Table Of Content© 1969 by Ghita Ionescu and Ernest Gellner CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION I
PART ONE
I NORTH AMERICA
9
Richard Hofstadter
2 LATIN AMERICA
Alistair Hennessy
3 RUSSIA
Andrzej Walicki
4 EASTERN EUROPE 97
Ghi!a Ionescu
5 AFRICA 122
John Saul
PART TWO
6 POPULISM AS AN IDEOLOGY r-v 153
Donald MacRae
7 A SYNDROME, NOT A DOCTRINE 166
Peter Wiles
8 THE SOCIAL ROOTS 180
Angus Stewart
9 POPULISM AS A POLITICAL MOVEMENT 197
Kenneth MinogW!
SBN 297 17614 5
\
10 THE CONCEPT OF POPULISM 212
Printed and made in Great Britain by Peter Worsley
The Garden City Press Limited
Letchworth, He11fordshire
INDEX
CONTRIBUTORS
Professor Richard Hofstadter, Columbia University
Alistair Hennessy, University of Warwick
Dr Andrzje Walicki, Warsaw Institute of Philosophy and
Sociology
Ghita Ionescu, University of Manchester
Dr John Saul, University College, Dar Es Salaam
Professor Donald MacRae, London School of Economics and
Political Science
Professor Peter Wiles, London School of Economics and Political
Science
Angus Stewart, London School of Economics and Political Science
Kenneth Minogue, London School of Economics and Political
Science
Professor Peter Worsley, University of Manchester
INTRODUCTION
A spectre is haunting the world - populism. A decade ago, when
the new nations were emerging into independence, the question
that was asked was - how many will go Communist? Today, this
question, so plausible then, so·u~ds ·a little out of date. I11 as far as
the rulers of new states embrace an ideology, it tends more often
to have a populist character. And populism is not an outlook re
stricted to the new nations. In the Communist world, strong cur
rents seem to 'move in· a populist direction. And in the anxious or
agonizing re-examination which has gripped several developed
liberal societies of late, populist them~s are prominent.
There can, at present, be no doubt about the importance of
populism. But no one is quite clear just what it is. As a doctrine or
as a movement, it is elufilye and protean. It bobs up everywhere,
but in many and contradictory shapes. Does it have any underlying
unity, or does one name cover a multitude of unconnected
tendencies?
The present relevance of populism has also brought about a,
revival of interest in some half-forgotten nineteenth-century cur
rents which bore, or were given, the same name. Does the anger of
American Middle Western farmers against urban lawyers, the
droolings of Tolstoy over muzhiks, the rationalizations of East
European resentments against alien traders, and the slogans in
terms of which rulers of new nations legitimate themselves and
subvert liberal institutions - do all these have a common intellec
tual source, and are they parts of one phenomenon? Is there one
phenomenon corresponding to this one name?
The present book is a determined attempt to answer this ques
tion, to give a clear outline to this elusive yet insistent spectre. It
is the work of a set of scholars whose joint competence covers the
highly diverse areas which have been haunted by populism. But
I
POPULISM - ITS NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS INTRODUCTION
the book is not a mere addition of disjoined researches. The it is in itself significant. The expression is used in English, Spanish
various contributors cover both the diverse geographical regions, (populismo) and, to a lesser degree in French (populisme), and with
and the various analyti~ally distinguishable aspects of populism. the implication that the word means the same as the Russian
Above all, their contributions dovetail with each other (without Narodnichestvo. (But Peter Worsley rightly remarks in his con
necessarily agreeing - there has been no attempt to impose unity tribution to this book that: 'the translation of the Russian Narod
of vision), in as far as each author wrote with full knowledge of nichestvo has been rendered as populist, but this very act of trans
the contributions of the others. Each saw the early drafts of the lation is itself an imputation, not a "neutral" simple;equivalence,
other essays. Thus, though of course each author is responsible which translation can never be, since it has to use categories
for his own views only, the final versions are co-operative in the available in language.') But its use both as a noun and as an
sense that they were written or re-written in the light of the adjective has spread, and is spreading, increasingly. It n9w-1inks
others. such st~~ge bed-feUows as ~ng_lib_erals who call themselves
Besides, their common original purpose was to 'define' populism. 'populists' and so!Ile die-hard socialist:lu¥ho claim to have 'popu
A discussion was held at the London School of Economics list tt:aditiol}§'. Some political scientists think that Maoism is a
on 19-21 May 1967.* The fact that it brought together so many of form of populism and Nazism another form. And some historians
the expertst in 'populism' with the object of attempting 'to define' of ideas see it run like a distinct red thread from Chernishevsky
..
to Frantz Fanon and Marcuse. Indeed, one of the reasons why it
• It had been organized by Government and Opposition, a quarterly of is very important to find out more about the expression and
comparative politics, at the time published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
the concept is that so many people are inclined to think that
with the help also of the Humanitarian Trust, London.
movements 'left-of-Soviet-communism' such as Trotskyism,
The verbatim report of the conference can be consulted at the Library,
London School of Economics and Political Science. A 2recis of the dis Titoism, Maoism, Castroism and the current ideology of the
cussion was published in Gover1Jrnent and OpjJosiflion, -Spring 19tJ8. students' movements are the strident reincarnations of populism
t The full list of participantsw as as follows: in the second half of the twentieth century and that indeed for the
J. Allcock (Bradford), Prof. S. L. Andreski (Reading), Sir Isaiah Berlin
first time in history a 'populist international' could be conjured
(Oxford, chairman of session), Dr Conrad Brandt (Oxford), Dr Peter
Calvert (Southampton), Nigel Clive (Foreign Office), Maurice Cranston up.
(LSE), F.W.Deakin (Oxford, chairman of session), Prof.RP.Dore There are perhaps six principal questions on which to base an
(LS E), Geoffrey Engholm (Sussex), E. Gallo (Oxford), Prof. Ernest Gel iner assessment of whether populism is a unitary concept, regardless
(LSE, chairman of session), Prof. Julius Gould (Nottingham), George of the variety of its incarnations, or whether it is simply a word
Hall (Foreign Office), C.A.M.Hennessy (Warwick), Prof. Richard Hof
•. wrongly used in completely heterogeneous contexts. One question
stadter (Columbia), Ghita Ionescu (LS E, rapporteur), J amesJoll (Oxford),
is whether populism was primarily an ideology (or ideologies)
Ellen de Kadt (LSE),,Emmanuel de Kadt (LSE), Dr Werner Klatt,
Dr John Keep (School of Slavonic and East European Studies), Francis \ or a movement (or movements) or both. Perhaps, and this is the
Lambert (Institute of Latin American Studies), Dr E. Lampert (Keele), second issue, populism was a sort of recurring_m.entalit~ appearing
Shirley Letwin, Dr L.J.Macfarlane (Oxford), Prof. Donald MacRae ~ diff~ pistoncal and geog~phic coi:texts as the result of a
(LSE, chairman of session), Dr I. de Mada.riaga (Sussex), Prof.G.F.
special social situation faced by societies in which,_as...~ French
Mancini (Bologna), Kenneth Minogue (LSE), Prof.W.H.Morris-Jones
sociologist, Alain Touraine,°described it, the middle social factors
(Institute of Commonwealth Studies), Dr John Saul (Dar-es-Salaam),
Prof. Leonard Schapiro (LSE, chairman of session), Prof. Hugh Seton were either missing or too weak. Thirdly, populism can be defined
r
Watson (School of Slavonic and East European Studies, chairman of in terms of political psychology. The element of political persecu
session), T. Shanin (Sheffield), Geoffrey Shillinglaw (School of Oriental \ tion mania was more acute in its political psychology. It was
and African Studies), Dr Zoltan Szabo, Prof. Alain Touraine (Paris),
imbued with the feeling that identifiable or unidentifiable con
Prof. F. Venturi (Turin), Dr Andrzej Walicki (Warsaw), Derek WaHer
spiracies were at work, deliberately and tenaciously, against the
(School of Oriental and African Studies), Prof. Peter Wiles (LSE), Prof.
Peter Worsley (Manchester, chairman of session). people. The basic attitude was one of apprehension towards
2 3
POPULISM - ITS NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS INTRODUCTION
unknown outside forces : colonial oppression, people living in towns economic aspects of populism and an overall view of the concept of
with international roots or ~amifications, bankers, international populism.
capitalists, etc. As such populism could be characterized by a The present book thus is the first organized attempt to clarify the
peculiar negativism - it was anti: anti-capitalistic, anti-urban, as main aspects of a concept which during the nineteenth century and
well as xenophobic and anti-semitic. In contrast, and this was the even more in the twentieth century has been more fundamental
fifth point, populism worshipped the people. But the people the to the shaping of the political mind than is generally acknowledged.
Ip opulists worshipped were the meek and the miserable, and
G.I.
the populists worshipped them because they were miserable and
E.G.
because they were persecuted by the conspirators. The fact is that
the people were more often than not identified in the peasants who
were and are, in underdeveloped societies especially, the most
miserable of the lot - and the more miserable they were the more
worshipped should they be. Finally, until now this recurring
~
mentality usually disappeared in history by absorption into stronger
ideologies or movements. There were three ways in which this
happened. One led to socialism. One led to nationalism. And, as
for instance in Eastern Europe before and after the First World
War, one led to peasantism.
The present book attempts to throw open to the public the dis
cussion until now held only in intellectual conclaves; and with
due modesty, it hopes to encourage an inquiry into this elusive
concept and its many meanings which deserves to be continued in
many other individual or collective volumes. The material as
sembled in its pages is in the majority based on the papers initially
presented at the 1967 conference. The studies by C. A. M.
Hennessy, G. Ionescu and Peter Wiles were added in order to
complete, as much as possible, the examination of the subject. Even
so though the field has by no means been fully covered and the
editors would like to express their regret that, in spite of their efforts
to reorganize and complete the original material, the book does
not contain studies on Asian or Canadian populisms.
The examination of 'the meanings of populism' was divided into
two major headings. The first part groups the different historico
geographical examples: Russian populism of the nineteenth cen
tury, American populism of the nineteenth century,, Eastern
European populism and peasantism of the nineteenth and twen
tieth centuries and Latin American populism and African populism
of the tweQtieth century. The second part examines the concep
tual meanings of populism: populism as an ideology, populism
as a political movement, the social roots of populism, the
4 5
I.
PART ONE
1
b
CHAPTER ONE
NORTH AMERICA
Richard Hofstadter
The character of American populism derives in great part from
the American tradition of entrepreneurial radicalism. Elsewhere,
populism rested upon the role of the peasantry, but unless one
identifies a peasantry simply with rural poverty, the United States
has not had a peasant class; neither, despite the limited stratum of
large landowners and slave owners in the South, has it had a
class of rural grandees, an aristocracy with clerical and military
connections and conservative traditions.
~ What the United States has had, in place of a peasantry, is a
'J class of cash-conscious commercial farmers, producing staples
.I .
both for the domestic and the world market and linked to the bust
ling, competitive petty-capitalist life of the expanding small towns
of the American interior. Alongside the farmers, because of the
open character of the society, there has been the constant thrust
of 'new men' - ambitious entrepreneurs, often recruited from the
farms, trying to break into established lines of enterprise and into
the upper echelons of the political or social world.
In the absence also of a powerful tradition of labour radicalism
and of strong socialist parties, American radicalism has drawn a
large part of its strength from heretical businessmen, village entre
preneurs, and the petty capitalists of the small towns. This tradi
tion was entrepreneurial in the sense that it accepted the basic
principles underlying private capitalism, and tended to argue that
its specific programmatic proposals would in fact strengthen the
capitalist order by broadening opportunities and giving the com
mon man access to positions of profit and power. But it was also -
unless we set too stringent demands upon the term - radical in its
9
2- P
POPULISM - ITS NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS NORTH AMERICA
continuing assertion of the claims of democracy and egalitarianism, consequent heavy taxation, could only be means by which an
in its broad humanitarian sympathies, in its sharp criticisms, some insatiable 'paper aristocracy' would exploit the honest farmer or
times merely rhetorical but at other times observant and telling, planter.
of the practices of vested interests and 'monopolies', and in giving This ·duality in economic philosophy, which is apparent in the
voic~ to persistent American suspicions of concentrated power. era of the Revolution and the Constitution, continued thr~ugh
American radicalism was inevitably shaped by the conditions of the J acksonian period. J acksonian thought was divided between
rural life. At the time of the Constitution, the nation was about those who continued in the old hard-money, anti-bank ways, and
ninety per cent agricultural, and its predominant intellectual forms those who were more interested. in getting access to government
were established in rustic conditions. Not until nearly the end of funds and putting them to use in exploiting the great American
the nineteenth century did the portion of the population employed bonanza. This cleavage in thought was paralleled by a cleavage in
in industry match that of the farmers, and it was not until the expressed values and in economic policy. As to·values, Jacksonian
twentieth that the urban population exceeded the rural. America democracy is marked by two conspicuous themes that seem quite
presented an economy rich in land and natural resources, but short at odds with each other: the first is the persistent clamour of new
of labour and capital. Under these conditions, there was a great enterprisers for greater opportunities, the cry against monopoly
premium on capital-intensive agriculture - that is, agricultural and aristocracy; the demand to give the commoners better and
practices designed, through the use of machinery, to compensate ·more even access to the big prizes in business, politics, and the
for the scarcity of labour by taking advantage of extensive and professions. In it one can see the old American urge to get ahead,
relatively cheap land. The pressure for capital, both to acquire the passion for advancement, The second theme is what Marvin
~ machinery for cultivation and to engross as much land as J Meyers has called restorationism.2 It hearkens back to the simp
\ possible for speculative purposes, was always high. From its early licity, the civic dedication, the nobility, the limited material aspira
beginnings, the American economy was always afflicted by an tions.and high moral tone that were deemed to be characteristic of
insatiable demand for money and credit, and it became the classic the old republic. In it the Cincinnatus-ideal, so integral in the
land of homespun and original monetary theorists. It is important public reputation of George Washington, is invoked once again.
to be aware, as American historians have not always been, that And restorationists were deeply concerned that the aggressive
this demand did not exist solely among the rural classes or among materialism of the country, its insatiable quest for opportunities and
poverty-stricken debtors. Even in the colonial period, for example, profits, for offices and emoluments, would lead not only to wealth
the influential spokesmen for paper money were not rural scribblers and luxury but to decadence. Even in the 1830s, then, the young
I.
or demagogues but public officials, leading ministers and other , republic showed a distinct strain of nostalgia and a distinct sense
professionals, and prominent businessmen. In fact, several of the of uneasiness with itself.
American colonies, and the new states in the years just after 1776, These differences in expressed values were reflected in Jack
had made ingenious and successful experiments with paper-money sonian policy. On one hand, the general passion against monopoly
i
issues, in which the expansion of the currency was carefully geared and aristocracy was mobilized against the Bank of the United
I
to landed security.1 States. Jackson's veto of the bill to recharter the Bank ensured its
Oddly enough, alongside this avant-garde finance, there grew downfall. His removal of the government's deposits from its con
up in some agrarian circles a contradictory fear, an almost primitive trol at first intensified the inflationary effect of the assault upon
fear, of banks, of paper money - of everything that Thomas Je ffer central banking. By putting the government funds at the disposal
son and his agrarian contemporaries called 'the paper system'. of state banks whose directors often incautiously geared them to
~ True wealth, the primitive agrarians believed, came from land the hectic land speculation of the time, the J acksonians set off a
I
and labour. An overbuilt apparatus of commerce and banking, an brief speculative spree. When it seemed to be gaining too much
excessive rate of public spending, a large public debt with the momentum, they shrank from what they had done, clamped down
10 II
POPULISM - ITS NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS NORTH AMERICA
on the use of credit in land 'sales, and thus intensified the economic capital needed to finance American industry and his labour that
reaction that was bound to come. Their inconsistency in policy produced, at lower and lower prices, the food that nourished
'
was, no doubt, attributable to several things - not.l east to their ' the industrial labour supply, but as time we~t on he saw that he
attempt to represent social interests that were to some degree in l was not profiting in proportion to the nation'0s growth. An import
compatible and to their views of money and banking - but it ant element here is the sheer magnitude of the growth of the agri
reflected in good part their deep uncertainty as to what they stood cultural sector of the economy, especially i~ the West. Between
for. Was it hard money and the old simplicities? Or was it open 1860 and 1900 the number of farms increased from 2·0 million to
opportunities, brisk competition, speculation, slick dealings, and 5 ·7 million, the land in farms from 407 million to 838 million
the main chance? acres. The use of machinery made farming more difficult to finance,
The debt of later populism to the Jacksonian heritage is con and increased its productivity. By 1900 the farmer was eighty-six
siderable. Leaders of the Populist Party of the nineties were very per cent more efficient than he had been in 1870. At the same time
I often men of strikingly advanced age for reformers, born in the the international revolution in communications, marked especially
' J acksonian era and thoroughly familiar with its slogans. The old by more rapid steam transportation, the opening of the Suez Canal,
J acksonian cry: 'Equal Rights for All, Special Privileges for None', and the proliferation of the railroads in the American West, drew
served them as it had served their predecessors. The same concern the farmer into an increasingly glutted and competitive inter
with opportunity as against monopoly, the same fear of the regu national market, where he had to compete, behind the handicap of
lation of financial affairs from a single, presumably sinister centre, the tariff, with the food of Argentina, Canada, and Australia,
underlay both movements. Senator Benton's 'Monster' - the Bank Iw here new areas of land were rapidly being settled, and with the
- was replaced by Wall Street, Lombard Street, and the House of cotton of India and Egypt. Prices moved quite steadily downward,
Rothschild. The political principles of Jefferson and Jackson, and then fell drastically in the depression of 1893. Farmers in basic
, argued General James B. Weaver, the Populist presidential staples, who were in no position to meet their situation either by
candidate of 1892, were still in vital respects applicable. cutting back their production or by more efficient marketing, found
themselves with larger and larger crops on their hands, sold at
The rugged utterances of these statesmen ring out today like a start
lower and lower prices. From 1870 to 1895 corn production grew
ling impeachment of our time. ... There is enough in them to com
pletely transform and re-invigorate our present suppliant and helpless from: 1·1 mi-llion bushels to 2·5 million, wheat from 2·5 million
state of public opinion. Those declarntions were uttered in the purer bushels to 5· 4 million, cotton from 4 ·3 million bales to 7 · 1 million.
(
days of the republic and before the various departments of Government ,\ But in the same years the price of corn fell from 52 cents a bushel
{
had seriously felt the baleful and seductive influence of corporate wealth to 25 cents, wheat from $1 ·04 per bushel to 50 cents, cotton
and power.3 from 12·1 cents to 7·6 cents a pound.
The years from 1873 also marked the d~astic fall in the price of
'The old hero,' he said of Jackson, 'understood that a Democratic silver, as successive demonetizations of the metal by various
government had no use for an aristocratic or monarchical system of nations of the western world coincided with a great increase in its
finance.'4 production. Western silver mine owners could look with sympathy
The development of American agriculture in the decades after upon the plight of the farmers, but they could also see in them the
the Civil War superimposed upon this Jacksonian heritage stag mass basis of an infl.ationist bloc, ready to convert the old fiat
gering problems and grievances. The American commercial farmer, money infl.ationism into silver inflationism and to go forth in a
his production organized in a multitude of small units operating common battle for monetary inflation as a· remedy for the depres
with fixed costs, selling in an increasingly competitive world sion. The strength of the silver forces was increased in 1889-90
market, and victimized by tariff and taxation policies, was fighting when six new states of the V·l est with strong mining interests were
a losing battle. It was his exports that largely paid for the imported admitted to the union. Infl.ationists could now look forward to a
12
POPULISM - ITS NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS NORTH AMERICA
strong silver bloc in Congress. Moreover, the silver miners brought accompanied by the cash-hungry farmer eager to win his place
to the populist movement something it needed very badly - a in the markets of the nation and the world, and it is also true that
source of funds. Radical farmers were generous with their enthu after 1815, with tl1e rapid development of the vast American
siasm, but they had little money to give, and the movement had to hinterland and the rapid improvement of transportation facilities,
work with pathetically insufficient funds. But in return for their the yeoman farmer receded into the by-ways of rural America and
contributions the silver interests exacted their own price. They were the commercial farmer was subject to all the vicissitudes of the
not much interested in the more radical proposals of populism - climate and the economy, and he was frequently the victim of
like the public ownership of means of communication - and they men with more power and fewer scruples - land grabbers, railroad
were concerned to use what leverage their dollars gave them to get tycoons, credit merchants, bankers, middlemen.
the movement to concentrate more single-mindedly on the silver The farmer himself also become deeply involved in the com
issue. To this end they did what they could to make silver infla mercial ethos of the American system, to which he belonged. He
tionism the dominant aim of the populist following, and in this was a businessman as well as a cultivator of the soil. He succumbed
they had the assistance of a number of homespun pamphleteers, repeatedly to the temptation not merely to raise and sell crops
bred in the old traditions of monetary panaceas. Among these, the but to profit from the one aspect of his situation that promised
most important was W.H.('Coin') Harvey, whose Coin's Financial big and quick gains - from land speculation. The dynamics of the
School became the great document of the populist movement. 5 economy pushed him into relatively large-scale enterprise for a
family unit. It entrapped him with machinery and debts. And
often he saw speculative gain as the one way to recoup on his hard
2
labours and his big risks. In good times, with skilful management
Many of the qualities of populi'st thought stem from the dual
and a bit of luck, he might do well. But the periodic flip-flops of
character of the American farmer. In the old ideal, shaped by the
the economy frequently caught him out. In the long run, he was
pastoral poets and infused with a warm glow by Je ffersonian
playing a losing game: he had little to sustain him through even a
writers, the farmer was the independent yeoman: a hardy pioneer, a
short-run disaster - a crop failure, a drought, the weevil, the locust,
good citizen, close to the soil, energetic, hardworking, devoted to
a damaging storm. Against a major social disaster even the most
the family that worked with him, simple, reliable, and honest.
provident farmer had no security. And two such major disasters
He cared little for money, but was interested in farming primarily
afflicted him after 1860. The first was the Civil War, which, it is
as a way of life. His farm was his home, and if he lost one, he lost
true, provided a tremendous stimulus to the Northern farmer but
the other. In common with other men who did manual labour, he
which broke the social system of the South and left its farmers in
was a victim of exploitation by special interests : he carried an
bondage to the one-crop system, voracious short-term credit and
undue share of the tax burden; he paid too much for freight and
the caprices of the international market. The second disaster was
for credit; he had a hard time claiming his share of the land, as
the great international price depression of the last third of the
against the big land speculators and the railroads. To the agrarian
nineteenth century. By the end of the Civil War, the old agrarian
theorists there was bound to be something wrong with any social
hard-money view had disappeared, though it had left an inheri
system in which agriculture did not get its full share:
tance in the form of a rather categorical suspicion of banks and
I Whenever, in a populous Nation, agricultural pursuits become of bankers. Civil War conditions had taught the farmers and many
secondary importance as a means of acquiring wealth, it may be set down of the businessmen of the Middle West to associate prosperity with
as ce1tain that the callings which have risen above it are operating under
high prices. The long deflationary freeze of the 1870s, .'8os and
some artificial stimulus which is abnormal and unjust.6
'90s confirmed this view. The history of the populistic mind as it
On every count this image of the farmer had solid reality behind expressed itself during these years is increasingly the history of a
it. It is true, however, that the self-sufficient yeoman was always concern with the monetary system, though there are also other
14
