The question of the fate of bourgeois liberalism in the twentieth century is of scientific and political interest, since it occupied, and still occupies, an important place in the system of methods by which the bourgeoisie seeks to maintain its position. In the early years of the Weimar Republic, liberalism, as a political movement that united certain circles of the German bourgeoisie, played an important role in the struggle against the revolutionary movement and in saving the capitalist system. The liberal forces, which came out under the slogans of defending democracy and the republican regime, initially attracted to their side numerous representatives of the non-monopoly bourgeoisie and intelligentsia, who sought to renew the entire political and economic life of the country on a democratic basis. However, the Liberals were unable to retain their supporters. As class contradictions grew among the German bourgeoisie, circles that took a course towards the abolition of parliamentary democracy and the establishment of an open dictatorship of monopoly capital gained the upper hand. Along with the profound shifts in the alignment of political forces in Germany, the liberals ' inconsistency in defending the Republican foundations, their constant concessions to big capital and right-wing forces were the reasons that led to the progressive narrowing of their mass base, and led German liberalism to a deep crisis at the turn of the 1920s and 30s. On the eve of Hitler's rise to power, liberalism finally disappears from the political arena of the Weimar Republic.

The history of bourgeois political parties in the years of the Weimar Republic, in addition to general works on this period, found special reflection in the studies of B. G. Tartakovsky and M. P. Lapteva. 1 A group of historians of the GDR led by D. Fricke intensively develops the history of the German bourgeois parties, including the party-political history of liberalism .2 The achievements of Marxist historians are a reliable basis for the struggle against bourgeois and reformist historiography, which misrepresents the fate of this political trend in the Weimar Republic.

West German historiography of liberalism is influenced by-

1 B. G. Tartakovsky. The bourgeois parties of the Weimar Republic and the rise of fascism to power. "Iz istorii Germanii novogo i sovremennogo vremya" [From the History of Modern and Contemporary Germany]. Moscow, 1958; M. P. Lapteva. The German Democratic Party and the Tactics of Liberalism in the Years of Relative Stabilization of Capitalism (1924-1928)."Questions of the History of the International Labor Movement". Issue 11. Perm. 1973.

2 "Die burgerlichen Parteien in Deutschland. Handbuch der Geschichte der burgerlichen Parteien und anderer burgerlicher Interessenorganisationen vom Vormarz bis zum Jahre 1945". Bd. 1. Leipzig. 1968; Bd. 2. Leipzig. 1970.

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There are a number of general concepts that define the historiography of the Federal Republic of Germany, such as the "doctrine of an industrial society" (and its variant-the "doctrine of a formed society"); the doctrine of totalitarianism, in which the "right" and "left" radicalism are opposed to the "political middle"; the thesis about the weakness of the political system of the Weimar Republic, about the responsibility of broad strata for the tragic development of events in the last years of its existence, etc. These concepts are based on the desire to avoid analyzing the class struggle and justify the real perpetrators of the collapse of the Weimar Republic - the circles of the monopolistic bourgeoisie associated with fascism, the reactionary Reichswehr, and the bureaucracy hostile to the republic.

The history of German liberalism is studied in Germany mainly within the framework of a larger topic - "political and economic stability", in the development of which, along with sociologists and political scientists, historians also participate. The aim of their efforts is to develop recommendations for strengthening capitalist society and its crisis-free development, 3 and to try to link the working class and other non-monopolistic strata of society to the existing order by means of various concepts, and integrate them into a capitalist system draped under the guise of "social" and "democratic"4 . Special attention is paid to the Weimar " state of parties "and its comparison with the" second German democracy "- Germany, and the goal is to draw"lessons from the collapse of the Weimar Republic". Representatives of the direction that is close to the ruling coalition of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) - such as K. D. Bracher, T. Ellwein, R. Leventhal, K. Zonteimer5, - compare the possibilities and chances of both parliamentary "experiments", and the Weimar Republic, this "textbook example of the incapacity of party democracy", is contrasted with the "stability" and "vitality" of the political structure of Germany 6 . Reformist historians seek to justify the policy of right-wing German social democracy, which bears the main responsibility for the split of the labor movement. They accuse the bourgeois political parties of not entering into an alliance with the SPD in order to preserve the political regime of the Weimar Republic; at the same time, they criticize the SPD leadership for having missed the opportunity to develop Germany along the "third way", that is, along the path of creating Soviets with purely economic functions while preserving the foundations of the capitalist system.

In general, the modern West German historiography is characterized by a retreat into the background of the most conservative, nationalist concepts that do not meet the current needs of the ruling classes. They were replaced by bourgeois-reformist trends, which in their main features are aligned with social-reformism. Under the influence of Marxist historiography, some historians of the Federal Republic of Germany have increased their interest in socio-economic issues, criticism of certain aspects of the Weimar Republic, which are considered "surmountable".-

3 See W. Ru ge. Zur burgerlichen Geschichtsschreibung der BRD fiber die Weimarer Republik. "Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft", 1974, Hf. 7, S. 681.

4 See S. Petersen. Biirgerliche "Politische Wissenschaft" und Zeitgeschichtsschreibung. "Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft", 1976, Hf. 7, S. 758 - 760.

5 K. D. Bracher. Das deutsche Dilemma. Leidenswege der politischen Emanzipation. Munchen. 1971; Th. Ellwein. Das Regierungssystem der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Opladen. 1973; R. Lewenthal. Sozialismus und aktive Demokratie. Essays zu ihren Voraussetzungen in Deutschland. Frankfurt/M. 1974; K. Sontheimer. Grundzuge des politischen Systems der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Munchen. 1971.

6 "Die zweite Republik. 25 Jahre Bundesrepublik Deutschland". Hrsg. von R. Lewenthal und H. P. Schwarz. Stuttgart. 1974, S. 204 u. a.

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left " in modern Germany. Another feature of German historiography is close cooperation with American historiography based on the widely advertised thesis about the common fate of the "Western world". The interest of bourgeois and reformist historians in studying German liberalism is primarily determined by the fact that liberal tactics and principles are widely used in the political life of Germany by the majority of bourgeois parties, as well as the SPD. This interest has increased since the formation of the government coalition and the need for a historical justification of the close alliance between the liberal forces that the FDP seeks to represent and the right-wing social democracy.

In the preface to the "History of German Liberalism", published under the auspices of the "Foundation of F. R. Tolkien". B. Witte notes the increased popularity of liberal slogans in the political life of Germany. According to him, every more or less large party in this country seeks to fully or partially assimilate the legacy of liberalism. This applies primarily to economic policy, but not only to it. Thus, some critics call the SPD's Godesberg program "left-liberal". Liberal principles can be seen in the program of the CDU, which advocates a "social market economy". The FDP, whose founders deliberately abandoned the name liberal, today declares itself the sole guardian of the liberal ideology .7 At the XXII Congress of the FDP in Freiburg (October 1971), it was proclaimed as the goal of the party "progressive, social liberalism", and F. Naumann is again called the ideological father of" social liberalism " in Germany. In the theses for the congress and the work published before it by one of the leading figures of the party at that time, K. G. Flach, "One more chance for liberals, or the future of freedom", an attempt was made to dissociate from the negative aspects of former liberalism, and to claim to lead the struggle for progress even today .8 G. Reif writes about the prospects of liberalism in the modern world: "As long as there is a danger of abuse of power and the need to control power in the state, economic and social fields, liberalism as a political force will continue to exist and should continue to exist" 9 .

However, as the progressive West German researcher R. Opitz notes, the goal of liberalism is not to defend democracy, but to fight against the revolutionary movement .10 "If we do not indicate a third path of liberal social reform between conservative stagnation and socialist utopia," Flach said at the FDP's Freiburg congress, " then the country will enter a dangerous period of political polarization with all the irreparable consequences for liberalism, humanism and the status of today's democracy... Anyone who does not understand this behaves like those short-sighted feudal lords on the eve of the French Revolution or the October Revolution in Russia, who, even then, by their narrow-minded policies, obstructed the liberal reformers and thus contributed to the violent revolution. " 11
7 V. S. Witte. Libcralismus in Deutschland. "Geschichte des deutsehen Liberalismus". Koln-Opladen. 1966, S. 5.

8 K. H. Flach, W. Majhоfer, W. Scheel. Die Freiburger Thesen der Liberalen. Reinberk bei Hamburg. 1971; K. H. Fl ach. Noch eine Chance fur die Liberalen, oder: Die Zukunft dor Freiheit. Eine Streitschrift. Frankfurt/M. 1971.

9 H. Reif. Renaissans des Liberalismus. "Geschichte des deutsehen Liberalismus", S. 183. 10 R. Opitz. Liberalismuskritik und Zukunft des liberalen Motivs. "Blatter fur deutsche und intemationale Politik" (Koln), 1972, Hf. 2, S. 167.

11 K. H. Flach. Die Zukunft der Liberalen. FDP-Information. 22. Ordentlicher Bundesparteitag. Freiburg, 26. Oklober 1971, S. 4 - 5.

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In the historiography of the Federal Republic of Germany, there is no unity in the definition of liberalism. Bourgeois historians often proceed from a vague, perfectly constructed concept in classifying the trends of German liberalism; this approach ignores the real content of a particular political trend. Thus, M. Freund's anthology of German liberalism includes names from G. W. Leibniz, J. Kant to W. Rathenau, M. Weber, and even R. Luxemburg. Freund refers to liberals as all those who "recognize the individual as an independent value", and puts an equal sign between the history of liberalism and the history of the Western world12 . According to B. Witte, partial recognition of liberal ideas does not entitle either social Democrats or conservative forces to be representatives of liberalism; only those who advocate the implementation of liberal principles of social and state structure in general can be considered a liberal, he argues .13
In the historiography of the Federal Republic of Germany, a scheme has been established according to which the history of liberalism in the Weimar Republic is considered within the framework of two bourgeois parties - the Democratic (DP) and the People's (NP), which are identified respectively with the left and right currents within liberalism. Although in the era of imperialism liberalism as a single political phenomenon is being eroded and liberal principles are becoming the property of many bourgeois parties, as well as of reformist social democracy, the People's Party - the party of big capital headed by such an imperialist politician as G. Stresemann and advocating the abolition of bourgeois democracy - can only be conditionally attributed to the camp of liberalism. As Marxist historiography has shown, this is an imperialist policy that acts under the guise of liberalism .14 The reactionary character of the NP stands out especially clearly when compared with the Democratic Party, which was widely represented by the middle strata and intelligentsia, and which proclaimed as its goal the defense of Republican institutions and sought, although not always consistently, to implement bourgeois-democratic principles in the form they were enshrined in the Weimar Constitution.

In the historical assessment of liberalism, Opits notes, it is important to establish the scale: what is liberal in general, what is the unchangeable basis of liberalism, what is the concrete historical content of the slogan of freedom put forward by liberalism in each epoch. To do this, it is necessary to find out what the struggle for freedom and equality objectively means for her. Opic identifies two main liberal principles: private property and political freedom. If they were combined before the imperialist stage, now they contradict each other .15
Analyzing the crisis of liberal politics and ideology in the Weimar Republic, a number of authors turn to the prehistory of this process, when the foundations of German liberalism were laid and its features were formed. According to Becker, the real conflict between the rising bourgeoisie and feudalism in Germany was never resolved-

12 M. Freund. Der Liberalismus. Stuttgart. 1965.

13 B. C. Witte. Op. cit., S. 18.

14 CM. H. Bertsch. Die FDP und der deutsche Liberalismus. 1789 - 1963. B. 1965, S. 141; W. Ruge. Stresemann. Ein Lebensbild. B. 1965.

15 R. Opitz. Op. cit. "Blatter f. deut. u. intern. Politik", 1972, Hf. 1, p. 15; see also the assessment of this problem by the historian of the GDR L. Elma: L. Elm. Liberalismus und Imperialismus. Zur geschichtlichen Einschatzung der "Krise des Liberalismus" in Deutschland. "Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat Jena". Ges. -und sprachwiss. Reihe. 1965, Hf. 2, S. 247.

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stood 16 . The bourgeoisie of the German states was unable to solve the main question of German national development - the unification of Germany on a democratic basis, and after the victory of Prussia at Sadovaya openly switched to supporting the monarchies and the Bismarckian regime. The liberals acknowledged their incompetence in matters of state policy and praised the Prussian military. "This position explains," noted H. Kohn, "why not only in the Bismarckian Empire, but also in the Weimar Republic, freedom and civil dignity suffered a catastrophe." 17
Since the 1980s, the influence of imperialist ideology on the political movement of liberalism can be traced in all imperialist countries, but nowhere is it more pronounced than in Germany, and nowhere did it lead to such fatal consequences. liberalism" in its entire history. He writes that the imperialist tendencies of liberalism not only led to "the fatal discrediting of liberal ideology, but also contributed to the emergence of two world wars." 18 L. Gall believes that in this case we should speak of pseudo-liberalism, since at the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century, German liberalism was so different in content from the classical English model that common programmatic requirements "sometimes obscured essentially diametrically opposed political and social models of the future." 19 An American historian of German origin, Fr. Sell notes the imperialist ambitions of such prominent figures and ideologues of the liberal movement as E. Bassermann, G. Stresemann, F. Naumann, G. Troitschke, P. Rohrbach, who supported the expansionist policy of Wilhelm Germany, hatched plans for the dismemberment of Russia and colonial conquest .20 These features of the development of German liberalism were bound to be reflected in the years of the Weimar Republic.

Bourgeois and reformist historians pay particular attention to the failed attempt to rally broad strata of the bourgeoisie and create a large party that closely cooperates with right-wing social democracy and thus performs the function of reconciling class antagonisms between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This function of liberalism during the Weimar Republic, which is relevant in terms of today's efforts to integrate the working class into the system of the bourgeois state, is of great interest in German historiography. Great importance is attached to the social reformist ideas of Fr. Naumann, especially his attempt to attract the working class to support the imperialist state, had a great influence on the ideology of left-wing liberalism during the Weimar Republic, especially in the first years after the November Revolution, when Naumann was at the head of the Democratic Party created in November 1918. In the history of the DP, many researchers see a reflection or symbol of the fate of the Weimar Republic. Starting with the position of the third largest party in 1919.,

16 W. Becker. "Demokratie des sozialen Rechts". Die politische Haltung der Frankfurter Zeitung, der Vossischen Zeitung und des Berliner Tageblatts 1918 - 1924. Gottingen. 1971, S. 211.

17 H. Kohn. Die Kapitulation des Liberalismus, in: H. Baumgarten. Der deutsche.Liberalismus. Eine Selbstkritik. Frankfurt a/M. - Berlin - Wien. 1974, S. 175.

18 "Liberalismus und imperialistischer Staat. Der Imperialismus als Problem der Liberalen Parteien in Deutschland 1890 - 1914". Hrsg. von K. Holl und G. List. Gottingen. 1975, p. 110. The collection contains the materials of the international colloquium on these problems, held in Gummersbach in September 1975.

19 Ibid., S. 147 - 148.

20 F. C. Sell. Die Tragodie des deutschen Liberalismus. Stuttgart. 1953, S. 276, 282, 290 u. a.

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leading representatives of which had a great influence on the development of the foundations of the Weimar constitution, the DP quickly decayed. By 1933, its social base, organization, and even program were only a shadow of the old party. Although this decline to a certain extent can be attributed to the general decline of European liberalism after the First World War, says M. Ecksteins, the question arises - was such a scale inevitable in Germany (that is, the complete exclusion of bourgeois liberalism as a political force even before Hitler came to power), or was it the result of mistakes and miscalculations on the part of the democrats themselves ?21
Many bourgeois and reformist authors in their assessment of the main problems of the history of German liberalism during the Weimar Republic are based on the book 3. Neumann, published for the first time in 1932. Its reprint in Germany (3rd edition was published in 1973) shows that the author's approach corresponds to the political and ideological situation in West Germany. Indeed, even in this work one can find the thesis that the Democratic Party was the main champion of democracy in the years of the Weimar Republic, material on the efforts of the DP to unite the "political middle" in the struggle against the left and right forces - "red and brown radicalism"22 , a list of omissions of the party leadership, assigning responsibility for the decline of this party. of the party and of the Weimar Republic itself to the broad strata of the German bourgeoisie: "The decline and demise of the DP means a severe shock to the democracy created in Weimar. It also shows the spiritual and political crisis of the German bourgeoisie. " 23 The paper correctly concludes that the progressive withdrawal of voters from support for left-wing liberalism is due to their disillusionment with the "political formal democracy" that the party advocated, and that they demanded real, "social democracy". It is also true that at a crucial moment when the fate of the party and the republic itself was being decided, the Republicans did not show the will to fight, despite their commitment to democratic principles. Neumann explains this with the heavy burden of the past, inherited by the DP from the Kaiser's times, when the liberals were constantly in opposition and were excluded from practical politics.

V. Huber describes the DP as a "left-wing bourgeois party", which occupied a position on the extreme left flank of the bourgeois parties. From this position, he said, came the task of mediating between the bourgeoisie and the working class, and hence between the bourgeois parties and social-democracy. The goal of the DP was to overcome class antagonisms and, in alliance with other forces, create a unified German people. Therefore, it often referred to itself as a "state party", and by "state" it meant a classless society, a democratic republic. 24
The attitude towards social democracy was the stumbling block that ultimately broke all attempts to unite right-wing and left-wing liberalism during the Weimar Republic. G. Schustereit examines the relationship between the DP and the SPD. In the early years of the Weimar Republic, bourgeois Democrats supported the SPD out of fear that the latter would revert to its previous policy of fighting against the existing state. In 1920. The PD opposed the merger with the People's Party, wanting to preserve the function of a "bridge" connecting the two parties.-

21 M. Eksteins. Theodor Heuss und die Weimarer Republik. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des deutschen Liberalismus. Stuttgart. 1969, S. 13.

22 S.Neumann Die Parteien der Weimarer Republik. 3. Aufl. Stuttgart. 1973, S. 51.

23 Ibid., S. 53.

24 W. Huber. Gertrud Baumer. Eine politische Biographie. Mumchen. 1970, S. 120.

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to unite the bourgeois parties with the SPD, in order to "close the gap between the bourgeoisie and the workers", which threatens the collapse of the state. There were even voices among the Democrats that the PD's participation in the bourgeois coalition would split the country into two hostile camps and possibly lead to a civil war .25 Despite the failed attempts to form a grand coalition (with the SPD's participation) at the turn of 1925 and 1926, the DP continued to pursue this goal, even to its own detriment, as Schustereit writes, because this position cost the party a lot of bourgeois votes, as the 1928 Reichstag elections made especially clear.

In general, Schustereit notes that the SPD is much less interested in cooperation between the two parties than the DP, which he explains by the large difference in their political weight in the country. He believes that the SPD underestimated the possibility of cooperation with the DP , the only bourgeois party that was willing to enter into a political alliance with the SPD .26 Schustereit's conclusion: if the DP had developed into a strong liberal Democratic party, then in alliance with the SPD, it would have been able to preserve the Weimar Republic as a democratic state governed by the rule of law. But for this, he believes, it was necessary for the bourgeois democrats to reconsider their socio-economic views. "The most important task of the DP was to bring social-democratic and social-liberal ideas closer together, coordinate them, or even synthesize them" (especially given the SPD's development into a " people's party "and its departure from class positions) .27
L. Albertin, in his monograph Liberalism and Democracy at the beginning of the Weimar Republic, also states that in the "key question" of relations with social democracy, the liberals missed the opening prospect. In the case of a strong alliance between them, he writes, it was possible to count on the creation of a stable regime .28 The author focuses on the reformist tendencies observed in the initiators of the creation of the DP-T. Wolf, A. Weber, etc. It is in these unfulfilled plans that Albertin sees a real chance for the liberal party to consolidate its place and influence in the political system of the republic. He admits that the main goal of Wolf, Weber and others was to contain the radicalization of the masses. In the plans of the founders of the DP, who advocated the renewal of liberalism, Albertin sees "a new concept of the economic system in Germany", in which "the principles of workers' participation in the management of enterprises, improving the welfare of workers would be combined with private initiative and the right of entrepreneurs to appropriate profits, even if limited. " 29
However, these plans were built in the sand. Albertin does not answer the question of what forces were called upon to take on the task of a broad political and social renewal of Germany. The bourgeois strata, who initially joined the Democratic Party out of fear of the revolutionary actions of the proletariat, soon left it for the right-wing parties, primarily the People's Party. In the DP itself, as the 1920 Reichstag elections showed, the bourgeois reformers were defeated and prevailed.

25 H. Schustereit. Linksliberalismus und Sozialdemokratie in der Weimarer Republik Eine vergleichende Betrachtung der Politik von DDP und SPD 1919 - 1930. Dusseldorf. 1975, S. 252.

26 Ibid., S. 267.

27 Ibid., S. 220.

28 L. Albertin. Liberalismus und Demokratie am Anfang der Weimarer Republik. Eine vergleichende Analyse der Deutschen Demokratischen Partei uad der Deutschen Volkspartei. Dusseldorf. 1972, S. 427.

29 Ibid., S. 116.

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the right wing, which advocated strengthening the power of big capital. The number of DP supporters sharply decreased, and this trend continued to grow in the future. But Albertine is not interested in the problem of democratic transformation, but in the search for missed opportunities to strengthen the capitalist system.

E. Portner also sympathetically portrays the desire of left-wing liberalism to go beyond the purely bourgeois trend. He points out the attempts of the DP leadership to attract workers and employees to their side. But the remnants of the Hirsch-Dunker trade unions, which were influenced by the party, covered only 2.2% of all organized workers. The participation of employees was significantly higher: the party-oriented "General Union of Employees" included 20.7% of all employees in the country30 . Portner repeats the conclusion of T. Schieder 31: "The political tragedy of German liberalism" is explained by the fact that the liberals failed to adapt to the conditions of "mass democracy". But unlike Schieder, he puts the responsibility for this on the voters, and not on the party, which, according to him, was not inferior in organizational terms even to the SPD. He sees the main reason for the political decline of left-wing liberalism as a subjective factor - the absence of a strong personality at the head of the party, a leader who would be able to attract the masses and make the principles of liberalism attractive in the eyes of the general population .32 On the whole, he highly appreciates the attempt (although it failed) to create a "mass democratic party", "a party that embraces all classes and classes". According to him, "the DP failed not only because of its omissions, but also because of its lofty goals" - to achieve "class solidarity" 33 .

The distraction of workers from the class struggle, the desire to turn them into a "stabilizing factor" within the capitalist state , is the main theme of the memoirs of E. Lemmer, 34 a prominent figure of the Democratic (then State) Party, who headed the Hirsch - Dunker trade unions, through which the liberal bourgeoisie sought to fulfill its "social" function within the working class. While objecting to the established reputation of the "yellow" trade unions, Lemmer does not hide the fact that the entire policy of the trade union leadership was aimed at "eliminating social contradictions." From this point of view, he highly appreciates the "Central Business Community" created in November 1918, in which representatives of trade unions and entrepreneurs participated, and calls the activities of this organization one of the "most impressive and revolutionary achievements"35 . Lemmer is satisfied that "up to the time of Hitler's seizure of power, there was agreement among the top social partners on matters of principle." He particularly notes the "relationship of trust" between the leaders of the trade unions and the Imperial Union of German Industry .36
A number of authors touch upon the position of liberals in the social and economic spheres, in the field of finance. It is in these areas that you will find-

30 E. Portner. Der Ansatz zur demokratischen Massenpartei im deutschen Linksliberalismus. "Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte". Jg. 13, 1965, Hf. 2, S. 155.

31 Th. Schieder. Das Verhaltnis von politischer und gesellschaftlicher Verfassung und die Krise des biirgeriichen Liberalismus. "Historische Zeitschrift", 177 (1954), S. 68.

32 E Portner. Op. cit., S. 154.

33 Ibid., S. 159, 161.

34 E. Leramer. Manches war doch anders. Erinnerungen eines deutschen Demokraten. Frankfurt a/'M. 1968.

35 Ibid., S. 88.

36 Ibid., S. 91.

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The author reveals the true class essence of liberalism as a defender of the capitalist system and the interests of big capital. In dealing with specific questions of social and economic policy, the liberal bourgeoisie refused to protect the interests not only of the working class, but also of the so-called middle strata, which it tried unsuccessfully to win over to its side. Considerations of maintaining the competitiveness of German industry have consistently taken precedence over protecting the interests of workers. Bourgeois historians write about the "tragic conflict" between the liberal and social-democratic defenders of the republic in the field of financial policy. They seek to justify the position of the main bourgeois parties on this issue, aimed at encouraging the industrial community and reducing social spending, and criticize the SPD for its "extravagance"in spending the state on unemployment insurance and public utilities. For its part, the right-wing socialist historiography accuses the liberals of a one-sided orientation exclusively towards large-scale industry, towards the decisive preponderance of "economic" policy over social policy, which led to a violation of political stability and an increase in the radicalization of the masses of the people.

This reveals the direct links between bourgeois politicians and the monopolies that dictated their terms to the government. Many facts of this kind were presented at the international symposium "Industrial System and Political Development in the Weimar Republic", held in Bochum in June 1973. So, according to the data of P.-K. Under pressure from all bourgeois parties, including the Democratic Party, since 1920, changes in the tax legislation were constantly made in favor of entrepreneurs .37 L. Alberti, who also took part in the symposium, gives eloquent data on the pressure of industrial circles on the DP in order to force the party to abandon the implementation of radical socio-economic reforms. Thus, the "Board of Trustees for the Restoration of Industrial Life in Germany" headed by K. F. Siemens, which drew funds mainly from the Berlin metalworking, electrical and textile industries, financed in 1919. the entire election campaign of the DP in the hope that it will become a major bourgeois party opposing the SPD. Albertin suggests that the party leadership must have given the said council certain assurances that the party would not encroach on the interests of big capital38 . The Committee for Trade, Industry and Handicrafts established as part of the DP established links with the main associations of entrepreneurs in Germany. In 1922, a representative of the committee joined the board of the Imperial Union of German Industry. And in the future, the liberals followed in the wake of big capital. Despite all the efforts to keep the middle strata of the population, Albertin notes, " DP remained in the eyes of ordinary people... the party of big capital " 39 .

M. Vogt criticizes the bourgeois parties for not cooperating with the SPD in matters of financial policy. The DP and NP, at the negotiations on the conclusion of a coalition in June 1928, expressed their support for-

37 P. -Ch. Witt. Finanzpolitik und sozialer Wandel in Krieg und Inflation 1918- 1924. "Industrielies System und politische Entwicklung in der Weimarer Republik. Verhandlungen des internationalen Symposiums in Bochum vom 12. -17. Juni 1973"., Hrsg. von H. Mommsen u. a. Dusseldorf. 1974, S. 417.

38 L. Albertin. Faktoren eines Arrangements zwischen industriellem und politischem System in der Weimarer Republik 1918 - 1928. Ibid., S. 661.

39 Ibid., S. 668.

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raising taxes on capital to make industry competitive 40 . The slogan of" people's community", which was put forward by the liberals, in fact turned out to be an empty phrase. The interests of the workers and all those in need, Vogt writes, mattered very little compared to the demands of entrepreneurs, who, along with reducing the taxation of industry, sought to reduce unemployment benefits in order to strengthen their position in the fight against the strike movement .41 Vogt traces the growing shift of liberals to the side of the big bourgeoisie in the context of the current economic crisis. It shows that the DP and NP had close positions on tax policy issues. When discussing the draft state budget in December 1929, the Democrats made great concessions to the demands of the NP, which sought to free industry from any tax "burden" that would hinder the rapid accumulation of capital. A member of the Reichstag's democratic group, O. Mayer, together with G. Breuning, drew up a draft of the unemployment insurance reform, which , as Vogt notes, "was more acceptable to the NP than to the SPD"42, which tried to maneuver between workers and entrepreneurs. Defending the right-wing leadership of the SPD, Vogt accuses all the bourgeois parties in the government coalition of opposing themselves to the Social Democrats in the social and financial sphere and thereby causing a crisis in the parliamentary system. Vogt also emphasizes the responsibility for the collapse of the grand coalition in 1930. The leaders of German industry, who used extra-parliamentary methods of pressure on the government of G. Muller. According to him, numerous lobbyists were active within the bourgeois parties, especially the NP, who "were largely interested in the failure of the grand coalition."43
Much attention in West German historiography is paid to the role of the middle strata in the Weimar Republic - small entrepreneurs, artisans, employees and intellectuals. The liberal parties were unable to link these strata to the bourgeois-democratic parliamentary system, which is declared to be the main reason for the crisis of liberalism and Republican institutions. The problems of the middle strata, in one way or another, concern all authors who deal with the history of liberalism. It is specially studied by G. A. Winkler, whose concept is described by him in monograph 44 and then in a report at a symposium in Bochum. After the November Revolution, the middle strata initially joined the DP, not because, as Winkler writes, they had converted to "left-wing liberalism," but because they wanted to have a large bourgeois party opposed to the "socialist experiments" of social democracy. But already in 1920, the majority of middle-class voters switched to the NP, because they wanted a government without the SPD. Later, this party also ceased to suit the middle strata due to its connections with big capital, and they changed their orientation first in favor of the National, then - the Economic Party, until finally they fell under the influence of the NSDAP .45
Winkler points out that no government of the Weimar Republic had any definite program for its political activity.-

40 M. Vogt. Die Stellung der Koalitionsparteien zur Finanzpolitik 1928 - 1930. Ibid., S. 444.

41 Ibid., S. 446 - 447.

42 Ibid., S. 446.

43 Ibid., S. 976.

44 H. A. Winkler. Mittelstand, Demokratie und Nationalsozialismus. Die politische Entwicklung von Handwerk und Kleinhandel in der Weimarer Republik. Koln. 1972.

45 H. A. Winkler. Vom Protest zur Panik: Der gewerbliche Mittelstand in der Weimarer Republik. "Industrielles System und politische Entwicklung in der Weimarer Republik...", S. 787.

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ticks in relation to the middle layers. Both the liberal parties and the big industrialists did not understand the need to systematically win over the middle strata to their side. The policy of partial concessions pursued by the DP and other parties could not mitigate the radicalization of the middle strata and their transition to support for national Socialism .46 However, Winkler uses these and other correct observations to construct his own version of the origin of fascism. He sees the existence of numerous middle strata as a consequence of the incompleteness of the industrial revolution and the backwardness of Germany in comparison with the more advanced capitalist countries. He writes about the class traditions that survived the industrial Revolution and were still preserved in the Weimar Republic. According to him, these traditions became the source of the "corporate anti-parliamentarism" that was used by the Nazis in the struggle for power. Thus, in place of the real problem - "monopoly capital and fascism" - Winkler puts the imaginary problem - "fascism and social backwardness"47 .

As the GDR historian G. Birch rightly points out, the liberal forces have not managed to overcome the illusion that it is possible to strengthen the "political middle" loyal to the republic, while simultaneously fighting against both reaction and the left. All attempts of this kind invariably led to a further change in the balance of power in favor of the most reactionary, chauvinistic and aggressive circles. 48 At the same time, it is revealed what a fatal role anti-communist tendencies played in the fate of both German liberalism and the Republican regime, for the preservation of which the liberals advocated. The crisis of liberal politics and ideology is particularly clear, starting with the defeat of the DP in the Reichstag elections in May 1928. Since then, the DP has been noticeably evolving to the right, trying to get closer to the NP-the party of big capital - and gradually abandoning liberal principles. The real content of discussions about the "new liberalism", which were actively conducted in the late 1920s and early 30s in liberal circles, was the progressive reorientation to the monopolistic bourgeoisie, the rejection of claims to act as the party of the whole people.

With regard to these subjects, bourgeois historiography confines itself to stating attempts to rally the liberal bourgeoisie, explaining their failure at best by tactical blunders or by the fact that the PD was not supported by broad strata of the non-monopolist bourgeoisie, and keeping silent about the fact that the right-wing leadership of the party contributed to the transition of these strata to the camp of reaction. "It is difficult to say," writes V. Becker, " who is responsible for this-whether the intelligentsia, which turned out to be politically not up to par, or the PD party, which did not meet the requirements, or "circumstances" made it impossible for another development. Finally, the bourgeoisie soon abandoned the Democratic Party; this is the historical fault of the bourgeoisie and at the same time a symptom of the end of liberalism."49
The liberals 'efforts to rally the political "middle" could not provide an alternative to the growing fascist danger. Bourgeois historians hold up Mr. Stresemann as a statesman who, by leading the liberal camp, could open up a "historical perspective"for liberalism. F. Sell, although with reservations, includes Stresemann in the history of German liberalism and argues that Stresemann has evolved from a nationalist state to a political one.-

46 Ibid., S. 785.

47 Ibid., S. 791.

48 N. Bertsch. Op. cit., S. 142.

49 W. Becker. Op. cit., S. 224.

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a major political figure who sought peace and the unification of Europe on the basis of the peaceful cooperation of European countries. "He would never have compromised with Hitler," says Sell, " he would never have accepted the insanity of racism. If he had lived longer,.. Fascism would not have won in Germany. " 50 The same thesis is supported by G. Schwartz, who argues that if in 1918 the formation of a large Republican party headed by Stresemann was impossible, then ten years later it was unthinkable without him. 51 As Marxist historiography shows, Stresemann's liberal demagogy concealed the former hegemonic goals of German imperialism. What bourgeois historians present as the success of liberalism is, in historical perspective, a prelude to 1933 .52
Referring to the party-political history of the Weimar Republic, many bourgeois and right-wing socialist authors consider these problems in isolation from socio-economic relations, the aggravation of the class struggle in the last years of the republic, which allows them to avoid the problem of monopoly capital's responsibility for strengthening reaction.: "It is not the presence of radicalisms, but the lack of sufficient forces to resist them, that is the main problem in the history of the Weimar Republic and the emergence of National Socialist rule."53 According to V. Konts, a well - known liberal historian, the leaders of the bourgeois parties did not use the opportunities of coalition politics to maintain the stability of the Weimar regime; the political system allegedly "itself" collapsed long before Hitler came to power .54 He claims that in the early 1930s there was no alternative - "Weimar or Hitler", that there could be no return to the parliamentary system, and that the abolition of the democratic foundations of the Weimar constitution was inevitable. The author puts forward the thesis of "incapacity"55 bourgeois parties and the need to replace republican institutions with an open dictatorship. In the light of this, the policy of the right wing of the DP, which sought to reorient the party to an alliance with the right forces and supported the reactionary measures of Breuning and Papen, is also justified.

E. Matthias and P. Morzai, considering the failed second attempt to unite the Democratic and People's Parties in 1930, reduce the reasons for this failure to disagreements on the question of attitude to the SPD .56 The" left "liberal party, the DP, did not dare to oppose itself to social democracy, as the NP leadership insisted, for fear of finally losing its mass base, and maintained its position as a "buffer" or "bridge" between the bourgeoisie and the working class, in the hope that such tactics, as in 1918, would bring benefits. success. The merger of the DP with the "Young German Order" into a new State Party, Matthias and Morzai also consider from the point of view of the splo-

50 F. C. Sell. Op. cit., S. 396.

51 G. Schwarz. Theodor Wolf und das "Berliner Tageblatt". Eine liberate Stimme in der deutschen Politik 1906 - 1933. Tubingen. 1968, S. 96.

52 H. Bertsch. Op. cit., S. 141; W. Ruge. Op. cit.

53 R. Vierhaus. Die politische Mitte in der Weimarer Republik. "Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht", 1964, Hf. 3, S. 149.

54 W. Conze. Die deutschen Parteien in der Staatsverfassung vor 1933. "Das Ende der Parteien 1933". Dusseldorf. 1960, S. 3.

55 W. Sonze. Op. cit., S. 4. A similar thesis is also defended by D. Zierer. Niedergang und Zusammenbruch der Weimarer Parteien von 1930 bis 1933. Munchen. 1973.

56 E. Mallias, P. Morsey. Die deutsche Staatspartei. "Das Ende der Parteien 1933", S. 35.

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The goal is to create a "middle ground" in order to fight the right and left more successfully. They write that the change in the political course of the new party occurred "only in nuances"57 . In fact, the merger caused a crisis and split in the PD, and the new party program showed concessions to nationalism and a rejection of the former liberal principles. 58
The right wing of the State Party, led by its chairman G. Dietrich, who served as Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister in the Breuning government, advocated constitutional reform, the abolition of democratic freedoms and the introduction of a "moderate dictatorship". Nevertheless, the authors see in this anti-democratic course only a desire to strengthen the Republican foundations of the Weimar political system .59 The State Party's policy of strengthening the executive power in every possible way against the enemies of the state "on the right" and" on the left " is fully approved by them. They particularly appreciate the plan of a "personal union" drawn up by the liberals in August 1931 between the head of the Prussian government, the Social Democrat O. Braun, and Reich Chancellor Breuning. According to this plan, Braun was to take up the post of vice-chancellor in the Breuning government; thus, it was supposed to revive the grand coalition at the imperial level, tie the SPD to the Breuning government, and eliminate the dualism between Prussia and the empire. This plan to establish an "authoritarian government on a parliamentary basis" failed, as did other attempts to save the republic through anti-republican methods. Characteristically, the plan called for direct intervention in Prussia by the imperial authorities and the creation of a directory headed by Breuning in case the SPD resisted. It is known that similar plans for Prussia were hatched by the right-wing forces, who sought to establish an open dictatorship, which is proved by the coup d'etat in Prussia, committed by Papen a year later.

V. Stefan, who headed the central secretariat of the Democratic Party from 1922 to 1929 and in subsequent years was a member of the governing bodies of this and later the State Party, wrote a semi-memoir and semi-investigative work on the history of the Democratic Party. Stefan criticizes the activities of the party leadership, reproaching it for not paying attention to the needs of the middle strata, for tactical mistakes in the coalition policy, in rallying all forces loyal to the republic. However, he considers the party-political evolution of the DP without reference to the main factors that determined the change in the course of this party - the aggravation of the class struggle in the country and pressure from influential organizations of big capital. Such essential questions as the party's sources of funding or the social structure of its constituents had no place in his book. The leitmotif of the author's argument is the absence of a figure equal to Schtrezeman at the head of the party. In his opinion, this circumstance had a special impact after 1928, when another unsuccessful election caused great confusion in the party leadership. Party Chairman Ye. Koch-Weser, according to Stefan, lost his sense of reality and, by joining the "Young German Order", changed the Naumann tradition .60 Stefan considers the rejection of liberal principles in the last years of the Weimar Republic to be a great misfortune for Russia.

57 Ibid., S. 38.

58 См. "Die biirgerlichen Parteien in Deutschland". Bd. I, S. 324.

59 E. Mallias, P. Morsey. Op. cit., S. 40 - 41.

60 W. Stepban. Aufstieg und Verfall des Linksliberalismus 1918 - 1933. Geschichte der Deutschen Demokratischen Partei. Gottingen. 1973, S. 502-503. See also the section on DP written by him in the Geschichte des deutschen Liberalismus.

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democrats, although he himself is responsible for the crisis in the politics and ideology of" left " liberalism 61 .

The political aspirations and ideology of the right wing of German liberalism are reflected in two works dedicated to T. Hayes, 62 who, as is well known, became the first president of Germany after the Second World War. Unlike the work of M. Ecksteins, in which Hayes is presented both as a politician and as an ideologue, J. Hess examines only ideology. He analyzes Hayes ' ideas about the possibility of reforms in the period before 1918, about the essence of the state, democracy, parliamentarism, and so on. It turns out that Hayes was in favor of moderate reforms, was opposed to radical structural changes in Wilhelm Germany. He was strongly opposed to the idea of Soviets and the abolition of the monarchy, but gradually got on the "ground of real facts", that is, reconciled to the establishment of the republican system. In trying to portray Hayes as a representative of the "democratic tradition"63 that was supposedly continued in West Germany after 1945 , Hess does not seek to define his place within the party. Meanwhile, such an analysis would show, as noted in the review of K. Wegner64. That Hayes ' emphasis on the role of the "leader" in the democratic system, his critical attitude to the "rule of parties" in the state, his desire for presidential rule in the final stage of the Weimar Republic, and his expansionist foreign policy program all correspond to the ideas of the influential right wing of the DP, grouped around Koch-Weser, Hoepker-Aschof,and others. G. Dietrich, G. Fischer. Hess himself admits that during the Weimar Republic, Hayes was not" primarily " a liberal, but became one only after the tragic lessons of Fascist rule in Germany .65
In their works on the liberal-democratic press of the Weimar Republic, W. Becker and G. Schwartz raise the problem of the responsibility of the bourgeois intelligentsia for the fate of the liberal ideology, the Republican regime, and the rise of the fascists to power. In fact, we are talking about newspapers that represented the position of the left wing of the DP: "Frankfurter Zeitung", "Vossische Zeitung", "Berliner Tageblatt". Becker sees the reason for the weakness of the liberal press in the "weak integrating power of the state", in the fact that the republic did not have "a solid foundation of universally recognized spiritual values" (which in reality was a reflection of class antagonisms), and finally in the crisis of liberal ideology, as a result of which the impact of democratic newspapers on the general public steadily decreased 66 . At the same time, Becker does not touch upon the socio-economic factors of this process, the evolution of liberalism itself in the face of the offensive of reactionary forces.

G. Schwartz examines the political views of T. Wolf, one of the founders of the DP, who sought to implement his concept of" social democracy " on the basis of a close alliance with the SPD. Wolf, of course, did not approve of the November Revolution, and all his efforts were aimed at reconciling the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, against any "revolutionary experiments". He saw the task of liberalism in Germany in mediating between the conservative camp and the social democrats. He preferred to abandon the completion of democratic reforms, so as not to provoke a socialist revolution.-

61 W. Stephan. Op. cit., S. 505.

62 M. Eksteins. Op. cit.; J. C. Hess. Theodor Heuss vor 1933. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des demokratischen Denkens in Deutschland. Stuttgart. 1973.

63 J. C. Hess. Op. cit., S. 10.

64 "Neue politische Literatur" (Stuttgart), 1975, N 2, S. 264 - 267,

65 J. C. Hess. Op. cit., S. 204, 209.

66 W. Becker. Op. cit., S. 210.

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Russian revolution 67 . The paper notes that Wolf's plans for rallying the "political middle" were unrealistic; he, like the DP as a whole, did not have an economic program that could attract the masses, and without it, all attempts to rally liberal forces were doomed to failure .68 After 1930, Wolf came out in support of Breuning, seeing in him the last pillar of the republican regime, pinned hopes on the SPD, that it would" once again " (as in 1918) save the capitalist system in the country. Wolf seemed to embody the main features of" left " liberalism in the Weimar Republic, with its inconsistency in the struggle for democratic transformation, inattention to the urgent needs of the working people, indecision, and commitment to legal, constitutional methods of defending bourgeois democracy.

These traits had a detrimental effect on the effectiveness of the struggle of the liberal bourgeoisie against the fascist danger. Schwartz notes that many bourgeois democrats realized too late the effectiveness of National Socialist demagogy against certain segments of the population and that they were, in fact, unable to put forward a program capable of mobilizing democratic forces to resist Nazism. Many of them saw Hitler as a temporary phenomenon, linked to the economic crisis and inflation. T. Wolf was the most consistent opponent of fascism, but he also saw National Socialism as a "kind of disease" that spread during the economic crisis. The Berliner Tageblatt newspaper, which he led, failed to give a correct assessment of the Nazi ideology. The liberals could not provide a decisive rebuff to fascism. They believed that the National Socialist " movement "would shatter against the principles and political foundations of the" democratic constitutional state", and that Hindenburg would prove to be a reliable guarantor of the constitutional regime .69
Anti-communism played a fatal role in the fate of liberalism and the Weimar Republic itself, preventing even the consistent democrats from among the bourgeois liberals from finding a true ally in the struggle against fascism and reaction. The pernicious attitude of fighting "to the right" and" to the left " weakened their positions, prevented them from creating a common front of struggle against the forces of reaction and for the democratic path of development of Germany. In some works, we can find recognition of this fact. Fighting both right and left forces, Schustereit notes- "fighting on all fronts" - undoubtedly weakened the liberal left. In addition to its constant concern for dissociating itself from the SPD and NP in ideology and politics, the DP fought on the left against the Independent Social Democratic Party (NSDAP) and the KKE, and on the right against the National Party and the NSDAP. According to Schustereit, the Economic Party, which took tens of thousands of votes from the DP in the elections, turned out to be an extremely dangerous opponent of the DP .

Bourgeois and reformist historians, as a rule, prefer not to touch on the problem of the united front of German liberalism with the left-wing social democrats and communists. There are only fragmentary statements on this subject. Thus, Becker believes that, despite the opposite political positions, the bourgeois Democrats (Wolf and others) had "points of contact and personal sympathies for the left: the Social Democrats who joined the NSDPG, and even Rosa Luxemburg." The objective reasons for this, writes Becker, were the closeness of views and goals (at least in part) in such situations.

67 G. Schwarz. Op. cit., S. 47, 86.

68 Ibid., S. 219.

69 Ibid., S. 260 - 265.

70 H. Schustereit. Op. cit., S. 227.

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issues such as the struggle against military danger, against reaction, and for the eradication of remnants of the former political regime .71 Schwartz actually acknowledges the political shortsightedness of Wolf, who put the NSDAP and the KKE on the same level as opponents of the Republican regime. Anti-communist prejudice obscured Wolff's view of the true extent of the danger posed by Nazism. He clearly underestimated the impact of Nazi propaganda on certain segments of the population, especially the petty bourgeoisie .72
Against the background of the protective concepts of bourgeois and right-wing socialist historiography, a notable phenomenon is the work of the progressive historian R. Opitz, which examines the history of the Democratic Party throughout its existence. This work reveals the social roots of German liberalism and characterizes its main function during the Weimar Republic-to integrate the proletariat and the non-monopolistic bourgeoisie into the system of big-capital rule. The author's thesis that the attempt to found a large liberal party in 1919 ended in failure as a result of insurmountable contradictions between the main groups of monopolistic capital - heavy industry and the new concerns of the chemical and electrical industries-deserves attention (although it needs further research). These same contradictions were the basis of a number of unsuccessful attempts to unite liberal forces in the following years.

Opitz explores the politics of the party's right wing, its growing focus on the monopolistic bourgeoisie and the abolition of the constitutional foundations of the Weimar regime. "The liberal legend about the destruction of Weimar parliamentary democracy by Communists and National Socialists,"Opitz writes," turns out to be a complete lie in the face of the fact that the call for the abolition of this system came from the capitalists themselves and the so-called "middle" parties... The desire of monopoly capital and its political organizations to eliminate parliamentary democracy was by no means a response to the strengthening of these "radical" parties; on the contrary, it was a consequence of the strengthening of the position of monopoly capital and its unwillingness to share its power (even formally) with the masses." It is not surprising, the author points out, that in the future the liberals could not put forward an alternative to the growing influence of national Socialism. 73
The Opic rightly considers the democratic trend that existed within liberalism as a tendency of certain circles of the non-monopoly bourgeoisie and intelligentsia to dissociate themselves from the ruling liberal elite in the main issues related to the protection of the interests of big capital, and to switch to truly democratic, anti-monopoly positions .74 This trend deserves much attention because it points to the objectively existing possibility of the most consistent bourgeois democrats moving towards an alliance with the working-class movement. They were drawn closer to the working class by the struggle against the preparation of war, which objectively formed the potential basis for an alliance of all anti-monopoly forces.

R. Kuehnl also evaluates the problems of German liberalism from positions close to Marxist ones. He pays special attention to criticism of the ideology and political practice of liberalism in Germany 75 .

71 W. Becker. Op. cit., S. 205.

72 G. Schwarz. Op. cit., S. 264.

73 R. Opitz. Der deutsche Sozialliberalismus. 1917 - 1933. Koln. 1973, S. 181 - 182, 263.

74 Ibid., S. 245.

75 R. Kiihnl. Deutschland zwischen Demokratie und Faschismus. Zur Problematik der biirgerlichen Gesellschaft seit 1918. Munchen. 1968; ejusd. Formen biirgerlicher Herrschaft. Liberalismus-Faschismus. Reinbeck bei Hamburg. 1971.

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Thus, the problem of the crisis of bourgeois liberalism in the years of the Weimar Republic continues to be a field of struggle between bourgeois-reformist and progressive trends in the historiography of the Federal Republic of Germany. Bourgeois and right-wing socialist authors interpret this problem primarily from the point of view of the idea of class cooperation, which corresponds to the current aspirations of monopolistic capital. The experience of German liberalism (although unsuccessful) in this respect is assessed by them as a "great merit", a "contribution to the discussion"76 about attracting the working class to a "constructive role" in the system of rule of the imperialist bourgeoisie. Most of them do not reveal the true causes of the crisis of liberalism, reducing them to factors of a subjective order. They use anti-communist arguments to distort the real line of demarcation between progressive and reactionary forces and thus obscure the problem of rallying the people against the real enemies of democracy and social progress. Under the influence of Marxist historical scholarship, a number of progressive authors oppose pseudo-liberal social-reformist concepts, expose the true perpetrators of the death of the Weimar Republic, and emphasize the historical role of the working class as the vanguard of the struggle for the interests of all working people.

76 W.Becker. Op. cit, S. 239.

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