The Left and the Struggle for Democracy in Europe, 1850-2000

Only in the wake of World War II did democratic forces become ensconced in Europe and, even then, it was to be decades before democracy truly blanketed the continent. How then did liberal democracy become the order of the day? Neither given nor granted, democracy requires conflict, often violent confrontations, and challenges to the existing order. In Europe, as this text illustrates, democracy did not evolve organically out of a postwar consensus, the prosperity of the long boom, or the negative cement of the Cold War. Rather, it was painstakingly crafted, continually expanded, and aggressively defended by a loose conglomeration of socialist, labour, feminist, and Communist movements that underwrote the industrial resurrection of Europe's ruined spirit. These parties of the left organized civil societies rooted in egalitarian ideals that came to form the very fibre of Europe's current democratic traditions. The trajectory of European democracy is thus inextricably connected with the history of the European Left. Seeking neither to praise nor condemn, this text gives a history of the European Left's successes and failures; its high watermarks and its low tides; its accomplishments, insufficiencies, and excesses; and, most importantly, its formative, lasting influence on the political landscape of the West. At a time when the influence and legitimacy - the very value - of Leftist democratic principles in frequently called into question, this book stands as a substantive affirmation of the power of human ideals and of collective organization.