the demand for social justice and mutual solidarity in economic life, without which a true national community cannot exist.

The guidelines were formulated relatively vaguely in terms of content and their terminology was based heavily on the contemporary linguistic usage of the fascist movements. In terms of economic policy, the policy movement program, under the influence of Max Weber, resulted in an end to the Federal Council's deflationary policy . The economic crisis of the 1930s was to be ended through state job creation programs and an increase in purchasing power, and the population's confidence in the ability of the Swiss political system to act was restored. Ultimately, “trust between the people and the authorities” should be established by overcoming the political division along ideological rifts through the integration of the workers' parties into the Swiss political system.

history

The emergence of the guideline movement in the context of the Swiss Confederation of Trade Unions (SGB) must be understood in the context of the ongoing economic and political crisis in Switzerland in the 1930s. As a result of the global economic crisis in 1929, which after 1930 also led to an enormous economic slump in Switzerland, many people lost confidence in the ability of democracy to act. The Federal Council failed to bring about an effective crisis policy, which is why the approaches of extreme political groups became more attractive.

In the interwar period, the Swiss parties were divided into two camps along ideological lines. The civic bloc united the ruling bourgeois parties, while the parties of the labor movement and the right-wing radical front movement remained in opposition. The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SPS) as the most important political force in the labor movement saw itself threatened by the success of the Communist Party of Switzerland (KPS) under the impact of the crisis on the left , while on its right the trade union movement saw closer cooperation with the political center aspired to. Within the civic bloc, the strongest political force in Switzerland, the Freedom Democratic Party (FDP), was challenged, as strong elements within the party wanted to distance themselves from authoritarian corporate state visions from the right-wing bourgeois camp.

A political alliance between social democracy and the peasant movement in Sweden served as a model for the guideline movement in Switzerland , which in 1933 brought about a political majority left of the political center and made the Swedish model of a welfare state known. The political situation was similar in Switzerland. The SPS could not count on more than 30% of the votes and was politically isolated by the civic bloc. The " united front " of the workers' parties propagated by the KPS would have further increased the share of the vote and the clout, but exposed the SPS to great political risks - there were fears that the bourgeois parties would transform the state into an authoritarian-fascist similar to that in Austria. For the SPS, a real alternative to the formation of a democratic majority left of center was thus only an alliance with one or more groupings of the political center, in contemporary jargon the gathering of all the votes of the workers, peasants and employees in Switzerland.

An important step on the way to founding the guideline movement was the founding of the weekly newspaper “ Die Nation ” in 1933, which, as a non-partisan opposition newspaper , fought for Swiss independence, democracy and the rule of law. Due to the ongoing economic crisis and the failed crisis policy of the Federal Council, more and more peasants and employees who had previously voted in a bourgeois manner were driven into the opposition without wanting to join radical left or right-wing bourgeois positions. In the SP, too, the trade union movement with its economic and political ideas questioned the traditional left-right scheme of the parties. As a reaction to the crisis, only two political models faced each other until 1933: on the one hand, the bourgeois austerity and deflation policy, which insisted on wage cuts and price cuts, and on the other hand, the transition to a planned economy propagated by the workers' movement, the extensive abolition of private property and the socialization of the Banking would have resulted.

The nation advocated a new alternative with the support of the trade union movement. Inspired by the American New Deal , government stimulus policies should bring recovery. The political potential of this new vision became visible in the vote for the crisis initiative of the SGB, the acceptance of which by the civic bloc could only be prevented with a show of strength. The trade union federation secured the support of the young farmers by renouncing its traditional demand for cheap food and calling for the farms to be discharged.

This new political movement, which initially had a common economic and political basis, was largely shaped by the SGB leaders Max Weber and Robert Bratschi , the farmer leaders Hans Müller ( young farmers ) and Paul Schmid-Ammann, and the Graubünden democrat Andreas Gadient . Within the Liberalism sat Walter Stucki one of the guidelines, within the Farmers' Association Ernst Laur . After the failure of the crisis initiative , this working group worked out the so-called guidelines, which were published by the SGB in 1936. The guideline movement was constituted on February 3, 1937.

As an alternative to the guideline movement, the peace movement between employers and workers' organizations led by Konrad Ilg offered itself , which relied on a model of political concordance to overcome the economic crisis and to ward off radical threats. However, this model presupposed that the democratic against the authoritarian forces prevailed within the civic bloc, which only happened under the impression of the imminent danger of war. This model contrasted the integration of the social democratic opposition into the political system of Switzerland with the model of the guideline movement, which was based on a takeover of power by a broad opposition movement made up of social democrats and left-wing bourgeois groups.

As a result, the SPS and numerous trade union organizations as well as peasant parties and various cantonal democratic parties joined the guideline movement. Due to the failed integration of the FDP and the farmers' association, which refused to join despite being invited, the movement was unable to develop the desired clout and the political takeover failed. In 1938 the bourgeois parties succeeded in breaking the SPS out of the alliance on the occasion of the referendum on the federal government's new financial program. After growing differences within the movement, the association dissolved again in 1940.

Members

literature

  • Pietro Morandi: Crisis and Understanding. The Guideline Movement and the Emergence of Concordance Democracy 1933–1939 . Chronos, Zurich 1995.
  • Oskar Scheiben: Crisis and Integration. Changes in the political conceptions of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland 1928–1936. A contribution to the reformism debate . Chronos, Zurich 1987.
  • Hans Simmler: Farmers and workers in Switzerland from an organizational, political and ideological point of view . P. G. Keller, Winterthur 1966.
  • Max Weber : Policy Movement . Handbook of the Swiss National Economy, Vol. 2. Bern 1939.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Discs, Crisis and Integration, p. 269.
  2. ↑ Simmler, Bauer und Arbeiter, p. 76 f.