Franz Borkenau
Encyclopedia
Franz Borkenau was an Austrian writer. Borkenau was born in Vienna
, Austria
, the son of a civil servant. As a university student in Leipzig
, his main interests were Marxism
and psychoanalysis
. Borkenau is known as one of the pioneers of the totalitarianism
theory.
and was active as a Comintern
agent until 1929. After graduating from the University of Leipzig
in 1924, Borkenau moved to Berlin
. In the 1920s, Borkenau was described by Richard Löwenthal
as a "sincere Marxist" who very much wanted a world revolution. At the end of 1929, Borkenau resigned from both the Comintern and the KPD owing to his personal repulsion and disgust over the way the Communists operated, combined with an increasing horror over Stalinism
.
Despite his break with Communism
, Borkenau remained on the Left and worked as a researcher for the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt
, Germany
. During his time at the Frankfurt Institute
, Borkenau was a protégé of Carl Grünberg
and his main interest was the relationship between capitalism
and ideology
. In 1933, the half-Jewish Borkenau fled from Germany and lived at various times in Vienna
, Paris
and Panama City
. In the 1930s, Borkenau was involved in organizing support from abroad for the Neu Beginnen
(New Beginnings) underground group, which was working for the overthrow of the Nazi regime. In a series of articles published in 1933-34 in the left-wing German language émigré press, Borkenau defended the Neu Beginnen group as the superior alternative to both the SPD
and the KPD
.
In his 1936 biography of the Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto
, Borkenau offered up an early theory of totalitarianism from a Marxist perspective. Though rather hostile towards Pareto, Borkenau was much impressed by his theory of the “circulation of elites”, under which the ablest individuals rose up to become members of the elite, thereby ensuring that the elites would always be re-energized and refreshed. Writing from a Marxist vantage point, Borkenau contended that the “circulation of elites” theory explained both Communism and fascism. Borkenau argued that the political-social-economic crises caused by World War I led to the strongest capitalists forming a “new economic elite”. But as the “new economic elite” continually revitalized itself through ever more destructive competition, more and more ordinary people felt the effects, thus leading the State to step in. But as the State became more involved in the economy, a “new political elite” emerged which superseded the previous economic elite, and claimed total power for itself in both the economy and politics. In Borkenau's opinion, Fascism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany and Communism in Russia all in different ways reflected the unfolding of this process Borkenau argued that Vladimir Lenin
created the first totalitarian dictatorship with all power concentrated into the hands of the state, which was completely unconstrained by any class forces as all previous regimes had been.
In September 1936, Borkenau paid a two-month visit to Spain
, where he observed the effects of Spanish Civil War
in Madrid
, Barcelona
and Valencia
. During his Spanish trip, Borkenau was much disillusioned by the behavior of the agents of the Soviet secret police, the NKVD
in Spain and of the Spanish Communist Party
. In January 1937, Borkenau made a second visit to Spain, during which he was arrested and tortured by Spanish police before being released. Borkenau’s experience inspired his best-known book, The Spanish Cockpit of 1937.
In 1939, Borkenau published The New German Empire, where he warned that Adolf Hitler
was intent upon world conquest. In particular, Borkenau advised against the idea popular in Great Britain
in the 1930s where Britain should return the former German colonies in Africa
in exchange for a German promise to respect the frontiers of Europe
(Unknown to Borkenau, such an offer by the British had been secretly made to the Germans in early 1938). Borkenau argued that the Germans would never honor such a promise, that returning the former German colonies would only provide a new field of conflict, and that Hitler's determination to overthrow the Treaty of Versailles
was "an almost insignificant incident on the road to unlimited expansion". Borkenau claimed that the German propaganda campaign for the former African colonies was a "stepping stone to something else", the "acquisition of a wider colonial area" for Germany. Borkenau asserted that the propaganda campaign for the return of the former German colonies in Africa was intended for their strategic value in helping to prepare the ground for a war against Britain
and France
, rather than the economic value, which Borkenau noted was very small. Borkenau argued that the main German target in Africa was South Africa
. Borkenau contended that if Britain returned the former German colonies to the Reich, then the Germans would stir up the anti-British elements within the Afrikaner
population. Once the anti-British Afrikaners became the politically dominant element "to the exclusion of everything British", then the Germans would transform South Africa into a German Protectorate
. With control of South Africa, the Germans would be able to control the Cape
route to India
, plus the Gold
mines of the Witwatersrand
, which "would at one stroke get rid of all the limitations imposed on her Germany by the lack of free exchange".
According to Borkenau, the Nazi dictatorship was a powerful revolutionary mass-dictatorship based on propaganda and terror, which to maintain itself and the associated Wehrwirtschaft (Defence Economy) required a policy of endless expansion in all directions. In Borkenau's opinion, these powerful internal forces driving German foreign policy meant Nazi Germany
could only aim at world conquest because without expansionism in all directions, the German dictatorship would collapse onto itself. In Borkenau's view, the nearest historical counterpart to German policy was French expansionism during the French Revolution
and the age of Napoleon
. Borkenau criticized those who compared the Third Reich to the Second Reich, or who argued that National Socialism was just one of the "ever-recurring waves of Teutonic nationalism", or the expression of "have-not imperialism" as engaging in a "deadly parallel". Borkenau’s portrayal of Nazi foreign policy being driven by powerful internal forces into a limitless expansionism was to strikingly configure the arguments made by German foreign policy by functionalist historians like Hans Mommsen
and Martin Broszat
, who similarly contended that Nazi foreign policy had no plans, but was rather “expansionism without objective” pushed by internal forces. However, Borkenau's work differed from the functionalists in that he maintained that the Nazi regime was a tightly organized totalitarian dictatorship. During World War II
, Borkenau lived in London
, and worked as a writer for Cyril Connolly
's journal Horizon
.
In 1947, Borkenau returned to Germany
to work as a professor at the University of Marburg. In June 1950, Borkenau attended the conference in Berlin
together with other anti-Communist
intellectuals such as Hugh Trevor-Roper, Ignazio Silone
, Raymond Aron
, Arthur Koestler
, Sidney Hook
and Melvin J. Lasky
that led to the founding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. At the conference, Borkenau delivered the keynote speech, where he spoke of the "meaninglessness" of the conflict between capitalism and socialism in a time of "ebbing revolution", and where the only conflict that mattered in the world was the one between Communism and democracy. Left-wing crypto-communist intellectuals such as Cedric Belfrage
, noting that Hitler often denounced Communism in Berlin, just as Borkenau did, compared his speech to the Nuremberg rallies, and went on to accuse Borkenau of being an sort of neo-Nazi.
Borkenau was very active in the Congress, and was often attacked by Marxist intellectuals such as Isaac Deutscher
for his fierce anti-Communism
. In turn, Borkenau was often critical of Deutscher's work. In 1949, Borkenau in a newspaper article attacked Deutscher for endorsing in his biography of Stalin the official Soviet version that Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky
together with the rest of the Red Army
high command had been plotting a coup in collaboration with the intelligence services of Germany
and Japan
, thus justifying Stalin’s “liquidation" of the Red Army leadership in 1937. Borkenau took the view that Deutscher was engaging in an apologia for Stalin since in his opinion, there was nothing that supported Stalin's version of events about the alleged coup plot of 1937. Borkenau concluded that:
school. Another historian whom Borkenau disliked (but for different reasons than was the case with Deutscher and Carr) was Arnold J. Toynbee
. In the May 1955 issue of Commentary, Borkenau accused Toynbee of being anti-Semitic.
In the 1950s, Borkenau was well-known as an expert on Communism
and the Soviet Union
. Borkenau was one of the founders of Sovietology. As a Kremlinologist, one of Borkenau's major interests was making predictions about the future of the Communist world. Some of Borkenau's predictions, such as his claim in the early 1950s about the coming Sino-Soviet split
were confirmed by events, but others were not. In an article in the April 1954 edition of
Commentary
entitled "Getting at the Facts Behind the Soviet Facade", Borkenau wrote that the Sino-Soviet alliance was highly unstable, and would last at a minimum for only a decade or so.
Borkenau argued that the key to understanding Soviet politics was that under the Soviet regime's surface of unity lay fierce power struggles within the Soviet elite. Moreover, Borkenau contended that within the Soviet government there were vast chefstvo (patronage) networks extending down from the elite to the lowest levels of power.
Borkenau’s techniques were a minute analysis of official Soviet statements and the standing arrangement at the Kremlin
on official occasions to determine what Soviet leader was in Joseph Stalin
's favor and what leader was not. In Borkenau's opinion, signs such as newspaper editorials, guest lists at formal occasions, obituaries in Soviet newspapers, and accounts of formal speeches were the key to finding out and identifying the standing of the various chefstvo networks. Borkenau argued that even small changes in the formulistic language of the Soviet state could sometimes indicate important changes. Borkenau wrote that: "Political issues must be interpreted in the light of formulas, political and otherwise, and their history; and such interpretation cannot be safely concluded until the whole history of the given formula has been established from its first enunciation on". On the basis of his method, in January 1953, Borkenau predicted that Stalin's death would occur in the near-future. In 1954, Borkenau wrote that he made that prediction on the basis of a resolution of the SED
on the "lessons of the Slansky case". Borkenau argued that because the resolution quoted Georgy Malenkov
a number of times about the supposed lessons for the Communist world of Rudolf Slánský
's supposed treason, that this was Walter Ulbricht
's way of associating himself with Malenkov's chefstvo network as part of the preparation for the post-Stalin succession struggle. Borkenau wrote that:
Another area of interest for Borkenau was in engaging in an intellectual critique of Arnold J. Toynbee
and Oswald Spengler
's work over when and why civilizations decline and die. The latter critique was published posthumously by his friend Richard Löwenthal
. Borkenau became increasingly active as a free-lance author living in Paris
, Rome
and Zurich
, where in the latter city he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1957.
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, the son of a civil servant. As a university student in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, his main interests were Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
. Borkenau is known as one of the pioneers of the totalitarianism
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
theory.
Life
In 1921, Borkenau joined the Communist Party of GermanyCommunist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
and was active as a Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
agent until 1929. After graduating from the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
in 1924, Borkenau moved to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. In the 1920s, Borkenau was described by Richard Löwenthal
Richard Löwenthal
Richard Löwenthal was a Jewish German journalist and professor who wrote mostly on the problems of democracy, communism, and world politics.- Life :...
as a "sincere Marxist" who very much wanted a world revolution. At the end of 1929, Borkenau resigned from both the Comintern and the KPD owing to his personal repulsion and disgust over the way the Communists operated, combined with an increasing horror over Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
.
Despite his break with Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, Borkenau remained on the Left and worked as a researcher for the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. During his time at the Frankfurt Institute
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
, Borkenau was a protégé of Carl Grünberg
Carl Grünberg
Carl Grünberg was the first director of the Institute for Social Research. He established and edited a journal of labour and socialist history today known as Grünbergs Archiv . He retired in 1929 and left the Institute to Max Horkheimer....
and his main interest was the relationship between capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
and ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
. In 1933, the half-Jewish Borkenau fled from Germany and lived at various times in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Panama City
Panama City
Panama is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Panama. It has a population of 880,691, with a total metro population of 1,272,672, and it is located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, in the province of the same name. The city is the political and administrative center of the...
. In the 1930s, Borkenau was involved in organizing support from abroad for the Neu Beginnen
Neu Beginnen
Neu Beginnen was a fringe opposition group on the socialist wing of SPD, which was greatly influenced by the ideas of Lenin. It was formed in 1929. After the Machtübernahme in 1933, the members of the small group discussed what the future of Germany should be after the National Socialist movement...
(New Beginnings) underground group, which was working for the overthrow of the Nazi regime. In a series of articles published in 1933-34 in the left-wing German language émigré press, Borkenau defended the Neu Beginnen group as the superior alternative to both the SPD
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
and the KPD
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
.
In his 1936 biography of the Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto
Vilfredo Pareto
Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto , born Wilfried Fritz Pareto, was an Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist and philosopher. He made several important contributions to economics, particularly in the study of income distribution and in the analysis of individuals' choices....
, Borkenau offered up an early theory of totalitarianism from a Marxist perspective. Though rather hostile towards Pareto, Borkenau was much impressed by his theory of the “circulation of elites”, under which the ablest individuals rose up to become members of the elite, thereby ensuring that the elites would always be re-energized and refreshed. Writing from a Marxist vantage point, Borkenau contended that the “circulation of elites” theory explained both Communism and fascism. Borkenau argued that the political-social-economic crises caused by World War I led to the strongest capitalists forming a “new economic elite”. But as the “new economic elite” continually revitalized itself through ever more destructive competition, more and more ordinary people felt the effects, thus leading the State to step in. But as the State became more involved in the economy, a “new political elite” emerged which superseded the previous economic elite, and claimed total power for itself in both the economy and politics. In Borkenau's opinion, Fascism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany and Communism in Russia all in different ways reflected the unfolding of this process Borkenau argued that Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
created the first totalitarian dictatorship with all power concentrated into the hands of the state, which was completely unconstrained by any class forces as all previous regimes had been.
In September 1936, Borkenau paid a two-month visit to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, where he observed the effects of Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
and Valencia
Valencia (city in Spain)
Valencia or València is the capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third largest city in Spain, with a population of 809,267 in 2010. It is the 15th-most populous municipality in the European Union...
. During his Spanish trip, Borkenau was much disillusioned by the behavior of the agents of the Soviet secret police, the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
in Spain and of the Spanish Communist Party
Spanish Communist Party
Spanish Communist Party , was the first communist party in Spain, formed out of the Federación de Juventudes Socialistas . The founders of the party, that had belonged to leftwing within FJS, included Ramón Merino Gracia, Manuel Ugarte, Pedro Illescasm Luis Portela, Tiburicio Pico and Rito Estaban...
. In January 1937, Borkenau made a second visit to Spain, during which he was arrested and tortured by Spanish police before being released. Borkenau’s experience inspired his best-known book, The Spanish Cockpit of 1937.
In 1939, Borkenau published The New German Empire, where he warned that Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
was intent upon world conquest. In particular, Borkenau advised against the idea popular in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
in the 1930s where Britain should return the former German colonies in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
in exchange for a German promise to respect the frontiers of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
(Unknown to Borkenau, such an offer by the British had been secretly made to the Germans in early 1938). Borkenau argued that the Germans would never honor such a promise, that returning the former German colonies would only provide a new field of conflict, and that Hitler's determination to overthrow the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
was "an almost insignificant incident on the road to unlimited expansion". Borkenau claimed that the German propaganda campaign for the former African colonies was a "stepping stone to something else", the "acquisition of a wider colonial area" for Germany. Borkenau asserted that the propaganda campaign for the return of the former German colonies in Africa was intended for their strategic value in helping to prepare the ground for a war against Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, rather than the economic value, which Borkenau noted was very small. Borkenau argued that the main German target in Africa was South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. Borkenau contended that if Britain returned the former German colonies to the Reich, then the Germans would stir up the anti-British elements within the Afrikaner
Afrikaner
Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...
population. Once the anti-British Afrikaners became the politically dominant element "to the exclusion of everything British", then the Germans would transform South Africa into a German Protectorate
Protectorate
In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
. With control of South Africa, the Germans would be able to control the Cape
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
route to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, plus the Gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
mines of the Witwatersrand
Witwatersrand
The Witwatersrand is a low, sedimentary range of hills, at an elevation of 1700–1800 metres above sea-level, which runs in an east-west direction through Gauteng in South Africa. The word in Afrikaans means "the ridge of white waters". Geologically it is complex, but the principal formations...
, which "would at one stroke get rid of all the limitations imposed on her Germany by the lack of free exchange".
According to Borkenau, the Nazi dictatorship was a powerful revolutionary mass-dictatorship based on propaganda and terror, which to maintain itself and the associated Wehrwirtschaft (Defence Economy) required a policy of endless expansion in all directions. In Borkenau's opinion, these powerful internal forces driving German foreign policy meant Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
could only aim at world conquest because without expansionism in all directions, the German dictatorship would collapse onto itself. In Borkenau's view, the nearest historical counterpart to German policy was French expansionism during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and the age of Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
. Borkenau criticized those who compared the Third Reich to the Second Reich, or who argued that National Socialism was just one of the "ever-recurring waves of Teutonic nationalism", or the expression of "have-not imperialism" as engaging in a "deadly parallel". Borkenau’s portrayal of Nazi foreign policy being driven by powerful internal forces into a limitless expansionism was to strikingly configure the arguments made by German foreign policy by functionalist historians like Hans Mommsen
Hans Mommsen
Hans Mommsen is a left-wing German historian. He is the twin brother of the late Wolfgang Mommsen.-Biography:He was born in Marburg, the son of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen and great-grandson of the Roman historian Theodor Mommsen. He studied German, history and philosophy at the University of...
and Martin Broszat
Martin Broszat
Martin Broszat was a German historian specializing in modern German social history whose work has been described by The Encyclopedia of Historians as indispensable for any serious study of the Third Reich. Broszat was born in Leipzig, Germany and studied history at the University of Leipzig and...
, who similarly contended that Nazi foreign policy had no plans, but was rather “expansionism without objective” pushed by internal forces. However, Borkenau's work differed from the functionalists in that he maintained that the Nazi regime was a tightly organized totalitarian dictatorship. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Borkenau lived in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and worked as a writer for Cyril Connolly
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly was an English intellectual, literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine Horizon and wrote Enemies of Promise , which combined literary criticism with an autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of...
's journal Horizon
Horizon (magazine)
Horizon: A Review of Literature and Art was an influential literary magazine published in London, between 1940 and 1949. It was edited by Cyril Connolly who gave a platform to a wide range of distinguished and emerging writers....
.
In 1947, Borkenau returned to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
to work as a professor at the University of Marburg. In June 1950, Borkenau attended the conference in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
together with other anti-Communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
intellectuals such as Hugh Trevor-Roper, Ignazio Silone
Ignazio Silone
Ignazio Silone was the pseudonym of Secondino Tranquilli, an Italian author and politician.-Early life and career:...
, Raymond Aron
Raymond Aron
Raymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron was a French philosopher, sociologist, journalist and political scientist.He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals, the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people -- in contrast, Aron argued that in...
, Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
, Sidney Hook
Sidney Hook
Sidney Hook was an American pragmatic philosopher known for his contributions to public debates.A student of John Dewey, Hook continued to examine the philosophy of history, of education, politics, and of ethics. After embracing Marxism in his youth, Hook was known for his criticisms of...
and Melvin J. Lasky
Melvin J. Lasky
Melvin Jonah Lasky was an American journalist, intellectual, and member of the anti-Communist left. He was the older brother of the influential entertainment lawyer Floria Lasky and Joyce Lasky Reed, the President and founder of the Faberge Arts Foundation and former Director of European Affairs...
that led to the founding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. At the conference, Borkenau delivered the keynote speech, where he spoke of the "meaninglessness" of the conflict between capitalism and socialism in a time of "ebbing revolution", and where the only conflict that mattered in the world was the one between Communism and democracy. Left-wing crypto-communist intellectuals such as Cedric Belfrage
Cedric Belfrage
Cedric Henning Belfrage was a socialist, author, journalist, translator and co-founder of the radical US-weekly newspaper the National Guardian...
, noting that Hitler often denounced Communism in Berlin, just as Borkenau did, compared his speech to the Nuremberg rallies, and went on to accuse Borkenau of being an sort of neo-Nazi.
Borkenau was very active in the Congress, and was often attacked by Marxist intellectuals such as Isaac Deutscher
Isaac Deutscher
Isaac Deutscher was a Polish-born Jewish Marxist writer, journalist and political activist who moved to the United Kingdom at the outbreak of World War II. He is best known as a biographer of Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin and as a commentator on Soviet affairs...
for his fierce anti-Communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
. In turn, Borkenau was often critical of Deutscher's work. In 1949, Borkenau in a newspaper article attacked Deutscher for endorsing in his biography of Stalin the official Soviet version that Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky was a Marshal of the Soviet Union, commander in chief of the Red Army , and one of the most prominent victims of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.-Early life:...
together with the rest of the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
high command had been plotting a coup in collaboration with the intelligence services of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, thus justifying Stalin’s “liquidation" of the Red Army leadership in 1937. Borkenau took the view that Deutscher was engaging in an apologia for Stalin since in his opinion, there was nothing that supported Stalin's version of events about the alleged coup plot of 1937. Borkenau concluded that:
"Deutscher's perspective is utterly false...Napoleon's person could be detached from the destinies of France; and the achivements of the revolution, and of the Napolenoic period were indeed preserved. But it is more than doubtful whether Russia's destiny can be separated from Stalinism, even if Stalin were ever to die a natural death. The inner law of Stalinist terror drives Stalin's Russia, not less, even if more slowly, the law of Nazi terror Hitler's Germany, to conflict with the world and thereby to total catastrophe not only for the terroristic régime, but also for the nation ruled by it...The danger of Deutscher's book is that in place of this grave and anxious prospect it puts another one which is more normal and reassuring. According to Deutscher's conception there is nothing terrible to fear because in the main the terrors are already past. To this conception we oppose the opinion that the revolution of the twentieth century shows parallels to earlier revolutions only in its opening phrase, but that later it ushers in a régime of terror without end, of hostility towards everything human, of horrors which carry no remedy, and which can be cured only ferro et igni".Likewise, Borkenau was often highly critical of the work of the pro-Soviet British historian E. H. Carr. In 1951, Borkenau wrote in the Der Monat newspaper of the first volume of Carr's History of Soviet Russia that for Carr: "Human suffering he seems to say, is not a historical factor; Carr belongs to those very cold people who always believe they think and act with the iciest calculation and therefore fail to understand why they are mistaken in their calculations time and time again". Borkenau was a leading advocate for the Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
school. Another historian whom Borkenau disliked (but for different reasons than was the case with Deutscher and Carr) was Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold Joseph Toynbee CH was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934–1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global...
. In the May 1955 issue of Commentary, Borkenau accused Toynbee of being anti-Semitic.
In the 1950s, Borkenau was well-known as an expert on Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Borkenau was one of the founders of Sovietology. As a Kremlinologist, one of Borkenau's major interests was making predictions about the future of the Communist world. Some of Borkenau's predictions, such as his claim in the early 1950s about the coming Sino-Soviet split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
were confirmed by events, but others were not. In an article in the April 1954 edition of
Commentary
Commentary (magazine)
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
entitled "Getting at the Facts Behind the Soviet Facade", Borkenau wrote that the Sino-Soviet alliance was highly unstable, and would last at a minimum for only a decade or so.
Borkenau argued that the key to understanding Soviet politics was that under the Soviet regime's surface of unity lay fierce power struggles within the Soviet elite. Moreover, Borkenau contended that within the Soviet government there were vast chefstvo (patronage) networks extending down from the elite to the lowest levels of power.
Borkenau’s techniques were a minute analysis of official Soviet statements and the standing arrangement at the Kremlin
Kremlin
A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
on official occasions to determine what Soviet leader was in Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's favor and what leader was not. In Borkenau's opinion, signs such as newspaper editorials, guest lists at formal occasions, obituaries in Soviet newspapers, and accounts of formal speeches were the key to finding out and identifying the standing of the various chefstvo networks. Borkenau argued that even small changes in the formulistic language of the Soviet state could sometimes indicate important changes. Borkenau wrote that: "Political issues must be interpreted in the light of formulas, political and otherwise, and their history; and such interpretation cannot be safely concluded until the whole history of the given formula has been established from its first enunciation on". On the basis of his method, in January 1953, Borkenau predicted that Stalin's death would occur in the near-future. In 1954, Borkenau wrote that he made that prediction on the basis of a resolution of the SED
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
on the "lessons of the Slansky case". Borkenau argued that because the resolution quoted Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death, he became Premier of the Soviet Union and was in 1953 briefly considered the most powerful Soviet politician before being overshadowed by Nikita...
a number of times about the supposed lessons for the Communist world of Rudolf Slánský
Rudolf Slánský
Rudolf Slánský was a Czech Communist politician. Holding the post of the party's General Secretary after World War II, he was one of the leading creators and organizers of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia...
's supposed treason, that this was Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...
's way of associating himself with Malenkov's chefstvo network as part of the preparation for the post-Stalin succession struggle. Borkenau wrote that:
"Malenkov was quoted at inordinate length...By quoting him in his fashion and by adding his own yelp to the anti-Semitic chorus, Ulbricht, the animator of the resolution, proclaimed himself a Malenkov client. But even more important; while Malenkov was cited at length, Stalin was quoted with a mere half sentence dating from 1910. Such a deliberate affront could have been offered only by people sure of that tyrant's approaching downfall, or else out of reach of his retribution. Otherwise, it was sure suicide. It was primarily on the strength of the evidence found in this resolution that I then predicted, in print, Stalin's imminent death, which, sure enough, came seven weeks later".
Another area of interest for Borkenau was in engaging in an intellectual critique of Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold Joseph Toynbee CH was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934–1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global...
and Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Oswald Manuel Arnold Gottfried Spengler was a German historian and philosopher whose interests also included mathematics, science, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West , published in 1918, which puts forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations...
's work over when and why civilizations decline and die. The latter critique was published posthumously by his friend Richard Löwenthal
Richard Löwenthal
Richard Löwenthal was a Jewish German journalist and professor who wrote mostly on the problems of democracy, communism, and world politics.- Life :...
. Borkenau became increasingly active as a free-lance author living in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, where in the latter city he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1957.
Work
- The Transition from the Feudal to the Bourgeois World View, 1934.
- Pareto, New York : Wiley, 1936.
- The Spanish Cockpit : an Eye-Witness Account of the Political and Social Conflicts of the Spanish Civil War, London : Faber and Faber, 1937.
- Austria and After, London, Faber and Faber 1938.
- The Communist International, London : Faber and Faber, 1938.
- The New German Empire, New York, Viking, 1939
- The Totalitarian Enemy, London, Faber and Faber 1940.
- Socialism, National or International, London, G. Routledge 1942.
- European Communism, New York : Harper, 1953.
- World Communism; a History of the Communist International, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1962.
- End and Beginning : on the Generations of Cultures and the Origins of the West, edited with an introduction by Richard Lowenthal, New York : Columbia University Press, 1981.