In the early 1930s social democrats across Europe faced many challenges. The economic crisis as well as the rise of National Socialism, fascism and communism brought up for discussion their tactics and strategy, formulated in the previous decade. At first sight they seemed to be ill-prepared to formulate compelling proposals that promised to end the slump. Moreover, left-wing critics who denounced their post-war reformism won electoral support, while social democratic parties hardly mobilised groups beyond their traditional rank and file. The accession to power by Adolf Hitler in 1933, finally, sent a shock wave through their ranks, all the more so since the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) failed to prevent it. Nevertheless, these years also presented what Gerd-Rainer Horn called a ‘moment of opportunity’. It was an era when ‘voluntarist notions’ and grand schemes for reform gained acceptance ‘within all segments of the European Left’.Footnote ¹

One such influential proposal in favour of radical societal change was put forward by the Belgian politician and activist Hendrik de Man. For years he had argued that economic and social developments had produced a society far more complex than socialists had foreseen in the mid-nineteenth century. In addition, his criticism of the belief in fixed historical patterns attracted widespread attention. He called upon social democratic parties to abandon their determinism and adopt a more voluntarist stance that appealed to the people's emotions far more than before. In this respect he claimed that voluntarism would narrow the gap between Marxist rhetoric and the reformism of day-to-day politics.Footnote ² Moreover, he witnessed the emergence of the Nazi party as well as the SPD's feeble attempts to halt the fateful turn of events. This experience convinced him even more that social democracy should create a united front of workers and other groupings against the far right. On his return to Belgium in 1933, he was given a chance to put his ideas into reality. Within six months De Man developed his Plan of Labour, which the Belgische Werkliedenpartij/Parti Ouvrier Belge (BWP/POB) adopted in December 1933. Historians such as Horn and Gilles Vergnon argue that this Plan offered a blueprint for radical reform of society and the economy on an anti-capitalist basis. De Man intended his Plan to be a platform for cross-class co-operation, especially by workers and impoverished members of the middle classes. As such, it was to be ‘part and parcel of a comprehensive offensive strategy situating anti-fascist engagement at the heart of a more general and ongoing concrete working-class struggle for socialist goals’.Footnote ³

After the adoption of the Plan of Labour, the Bureau of National Action launched a propaganda campaign. The propagandists, many of whom belonged to the party's left wing, fixed their attention on, successively, the cadres of the BWP/POB and its ancillary organisations, workers and unemployed, and, finally, those Belgians who did not identify with the social democratic milieu (e.g. Catholics, peasants and the middle classes). The ultimate objective was to create a popular movement which, in its turn, would produce a new government that would realise the Plan in its entirety. All means available, such as mass rallies, discussion panels, pamphlets, advertisements, radio programmes and films were used. By December 1934 the campaign organisers claimed that the party had never mobilised so many.Footnote ⁴ Yet historians interpret the degree of success in contradictory ways. The ‘well-oiled planist propaganda machine’, Horn notes, ‘galvanised the country more than any other political project in recent memory’. The author of a comparative study of Belgian and Dutch social democracy, Annemieke Klijn, by contrast, argues that it ‘did not catch on well with outsiders’. Catholics and their social and political organisations especially gave the BWP/POB the cold shoulder, as a result of which the socialists failed to attract the necessary support on which their plan's success ultimately depended.Footnote ⁵

Be it as it may, the Plan of Labour and the propaganda campaign had an impact well beyond Belgium. In countries such as Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, social democratic parties set out to design their own plans. This success of ‘planism’ reflected the emphasis placed on the need for government intervention in the economy and in society. Besides, Horn writes, it illustrates ‘the desperate scramble for effective solutions then preoccupying social democrats everywhere’. To many who had called for a change in policies in the previous years, De Man seemed to offer a combination of socialist theory, practical politics and the prospect of action.Footnote ⁶ As diverse as these countries and parties were, however, so were their Plans of Labour. While the French Section française de l'Internationale ouvriève (SFIO), much like its Belgian or Spanish counterparts, proposed radical reforms, the Swedish social democrats, for example, offered a more moderate scheme. Theirs was above all a combination of general economic planning, inflationary fiscal policies and Keynesian deficit spending. So far, the historiography about these initiatives has paid particular attention to the more radical plans. In this respect, most historians tend to emphasise that planism should be considered as a strategy for the introduction of socialism.Footnote ⁷ In contrast, they pay less attention to the more moderate plans. Vergnon's overview, for example, ignores them entirely. Although he does discuss radical fringe parties that had little influence in Dutch society, he does not as much as mention the 1935 Plan of Labour of the far more important Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij (SDAP, Social Democratic Workers’ Party). By his own admission, Horn's seminal study only discusses the most radical plans. Yet, he is quick to acknowledge that ‘planism appeared in many shades and variations’; the wide variety thereof, he elaborates, ‘reflected the polymorphous nature of the planist project’ itself.Footnote ⁸ In this respect, Horn characterises the Plan proposed by the SDAP as ‘one clear case of a moderate adaptation of the Belgian model’. At first sight, the Dutch Plan thus seems to fit well into the period when disillusioned social democrats who had heretofore offered radical alternatives to the status quo turned from 1935 onwards to more moderate reform schemes.Footnote ⁹ However, the story to be told is more complex.

The Dutch social democratic party

Founded in 1894, the SDAP attained many of its traditional goals such as universal suffrage and social legislation in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. For a brief period its supporters cherished the prospect that socialism was imminent. The party found the majority of its supporters among skilled, industrial labourers in the four largest cities and the northern and eastern provinces of the Netherlands. In addition it attracted groups such as primary school teachers and professionals. However, it never won much electoral support beyond its 1918 level; it consistently gained between 20 and 24 of 100 seats in the parliamentary elections of the 1920s and 1930s.Footnote ¹⁰

Unlike its counterparts in, for example, Belgium and Germany, the SDAP did not join a national government until as late as 1939, although many of its aldermen proved to be efficient and responsible municipal politicians in cities such as Amsterdam. Shunned by other forces, it failed to drive a wedge between Catholic, Protestant and liberal parties. Besides, parliamentary politics was characterised by a high degree of stability which allowed only for minor swings. The Netherlands, in other words, did not experience the kind of volatility that marked a country such as Germany, where the economic crisis coincided with the rapid growth of National Socialism (and, to a lesser extent, communism). Rather, national socialist and communist parties remained relatively small. Historians hold ‘the pillarisation of Dutch society, which was at its height between 1920 and 1960’ accountable for this predominant feature of politics. The population was embedded in four – Protestant, Catholic, socialist, and (to a lesser degree) liberal – groups. ‘Each of the pillars’, Lex Heerma van Vos notes, ‘led a life of its own and [minimised] the risk of corruption through contacts with others.’Footnote ¹¹ Consequently, the isolation of an individual pillar made it extremely difficult for its leaders to appeal to the rank and file of others.Footnote ¹²

The SDAP faced yet another dilemma. In no European country, Stefan Berger and others argue, ‘could working-class support alone ensure a majority in elections. The success of electoral socialism therefore relied either on multi-class support or on co-operation with other parties’.Footnote ¹³ In the Dutch case, the viability of this strategy largely depended upon the degree to which Catholic workers could be convinced that their interests would be best served by the social democrats. Only if the latter succeeded in this respect, would the country's largest party, the Rooms-Katholieke Staatspartij (RKSP), be willing to form a coalition government. Yet co-operation had little appeal for Catholic politicians, who portrayed the SDAP as a revolutionary and anti-Christian force. Their critical image of social democracy appeared to be confirmed, as the SDAP leader Pieter Jelles Troelstra called for a revolution in November 1918 and the SDAP only reluctantly distanced itself from the sailors’ uprising on the naval vessel De Zeven Provinciën in 1932. Moreover, the Catholic leadership saw no reason to reconsider their position as long as working-class voters continued to support the RKSP, a party that gained as many votes from workers as did the SDAP. In 1925 the RKSP politician Willem Nolens defined his party's attitude towards social democracy: only in the case of extreme necessity should the RKSP co-operate with the SDAP. The fall of the fourth government led by Hendrik Colijn and the parliamentary vote of no-confidence in a minority coalition on 27 July 1939 presented such a case of extreme necessity. As international tensions grew, the Catholics finally accepted the entry into government of two social democrats in August 1939.Footnote ¹⁴ Before it could come to this, much had to change – not least social democracy itself.

Although the SDAP at first seemed ill-prepared to do so, it nevertheless managed to reorient itself. The emergence of a younger generation of party leaders went hand in hand with a programmatic change that resulted in the adoption of the Plan of Labour in 1935 and a new platform in 1937. The new leaders understood that socialisation and a change in the form of government were not the panaceas that were needed for the problems of society and politics. Given the relative underdevelopment of the industrial sector, moreover, the party's potential rank and file was rather limited. Consequently the SDAP, they argued, had to appeal to groups other than industrial labourers. This was no easy objective to attain as Catholic workers continued to support the RKSP throughout the 1930s. Besides, the prospect for social democratic politics was contingent on a government willing and able to put the party's programme into practice. As Dutch politics was defined by the inescapable need for coalition governments, the SDAP had no choice but to work with the RKSP. Anything else (such as co-operation with communists or fringe parties on the platform of a socialist plan) made no sense and would have merely prolonged its political isolation. As a result, social democracy faced the necessity of taking root in the ‘pillarised’ system in which more conservative parties played a key role, rather than of seeking co-operation with the far left. Hence the party dropped its demands for socialisation and disarmament, and accepted a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy as key features of politics. Finally, the removal of the expression ‘class struggle’ from the programme illustrated the extent to which it bade farewell to its former rhetoric and objectives.Footnote ¹⁵

In this respect Dutch social democrats, Dietrich Orlow points out, ‘played a pioneering role in the self-transformation of European Social Democracy from political groups that represented a single societal constituency to . . . genuine left-of-center progressive volkspartijen’, catch-all parties.Footnote ¹⁶ The Plan of Labour was a crucial step towards becoming a reform-minded party, which in the first half of the 1930s was parting from its Marxist past – a process that would be completed on the adoption of a new programme in 1937. In contrast to the Belgian one, the Dutch Plan thus propagated government control over a mixed economy which would help to alleviate the effects of the slump and prevent future crises. The government was to be employer and financier as well as modeller of the economy. Social engineering and planning rather than socialism were its key objectives.Footnote ¹⁷

Over the years, historians have produced an impressive array of studies of the history of the SDAP. Much of their work focuses on the ideological development and the numerous conflicts between proponents and critics of this transformation. They seem to be less interested in the impact of these changes on the party's strategy and tactics as well as the manner in which it marketed itself. This article aims to throw light on the ways in which the SDAP presented itself to its rank and file and to groups that had hitherto been insensitive to its propaganda. More importantly, it focuses on the sources of inspiration which influenced those responsible for the manner in which the party ‘sold’ itself to the constituency. The two-year-long propaganda drive for the Plan of Labour especially shows the consequences of the new programme and strategy for the marketing of social democracy.

Crises and the Plan of Labour

By the mid-1930s, a quarter to a third of the population was affected by the economic crisis. Approximately 480,000 people were unemployed, while numerous others were threatened by wage cuts or the spectre of unemployment. Subsequent governments, led by C. J. M. Ruijs de Beerenbrouck (1929–33) and Colijn (1933–9), pursued classical liberal policies in order to improve the state budget, keep the guilder sound and increase firms’ competitiveness. Yet they prolonged rather than solved the problems. As for the SDAP, it did not offer a convincing concept of how to combat the crisis either. By the early 1930s, only few social democrats like Jan Tinbergen, the future winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, argued for an activist economic policy. They met with resistance from more traditional party members, who felt no need to act forcefully in the face of the slump. The latter argued that socialisation of the means of production alone could end the slump; since they believed that the crisis made the decline of capitalism inevitable, they only wanted to alleviate its social effects. In their turn, social democratic parliamentarians agreed with the government on the need to lower public expenditure and remained staunch supporters of free trade, while state income declined rapidly from 1931 onwards. At the same time, they, much like employers and Catholic politicians, proposed instigating public works and founding a state-owned investment bank to finance private industrial projects. They failed, however, to explain how they wanted to finance these plans without, for example, lowering the wages of civil servants, municipal workers and teachers. As the government, finally, passed a law that forced municipalities to balance their strained budgets in 1932, social democratic aldermen could do no more than limit cuts in incomes of persons receiving welfare benefits and civil servants. In the years 1931–3, the SDAP was thus caught between passivity, budget cuts and Marxist rhetoric. In fact, as Peter Jan Knegtmans notes, the party ‘had no coherent idea of what needed to be done. [The] notion that nothing could be done about capitalism still prevailed.’Footnote ¹⁸

The majority of social democrats were driven by a mechanical vision of the future. To them, iron laws of historical materialism predicted that the development of capitalism would lead to an ever-growing class antagonism and a victory of the proletariat over capital and bourgeoisie. Many expected the impoverished victims of the economic downturn to turn away from religious parties to join their rank and file. Such beliefs proved false in almost every area. Rising unemployment did not lead to electoral gains for the SDAP; rather, it lost two of its twenty-four parliamentary seats in 1933. The middle classes and workers in the predominantly Catholic south remained loyal to the RKSP. Moreover, the strategy which promoted the interests of industrial workers did not guarantee electoral victory in a country whose economy was characterised by a relatively low industrialisation rate. Finally, the assumption of power by the Nazis in Germany profoundly shocked the party leadership. ‘Conventional politics had failed’; consequently the party realised that it ‘desperately needed an alternative’.Footnote ¹⁹ The search for compelling alternatives would last until 1937.

The awareness of the need for change was reflected in the appointment of a Herzieningscommissie (review commission) in June 1933, whose members represented all important factions of social democracy. They should advise on the question whether the 1912 programme and the decisions taken since 1918 (on matters such as socialisation, disarmament and monarchy) should be adapted, ‘considering the changed economic and political circumstances at home and abroad’.Footnote ²⁰ From the outset, they aimed ‘to give no semblance of truth to the idea [that revision originated from] fear [or] through the force of circumstances’ and that ‘Marxism was doomed’. In the end, its members could not make a clear break with the past; moreover, their disagreement made it difficult to agree on unambiguous proposals. As a result, the report, a compromise between traditionalists and reformers, hardly helped the party to reposition itself.Footnote ²¹ But it did offer a starting point for change. One of its most salient aspects was the call for the creation of ‘a united front [of] sincere opponents of dictatorship’, drawn from workers as well as intellectuals, peasants, middle classes, the unemployed and youth who until then had looked on the SDAP as the representative of industrial labourers alone.Footnote ²²

Most members of the Herzieningscommissie hoped for a cross-class coalition for socialism; a few, however, had other objectives in mind. They advocated a change in social democratic politics itself. Their position was greatly enhanced as Koos Vorrink, who had criticised social democratic determinism for years, was elected party chairman in 1934. Moreover, the labour union put pressure on the party to formulate concrete proposals in the interest of its membership rather than long-term ideological vistas. The SDAP and the Nederlands Verbond van Vakverenigingen (NVV) labour union joined forces to propose a Plan of Labour as an answer to both the economic crisis and the political isolation of the SDAP. They installed a Centrale Plan-Commissie (Central Plan Commission, CPC) whose most important members were Vorrink and Johan Willem Albarda (leader of the parliamentary group) as well as union leaders such as Simon de la Bella.Footnote ²³ This commission entrusted the actual elaboration of the Plan to a working group led by Hein Vos. None of the known Marxists were invited to join, a fact that indicates how much had changed in a few years. The working group members acknowledged that the analytical concept of class had lost its persuasiveness, and embraced the idea that society was made up of different – religious, regional, professional, age, gender and so on – groups, each of which had its specific characteristics. They proposed measures that would protect the most vulnerable members of society from the harshest effects of the crisis and portrayed the Plan as a set of constructive policies in the interest of the population as a whole. Inspired by the work of John Maynard Keynes and the economic policies carried out in Sweden, theirs was a plea for state intervention on behalf of industrialisation, public works and higher consumer buying power. In this respect, the working group formulated proposals imbued with the belief that society could be perfected, combining short-term measures that sought to alleviate unemployment with thorough reform in order to avoid future crises. Weakening of the market mechanism, development of the industrially underdeveloped economy, a pronounced role of the state that instigated and financed development and planning (such as those of infrastructural works) – these constituted key elements of the Plan. The state was to order, control and steer the economy, because the latter was prone to disorder and crises which, as the German case had shown, could have serious consequences.Footnote ²⁴

One factor that contributed to this moderate Plan was the influence exercised by the labour union. More importantly, however, the SDAP had changed. To the new generation in the party leadership the Plan seemed to offer both a policy objective worth fighting for and a means by which the party could end its political isolation. As massive state intervention was the precondition on which the Plan depended, it was only logical that the SDAP claimed a key role for itself in a government to be formed after the 1937 parliamentary elections. Unlike the BWP/POB, which held on to its Marxist doctrine, the SDAP decided to abandon socialism and its emphasis on class struggle which had inspired its platform of 1912. In this sense, the Plan was a crucial element in the process of change, which should either turn the SDAP into a coalition partner for the Catholic party or ease Catholic workers away from the RKSP.Footnote ²⁵

Pleading for activism

To propose better policies was not sufficient. Party and union leaders understood that the Plan had no chance of succeeding if they failed to arouse public enthusiasm. Everything ‘will remain pointless’, Het Volk noted, ‘if we do not turn its constructive ideas into an animated and creative national consciousness’.Footnote ²⁶ Thus from the first presentation of the Plan's as yet vague contours the CPC did not address itself to party and union membership alone. Rather, it claimed to act ‘in the primary national interest’, and called upon all ‘to pursue a forceful welfare policy’.Footnote ²⁷ Likewise, the chairman of a provincial party branch argued that the ‘Dutch people as a whole should be informed about the Plan, everybody must be convinced that the Plan provides a solution. Indeed, everybody must support our Plan.’Footnote ²⁸ A large-scale, sustained propaganda campaign was to bring about this objective.

The question of how best to achieve this goal occupied those responsible for planning and execution of the campaign. Two personalities especially played a role in this respect: Koos Vorrink and Meijer Sluyser. The former was the spearhead of a new generation that gradually took over control of the SDAP. A former chairperson of the socialist youth movement, Vorrink advocated the changes that led to the adoption of the Plan of Labour and a new programme. A journalist and propagandist for most of his life, Sluyser was especially noted for his struggle against communism and national socialism. He turned the low-priced weekly Vrijheid Arbeid Brood into a commercial and political success; selling more than 100,000 copies a week, it informed readers about the activities of the SDAP, its political opponents, and (from October 1935 onwards) the Plan of Labour in an entertaining, indeed, demagogic style. Moreover, from December 1933 onwards Sluyser regularly expressed his admiration of the Belgian Plan and campaign.Footnote ²⁹ Both men knew Hendrik de Man's ideas well. Vorrink translated his work into Dutch, while Sluyser convinced him to write the preface of a booklet in which he passionately pleaded for a Dutch Plan. They were particularly impressed by the propaganda drive on behalf of his Plan of Labour. To them, a plan was not only an alternative to ineffectual policies of conservative governments. It was also a means to free oneself from the determinist legacy of the past and to shape a revitalised social democracy.Footnote ³⁰

De Man was also known for his criticism of Marxian notions of workers’ motivation. According to him, workers were not solely motivated by economic interests; he even seemed to have little faith in their willingness to fulfil the task Marx had believed to be theirs. Rather, they were driven by sentiments such as nationalism. Consequently, socialists had no choice but to embrace what Ze'ev Sternhell calls ‘a cult of energy and dynamism’, itself defined by struggle, relentless activism and inspiring leadership.Footnote ³¹ The focus on such characteristics illustrates the influence on the inter-war generation of the then popular notions of vitalism developed by philosophers such as Henri Bergson. The opposition between the modern material world and rigid determinism, on the one hand, and the life force imbued with intuition, combativeness and heroic activism, on the other, determined the vitalist ethic of De Man.Footnote ³²

His appeal to call on emotions as a way of mobilising the population did not fall on deaf ears. Sluyser especially emphasised the need to rethink the manner in which the SDAP propagated its ideas. Social democrats, he argued, had always relied on the persuasive power of ‘irrefutable’ facts and ‘scientific laws’. It would be good if one could continue to do so. In a world characterised by war, revolution and economic crises, however, rational persuasion no longer sufficed. Desperate peasants, middle classes, unemployed and students, Sluyser claimed, lacked the force to withstand ‘the somersault of events’ that had marked their lives since 1914, as a result of which they had no faith in their own capabilities or the force of common action. Rather, hatred of the Other, feelings of impotence and distrust towards democracy made them particularly amenable to anti-democratic sentiments. National socialism, for example, would arouse the feeling of togetherness which these people craved. Part of a larger group, they experienced the power emanating from that group; moreover, they turned to political adventurers who promised them ‘salvation in exchange for total servitude’. He implored the SDAP to take these people's state of mind into account. Only if it did so could it attract their attention and thus weaken its opponents who had fewer scruples in resorting to ‘psychological manipulation’.Footnote ³³

These beliefs were based on an analysis of national socialism in Germany and the fear of a national-socialist takeover in the Netherlands. To older party leaders such as Floor Wibaut, the far right represented little more than a ‘reinforced form of capitalism’.Footnote ³⁴ Men like Vorrink, Sluyser and the religious socialist Willem Banning, however, could not disagree more. According to them, the support for national socialism was primarily the result of ‘the suffering’ caused by the crisis.Footnote ³⁵ In addition, people turned to the far right because it promised to satisfy their desire for ‘something “different”, “new”, [and] “mythical”’. Consequently it was to be looked on as a ‘revolutionary movement in opposition to the democratic, bourgeois-liberal society’, whose leaders successfully ‘appealed to anti-rationalist sentiments’.Footnote ³⁶ In this sense, the popular support for extremism was (partly) the result of the SDAP's stance itself. Not only had its leadership held on to a programme that failed to respond to the expectations and fears of many for too long, it had also pursued ineffective strategies and tactics. Sluyser even suggested that the ‘vague, fatalistic belief that everything in society would sort itself out’ was likely to be one of the causes of the popularity of national socialism. However, there was more. ‘What’, he writes, ‘did we do wrong as a result of which these people turn to others rather than to us?’Footnote ³⁷ Do the ‘old methods of dissemination of thoughts and ideas’ still match with ‘the receptivity of the masses’? Could it be, finally, that their ‘intellectual and emotional life’ changes too fast for the effect of propaganda to persist? It was clear to all that these were rhetorical questions in his mind. What, he asked, would be the best strategy for propagating policy proposals such as the Plan of Labour? To answer this query, he turned to what he believed to be the strategy of the extreme right itself. According to him, anti-democratic movements offered the victims of the crisis the possibility of escaping into a false sense of security. If social democratic propaganda was to be successful, he argued, it should ‘appeal to [the same] instincts without falling into inexcusableness’.Footnote ³⁸

Despite his criticisms, Sluyser believed that the SDAP was well equipped to succeed. Although it could (and should) not offer leaders like Hitler, it did have a ‘leadership principle’. A social democratic leader serves as a ‘pioneer who sets an objective’, proposes solutions for problems and unites the party's partisans despite all differences between them. Finally, he shapes emotional solidarity and comradeship by calling on the workers and the middle classes to fight together for ‘a better world’.Footnote ³⁹ Moreover, social democracy could formulate policy proposals promising a better future. However, this was not enough. Like De Man and Vorrink, Sluyser wanted to break through the fatalistic attitude which, they claimed, drove so many into the arms of national socialism. To Sluyser, the Plan of Labour could ‘only be meaningful if and when [it] is the point of departure of an action that is more intense, more active, and more systematic than has ever been the case’. For the propaganda campaign to be a success, in other words, a ‘volcanic eruption of activity’ must take place.Footnote ⁴⁰ A decidedly ‘aggressive’ and ‘active socialism’ was needed, for only a relentless struggle could shape and keep alive support for the Plan among social democrats and outsiders alike. Moreover, he suggested that such a version of socialism could overcome the cultural and political malaise which he held responsible for the popularity of political extremism.Footnote ⁴¹ As such, Sluyser expressed his belief in the pedagogical value of activism itself.

To fight for change

Vorrink and others argued that the current unemployment was the result of the crisis as much as the passivity of subsequent governments. Fatalism tempted politicians to look on the slump as an unpredictable and inevitable phenomenon that, like a natural disaster, takes people by surprise. According to this perspective, to adapt oneself to what is portrayed as an ‘economic tide’ seems to be the only option. As a result, they divided the nation into ‘those who work’ and ‘those who do not’, a situation that drove the latter into the arms of political extremists.Footnote ⁴² However, the population could choose between recession and fatalism on the one hand and welfare, forceful action and constructive ideas on the other. Not only would activism free people from their fears and feelings of impotence, it would also strengthen their force of will; as a result, they will be able to create a better world together. In this respect, it was important for the SDAP to present itself as a vigorous movement ready to defend democracy and to pursue effective policies in the interest of the Dutch people. ‘Active socialism’, in other words, would put an end to the feeling of being no more than ‘a piece of lifeless wood that is carried along without offering resistance’ on the high seas. Rather, Sluyser claimed, it offered social democrats an objective worth fighting for: the creation of a community of democrats who turn the Plan of Labour into reality.Footnote ⁴³

To embark on a campaign in order to overcome one's problems was a well-known tactic used successfully before. From May 1933 onwards, for example, the Bureau voor Actie en Propaganda tegen Fascisme en Communisme (Bureau for Action and Propaganda against Fascism and Communism, or Buracprop) organised all kinds of activities. These aimed ‘to expose fascism and communism as being hostile to the interests of the people . . ., deprive them of their breeding ground . . ., cut them down to size and keep them small’.Footnote ⁴⁴ All available means of communication such as Vrijheid Arbeid Brood were used to inform the target groups. Although the Buracprop failed to halt the emergence of communism and national socialism or mobilise outsiders to its cause, it did revive social democratic militancy, since it appealed to the desire to fight the ‘enemy’. The dislike of and the moral indignation over national socialism (and, to a lesser extent, communism) thus helped to overcome the rank and file's fatalistic mood.Footnote ⁴⁵ Moreover, this campaign provided social democracy with a network of experienced propagandists and local action committees, as well as a propaganda paper, which turned out to be of great value after the SDAP and the labour union adopted the Plan of Labour in October 1935.

In many ways, the propaganda drive for the Dutch Plan was modelled after what De Man's Bureau of National Action had done in Belgium. Both campaigns were carried out in three successive stages, which targeted respectively the party's and the labour union's cadres, its membership and, finally, social groups that did not belong to the social democratic movement. After a month of campaigning, no fewer than 16,000 social democrats had taken part in meetings held across the Netherlands. The reports received by the CPC indicated that the first weeks engendered interest and enthusiasm among social democrats whose ‘vitality and ardent élan’ indeed seemed to revive.Footnote ⁴⁶ In both cases, the aim was to mobilise widespread support for the Plan of Labour so that other political forces had no choice but to co-operate with the social democrats in carrying out the reforms. As the campaign turned to the world beyond the social democratic milieu from mid-January 1936 onwards, moreover, the methods used to appeal to ‘our comrades’ and ‘the broad masses’ in what was called an ‘appealing [and] captivating manner’ were the same as those that had been put to use in Belgium. House calls, newspapers, leaflets, advertisements, lecture series, discussion panels with representatives of individual target groups, walking tours, flags, coins, songs, records, sound trucks, radio programmes, cabaret and other theatre productions and films all were part of both propaganda drives. Brochures were written for specific readerships such as Catholics, youth, women, peasants, shopkeepers and miners. Moreover, cyclists toured the countryside to discuss the Plan with farmers.Footnote ⁴⁷ In addition, hundreds of meetings were held, ranging from small indoor discussion groups to mass rallies in soccer stadiums. On 6 September 1936, when the campaign reached its climax, 170,000 people gathered in a few cities across the country to express their approval of the Plan.Footnote ⁴⁸

However, the Dutch did not copy the Belgians in everything. In contrast to De Man, who was left with a free hand, the SDAP and NVV leadership made it clear that they had every intention of exercising full control over the campaign themselves. It was the Central Plan Commission that enabled them to do so. The CPC, which supervised no fewer than 659 local committees by early 1936, defined and financed much of the campaign. It also supported committees in financial difficulties and financed the publication of brochures for specific target groups. In some cases, CPC members criticised local or provincial committees for spending too much or doing too little.Footnote ⁴⁹

In this respect the propaganda drive for the Plan distinguished itself from the foregoing campaign of the Buracprop, when some local committees would have disposed of interference by the national steering committee. Although Vorrink acknowledged that the ‘campaign for the Plan of Labour will profit from the working methods of the Buracprop’, he emphasised that there was a need for ‘an organisation which is not in some degree unrelated to the party’. At all times local activists should be prevented from endangering the party's and the labour union's interests.Footnote ⁵⁰ The dissimilarity between the Dutch and Belgian campaigns was the result of a crucial difference in the relationship between the organisations responsible for the propaganda drive on the one hand (respectively the CPC and the Bureau of National Action) and the respective parties on the other. The Dutch working group had great freedom in formulating the Plan of Labour; from summer 1935 onwards, however, party and labour union leaders took the lead. In contrast, De Man and left-wing critics of chairman Vandervelde continued to enjoy a relatively high degree of autonomy. They decided what kind of activities would be undertaken to promote the Plan. As a result, plan and campaign were identified with Hendrik de Man, who did not always proceed tactfully in regard to Vandervelde and local party leaders. The source of this difference can be found in a fundamental contrast between the BWP/POB and the SDAP. The former was what the French political scientist Maurice Duverger has called an ‘indirect party’ – a political umbrella of approximately 160 organisations. The party encouraged associations rather than individual citizens to join. In 1931 the BWP/POB had a membership of about 560,000 people, most of whom, however, were in fact members of one of the ancillary associations. In this respect, De Man's Bureau could be seen as one other association under the umbrella of the BWP/POB. A relatively small, ‘direct’ party, the SDAP was a far more centralist body. Its organisations, such as the youth movement and sports associations, were less autonomous than their Belgian counterparts. In contrast to the BWP/POB, the SDAP saw a change of power from one generation to the next. This new generation not only promoted the Plan of Labour but assumed full political responsibility for the Plan and the propaganda drive.Footnote ⁵¹

Debating propaganda

Social democrats like Vorrink and Sluyser had argued for some time that the traditional party propaganda was inadequate because it did not appeal to men and women beyond the rank and file. They worked in the belief that different target groups should be approached in different ways. The SDAP, Sluyser noted, had little interest in the cultural and social diversity of the population; it rather engaged in ‘propagandistic inbreeding’. It approached a shopkeeper as if he or she were a manual worker, as a result of which the former would never embrace social democracy. The few ‘spiritual things we do in order to sway people beyond our own circle,’ he elaborated, ‘never or only with the greatest difficulty amount to anything’. Things should change, he concluded his stinging criticism; ‘So far, the modern labour movement only broadcast and received . . . on an unchanging frequency; [yet] there are more wavelengths in the air.’Footnote ⁵²

These remarks pinpointed the dilemma faced by the SDAP. Traditionally, it had argued that society consisted of two mutually exclusive classes that opposed one another: capital and labour. Although well aware of religious, cultural, status or professional differences among members of the latter group, the older generation of social democratic leaders nevertheless felt that these people shared (at least, potentially) an enmity towards the rich and powerful. In fact, this was what explains their expectation that the middle classes, impoverished by the crisis, would turn to social democracy. The new generation, however, emphasised that society was far more complex; they pointed out that it was composed of a multitude of social layers, each with its own characteristics. This notion raised crucial questions. What motivates people who do not belong to the industrial proletariat, the rank and file of the party? Which groups should the SDAP address? How should they be approached and won for social democracy? In what manner, finally, could one reconcile the potentially divergent interests and concerns of these groups with each other? These were the subjects for debate during a meeting of the party leadership held on 4 July 1936, on the occasion of which the propaganda activities undertaken on behalf of the Plan of Labour so far were evaluated. All present agreed that the campaign for the 1937 parliamentary elections should, above all, promote the idea that the Plan answered to the electorate's concerns. However, they understood that even a sustained effort to inform voters about the blessings of the party programme and the Plan did not suffice to mobilise the vast popular movement which alone could carry the SDAP into power. Consequently, party propaganda should appeal to the voters’ imagination more than ever before. Johan Ankersmit, a veteran politician and the editor of Het Volk, for example, suggested that ‘the psyche of the masses’ should be taken into account in everything the SDAP did, and proposed to evaluate the impact of propaganda from the ‘point of view of advertising’. These remarks fell on fertile ground. Chairman Vorrink noted that the recommendations ‘were quite after the heart of the campaign's organisers’ and fully supported Ankersmit's proposal to discuss ‘our mass campaign [with] professionals in the field of advertising’.Footnote ⁵³

A remarkable change of opinion had taken place. Little more than a year before, Vorrink had encountered scepticism, indeed resistance, when he argued that the SDAP should not only ‘inform the population’ but also ‘advertise the Plan’.Footnote ⁵⁴ The distinction made between information and advertising and the appeal to advertising professionals had both roused criticism. Although opponents acknowledged that the masses had to be convinced to support the Plan, most argued that reason suffered as a result of the appeal based on sentiment. Outsiders such as Jacques de Kadt even spoke of the methods of propaganda as cheap tricks, incompatible ‘with the seriousness, resolve and perseverance’ of the labour movement. He suggested that those who are mobilised ‘belong to the kind of people who will also be attracted to [the Nazi leader] Mussert and the Stalinists who can do this better than [the SDAP] can’.Footnote ⁵⁵ Some newspapers denounced what they portrayed as a ‘Barnum-and-Bailey style of advertising’ or a mixture of bewildering ‘promises and words’ unworthy of ‘the common sense of the Dutch’.Footnote ⁵⁶ More importantly, however, influential social democrats also criticised the campaign. Willem Vliegen, one of the party's founders, thought it was ‘not good’: the SDAP should ‘hype far less’ and instead approach the task of informing the population in a more rational manner. The idea of appealing to what Ankersmit called ‘the psyche of the people’ was often one step too far for them.Footnote ⁵⁷

The German example

Those who looked for inspiration from professionals in the business of seduction, however, increasingly determined the party's course. They acted on the advice of Hendrik de Man, who had emphasised the need to adapt propaganda to the concerns of individual target groups. As the old methods did not arouse support beyond the rank and file, it was necessary to render account of the more complex social stratification, for only then would propagandists be able to mobilise other groups.Footnote ⁵⁸ In this respect, the Belgian had gained inspiration from those with whom he co-operated in the final years of his stay in Germany. In the early 1930s, a group of social democrats were profoundly dissatisfied with the legalistic and passive attitude of the SPD national leadership. In imitation of Carl Mierendorff, a young SPD parliamentarian, they called for a reform of social democratic policies and argued that the party should involve itself far more in the extra-parliamentary struggle. These men and women seemed to succeed in their cause, as the Iron Front, an ‘umbrella organisation’ of the SPD and some of its ancillary associations, was founded in December 1931 to resist the Nazis and construct an alternative to communist politics on the left.Footnote ⁵⁹ Dutch social democrats were also inspired by the activities and ideas of these Germans.

In 1932 the SDAP and the NVV asked Vorrink and Cees Woudenberg as well as the union leader Simon de la Bella to advise on the question of whether ‘our movement should adopt a general symbol such as the three arrows of the Iron Front in Germany’, and study the degree to which German parties managed ‘to influence feelings and imagination rather than common sense’ and thus mobilise support.Footnote ⁶⁰ According to what came to be known as the Commissie van centraal insigne (Commission of a central badge), political symbols such as uniforms, flags, the clinched fist or the swastika played an important role in German politics. All four mass parties (the SPD, the communist KPD, the Catholic Zentrum and the NSDAP) consisted of ‘a relatively small, loyal and more or less skilled core’, ‘a rather constant and skilled mass of supporters attracted to [the party] emotionally’ and, finally, ‘the unstable masses which are strongly influenced by momentary and changing circumstances’. A symbol, the Dutch social democrats elaborated, helped these parties to identify and thus distinguish themselves. As such, it educated the rank and file to ‘greater political maturity’ and appealed to the ‘political drift-wood’ to join ‘the movement of loyal partisans’ permanently. The parties approached these people by means of ‘appropriate propaganda, indeed advertising methods’, the success of which depended on

The three men advised that similar tactics should be used in the Netherlands, and argued that the SDAP and the union needed ‘a common symbol for their common struggle’. Not only would the Three Arrows enthuse the rank and file, they would also change the public image of social democracy. Their meaning, ‘activity, discipline, unity’, would call attention to the activities of the social democratic movement and turn ‘discouragement into an offensive mood’ befitting a force that sought to govern the country.Footnote ⁶¹

The reaction of the executive committee of party and labour union was lukewarm. The report was judged as ‘naive’, since it raised unrealistic expectations. Moreover, the introduction of the Three Arrows looked ‘too much like mimicry’ for which ‘the Dutch are . . . far too level-headed’. To adopt a German symbol would be a ‘sign of spiritual poverty’. It was less critical about the proposal to appeal to emotions. Rather than to copy legalist politics that had failed in Germany, social democrats, much like their opponents, ‘have to do things that appeal to the imagination of young people’. The resistance was not, however, strong enough to prevent the use of the Three Arrows on occasions such as 1 May festivities.Footnote ⁶² In one sense, however, the report exerted influence on the subsequent propaganda drive for the Plan of Labour: its authors unambiguously stated that political propaganda differed little from consumer sales promotion. To ‘sell’ politics or a car required the same ingredients; in both cases the salesman had to appeal to the consumers’ ‘sentiment and imagination’.Footnote ⁶³

In Germany, the Three Arrows had been used with some success by the Iron Front during regional and presidential elections in 1932. However, the Front's extra-parliamentary struggle against fascists and communists came to an end as the party's national leadership decided to abide by its legalistic stance after the national conservative government dismissed the social democratic government of Prussia on 20 July 1932. Mierendorff and Serge Chakhotin played a key role in its short-lived existence. A Russian émigré and researcher at Heidelberg University, the latter had designed the Three Arrows. To them, this symbol was an example of effective propaganda. It was, Chakhotin writes, ‘an instantaneously evocative representation of an idea or doctrine’ which had mobilised people into action and produced an activist image for social democracy.Footnote ⁶⁴ As such, the Three Arrows, much like the swastika or the clenched fist, was part of what Mierendorff refers to as the Symbolkrieg (war of symbols) fought between the mass parties in the last stages of the Weimar Republic.Footnote ⁶⁵

However, Dutch social democrats did not only borrow a symbol. They were also inspired by the emphasis placed on the importance of propaganda in modern politics. It was a valuable ‘spiritual weapon’ (Chakhotin) to be used in the ‘battle for the soul of the masses’ (Mierendorff).Footnote ⁶⁶ An insignificant fringe party before 1928, the Nazis had fast become a catch-all party by 1933. According to Chakhotin and Mierendorff, the Nazis had been particularly effective in appealing to the emotions of the different elements of the electorate. As such, their success was above all the result of ‘successful propaganda’ that made good use of psychology and advertising.Footnote ⁶⁷ In fact, Chakhotin argued, propaganda could have been ‘the only weapon of any real use’ in the struggle against Hitler, if the SPD had not been led by ‘men with no experience of political propaganda and not the slightest comprehension of its principles’.Footnote ⁶⁸ Likewise, Mierendorff criticised the leadership for underestimating the ‘facts of mass psychology such as the longing for . . . heroism’. Moreover, he denounced their ‘tendency to offer political objectives . . . in abstract and anonymous forms alone, whereas every popular movement . . . instinctively presses for concrete and tangible representations’.Footnote ⁶⁹ Finally, they both denounced the SPD for pretending that ‘each person reacted in the same way’. Much like Sluyser in the Netherlands, they argued that social democracy chose to ignore the fact that ‘the mentality of the various groups of the population is very varied [as a result of which effective] propaganda must be differentiated accordingly’.Footnote ⁷⁰

Mierendorff, Chakhotin and Sluyser all wanted to mobilise social groups well beyond their parties’ rank and file; consequently, they needed a method that allowed them to influence human behaviour most effectively. A former student of Ivan Pavlov, Chakhotin argued that his teacher's theory of conditioned reflexes provided the fundamental insights that would help to achieve the desired result. Scientific ‘understanding of mechanisms of behaviour’, in other words, made it possible to work upon humans ‘at will’ and ‘to launch human reactions with a sure hand in directions determined in advance’.Footnote ⁷¹ Propagandists should above all abolish those methods and techniques that emphasised reason as the main driving force of human behaviour. To be efficient, they should rather focus on ‘every motive power . . . of the human soul’. In times of economic and political crisis especially, when the human psyche could more easily lose its equilibrium, as Chakhotin and Sluyser claimed, one had to take into consideration the emotional factor.Footnote ⁷² Two feelings which political propaganda could exploit particularly well, it was argued, were the ‘enormous yearning for big objectives’ as well as the ‘longing for idols [people] can cling to’. ‘The higher the waves, the stronger the political hurricane’, Mierendorff elaborated, ‘the more the masses need to follow someone's lead to show them the way in the darkest of political nights’.Footnote ⁷³ Not only should the SPD propose a compelling goal worthy fighting for, it should also convey the impression that its final victory was near. In this respect the party had repeatedly to emphasise that it had done away with fatalism, and mobilised an ever-growing mass movement that could not be stopped by anyone or anything.Footnote ⁷⁴ Moreover, it had to formulate its objectives to be as ‘concise, expressive, colourful, and vivid’ as possible.Footnote ⁷⁵ Thus, party propaganda should make use of ‘a relatively small number of trenchant and concise formulae, which need hammering into the heads of the masses after they have been brought into a state of super-impressionability’. This, Chakhotin elaborated, ‘is Pavlov's principle of the creation of the conditioned reflexes’.Footnote ⁷⁶ Like a company that aims to convince customers that they should buy its products rather than the ones offered by a competitor, a party needs ‘a stenographic form of expression of its ideas’. In the Symbolkrieg fought since December 1931, the Three Arrows had conveyed the party message and thus emphasised the distinction between its partisans and opponents, indeed enemies, most effectively. In this respect, they had evoked the desired ‘conditioned reflex’.Footnote ⁷⁷

Pavlov's ideas were as applicable to propaganda as they were to advertising. For Chakhotin, they shared the same techniques and belief in human malleability: ‘Political propaganda relies on the same laws of conditioned reflexes, and [borrows] more and more from the methods of commercial publicity.’Footnote ⁷⁸ Thus he argued as early as 1932 that propagandists could draw lessons from the ‘well-known knowledge of advertising’.Footnote ⁷⁹ Responsible for Nazi propaganda, Joseph Goebbels had already shown the potential value of advertising for politics. Historians such as Ian Kershaw have argued that characteristic elements of the former, such as the constant repetition of short messages and the introduction of conspicuous symbols were used by Nazi propagandists who faced the challenge of ‘selling’ the Führer and his movement. Yet the connection between propaganda and advertising was not unique to the Nazis; communists and social democrats, in fact, used similar techniques as they appealed to the electorate.Footnote ⁸⁰

Advertising and Dutch social democracy

Like Chakhotin and Mierendorff, Vorrink and Sluyser found inspiration in the lessons of advertising. The latter were in fact familiar to the SDAP. Social democrats worked for advertising firms; Karel Sartory, the creative leader of one of Netherlands’ biggest agencies, discussed advertising in Het Volk on several occasions. Many were consequently prepared for the notion that it could provide a valuable contribution to the political struggle.Footnote ⁸¹ In 1923, Dutch advertising professionals created an association: the Vereeniging voor Reclame (from 1928 Genootschap voor Reclame), which, from 1932, regularly invited psychologists to present their research. Like Chakhotin, most speakers rejected introspective methods and saw human behaviour as a conditioned response to external stimuli. In their view, advertising should provide the external stimulus that evokes the desired response. Their knowledge helped to predict and influence consumers’ behaviour, and thus provided agencies with a handle for their work. Consequently, campaigns increasingly associated consumer products with positive feelings and experiences by emphasising the prospect of prestige and happiness offered by them.Footnote ⁸²

In a nutshell, this was what a professional who had participated in campaigns for products like cars and Gillette razor blades advised the SDAP to do. To him, effective advertising should not focus on a good's intrinsic qualities, since the latter hardly influenced purchasing behaviour. Rather, marketability of a product depended on the degree to which it apparently matched with the consumer's ‘set of needs’ – that is, whether it promised to help him ‘assert himself’ socially. The campaign for Gillette, for example, identified ‘sexual eroticism . . . with pleasurable shaving’, and suggested that these blades heightened ‘sexual allure’. Likewise, the single male was told that a De Soto car enhanced his chances of finding a spouse. Similar methods, he argued, could be used to sell the Plan of Labour to both recalcitrant supporters and outsiders. For this purpose, the SDAP should present itself as a ‘solid, calm and efficient firm . . . to which one could entrust one's interests’. As such, it had to be portrayed as a force led by competent leaders who favoured sound policies. Not yet emotionally attached to other parties, young single men were to be told that the Plan secured their jobs and thus helped them to find a partner.Footnote ⁸³

These qualities, however, did not suffice on their own; sentiment and spectacles were also required. Propagandists, in other words, should suggest that the campaign for the Plan resembled ‘a volcano of activity’.Footnote ⁸⁴ Accordingly, the CPC and Sluyser did their best to sustain the impression that their activities did indeed generate widespread popular enthusiasm. An extensive coverage of even the smallest meetings would convince everyone that the SDAP was about to win a decisive victory.Footnote ⁸⁵ For Sluyser, propagandistic activities should inculcate the masses ‘with a passion to be . . . a volcano of militancy whose unremitting labour and unbending trust in their own force intimidates outsiders’.Footnote ⁸⁶ Vorrink tried to attain this objective by means of mass rallies. A rich feestcultuur (festive culture) should shape and maintain the participants’ ‘joy of living and public spirit’. He argued that participation in a ‘festive assembly strengthens the courage and cheerful confidence’ of individuals, as a result of which they are willing and able to participate in collective action.Footnote ⁸⁷ In this respect, they tackled another challenge identified by their contemporaries: the decline in interest in the public cause. National socialism and communism tried to counter this development by merging individuals into one community, defined by either race or class.Footnote ⁸⁸ Sluyser's appeal for actie and Vorrink's plea for feestcultuur aimed to achieve the same objective. Not only should mass meetings and propaganda campaigns produce the active involvement of social democrats; they also had to convince others to take part in the struggle for a better world.Footnote ⁸⁹

The emphasis placed on drama in politics, finally, indicated that the SDAP wanted to overcome the seemingly immovable walls around traditional Dutch political camps. Nevertheless, the generation of politicians gathered round Vorrink discovered that they were poorly rewarded. In May 1937 the party won twenty-three parliamentary seats, only one more than in 1933. Indeed, the lessons of advertising did apply to politics, but in a manner different from what they had hoped for: it was difficult to sell the SDAP to reluctant consumers used to buying something else. Clearly, the segmented political culture of the Netherlands made it hard to tap into the rank and file of competing parties. On a few occasions politicians admitted this. During one such rare moment, Vorrink told his fellow party leaders that the campaign for the Plan had taken root neither as ‘sufficiently’ or as successfully as he wanted the outside world to believe.Footnote ⁹⁰ In fact, it lost its momentum after September 1936. It was too costly and too time-consuming for a limited number of activists to continue propagating the Plan from October 1935 until May 1937. Yet the campaign represented a step in a development that took more definite form after the Second World War: ‘the manipulation of opponents and potential partisans by means of a deliberate strategy to influence their opinion’.Footnote ⁹¹

In the early 1930s social democracy faced many challenges. The cross-class initiative for the introduction of socialism proposed by Hendrik de Man in Belgium inspired social democrats across western Europe. However, not everyone aimed to introduce socialism; as a result of specific national circumstances, the Dutch social democratic party proposed a more moderate solution for the problems caused by the economic slump and the emergence of the far right and far left. A generational change in the leadership allowed the SDAP to abandon its Marxist doctrine and to adopt reformist ideas and policies. Completed by 1937, this programmatic transformation had serious implications for the manner in which the party presented itself to the electorate. Unlike their predecessors who had focused especially on the interests of industrial labourers, the new leaders took into consideration the manifold – religious, professional and regional – cleavages characteristic of Dutch society. In imitation of the propaganda drive on behalf of the Belgian Plan, moreover, they made use of a wide variety of propagandistic methods and aimed to appeal to emotions rather than reason. As such, they attempted to attract groups other than the party's traditional rank and file. Yet they were also influenced by what social democrats such as Mierendorff did in the months preceding the Nazis’ accession to power. They engaged in a Dutch version of the German Symbolkrieg and were inspired by simultaneous developments in the field of commercial advertising to be attractive to the Dutch people as a whole. A politically rather isolated force criticised for its Marxist notions and rhetoric, the SDAP thus turned into an eventual partner for more conservative parties with which it ultimately constituted a coalition government in 1939. Its Plan of Labour and accompanying propaganda campaign were crucial steps in this process of change.