Rodney P. Carlisle – Encyclopedia of Politics. The Left and the Right (2 Volumes)

Автор: Rodney P. Carlisle
Название книги: Encyclopedia of Politics. The Left and the Right (2 Volumes)
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Политология и Социология
Страницы: 512+544
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

Although the distinction between the politics of the left and the right is commonly assumed in the media and in treatments of political science and history, the terms are used so loosely that the student and the general reader are often confused: What exactly are the terms left and right supposed to imply? This two-volume Encyclopedia of Politics: The Left and the Right contains over 450 articles on individuals, movements, political parties, and ideological principles, with those usually thought of as left in the left-hand volume (Volume 1), and those considered on the right in the right-hand volume

The Left and The Right
ALTHOUGH THE DISTINCTION between the politics
of the left and the right is commonly assumed in
the media and in treatments of political science and history,
the terms are used so loosely that the student and
the general reader are often confused: What exactly are
the terms left and right supposed to imply? In this twovolume
encyclopedia, we have assembled over 450 articles
on individuals, movements, political parties, and
ideological principles, with those usually thought of as
left in the left-hand volume and those considered on the
right, in the right-hand volume.
The terms left and right are derived from the political
divisions in the French Constituent Assembly,
formed during the French Revolution in 1790. Sitting
on the right of the assembly were those who favored the
preservation of the monarchy and a more moderate
course of change, the Girondins, while on the left in the
assembly sat those who wished to overthrow the existing
system and establish a more egalitarian republic, the
Jacobins. The terms left and right stuck, with the left
usually representing the radicals of politics and the
right representing the conservatives. Over the next century,
with the rise of utopian socialism and later, Marxism,
those proposing conversion of the means of
production from private property to social property
held in common were regarded as leftists, while those
seeking to preserve the status quo were regarded as
rightists. The terms passed into common parlance and
became handy labels, both for serious students of politics,
and for use by publicists, politicians, and observers.
For those involved in politics, the terms soon became
heavily charged with overtones. By the middle of
the 19th century, many followers of Karl Marx took
pride in regarding themselves as further to the left and
would often designate their own fractional group or
wing of the party as the Left Socialists. Of course, as
propaganda, such a label was not always useful, for it
would suggest that those belonging to the left group
were out at the fringe of opinion with only a few adherents.
For this reason, V.I. Lenin designated his small
wing of the Russian Socialist Party as the majority wing
(even though it only held a majority at one brief meeting
in 1903), or “Bolshevik” in Russian. Through most
of the 20th century, with the rise of international communism,
headed by the Communist (Bolshevik) Party
in the Soviet Union, extreme leftism tended to be associated
with adherence to the international communist
movement, while extreme rightism tended to be associated
with politicians who made a career of denouncing
the international communist movement. The Bolshevik
Party officially changed its name to the Communist
(Bolshevik) Party in March 1918.
In countries operating under democratic constitutions,
like the United States, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and various other republics and constitutional
monarchies, the terms left and right were used to
describe parties and politics of the center that addressed
domestic issues, rather than the role of international
communism. That is, leftism became associated
with liberals who endorsed a wide variety of programs
designed to mitigate the harsh effects of capitalism,
such as programs of social welfare, unemployment
compensation, a progressive income tax (that is, one
that taxed higher incomes at a higher proportion than
lower incomes), provision of health services to the
poor, and more equal educational opportunities. Those
who were conservative, who believed that the economic
status quo should not be tampered with, and that free
market conditions should be allowed to operate without
too much government interference, were generally
regarded as rightists. Often, those on the right believed
that while government should allow the free enterprise
system to operate without interference, they were quick
to demand that government use its authority to impose
and enforce a moral code on the general population.
From the point of view of those who owned property,
of course, maintenance of law and order and protection
of property were the major and proper role of government.
While such distinctions appear simple enough to
apply to the politics and movements of many nations
around the world, they often tend to oversimplify the
complexities of politics. Individual political leaders and
political movements often defied easy categorization.
For example, in the United States, in Eastern Europe,
and in Latin America, “populist” leaders arose in the
late 19th and through the early and mid-20th centuries.
While populism in each context and in each era was
somewhat different, it usually represented an appeal for
social reform and egalitarianism which seemed radical
and leftist, but it also often incorporated a reactionary
thrust that was opposed to modernization and was
often quite nationalistic and ethnically exclusive, ideas
usually associated with the right. Often a leader with a
populist agenda was accused by some of his enemies of
being a right-wing reactionary, and by other enemies as
being a left-wing radical. And in some cases, both
charges made perfect sense.
In the United States, some historians have evaluated
the Progressive movement, which espoused many of
the social programs usually considered as part of the
left, as springing from a reactionary response to the
“status revolution” of the early 20th century. That is,
many of the Progressives were salaried professionals
like clerics, lawyers, journalists, teachers, and government
employees who were distressed not only at the
dominance of society by newly rich big-business leaders,
but also upset by perceived threats to their own status
posed by new immigrants, radical ideologues, city
political bosses, and labor-union leaders. For such reasons,
many Progressives endorsed the movement to establish
Prohibition, which they saw as a moral reform
designed to restore America to its moral standards, and
as an attack on the habits of immigrants and the dominance
of the liquor interests in politics. So Prohibition
of alcohol, which was an attempt to enforce conformity
to a moral code, and thus appears to be authoritarian
and right-wing to many observers, was supported by
many whose views sprang from reactionary motives,
but who also endorsed left-leaning social programs.
One movement that grew out of populist concepts
in Europe was fascism. In Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal,
and other countries, popular leaders proposed a
mix of ideas that were drawn from socialism, and
adopted radical methods to establish a nationalistic, exclusive,
elitist-operated authoritarian state. Although
usually regarded and classified as parties of the right,
fascist parties reflected both leftist and rightist ideas and
methods. However, with their broad popular appeal and
social agendas, fascist parties did not resemble the conservative,
status-quo oriented parties of the traditional
right. Often, the issue was one of perspective, or even
more simply, one of name-calling. Thus, the Communist
Party of the United States in the early 1930s often
denounced advocates of pro-labor positions who did
not work with the Communist Party as “social fascists”
and lumped them with the right wing in their propaganda
literature.
In local settings around the world, other issues cut
across the clear logic of left and right distinctions. For
example, in many countries, movements for ethnic autonomy,
independence, or unification with a group outside
of the territorial boundaries of the state confused
the picture, often leading to great conflicts. Those trying
to form a nation out of ethnic groups dispersed among
several states were known as “irredentists” after the
19th-century Italian unification movement that sought
to bring the irridenta or “unredeemed” Italians into a
state headed by the house of Savoy out of Piedmont.
Serbian irridentist nationalists in territories controlled
by Austria-Hungary sought to unite with Serbia, and it
was a group of such nationalists who assassinated Archduke
Franz Ferdinand in 1914, setting off World War I.
In Spain, during the 1930s, separatists in the Basque
northwest and Catalonians in the northeast of the
country joined in the civil war. While they were nationviii alists, and thus might be regarded as rightists, in fact,
they joined with a coalition largely consisting of parties
of the left to defend the existing government, against a
revolution led by the army, which sought to impose a
fascist regime. Spanish politics in the 1930s, while often
described in terms of left and right, posed a great many
problems for those who sought to understand it in
those terms. The leftists and separatists were known as
Loyalists or Republicans because they supported the
existing republic; the fascists, monarchists, and the
army officers, supported by Catholic Church leaders,
were known as the Insurgents.
Elsewhere, irredentists, separatists, and nationalists
used radical methods to achieve nationalistic goals.
Such groups included the Irish, as well as separatists in
countries as far afield as Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Kurdistan,
the Caucausus regions of the Russian Federation, and
the French-controlled island of Corsica. In the United
States, the radicalism mixed with nationalist rhetoric of
American black nationalists seemed to defy a simple
classification of left or right. In South Africa, the policy
of racial exclusion and imposition of a white-dominated
regime adopted many ideas and principles that
seemed to reflect the fascist doctrines of Germany’s
Nazi Party, at the same time, maintaining an electoral,
republican form of government for the controlling
white minority. The South African doctrine of
apartheid, or separateness, was viewed by most observers
as an ideology of the right.
These political, social, and ethnic complications
often lead to confusion of terminology, and even to
some heated debates among experts. In fact, when individual
politicians and their positions are studied closely,
the individual’s career may defy simple categorization.
For many individuals who participated in politics over
several decades, their radical-populist ideas seemed increasingly
dated as the world changed around them, and
they appeared, in the new context, as hopelessly conservative
and backward-looking. Thus, while William Randolph
Hearst may have seemed a radical in 1912 when
he supported municipal ownership of utilities and
labor-endorsed candidates, by the 1930s, he was regularly
denounced as a right-winger for his opposition to
the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt and for his strident
anti-communist rhetoric.
Other leaders and politicians with populist ideas in
the United States often found themselves voting with
very conservative colleagues in legislatures on specific
issues. The cross currents that appeared to be at work
during the Progressive era, which led many otherwise
left-oriented politicians to endorse moral authoritarian
views like Prohibition, continued through much of the
20th century and into the 21st century. By the late 20th
century in the United States, both sides of the abortion
issue cast their views in terms of liberties or personal
rights. On one side were arrayed those who believed in
“freedom of choice” or “a woman’s right to choose,”
while those opposed regarded themselves as defending
“the right to life.” Opposite sides of this heated social
debate couched their position in terms of liberty. By
generally accepted convention, the right-to-life advocates
were regarded as right wing; however, some of the
most dedicated members of that side of the argument
adopted radical means to achieve their goals, such as
picketing abortion clinics, or in a few cases, even bombing
them.
In this encyclopedia, we have made some decisions
following the generally accepted convention of whether
a movement or individual should be treated as falling
on the left or right side of the political spectrum.
Often, the views and positions of the individual or
movement make such a classification rather clear-cut or
obvious. In other cases, the placement is far more complex
or problematic, and we have suggested the reasons
for the complexity, reflecting among others, the ones
outlined here.
Not a day goes by in the media or in a history or political
science classroom that the terms left and right are
not employed to describe an historical or contemporary
aspect of politics. Rather than assuming such
terms are universally understood or acknowledged, as
editors we have attempted to make the distinction
clearer, albeit with the caveats mentioned above.
Although our emphasis is on the modern era, we
have included many movements, political leaders, and
thinkers from the 19th and early 20th centuries. And although
each contributor offered his or her own interpretative
slant, we have attempted to achieve a tone of
balance, presenting the information with objectivity
rather than advocacy. In the broad spectrum of politics,
it is our hope that the articles of the Encyclopedia of Politics:
The Left and The Right, contributed by academics
and scholars from all over the world, help further the
understanding of political science and historical movements.
RODNEY P. CARLISLE, PH.D., GENERAL EDITOR