Jan De Graaf has written a remarkable book about European socialist parties and their response to the challenge of reconstruction from 1945 to 1948. The author seeks to explain the weakness of continental European socialist parties (with the exception of Scandinavian ones) in the immediate aftermath of World War II as being due to socioeconomic realities and national historical cultures.

Instead of imposing geographical categories such as “East” and “West” or overemphasizing the impact of the Cold War, De Graaf seeks to evaluate European socialist parties on their own terms. As the author puts it, “Rather than teleologically projecting back the Iron Curtain that separated the parties after 1947–48, therefore, the book focuses on the set of problems that really dominated the agendas of post-war socialists in East and West: the problem of socio-economic and political reconstruction” (5). Such an approach is refreshing because it confounds much of the historiography on the post–World War II European Left, which tends to judge most European socialist parties harshly and against the normative yardstick of the success of the British Labour Party. Using a transnational focus, De Graaf restores a sense of agency to the historical actors—socialist leaders and the party rank and file—and brilliantly makes sense of their actions, dilemmas, and views against the backdrop of European reconstruction.

In order to make his case, De Graaf focuses on four countries: France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. In analyzing the socialist parties in these four countries, the author shows that, in most respects, the French and Czech socialists had a lot in common in their approach to postwar reconstruction due to their own national republican and democratic traditions. Polish and Italian socialists also shared similar views because of the common experience of operating within authoritarian contexts and fear over the possible return of fascism. Such insight explodes the notion of common patterns between “East” and “West” Europe and suggests the importance of country-level analysis.

Beyond the author's amazing linguistic skills, which enable him to encompass such a diverse set of European countries (the author cites extensively from German and Dutch literature as well), De Graaf bases his conclusions on rich archival materials. He has made use of documents at the municipal level to gather information on the everyday concerns of workers, in addition to providing an overview of the transnational European socialist movement in the efforts of socialist parties and movements to restore the Socialist International.

Chapter 1 sets the scene of battered and divided socialist parties joining unstable coalition governments after World War II. Here De Graaf begins to sketch out his larger argument about the impact of distinct national cultures and experiences, wisely titling the chapter “The National Road to Socialism.” Chapters 2 and 3 explain in rich detail the chasm that existed between socialist leaders and the rank and file. Workers were more concerned with bread and butter issues, while most socialist parties supported austerity measures to check inflation, urging workers to remain productive and patient in the wait for social and economic improvements. In support of his thesis on the weak socioeconomic position of the supporters of socialism, De Graaf writes: “After a war of attrition fought predominantly in the cities, hungry workers often found themselves at the mercy of peasants or various middlemen and speculators” (81).

In chapters 4 through 7, De Graaf impressively builds up his argument on the divergent responses of French and Czech socialists on the one hand, and Polish and Italian socialists on the other hand, to a range of postwar political and economic issues. For example, all of the parties viewed in reconstruction a moral regeneration of society, yet the two sets of parties conceived this in different ways. Polish and Italian socialists stressed the necessity of a wholesale purge of fascists and the reeducation of disaffected groups such as women and youth to “fully cleanse post-war society of everything associated with fascism” (138). Such a goal as the overarching priority also permitted these parties to tolerate radical or violent measures (such as by Communist Party and security forces in Poland) and offer half-hearted support of “bourgeois” institutions such as parliaments, elections, and the constitutional order. Their conception of democracy entailed the economic empowerment of workers, supporting grassroots and bottom-up participation such as councils or cooperatives. In contrast, Czech and French social democrats affirmed the democratic and republican traditions of their countries, holding them sacrosanct. They endeavored to carry out social and economic reform through the institutions of parliamentary democracy and distrusted popular, spontaneous, or localized political and economic bodies.

The final chapter situates the socialist parties of France, Poland, Italy, and Czechoslovakia within the broader framework of other European parties attempting to reconstitute the Socialist International. Socialists deliberated on a common response to the Marshall Plan, and yet the divisions among them were already entrenched even before Europe was de facto split into East and West within the context of the Cold War. As the author summarizes: “By 1948, there were thus two rival visions of socialism in Europe” (279). One set of parties were centrist and reformist, seeking to change capitalism through political democracy, and the other set of parties were revolutionary, working with communists to overturn the capitalist system. Postwar social realities—specifically the weakness of the working class—and different national political cultures and experiences, rather than an arbitrary East versus West continental divide or US-Soviet confrontation in the years from 1945 to 1948, played the decisive role in shaping socialist party strategy, policy, and outlook. With great insight and originality, Jan De Graaf has brilliantly captured those complexities in this landmark study of comparative social and political history.