The forgotten book by Freud and Bullit
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The forgotten book by Freud and Bullit

Fanny Elman Schutt

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eBook - ePub

The forgotten book by Freud and Bullit

Fanny Elman Schutt

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About This Book

This book is for anybody who is interested in leaders and how they captivate others. It weaves together important events in the history of the 20th century and psychoanalytical concepts, in order to help us understand the mechanisms and psychical conflicts behind leadership and submission to leaders. In an example from our times, these phenomena can even lead to the extreme of suicidal fanaticism.?

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Publisher
Hakabooks
Year
2012
ISBN
9788415084778

CHAPTER I

“Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study”

Authors and main characters
in their political context

Unlike the heroes in Pirandello’s plays, who seek an author to run their lives, S. Freud, W. Wilson and W. C. Bullitt were the makers of their own destiny. It is difficult to come up with an original description of Freud’s relevance; let’s just say that the theories he developed at the beginning of the 20th century radically changed our way of understanding human beings. T. W. Wilson became President of the United States two years before the outbreak of the Great War in Europe. After the war, he put forward his proposals for an agreement that would lead to a peace without revenge, and guarantee a safer world. W. C. Bullitt, the least well known of these three men, was an American diplomat who was involved in a number of important historical events in the first half of the 20th century.
Freud never met Wilson although, as a European, he suffered the consequences of his influence on the Treaty of Versailles. Bullitt, on the other hand, did know Wilson personally. He was part of the Peace Commission and travelled to Europe with the American President, until he resigned because he didn’t agree with the Treaty that Wilson accepted.
The pages that follow are an attempt to link some episodes of the lives of these three characters with the eventful historical context of their time; to discuss the circumstances that surrounded the writing of Freud and Bullitt’s book about Wilson; and to trace the hazardous path that led to its publication in 1966. The last section of this chapter is a summary of the ideas contained within the book.

The main characters and their context

On 20 August 1909, S. Freud, C. Jung and S. Ferenczi boarded the George Washington and embarked upon what was to be Freud’s first and last trip to the United States. He had been invited to give some introductory conferences on psychoanalysis by Stanley Hall, Chairman and Director of the Clark University of Worcester, Massachusetts.
This trip across the Atlantic was the first time that Freud had discussed his theories on another continent. He needed psychoanalysis –the discipline he had created– to become as well known as possible, and the universities were one of the best available forums for advancing that aim. Thus psychoanalysis, whose influence had expanded from a meeting in Freud’s home known as “the Wednesday group” to several groups in different European countries, would take its first formal steps in North America.
At the beginning of the century the United States was the most important industrial producer worldwide, and drove a mass culture that would conquer the world in the 20th century3. The history of the United States, from the time of the first pioneers onwards, was one of immigrants that came to a new land looking for better prospects and embraced it as their new homeland. This trend intensified with industrialisation and technical progress. Many people from various countries emigrated to the United States, which became a melting pot of different ethnic groups, religions and cultural traditions. It was a society in which the people identified with the values of their new country, and its continuous trend of modernisation and progress, while at the same time trying to balance a diverse range of traditions.
The social and political landscape of the country reflected this same pattern: there was a balance between a marked religious influence in every sphere of life, and a constant legislative debate about immigration policy, coupled with an economic development policy based on liberal economics, exports and international trade.
In the cultural arena there was a marked interest in scientific, technical, literary or artistic novelties, and in the education of new generations.
In 1902, T. W. Wilson had already gained some renown in American university and literary circles because of his writings on history and politics. His teaching career reached its peak when he was elected President of Princeton University. In that post he implemented a series of deep reforms, which put him on the map and propelled him to the start of his political career. In 1910, he was elected Governor of New Jersey, and in less than two years he was nominated as Democrat candidate for the Presidency of the United States. He won the election on 5 November 1912, which meant the return of the Democrats to power after more than 20 years of Republican rule.
Wilson’s intellectual and political career was influenced by the ideas of a number of outstanding liberal politicians. He especially admired Edward Gladstone (1809-1898), leader of Britain’s Liberal Party between 1859 and 1884, who was known for having implemented reforms such as the separation of Church and State in Ireland, and the introduction of free and compulsory education in 1891. Gladstone was a champion of equality, and of a series of ideas that greatly inspired Wilson. When Wilson assumed the US Presidency, the core of his programme was a series of progressive reforms known as The New Freedom, based on tackling monopolies and creating economic opportunities for small businesses through drastic reductions in custom duties, banking reform and strict anti-trust legislation. Back then, he was only interested in domestic affairs and nothing pointed towards the important role that he would later play in international relations.
At the beginning of the century, the situations in Europe and America were quite different. Europe viewed itself not just as the centre of the world, but as the centre of the universe. It was, economically, a capitalist civilisation, liberal in its legal structure and its constitutions, bourgeois in the image of its ruling class, and brilliant in the realms of science, knowledge, education and material and moral progress4.
The stability of European monarchies and the slow structural change of its political structures could not be more different from the dramatically fast change under way in other areas: with the birth of the new mass media and better transport infrastructures, distances became shorter and changes multiplied faster. Next to traditional powers such as emperors, kings, priests, family and law, appeared a new class of industrialists whose activities created a new economic scenario and labour structure. Many trades disappeared in less than a generation as more and more products started being produced on assembly lines.
The impacts of all this were different for each layer of society. For the relatively affluent middle class –the traders and professionals– this was a rich and stimulating context. For the aristocracy it was disconcerting and threatening, because they were loosing status and social influence. For the less fortunate classes it meant even more poverty and grief.

The First World War

Historians agree that the spark that ignited the First World War was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But that incident in itself, despite its seriousness, would not have had such dramatic consequences had it not been for the precarious balance of forces between the European powers, and the existence of conflicts over territorial interests and colonial expansion that had been fomenting for a long time.
In any case, after the assassination on 28 July 1914, Austria declared war on Serbia.
The Great War shattered forever the romantic spirit still present in previous armed conflicts. There had not been a war involving all of the major European superpowers for a century, and since the end of the Crimean War (1854-1856) there had not been armed cross-border conflicts within in Europe, although admittedly there had been frequent armed expeditions against weaker overseas enemies.
In the pre-war period, most confrontations within the continent had to do with custom duties relating to the colonies, and were generally resolved through pacts and alliances. Those alliances had shaped two big blocs of European nations: the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, and the Triple Entente between France, Great Britain and Russia.
Austria’s declaration of war against Serbia in July 1914 ignited the mobilisation of those two alliances. Other countries, such as Belgium, joined in later, followed by the United States in 1917.
The powers that started the Great War initially thought it would be a quick conflict, but it lasted for four long years, during which time their populations suffered terribly. The fighting went beyond the usual battlefields and trenches; it extended to cities, civilians and the most secluded little towns. There was war in the sky and in the oceans. The destruction, hunger and horror swept through all of Europe. But the war’s consequences were later perceived as being even worse than the direct ravages it caused.

Wilson and the war

The outbreak of the war in Europe posed a challenge for Wilson’s leadership in foreign affairs, since the majority of the US people were neutral and, as long as their rights were not being violated, they preferred to remain so. This general opinion had its roots in the idiosyncrasy of the US as a society rather than in a pacifist strategy. As we mentioned before, for better or worse, the United States’ population kept a balance between holding on to the identity of their cultures of origin and their determination to build a new world that broke with their European roots. After all, the very existence of the nation had been achieved after a painful War of Independence whose marks were still present for American citizens. The relatively recent shock of the American Civil War, which had nearly shattered their common democratic new project, was still in their minds.
The cumulative effect of these experiences was that the US connection with the Old Continent (economics aside) was more of an emotional than a practical one. Europe was still considered to be the source and centre of cultural and artistic expression, but European affairs seemed distant from and barely relevant to US development. It could be said, in short, that American nationalism was based, firstly, on political isolationism and a lack of concern about foreign affairs and, secondly, on a sense of being “new” and having largely detached from the former metropole5.
There were, however, two issues that overturned the initial lack of involvement of US politicians with the European war: the fall in sea-trade profits with Europe, and the significant threat that the risk of German submarine attack posed to the US merchant fleet, which supplied food to Great Britain. Numerous sea clashes shattered the illusion that neutrality could keep the US safe from a potential attack. German aggression at sea was the main argument used to justify the US entering the war.
Obviously, US participation in the war had an impact on its results. Firstly, the US Navy, which was technologically superior, supported the British with the ships needed to overcome the German submarine threat in autumn 1917. Secondly, the US Army had deployed four million soldiers in France by September 1918. This sizeable contribution tilted the balance of the war in favour of the Allies and helped them to end the war in November 1918, a year sooner than they had predicted. Meanwhile, Wilson had been re-elected in 1916. In his campaign for the White House he had presented a programme based on ideas even more progressive than the ones he had defended in his first term. The most important of those pledges, and the one that secured his renown, was the creation of the League of Nations. This is the project he was most involved with after his re-election.
Eager to end the war in Europe and restore harmony, Wilson called upon France, Great Britain and Germany to engage in a Peace Conference under his auspices. On 22 January 1917 he had delivered a solemn speech to the US Senate, where he called for a “peace without victory” to be implemented by a League of Nations, which the United States would support and be part of. He tirelessly reiterated this plan in his “War Message”, where he also stated that the intention of the United States was, above all, that the world “be made safe for democracy”. When French and British leaders declined to join him in drafting a consensus on the guidelines for peace, he addressed Congress again and gave his famous “Fourteen Points” speech. In fact, this address spelt out the fundamental objectives of what he would consider to be his “mission” from that point onwards. He offered himself as an independent mediator between the parties to the conflict and proposed that the “Fourteen Points” –a manifesto of Wilson’s ideas on foreign policy that advocated the real-life application of the ethics of democracy to international relations– became the basis of the future peace negotiations.
For Wilson, the long-term aim was precisely to create a new world order based on the principle of collective security, an order that would draw its power from the strength of international public opinion, and would have the League of Nations as a forum for interaction between a new community of nations.
With this purpose in mind, Wilson formally presented his proposal to the European parties to the conflict on 15 January 1919 during the plenary session of the Paris Peace Conference.

Wilson’s peace

The “Fourteen Points” of Wilson’s initial proposal were based on the principles of democracy, equality and freedom, which he believed would make future wars impossible. The first point stated that all parties to a conflict should refrain from drafting or signing pacts or treaties in secret. The idea behind this was that conflicts would be dealt with publicly, face-to-face, in the great forum that the League of Nations would become. The fourteenth point was the creation of the League of Nations.
It followed from that assumption that everyone was committed to fair play. The second and third points talked about freedom of navigation and freedom of trade respectively. The seas belonged to all humanity and therefore would be an international domain, with no country permitted to restrict access to them by foreign ships. The third point, on free trade, also mentioned trade by sea.
The fourth point called for drastic disarmament, whilst the remaining points dealt with the conditions of territorial integrity that ought to be respected. In short, there should be no further colonial expansion in overseas territories and the existing colonies should be redistributed without overlooking their Indigenous Peoples’ preferences. Within Europe, Germany should cease its occupation of Belgium, parts of Russia, Romania, Montenegro and Serbia which would re-gain access to sea. Poland would become a separate State and would gain access to the sea, and the parts of Turkey that used to belong to the Ottoman Empire would also gain their independence. The countries that used to belong to the Austro-Hungarian Empire would become independent nations, and France would regain Alsace-Lorraine.
The reactions came fast. In Europe the proposal was welcomed with scepticism, because officially accepting Wilson’s blueprint for peace meant giving up on the striking of secret deals. Russia, which had already undergone the Bolshevik Revolution, called it the “foggy programme of a swindler politician” and described Wilson as “a prophet of American imperialism”. The German government declared that Wilson’s aim was to confuse the Russians and weaken Germany’s morale, and openly questioned his sincerity.
However, the fact that Germany was more exhausted than its enemies and was losing the war, made it attractive for Berlin to sign Wilson’s moderate proposal for an armistice based on the Fourteen Points.

The Peace Conference and its participants

The turning point in the First World War was the above-mentioned Paris Peace Conference. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919, in the matchless setting of the Hall of Mirrors, after five months of negotiations and with the attendance of the representatives of twenty-seven nations. Germany, as the defeated power, was not invited.
The four main negotiators were the Democrat Woodrow Wilson, the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George (a liberal), the French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, and the Italian Prime Minister, Emmanuele Vittorio Orlando.
G. Clemenceau was, as far as the French were concerned, the Father of Victory. He was 78 years old and had been in politics for over half a century. More than fifty years in opposition meant he had a lot of experience in overthrowing ministers and starting flaming campaigns in the press, but he did not have quite so much experience in actually ruling a country. Although he had been Prime Minister between 1906 and 1909, Clemenceau was not really regarded as a solid leader until 1917. He was blatantly “realist” and pragmatic, and openly showed his contempt for ideologies. In the debates of the Peace Conferences he was the tireless harasser he had always been: incisive, caustic, and very skilled in defeating his adversaries. He was capable of showing up...

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