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CHAPTER 1 The Racist Temptation in the Labor Movement It is generally recognized that antisemitism as a modern ideology and as an organized political movement first emerged in Europe in the latter half of the 19th century. There is, however, far less agreement as to the nature and cause of this phenomenon, the significance of the term “antisemitism” itself and to what extent it can be seen as expressing a coherent world-view, let alone a consistent policy or platform—at least in the conventional framework of 19th-century political parties. If by “ideology” we imply the search for a total explanation of history and society, a system of belief which, without necessarily being “rational,” seeks to account for fundamental changes in the world and, more specifically, to articulate the sense of an existing or impending social crisis, then antisemitism can indeed be included under this heading. By the end of the 19th century, without always assuming the form of a systematic philosophy, antisemitism had nonetheless become a recognizable Weltanschauung—an interconnected way of thinking, feeling and acting in the world, a distinctive cultural code and at the same time a vehicle for the expression of all kinds of economic and political grievances.1 We are concerned here with the process of crystallization of this “ideology” and with its origins and content as well as with its subsequent manifestations as they emerged in the 20th century. In particular, I want to examine how far modern antisemitism, in its early phases (i.e., before 1900) was a movement of the left or right, radical or conservative—or whether it belongs to some more heterogeneous, hybrid category. In attempting to answer this question my angle of approach will be to examine its credentials as a species of radicalism and to consider in what ways it derives from, resembles and differs from other “leftist” ideologies in 19th-century Europe. For this purpose it is necessary to consider the earlier part of the 19th century, before the term antisemitism with all its ambiguities and subsequent associations had become a fixed part of the European political vocabulary. This period of raw Jew-hatred preceded the absorption of antisemitism into the whole cultural matrix of fin-de-siècle nationalism, völkisch racism, conservatism and aggressive imperialism, especially in Germany and Austria- The Racist Temptation in the Labor Movement 38 Hungary. In considering antisemitism as a form of political radicalism, in reexamining its social dimension and its claims to have been a vehicle for antiestablishment protest, I do not, of course, wish to deny the strong elements of traditional-conservative and Christian influences inherent both in the genesis of the ideology and in the mass organizations that it subsequently produced. Thus, in predominantly Catholic countries such as France, Poland, and Austria there is no doubt that believing Catholics provided the bulk of the leadership and the main support for the 19th-century antisemitic parties as well as contributing to the elaboration of the ideology. On the other hand, the Berlin movement in Germany—the first example of organized political antisemitism—was founded and led by the Protestant court-preacher, Adolf Stöcker. Theological concerns were important here but secondary to the socio-political features of the Christian-Social parties in the late 19th century. It was predominantly the urban lower middle classes, the peasantry and the lower clergy rather than the ecclesiastical hierarchy which provided wholehearted support for antisemitism. At the same time, the leadership from Adolf Stöcker in Germany to Karl Lueger in Austria or the Abbé Garnier in France exploited all the resources of radical populist, anticapitalistic demagogy to revive the fortunes of the Church in an era of rapid dechristianization, secularism and rampant anticlericalism. Catholic and Protestant antisemites in the late 19th century did not, however, abandon any of the traditional religious accusations against the Jews—such as the diatribes against the Talmud or deicide and blood libel charges—especially potent in Russia and the Habsburg Empire. But these medieval superstitions owed their power to essentially modern techniques of mass agitation and to the crisis of insecurity, afflicting lower middle-class rural and urban strata whose imminent proletarization made them more receptive to such demagogy. What was novel and significant about Lueger’s Christian-Social Party in Austria was precisely the way it blended such indigenous clerical traditions of Judeophobia (which had existed for centuries ) with concrete social protest—with the revolt of the Viennese “little man” in the 1880s against liberalism...

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