As a persistent critic of the German Revolution of November 9, 1918, and of the Weimar Republic, the Conservative publicist Arthur Moeller van den Bruck frequently denounced what he called the “republic without republicans”. “The Republic in which we are living”, he wrote, “is a joyless republic. Is it really a republic? Is it not still a monarchy that has merely been deprived of its emblems? Is not this thing which has no symbol on which one can fasten belief, is it not monarchy in its deepest humiliation?” The questions that Moeller van den Bruck was asking for Conservatives were being asked, in their own way, by men through the spectrum of intellectual and political life: by men on the Left who wanted a Communist or Socialist republic, by men of the Right who wanted a popular constitutional monarchy, by the few who wanted the status quo, and by the many who wanted some kind of progressive change in public life. Not least among the questioners was Gustav Stresemann, the young leader of the new German People's Party.

Wissenschaft von der Politik kann so wenig an die Stelle von Politik treten wie Literaturwissenschaft an die Stelle von Literatur. Aber, wie sich im Laufe der Zeit die Reflexion über Probleme der Literatur von dieser loslöste, so mußte auf einer bestimmten Stufe der Entwicklung des gesellschaftlichen und politischen Lebens auch die Reflexion über das Gemeinwesen und über politisches Handeln ein selbständiger Gegenstand der Forschung werden. Was vermag wissenschaftliche Besinnung über politische Probleme zu leisten? Vor allem kann sie – wie Wissenschaft überhaupt – dazu beitragen, die Elemente der uns umgebenden Wirklichkeit nüchtern und rational zu sehen und unsere politischen Urteile aus der Sphäre vorschneller, unbegründeter Meinungsbildung und gefühlsmässiger Voreingenommenheiten auf eine Ebene vernünftiger Erwägungen und begründbarer Erwartungen heben. Sie kann das politische Urteil klären und schärfen und damit die Voraussetzungen für politische Entscheidungen verbessern, diese selbst jedoch vermag sie weder zu ersetzen, noch zu bewirken. Zu einer solchen klärenden Besinnung sollen auch die vorstehenden Überlegungen über Marxismus und Bürokratie beitragen.

Sidney et Beatrice Webb sont incontestablement deux des personnalités les plus importantes et les plus représentatives du socialisme contemporain en Grande-Bretagne. Et si celui-ci traversait aujourd'hui une crise susceptible de le transformer, il n'en resterait pas moins marqué par les courants qui ont présidé à son premier envol.

The history of working-class politics in Britain during the last hundred years might be written in terms of changing attitudes towards Liberalism; a Liberalism which was continuously redefining itself as its social composition altered and political circumstances changed. Successive generations of working-class leaders attempted both to identify themselves with Liberalism and to disengage themselves from it. Those who saw the political future of labour in terms of full incorporation within the Liberal party were never left unchallenged; those who believed in political independence rarely thought of that independence as involving a complete break with Liberal values. From the eighteen-sixties onwards the conflict between the desire to be assimilated and the urge to independence was continuously present within individuals as well as within movements.

As is well known the advocacy of pacifism is almost as old as war itself although organized attempts to outlaw war date only from the middle nineteenth century, and among these the Congrès de la Paix of 1867 played a unique rôle. First it foreshadowed the permanency of Geneva as its logical seat, at least in the all-important area of Europe, and secondly, it dared attack the immediate conditions which predisposed nations to eventual belligerency. In a way, the United Nations could be considered as a realization of some of the ideals which inspired the daring initiative taken by the 1867 Congress, even though it was attacked as being anarchistic and revolutionary at that time. In fact the ̓67 Congress ended in a furore over this issue and although it continued its work until World War I it was practically obliged to confine its efforts along the less explosive lines of arbitration and international jurisdiction.