Rediscovering uncertainty: early attempts at a pan-European post-war recoveryÖ

^Örjan Appelqvist is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economic History, University of Stockholm. His dissertation, published in 2000, dealt with Sweden's post-war policies with regard to trade, financial and monetary policies. He is a specialist on works of Gunnar Myrdal and Dag Hammarskjöld, and is currently involved in the research project ‘National projects, European choices: Sweden, France and Great Britain 1945–1950’.

Abstract

It is time to re-open the question of the early post-war division of Europe as a problem. In order to move beyond bipolarity and give a fuller representation of the tentative and open character of the immediate post-war years it is furthermore pertinent to include a broader array of actors. By highlighting the aspirations of Internationale Gruppe Demokratischer Sozialisten, a transnational network of social-democratic refugees from Germany and German-occupied countries in Sweden during the war and some of their endeavours after the war the articles explores the relative merits of realist and liberal readings of the outcomes. It is argued that historiography so far has underestimated the nationalistic, anti-German position of French and British socialists at the end of the war, and its wider implications as well as the importance of internal domestic dissensions within the UK and US administrations.

Notes

^Örjan Appelqvist is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economic History, University of Stockholm. His dissertation, published in 2000, dealt with Sweden's post-war policies with regard to trade, financial and monetary policies. He is a specialist on works of Gunnar Myrdal and Dag Hammarskjöld, and is currently involved in the research project ‘National projects, European choices: Sweden, France and Great Britain 1945–1950’.

 [1] Gaddis, We Now Know. In somewhat different tonalities this discourse is present also in actual debates. See the interventions of Trachtenberg, Bischoff, Bledsoe, Bonds, and Borhi in the Winter 2005 issue of Journal of Cold War Studies and its Special Forum on ‘The Marshall Plan and the Origins of the Cold War’. Started as an attempt by Michael Cox and Caroline Kennedy-Pipe to question Gaddis' new traditionalist certitudes it ended in the question whether the US should not have pursued a more aggressive interventionist policy towards the countries in Eastern and Central Europe. A neo-traditional turn, indeed!

 [2] This would be my main objection towards the exceptional study of Loth, The Division of the World.

 [3] Haas, The Uniting of Europe; Nye and Keohane, Power and Interdependence.

 [4] Dinan, Ever Closer Union.

 [5] Hogan, The Marshall Plan.

 [6] Lipgens, Documents on the History of European Integration. Publication continued in three further volumes 1986–1991.

 [7] Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe.

 [8] Lefèvre, Les relations économiques franco-allemandes; Bossuat, Les aides américaines.

 [9] In a way this has been done with the recent debate in Journal of Cold War Studies 7, no. 1 (Winter 2005), but there the focus was rather on the question whether Eastern Europe might have escaped the grip of Stalin.

[10] As is shown by Angus Maddison, the general level of economic growth in both halves of Europe was significantly higher than that of the United States 1950–1970. Maddison, The World Economy.

[11] Leffler, A Preponderance of Power.

[12] Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, 69. On this issue, see also Gimbel, The Origins of the Marshall Plan.

[13] Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, 99. For an even more affirmative statement on the question, see Loth, Was war der Kalte Krieg.

[14] Appelqvist, Bruten Brygga.

[15] They get only one line in Lipgens' otherwise impressive documentation. Dinan's mentioning Altiero Spinellis conference in Geneva in June 1944 with 13 other resistance representatives issuing a federalist manifesto as an example is of course interesting but his omission of the IGDS is clearly disproportionate. Dinan, Ever Closer Union, 12.

[16] Misgeld, Die ‘Internationale Gruppe Demokratischer Sozialisten’.

[17] A full list of its members with short biographies is presented in Misgeld, Sozialdemokratie, 181–186.

[18] ‘Demokratiska socialisters fredsmål’.

[19] ‘The Old World and the New Society’, known as the Interim Report. Presented at the Labour Party Conference in May 1942.

[20] This conference, of major importance to understand the attitudes within the British and French labour movements at the end of the war, has received exceedingly scant attention by scholars. In my own archival research on Sweden's post-war planning. I found the proceedings through the participation of Alva Myrdal as a delegate to the conference. It is also mentioned in Misgeld, Sozialdemokratie und Aussenpolitik; and by some other German authors (Walter Lipgens and Wilfried Loth) in their three-volume Documents on the History of European Integration (1988) but I am unaware of any attempt to discern any wider implications of this conference.

[21] The full archives of the Conference are collected in the official archives of the Executive Committee of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, in appendix to its meeting in March 1945. 23 March 1945. SAP.VU. Bilagor till protokoll, 1945. Vol A3B:023. ARAB (Archives and Library of the Labour Movement, Stockholm, Sweden).

[22] The declarations covered the following themes: ‘International Economic Organization’, ‘International Security’, ‘The Anglo-French Pact’, ‘The Socialist International’, ‘Prisoners of War and Deportees’, ‘The Jewish Problem’, ‘The UNRRA’, ‘Relief and Rehabilitation’, and finally ‘The German Problem’.

[23] ‘Declaration on Anglo-French Pact’.

[24] ‘Declaration on the German Problem’, Appendix to report by Alva Myrdal to the Executive Committee.

[25] On this point, the resolution referred to the Labour Party Resolution on ‘International Postwar Settlement’ adopted at its annual conference in May–June 1944, specifically mentioning ‘the grave damage to British exports and employment’ caused by these exports.

[26] See Misgeld, Die ‘Internationale Gruppe Demokratischer Sozialisten’, 120.

[27] In his study on the foreign policy of the Swedish Social Democracy, Klaus Misgeld cites the opinion of Hakon Lie, leader of the Norwegian Social Democracy about this conference:' reminder of the short-sightedness dominating in the spring of 1945' (Misgeld, Sozialdemokratie und Aussenpolitik, 45).

[28] The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, the central pillar of the Swedish labour movement.

[29] The equivalent of $240 million at the time.

[30] Sweden's chief negotiator Rolf Sohlman quoted in Hägglöf, Fredens vägar.

[31] ‘Sweden Actively Furthering Free Trade’. The Commercial and Financial Chronicle 25 July 1946. In the Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Archives (AGM), ARAB, Stockholm.

[32] On this issue, it is interesting to note the different attitudes within the US Administration. See Appelqvist, Bruten Brygga, 384–399 for more detail.

[33] The Swedish trade deficit with Poland for 1946–53 amounted to 558.6 million Swedish kronor. Swedish–Polish trade relations are dealt with in detail in Appelqvist, Bruten Brygga, 336–341.

[34] For a more detailed discussion of these relations and general background, see Appelqvist, Bruten Brygga, 367–399.

[35] The business interests belong to the category of 'obscured actors' during this period. With the notable exception of Sylvie Lefèvre's excellent study (Lefèvre, Les relations économiques).

[36] Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe.

[37] The systematic policy of 'reparations' by the French occupational authorities and the vast benefits derived are amply detailed in Lefèvre, Les relations économiques.

[38] See Gimbel, The Origins of the Marshall Plan.

[39] Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe.

[40] Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 25.

[41] Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 28.

[42] Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 36.

[43] Resulting in his landmark study on US racial relations, An American Dilemma, in 1944.

[44] Other than national representatives, a number of non-governmental organizations, especially trade unions, were also present, as were other relevant UN bodies.

[45] May 1947 quoted in Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 58.

[46] A very clear account of them is given by Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 57–82.

[47] A very clear account of them is given by Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 61.

[48] Discussion with M. Holliday May 24. (PRO-UE 4242/2993/53.) Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 77.

[49] POR-UE 5526/2607/53. Quoted in Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 98.

[50] As quoted from a memorandum presented by GM to the Heads of Delegation in the ECE May 10, 1947. STO-23.1.10.

[51] Memorandum sent 9 May to Kennan through Clayton's aides. See Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 89.

[52] Lecture at the War College, 6 May 1947 quoted in Kennan, Memoirs, 339.

[53] The full text of the memorandum is in the archival documentation of US Foreign Relations, FRUS 1947, Vol III, p. 232. Quoted in Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 92.

[54] The summary of the discussion at the meeting of the Heads of Offices in the State Department on 28 May 1947. FRUS 1947, Vol III, p. 235. Quoted in Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 93.

[55] Waley to Cripps, 4 June 1947. PRO-UE 4781/168/53. See Kostelecký, UN Economic Commission for Europe, 102.

[56] Sevón, Visionen om Europa.

[57] The French attitude must of course also be seen in a larger framework: in conjunction with its on-going struggle to get more American aid, vital part of the French Modernization Plan. See Bossuat, Les aides américaines.

[58] Sevón details the diplomatic correspondence around the three-state conference 30 June–2 July 1947 (Sevón, Visionen om Europa, 168–175).

[59] Hogan, The Marshall Plan, 53.

[60] Anderson, States and Nationalism in Europe.

[61] In his Two Red Flags, 24–27, David Childs cites the domestic radicalism and the disappointment with the Soviet Union's policy in Eastern Europe in 1945, but there is not a line on the party's German policy. In his Britain since 1945, 40, the occupation of Germany is described solely as a financial burden, necessitating cooperation with the American zone.

[62] In his comment on this conference Wilfried Loth only notes the difference between ‘the French socialists who wished to see Germany integrated in the future community of states and those who advocated strict control of the German people, as did the Dutch, Norwegian, Polish and British delegates’. This seems to be a severe understating of the general harshness of the terms even proffered by the French. Loth, ‘The Socialist International’, 442.

[63] Even Dinan acknowledges that ‘For all his remonstrations about integration and reconciliation, even Monnet was not unaffected by the rampant Germanophobia that swept France at the time. After all, Monnet had predicated his plan for French economic modernization upon a punitive policy towards Germany’ (Dinan, Ever Closer Union, 19).

[64] Crewell, ‘With a Little Help from our Friends’, 4.

[65] In Lundestad's East, West, North, South, France's German policy in 1945–47 gets ten lines (p. 35) out of 250 pages and the ECE none.

[66] As Alan P. Taylor noted in his The Second World War, there was a marked disparity between the US losses (300,000 soldiers in total) and those of it allies. The Soviet Union lost 20 times as many soldiers, 6 million. Taking the civilian losses into account the disparities are even more glaring: the Soviet Union lost 20 million, Poland more than 6 million, and Yugoslavia one and a half. Even France's losses were twice those suffered by its American ally.