Book Review: Adenauer and the CDU
| Author | Robert Spencer |
| Published date | 01 June 1962 |
| Date | 01 June 1962 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070206201700225 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
181
party
members
and
the
nation
as
a
whole,
which
has
forced
the
leaders
to
rely
on coercion,
and
has
discouraged
them,
for
fear
of
destroying
their
own
position,
from
showing
any
signs
of independence
or
from
following
or
imitating
the Hungarian,
Polish
or
Yugoslav
(and
now
the
Albanian)
examples.
These
conclusions,
as
can
be
seen,
are
not
without
mutual
contradic-
tions. They
constitute
moreover
a
rather
too
simple
explanation
of
a
complicated phenomenon. Why
Czechoslovak
communism
is
what
it
is
is
presumably
related
in
some
degree
to
the
Czech
and
Slovak
historical
traditions,
and
in
particular
to
the
history
of
the
Republic
between
the
wars. Apart
from
several
slight
references
to
the
traditional
"realism"
and
"caution"
of
the
Czechs,
the
author
leaves
this
difficult,
but
profound-
ly
important
problem, untouched.
Nothing
is
said,
for
instance,
of
Munich,
of
the
war-time
shift
in
the
balance
of
power,
or
of
the
crucial
role
of
Benes
during
and
after
the War
in
relation
to Czechoslovak
and
Soviet
communism.
It
may
also
be
assumed
that
Czechoslovak Communism
would
be
influenced
by
the
character
of
the
working
class
movement,
and
the
history
of socialism
and communism
in
this
region,
but
of
this
the
author
says
next
to
nothing,
and
what
he
says
of
the
history
of
the
Communist
Party
might
better
have
been
omitted.
If
Czechoslovak
Communism
has
"a split
personality",
causing
it
to
"gravitate
instinc-
tively
towards
its
Western
past"
as
well
as
to
Moscow,
a
fuller
historical
analysis
of
party
history might
have
been
able to
substantiate
this
hypothesis more
convincingly.
Presumably
some
aspects
of
Czecho-
slovak
Communism
would
be
explicable
in
terms
of
the
character
of
its
leaders,
especially
of
Gottwald,
for
a
quarter
of
a
century
its
supreme
embodiment.
Yet
the
chapter
on
the
top
leaders
is
one
of
the
weakest
in
the
book
and
offers few
clues
to
understanding.
Indeed,
in
describing
Gottwald
as
"a
national
communist"
at
heart,
the
author
flies
in
the
face
of
all the
evidence,
and
in
referring
to
his
alleged
disgrace
in
1947
and
rehabilitation
in
1948,
offers
no
reliable
proof
whatever.
We
are
left,
therefore,
with a
study
that
is
impressive
in
the
strong
boughs
and
profuse
foliage
of
its
superstructure,
but
strangely
lacking
in
any
apparent
roots
in
the
Czechoslovak
past,
in
Czechoslovak
national
"character",
or
in
the
tradition
of
Czech
Communism
and
its
leaders.
By
limiting
himself
strictly
to
the
study
of
communism
as
a
working
system
after
1948,
the
author
has
in
part
excused
himself
for
this
deliberate
neglect
of
deeper
forces
which
might
explain
the
nature
of
communism
in
Czechoslovakia.
As
the
companion
volume
by Korbel,
dealing
with
the
rise
of
communism
to
power,
has
also
failed
to
provide
a more
profound
historical
analysis
of
Czechoslovak
communism,
the
puzzle
referred
to
at
the
outset
of
this
review
is
thus
left
unsolved.
Vienna,
Austria
H.
GORDON
SKILLING
ADENAUER
AND
THE
CDU.
The
Rise
of
the
Leader and
The
Integration
of
the
Party.
By
Arnold
J.
Heidenheimer.
1960.
(The
Hague:
Martinus
Nijhoff.
xv,
259pp.
19
guilders.)
In
this
rather
brief
volume
Professor
Heidenheimer
has dealt
with
two
related
but
distinct themes:
the
restoration
of
political
life
(and
of
course especially
of
the
Christian
Democratic
Union)
in
a
defeated,
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