Modernity and the Failure to Maintain the Peace (1918–1938): Comparing the Cases of the Soviet Union and the German Reich

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Modernity and the Failure to Maintain the Peace (1918-1938): Comparing the Cases of the Soviet Union and the German Reich

political modernity legitimization

Stephan Merl

Modernity brought the promise of a better world - a world in which society and the economy are more rationally organized and in which people themselves could be improved. In the 1880s, European states began to translate the findings of the social sciences into practical politics («the scientization of the social»). Once the established monarchies had been overthrown in Germany and in Russia, the new political forces needed to legitimize their claim to power before the people. The most practical way to do so was to exploit the idea that the social could be subjected to scientization, and thus legitimize political domination by means of implementing a new type of rationality. With the transition to Stalinism and National Socialism, their approaches became more radical. Both dictatorships launched large-scale projects to restructure their societies according to the concepts of class and race respectively. They bet on an unprecedented degree of state organization and control over the economy and society. Their economic success in the 1930s owed much to rearmament programs, which could do nothing but resolve into a new war. Today it appears surprising how naively expert advice was handled at that time, such that the complete physical destruction of enemies and the idea that lives could be treated as worthless could be sold as a «scientific» means of creating better societies. In order to understand what happened in the Soviet Union and Germany, one cannot look at it from a single national perspective. That is why I adopt an entangled history approach. The dissemination of modern ideas and the scientization of the social were taking place through a network connecting scholars and thinkers from all over the world. This article sets the inter-war period in the context of the whole period during which the scientization of the social was taking place without any particularly critical reflection (from the 1880s to the early 1970s). In the first part, I present the concepts of Modernity and the scientization of the social and propose a periodization of their political use. In the second part, I focus more specifically on the events and developments in the Soviet Union and Germany, and the means ofpolitical communication by which the legitimization of the new powers were achieved.

Modernity brought the promise of a better world - a world in which society and the economy are more rationally organized and in which people themselves could be improved. In the 1880s, European states began to translate the findings of the social sciences into practical politics («the scientization of the social») in order to implement these ideas. The fact that Modernity and the scientization of the social sphere proved so fertile in Germany and the Soviet Union was linked to the change in their political systems. Once the established monarchies had been overthrown, the new political forces needed to legitimize their claim to power before the people. In an era, when domination could no longer be justified as given by God, the most practical way to do so was to exploit the idea that the social could be subjected to scientization, and thus legitimize political domination by means of implementing a new type of rationality. Strategies of political communication with which the belief in the legitimacy (Legitimitдtsglauben) of the new order could be won and maintained among the population were tested and implemented. After WW1, Germany and the Soviet Union tried to rationalize their economies and societies and to improve the social security of their populations. In doing so they relied on the advice of social scientists. However, the role of these scientists and their motives has received little attention to date [Raphael 2012]. Their authority was not particularly questioned in the inter-war period. With the transition to Stalinism and National Socialism, their approaches became more radical. Both dictatorships launched large-scale projects to restructure their societies according to the concepts of class and race respectively - both borrowed from social sciences. They bet on an unprecedented degree of state organization and control over the economy and society. Their economic success in the 1930s owed much to rearmament programs, which could do nothing but resolve into a new war. Today it appears surprising how naively expert advice was handled at that time, such that the complete physical destruction of enemies and the idea that lives could be treated as worthless could be sold as a «scientific» means of creating better societies. Public awareness of the ambivalence of such ideas only became prominent in the 1970s (formulated perhaps most blatantly by Zygmunt Bauman [Bauman 2005]). This article shows that Modernity is an indispensable part of the explanation for the inevitable resurgence of military confrontation in Europe.

In order to understand what happened in the Soviet Union and Germany, one cannot look at it from a single national perspective. That is why I adopt an entangled history approach. The dissemination of modern ideas and the scientization of the social were taking place through a network connecting scholars and thinkers from all over the world. As a result, an important element of non-simultaneity was observed after the 1880s. Regardless of the social and economic development of their countries of origin, scientists were involved in this discourse, and had immediate access to new ideas. Even in Russia, the belief in progress had become widespread among the urban educated elite long before WW1.

This article sets the inter-war period in the context of the whole period during which the scientization of the social was taking place without any particularly critical reflection (from the 1880s to the early 1970s). In the first part, I present the concepts of Modernity and the scientization of the social and propose a periodization of their political use. In the second part, I focus more specifically on the events and developments in the Soviet Union and Germany, and the means by which the legitimization of the new powers were achieved. In this part, I first discuss the positive influence of scientization in the 1920s. Subsequent negative developments are addressed by analyzing post-war societies and their problems. Why were the crisis-ridden shocks at the turn of the 1930s regarded as an existential threat by the populations of both countries, opening the way to political radicalization? Specifically, I look at how the dictatorships used different concepts of «paradise» (i.e. communism, national community) to win the belief in the legitimacy of their rule and, through the control of political communication, led their people to accept as necessary the idea of exterminating their enemies. This is then followed by a short account of how the acceptance of such ideas was followed by the fundamental reorganization of the economy and society and the subsequent preparation for a new war. Finally, the comparative efficiency of each of the ideologies (from the point of view of their legitimizing effects) is considered, as are the changes Stalin made in the 1930s. In order to keep the article reasonably self-contained, I spare the effort of detailing the chronological sequence of events in both countries as the general aim of the article is to reveal the most important connections in order to stimulate new interpretations.

1. The concepts of «Modernity» and «the Scientization of the Social»

Modernity

The translation of the term Modernity into Russian is itself quite difficult. Some Russian scholars confuse it with the term modernization. However, my own use of the term Modernity is not synonymous with modernization.¹ Here I am not so much concerned with the specific end-states of Modernity or what is specifically understood by it, as I am concerned with the expectations and approaches to problem solving associated with Modernity at large. Accordingly, it is only when Modernity is loaded with the ideas of a specific societal organization (e.g. institutions of democracy or the market economy) that it makes sense to speak of multiple modernities. Michael David-Fox [David-Fox 2006] discusses this at length by showing which specific ideas have been associated with which versions of Modernity, and the extent to which the notion of Modernity was applicable to the Soviet Union. This led to a debate in Russia. In fact, the meaning and understanding of Modernity itself has changed several times since the early Enlightenment. In this sense, the understanding of Socialist Modernity may differ from that of the Western or Transatlantic ones. If one limits the concept of Modernity to its political use, the inclusion of Russia and the Soviet Union is out of question. During the Enlightenment and its early period, well-known philosophers of the time stood in close exchange with the Russian Tsars, first Peter I and then Catherine II. This shaped the philosophers' ideas of Modernity [Merl 2015].

The concept of Modernity originates in the early Enlightenment. This was a time when ideas spread so that people could and should improve the way their economies and societies were organized by making them more rational. Early attempts at such rational policymaking become evident in the workings of some of the «enlightened» eighteenth - century monarchs, who began rationalizing the political systems of their countries. The idea of improving the economy and society «from above» remained popular in many countries in the 19th century. Back then many important and consequential reforms in Germany as well as in Russia (including the abolition of serfdom), were designed and implemented by «enlightened» bureaucrats. It was only later that democracy and parliamentary systems were considered among the criteria of Modernity. The idea of an «enlightened individual» entered the European discourse on Modernity only in the second half of the 18th century, and it was based largely on observing the impact of European immigrants on the developments in North America [Merl 2015; Merl 2016].

In what follows I specify three criteria that allow a defining of Modernity without implying any specific social or economic order, namely: the belief in progress; the relevance of this belief for policymaking, and the firm conviction that progress can be shaped and planned [Merl 2015].

The belief in progress refers to the idea that the world, but also people themselves, can be improved. Using the terms introduced by Immanuel Wallerstein [Wallerstein 1995], it makes sense to distinguish between the modernity of technology and the modernity of liberation. The intellectuals who believed in the Enlightenment expected that scientific and technological progress would liberate people from traditional constraints. Accordingly, the assumption developed that people themselves could become better (i.e. turn into «new men») through rational education. In the 20th century, socialist modern thought as well as the modern thought in Germany firmly held to the expectation that a modern, rationally-thinking individual would be a higher-order human capable of shaping the world according to his or her ideas. The modernity of technology, i.e. the chain of new inventions and knowledge that impact the environment in which people live, is unstoppable. The modernity of liberation is based on the promise of human emancipation and is much more closely tied to moral values. It belongs to the field which is nowadays claimed by the social sciences. (The communists strived to establish a social order in which, once exploitation was completely eliminated, everyone reached self-fulfillment through work). Both of these facets of Modernity co-existed in the first years after the October Revolution: for instance, Aleksey Gastev developed his ideas of how work processes could be efficiently organized by drawing on an analogy with machines, and Alexandra Kollontai emphasized the emancipation of women from patriarchal constraints.

Furthermore, the belief in progress must gain importance in the political context to legitimatize regimes: either by an enlightened ruler or through the promise of those in power of a better future. This was effectively exploited by the Bolsheviks, the politicians of the Weimar Republic, and the Nazis. In pre-revolutionary Russia, the critical circles of the autocracy-opposing educated elites embraced the belief in progress, with which they justified the inevitable transition towards a socially just society and the demise of autocracy. Even Peter the Great used the belief in progress to legitimize his powerful rule.

Finally, the belief in progress must lead to action: faith in God was replaced by the conviction that progress could be experienced immediately, that it could be shaped by people and scientifically planned, that humanity could turn things around and use progress to solve its problems. The rational promise of science replaced the religious idea of paradise in a secular world [Schmidt 1996]. At its extreme, Socialist Modernity promised an unrestricted capacity of people to mold the world according to their needs. Stalinism, and to a certain extent National Socialism, grounded their claims heavily on the scientific nature of their respective doctrines. The examples of the belief in this progress-enabled omnipotence appear in the early utopias described in the Red Star of Alexander Bogdanov [Bogdanov 1908], The Journey of my Brother Aleksei to the Land of Peasant Utopia of Alexander Chayanov [Chayanov 1920], yet another example is Stalin's Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature.

b) The Scientization of the Social

The historical review of the use of social science in policymaking has only recently started [Raphael 1996; Raphael 2012; Raphael 2018]. The terms employed in this field - as with Modernity - are not yet clearly defined. Here, in particular, I use the term the scientization of the social in its broadest sense to refer to all possible applications of the knowledge from social sciences in state management [Ziemann, Wetzell, Schumann, Brьckweh 2012, p. 1]. Raphael speaks ofthe presence ofhuman and social science experts, and their expertise in managing affairs within different organizations, enterprises, parties and parliaments, as well as in the worlds of different social groups, classes or milieus [Raphael 1996, p. 166; Raphael 2018, p. 14]. This includes the attempts to shape and reconfigure existing social structures. Different disciplines are involved in this, ranging from health and medical sciences to legal and economic expertise, but also psychology and social sciences in the narrower sense. In doing so, I distinguish this term from the concept of social engineering in order to abstain from its usually negative connotation and its narrower interpretation by Thomas Etzemьller [Etzemьller 2010].

Thus, I regard the scientization of the social as a primarily positive extension of the human political enterprise. Problems in and, ultimately, abuses of social science applications resulted above all from exaggerated expectations, the belief that a better, more rational world order could be established and that most human problems could be solved quickly and efficiently as promised by Modernity. This belief was also widespread in the interwar period, when both the Stalinist and the Nazi dictatorships attempted an implementation of highly specific insights from social sciences in order to reorganize their economies and societies.

Three clearly distinct phases, or «learning phases» as I refer to them, can be distinguished with regard to how social science was treated and applied in policy making. For a better understanding of the interwar period of active state intervention, which is in focus here, I also look at the surrounding periods: the preceding period of 1880-1910 marking the onset of many important social reforms and the period of «planned modernization» after the WW2 until the 1970s, i.e. up until the period of «disenchanted science» as described by Raphael [Raphael 1996, p. 178], when skepticism began to prevail in the West as regards the promises of science to solve human problems.

I regard the concept of the scientization of the social as extremely important. It refers to the transformation of scientific ideas about rational political organization (i.e. the modernity of liberation) into the field of practical politics. While these ideas were borne and refined by many great thinkers, their implementation was carried out by people who acted in accordance with their own interests and thus were inclined to endow them with highly particular interpretations. In his study of Russia and the Soviet Union, David Hoffmann [Hoffmann 2011] also considers the developments that fall under the same concept.

From Laissez faire to social reforms (1880-1910): the actors and sources of ambivalence

The scientization of the social would have been impossible without the development of national statistics. At first, these provided only basic elementary data with which the rulers could evaluate the potential of their countries, and on which they could base their effort to develop them further. However, as time went on, statistical methods improved, and the interest of the rulers grew.

Once statisticians learned to count and classify social phenomena, scientists and bureaucrats recognized the potential to redefine social issues. The decisive insight had to do with the fact that in the aggregated analysis of statistical data, differences between individuals disappear and thus general statements can be made. This questioned one of the basic assumptions of liberalism, i.e. that of individuals being exclusively responsible for themselves, and paved the ground for the use of socio-scientific knowledge for the sake of protecting people. The tension between individual responsibility and the individual dependence on society was put at the center of public attention.

The emergence of statistical data about populations allowed for a new quality of state intervention. The rising suicide and divorce rates that such data revealed were treated as symptoms of social problems, signaling troubling social trends and the gradual dissolution of social ties. Systematic statistical surveys keeping track of deviant behavior, unemployment and accidents revealed that they were not simply the consequences of individual misconduct. Social scientists came to realize that crime was not an innate trait, rather it is socially influenced by poverty and lack of security. This meant that society could fight crime by intervening in the social environments that fostered it. The nascent science of criminology started to come up with evidence - based explanations for crime, pointing to a number of social and biological factors. Psychiatry contributed to this by examining the mental state of criminals and searching for treatments. Poverty too now appeared as a serious social problem that could be eliminated through decisive state action by turning the poor into productive citizens. It seemed as if reducing crime and economic hardship only required a break with the conditions under which both emerged. The concepts of typical or average persons and racial hygiene, which were closely linked to the statistical notions describing central tendencies, were now used to advocate state interventions that could lead to statistically measurable improvements in terms of race or the social composition of the population [Raphael 2012; Hoffmann 2011].

Putting social science knowledge into practice required effective communication between science and politics. For science, this communication involved «experts», i.e. mostly (but not exclusively) academics such as professors and researchers, who were prominent in their fields and therefore could effectively influence the relevant policies. On the political side it involved politicians themselves, i.e. professional administrators, and public servants, who had the ability to implement the proposals of the experts. This created room for a certain ambivalence in the application of social science knowledge, because «pure» science could now be mixed with personal motives and interests [Raphael 2012; Ziemann, Wetzell, Schumann, Brьckweh 2012]. Therefore, it now becomes important to distinguish the motives of the experts and the politicians involved. Driven by personal ambition, experts could deliberately frame their scientific work (including simply forging scientific findings) in accordance with political demands. Driven by similar motives and the lust for power, politicians could rely on science selectively in search for the legitimacy of their political claims and actions. The scientization of the social thus pertains to the conversion of science into interest - bound politics. Subjective factors inevitably play a role.

To date little research has been done on the origins of different expert groups who eventually supplied ideas for massive state interventions. For one thing such groups could (although not necessarily did) form the basis of new clearly defined professions. Using Pierre Bourdieu's terms, Raphael speaks of a «field of expert knowledge» that emerges and defines itself as the result of conflict over the best knowledge in each field. There was room for conflict, since social scientific expertise was often based on different disciplinary backgrounds and experts could enter coalitions with other actors to pursue their own interests [Raphael 2012, p. 45].

The clients who were potentially interested in what social science had to offer in order to gain an edge in their field typically included public administrators at different levels, party leaders and clergy. They often enjoyed a good range of competing proposals from social scientists and experts and thus had a strong negotiating position. Clients and experts could also struggle for ultimate control over the implementation of their respective social technologies. As a result, it is not surprising that the application of the latest developments in social science was often carried out without appropriate scientific rigor merely to justify moral or political judgments. Sometimes clients also resisted the application of new technologies, and then compromises had to be made. Even the institutions that were created for the implementation of such technologies did not always work successfully. They could fiercely resist reforms and limit the transformative power of expert groups [Raphael 2012, pp. 47-49].

Other clients became the objects and victims of this peculiar scientization process: they were kept outside of the discourse. The scientific approach empowered social scientists with the means and the rationale for dehumanizing their objects of study, which widened and legitimized the social exclusion of respective groups. Research shows, for instance, that in the domains of racial hygiene, criminology and psychiatry, experts themselves did not shun violence against the marginalized groups [Raphael 2012, p. 46].

The increased demand for scientific expertise was coupled with the efforts of social scientists to secure better funding and support from the state. In many countries, various social reforms started between 1880 and 1910, resulting from so called «discourse coalitions» [Wagner 1990], i.e. alliances of social scientists and politicians who reinforced each other in their claims about the appropriateness of their reform packages. However, it was also the case that scientists almost never had complete control over the application of their knowledge [Ziehmann, Wetzell, Schumann, Brьckweh 2012, p. 8].

Where specialists from different fields and positions could find a common language, they gained sufficient authority to initiate their reform programs. University professors and scientists actively collaborated with public figures and politicians. Such coalitions often helped to overcome existing political divisions: conservatives, liberals and social democrats could side with each other. In Germany, the memoranda of the Association for Social Policy received enormous attention: their statistical records of social problems inspired politicians to act. The starting point of discourse coalitions in the 1880s were acute social problems, such as the «workers' question» or the usurious rate of interest demanded from peasants. The aim of the reforms was above all to improve the situation of the working poor and to reduce mortality from disease. However, after the turn of the century, the initially inclusive discourse started to fragment. It later broke down into different and often antagonistic discourses.

Parallel to these developments, the social categories introduced and maintained by social science changed the self-perception of society. Through their specific conceptual loading the notions of «race» and «class» shaped social reality [Ziemann, Wetzell, Schumann, Brьckweh 2012]. A classic example of the power of sociological description is the Marxist terminology of classes and the attempt to statistically substantiate it in early Soviet society. In the West, the dubious doctrine of race was particularly widespread. This doctrine maintained that there exists a hierarchy of races, which could be used to derive the idea that races must be kept pure. It played a disastrous role not only in its implementation under National Socialism in Germany, but also in Scandinavia, the USA and other countries, where the idea of racial hygiene and euthanasia have been pursued since the end of the 19th century [Etzemьller 2009]. «For a historical perspective on the scientization of the social it is therefore helpful to distinguish the social structure of society and the semantic forms of self-description, and to bear in mind that the human science can transform both» [Ziemann, Wetzell, Schumann, Pity 2012, p. 2].

Raphael argues that social sciences contributed significantly to the nationalization of Western societies by setting standards of normality and deviation at the national level. He considers how the dissemination of these ideas into society took place through changes in the discourse. It almost took the form of a translation of existing language codes, which social scientists used in their internal debates, into the languages of both politics and everyday speech. Accordingly, before WW2 social scientists liked to employ metaphors from the discourses of other disciplines such as medicine, demography and even the political biology of nations [Raphael 2012, pp. 43-45].

Social reforms (1880-1910)

At the end of the 19th century, medicine particularly demonstrated with astonishing success what the implementation of scientific achievements could bring to humanity. Medical research clarified the causes of diseases and epidemics, and developed the methods to prevent or at least significantly reduce their negative outcomes. Plague and cholera were defeated and child mortality drastically reduced. What could be more natural than to expect similar success from the practical application of social science in bringing about better life for everyone? From the 1880s, the conviction grew that it was possible to treat social problems in a similar way, and with the fascination with science and what it could bring, the first attempts were undertaken to «improve» societies.

By the end of the 19th century, the expectations social science for curing social diseases were high. They were fueled by the fear of threatening trends: rising crime and the moral decline of society. Rising urban poverty, which was perceived as one of the primary social causes, became a matter of national concern and the provision of social benefits was urged [Hoffmann 2011, pp. 22-23]. Public opinion and pressure from the educated classes finally began to influence social policy, and the voices of scientists started to be heard.

At that time, social sciences were based on the premise that objective knowledge is possible. Evaluating societies by means of statistics and making scientifically grounded proposals about their development and improvement, social scientists proceeded to claim they were above the rights and interests of particular social groups and individuals. They claimed to be able to offer comprehensive solutions to all social issues. The Enlightenment's hope of rearranging the human world into a rational social order seemed to have become a reality [Hoffmann 2011, pp. 22-25]. Scientists promised that ignorance and deviance could be overcome. Many understood the welfare state project as a way to reform the lower classes and to rationalize their daily lives. It was not just about eliminating social problems. Another goal was to maximize the efficiency and raise the harmony of the entire society [Hoffmann 2011, pp. 22-30]. Very soon, however, scientists went beyond simply the elimination of existing problems: they claimed to be able to prevent further problems from emerging by the prophylactic monitoring of the population [Hoffmann 2011, p. 27]. They downplayed the fact that social sciences always remained subjective. Even statistics were designed to monitor only what social scientists considered relevant.

Russia was also involved in this international discourse. In particular, local municipal authorities were keen on following the developments of the West. Their press releases often quoted foreign experiences and practices in the search for solutions to their own problems. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Finance were particularly active in the field of workers' protection. For instance, they summoned expert hearings to discuss the regulation of working hours and the use of youth labor. The gradual improvement of the social situation was therefore not just the result of strikes and pressure from the workers' representatives, but also the result of action from above influenced by scientific expertise [Hoffmann 2011, pp. 29-38]. In Russia, statistics also prospered in the late 19th century. Numerous studies were carried out on the change in living conditions in Russian cities. Budget statistics were developing. Russian county statisticians quickly gained international leadership in their statistical surveys of rural households, and it is on this basis that Chayanov's theory of peasant farming came into being [Shanin 1972].

State interventionism (1918-1940)

WW1 (and later WW2) proved important catalysts for the implementation of the insights of social science. They paved the way for larger scale interventions in European societies. New technologies and methods were tested and new institutions emerged. Many countries applied psychoanalytic and psychiatric techniques to treat soldiers. Russia is a particularly good example of the accelerating impact of war, where special welfare organizations emerged to provide unprecedented help to soldiers' wives and families, and care for war widows and the wounded [Raphael 2012, p. 48; Hoffmann 2011, pp. 38-39]. Many social programs were in place to provide support to war veterans, the disabled and the unemployed. In the post-war years, the Soviet state was far less concerned with the eradication of capitalism as it was with the creation of a modern noncapitalist economy, a rational and productive economic order, in which the state protects and fosters the interests of the working class and in which everyone had to be involved in socially useful work [Hoffmann 2011, p. 18].

After WW1, a new political and national reality emerged that made the return to the old social agenda impossible. Etzemьller provides a view of the international dimension of how social science achievement were put into practice [Etzemьller 2009]. Most countries now relied on social science and legitimized its use with arguments about national restoration. Most ofthe discourse which emerged in pre-war science now received wide public attention. The dangers they had previously anticipated seemed to have been gaining momentum, and their warnings were therefore taken more seriously in post - WW1 society. In Germany, this amplified the concern about the nation's degeneration and even extinction, whereas, in Soviet Russia, the superiority of the social class of workers with respect to the rest of the classes was now openly proclaimed. The multitude of new crises - demographic, behavioral, industrial and family relations - all of which were discovered and brought into the public discourse by social scientists, seemed to confirm all the dangers. In order to attract public attention, the scientists emphasized the urgency of the situation: if the necessary actions were not taken immediately, it could be too late because irreversible damage would have already been caused. They insisted on the implementation of their ideas by selling it as a sort of heroic intervention in times of great need, taking on the role of national prophets and publicly advocating radical solutions.

Ferdinand Tцnnies' concept of Gemeinschaft, emphasizing the sense of community, was particularly promoted in Germany as a general remedy for the instability ofcapitalism, and for the individual and societal diseases and problems that were considered to be the result of raging individualism. Community, or a sense of communality, was also thought to reduce conflicts between the industrial classes [Raphael 2012, pp. 50-51]. The demographic projects of the 1930s are a good example of the politicians' response to the crises recognized: fearing that their own nation would die out due to a low birth rate, they introduced strong measures to support families and reward births. In the Soviet Union, Stalin revoked the right for the previously legalized abortion, introduced additional maternal benefits and ordered the glorification of motherhood in national propaganda [Hoffmann 2003, pp. 88-117].

While in liberal and democratic states the decision-making power of politicians was restricted, in the Soviet Union and the Nazi Germany from 1933 it was far less constrained and allowed bold social scientific experiments. Their regimes opened possibilities which would be denied in democratic countries [Raphael 2018, pp. 51-94]. The idea of protecting the healthy national body quickly came to the fore: accordingly, the «sick», or «parasitic», parts of this body had to be removed. The deficient minorities (such as, for instance, people with mental disorders) were classified as ill and thus subject to removal in order to protect the healthy majority (e.g. through euthanasia). The social scientists whose ideas aligned with the dominant political views of their time, promoted such actions as scientifically just. Moreover, they found support among the Catholics, the Social Democrats, the conservatives, and of course, most of all, the radicals, the fascists and the Nazis. The threshold keeping scientists from using violence against humans in the name of science was crossed. Not only in the Nazi concentration camps did surgeons carry out experiments on humans; in their understanding, scientists sacrificed individual human beings in the sake of entire society.

Planned modernization (1945-1970)

At the end of WW2, people in most European countries were convinced that it was the state's task to regulate the economy, to ensure stable growth and full employment, and to counter imminent economic crises in good time. This was based on the belief that current social science had readily available solutions that worked. The problems of the interwar period were attributed to the impoverishment of the population and uncoordinated national initiatives. To a certain extent, many Western countries tried to implement the development model which was most explicitly pursued by the Soviet Union. In some countries, such as France, the planned economy was seen a means of accelerated modernization. The understanding of planning was, however, different from the Soviet model of a command economy [Merl 2017]. Many countries relied on Keynesianism to stabilize economic development and to achieve full employment by maintaining stable economic growth.

On the global level, most social science intellectuals - initially including those of the Soviet Union - advocated for the effort to avoid the repetition of global crises. They managed to achieve a broad consensus over several issues: for instance, that uncoordinated national initiatives were an obstacle to the overcoming of the negative consequences of world economic crises since the early 1930s. That social misery and the resulting existential crisis that affected large parts of the population had prepared the ground for the emergence of dictatorships in Europe. To date, however, there is no agreement on the exact causes of the global economic crisis [Borchardt 1979]. The only thing that is beyond dispute is that in the medium term it would not have led to such devastating consequences had there been joint coordinated supranational action. The measures that were considered against repeating these dangers included the introduction of state welfare policies and the creation of effective international organizations that promoted international cooperation. In Bretton Woods, the post-war order was discussed in 1944 and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was adopted paving the way to a worldwide free trade agreement (from which the World Trade Organization later emerged). The World Bank and the World Monetary Fund were established in order to help countries in times of economic crisis. The United Nations replaced the League of Nations which failed in the interwar period and became the international organization which was responsible for maintaining and promoting peace.

Convinced that Modernity would empower states to overcome hardship and poverty through continued economic growth, governments were set with the task of providing adequate social security to their populations. William Henry Beveridge coined the term welfare state - the term which stands in complete contrast to the Nazi «warfare state» [Hoffmann 2011, p. 18]. The welfare state represents the idea that social intervention and regulation must be used in order to improve people's quality of life, and educate people about social practices and behavioral norms that make them productive individuals and thereby contributing to the proper development of society. This was particularly reflected in the Beveridge's liberal model of welfare state (developed in the UK in 1944) and Karl Schiller's Keynesianism-influenced «Concerted Action» (1967) in Germany. The Soviet Union pursued a more or less similar model after Stalin's death: this was clearly expressed in Khruschev's model of Communist consumption (1957) which became more tailored to satisfy the needs of the citizens [Merl 2015].

In the phase of planned modernization, the conviction that man could reform the economy and society for the better was for the first time coupled with the idea of preserving peace. This idea should not be neglected, even though most expectations appeared utopian and could not be fully achieved. In any case, compared to 1944, the world gained both in terms of increased worldwide economic prosperity and the ability to avoid further global wars. Although most cases of the implementation of social science achievements can best be described as «half-achievements», it is important to ask what the world would have looked like without these efforts to improve it.

Disenchanted science (since the 1970s)

By the early 1970s trust in social sciences had faded. The expert advice it produced did not bring efficient enough solutions to the problems faced by societies. The term «disenchanted science» coined by Raffael appropriately reflects the spirit of that time. In the West, more and more doubts were raised about the conviction that people could come up with effective recipes for making the economy and society more rational. As the post-war economic boom ended, Keynesian optimism, which was linked to the idea that Western governments could counteract economic cycles and thus permanently maintain full employment, was lost. The oil price shock and the first worldwide postwar recession brought much disappointment. In addition, the ever-increasing costs of health provision and the struggle against unemployment raised the concerns about the limits to social spending. (Some social scientists even believed that «Postmodernity» had started.) Despite increasing prosperity and expanding mass consumption, even the wealthiest states found it difficult to expand their social systems.

However, a similar transition to a critical evaluation of the potential of social sciences did not occur in the Soviet Union. Until its very demise it remained stuck in the phase of planned modernization, albeit with limited success. Regardless of maintaining hope in the virtues of planning, it continued to fall behind Western countries in terms of developing innovative technologies and failed to accomplish some of its projects such as industrialized agriculture [Merl 2019]. The Soviet Union faced similar problems in the explosion of social spending, which was particularly exacerbated by its commitment to the subsidization of food. The problem was politically taboo until the end of the 1980s and thus was not subject to public debate.

Although skepticism about the dominant therapies and technologies produced by the social sciences was spreading in the West, this did not lead to a general departure from scientization of the social. What it led to was an increase in the diversity of expert advice. The 1970s marked another boom in the development of social sciences and their professionalization. Instead of the commitment to one correct and all-solving therapy, the field of social policy expertise was now best described as pluralistic. Raphael even speaks of a «therapeutic culture»: different groups of experts advocated different approaches [Raphael 2012]. The on-going fragmentation of social science disciplines into competing approaches and schools of thought contributed to the scientists' inability to fully control knowledge production in their field. Others describe the situation in the 1970s as a transition to the «science of muddling through» [Ziemann, Wetzell, Schumann, Brьckweh 2012, p. 7].

The resulting devaluation of scientific authority ultimately led politicians to exploit expert statements for virtually any course they wanted to take, with which they could claim the «scientific nature» of their political actions. In the 1950s, Khruschev introduced in the Soviet Union the idea of public hearings involving scientific experts, which became an essential part of the decision-making process in policy making. With this he demonstrated, like most Western politicians, that experts can be at odds with each another, and that for every political course to be fully legitimized expert opinions (even if corrupt) should at least be given a scientific appearance [Merl (1) 2002; Merl (2) 2019].

In the second part of this paper, by drawing on the examples of the Soviet Union and the Nazi Germany, I further consider what could have happened, had the social constraints keeping social scientists from implementing their ideas been completely released. Dictatorships justified the killing people as stemming from the social science of their time. In other words, what happened next was completely in line with the Zeitgeist of the interwar period.

2. A comparison of the development of Germany and Soviet Union between WW1 and WW2

After considering the concepts of Modernity and the scientization of the social, we now examine what use the Soviet Union and the Nazi Germany made of them. Unlike democracies, dictatorships are far less restricted in the implementation of radical changes in social structures. However, they confronted the problem of achieving public acceptance for the extermination of «enemies». That is why I pay special attention to their use of political communication for achieving the belief the legitimacy of their rule.

Comparisons between National Socialism and Stalinism took off with the introduction of the term totalitarianism already in the 1930s. Although today both modernization theory and totalitarian theory, which were developed during the Cold War, remain largely abandoned, some studies of the Soviet Union conducted in this framework retain their value in terms of thorough source investigation [Berliner 1957; Fainsod 1958; Inkeles, Bauer 1961]. For instance, introducing the concept of «Stalinism from below» Sheila Fitzpatrick claimed that she was entering an uncharted territory. However, first serious scientific attempts at comparing the two regimes started to appear in the 1970s. It was no longer about equating Stalinism and National Socialism, rather, the aim was to better understand the two dictatorships by highlighting the similarities and the differences. The anthology by Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin was perhaps the first powerful step in promoting such comparisons [Kershaw, Lewin 1977], since they had been long obstructed by the emphasis on the uniqueness of Nazism and the today discredited idea of the German Sonderweg. Another prominent collection is that by Matthias Vetter published after the opening of the Soviet archives [Vetter 1996]. Finally, the most recent anthology by Geyer and Fitzpatrick can be considered as a conclusion to these series of comparisons [Geyer, Fitzpatrick 2009]. For the first time, it combined comparative chapters written jointly by experts on National Socialism and Stalinism. It is the most complete compilation of state-of-the-art research on the subject so far. However, John Connelly correctly notes that many of its authors seem to remain within the limits of their own preconceptions and do not gain much by learning from each other's cases [Connelly 2010].

Such a comparison also suffered and continues to suffer today from different states of research. Whereas the study of National Socialism has led to controversial and fierce debates (cf. the argument between structuralists and intentionalists [Kershaw 2006] which resolved into the conclusion that neither alone is fruitful for the debate), there has been no comparable treatment of Stalinism. Partly this can be explained by the fact that the Soviet archive was made available to the public only in the 1990s. Another important issue is that the debate in the US has long remained mostly polemic and the parties involved have not exhibited much willingness to respond constructively to each other's arguments. Some well-known scholars were more concerned with their own reputation rather than with the further development of their fields. For instance, Jцrg Baberowski [Baberowski 2012] blatantly continues to insist on the use of the intentionalist approach in the interpretation of Stalinism and to explain the phenomenon of Stalin's tyranny using obsolete notions developed as far back as in the 1950s [Merl (2) 2012]. It is therefore of utmost importance that the results and progress of the debate on National Socialism are considered in promoting a similar debate on Stalinism [Kershaw 2006]. Even if the direct exchange of ideas and arguments is impossible, it could at least inform the choice of which more general interpretational approaches could be successful. My own comparative research, which I developed at the Bielefeld Collaborative Research Center on the History of Political Communication, is largely based on this approach. In particular, it focuses on the question of how the two regimes succeeded in making the majority of population tolerate mass terror and maintaining the belief in the legitimacy of their rulers [Merl (1) 2012; Kil'dyushov 2014; Ermakov 2013].

Positive examples of social science applications in the 1920s

Both regimes relied on the Modernity discourse in order to legitimize themselves after WW1, and on the advances of social sciences in order to reconstruct their societies. In Germany, monarchy was replaced by parliamentary democracy. The Weimar Constitution of 1919 adopted various elements of social reform with the aim of bringing more social justice. The Stinnes-Legien agreement redefined labor relations by institutionalizing trade unions and worker organizations [Krьger 2018]. Unemployment insurance and social housing were introduced. Altogether these changes redefined social security and led to a decisive improvement in the living conditions of the German people. Importantly, the role of social science experts and their influence over the development of relevant policies substantially increased. In Berlin, the Institute for Economic Research started work, the aim of which was to inform policymakers with forecasts of economic development and facilitate a more rational management of the economy [Merl 1985; Merl 2020].

In the Soviet Union, the Modernity discourse affected the transformation of society to an even greater extent. The belief in the possibility of a better world - a central element of Marxism - was politically connected with the idea of the rational planning of the economy and of society. According to the stage theory of Marx, the working class was designated as the new dominant class, and the new state administration, referred to as the «dictatorship of the proletariat», ruled out the possibility of any political opposition. A state planning commission was set up in conjunction with the state electrification plan, and to inform their activities and planning efforts many social scientists were recruited along with the development of powerful statistical monitoring. It was expected that state regulation would accelerate economic development and the restoration of the economy went much faster than initially expected. Already by 1927, the experts involved presented their first five-year plan for the development of the national economy [Merl 1985]. The New Economic Policy proved to be a success. Using advice from experts in agriculture, the party leadership began implementing a well-grounded approach to agricultural development («Turning the face to the countryside» 1924) [Merl 1981; Merl 2019].