ABSTRACT

The German Social Democratic leaders, who controlled the federal Government in coalition with the Liberals for thirteen years, had to fight repeated waves of a left-wing inner-party opposition standing for policies that would break up the coalition and put the party back in the wilderness. In the United States, where the two great parties used to boast of their nonideological character, both Democrats and Republicans have acquired increasingly visible ideological hues since the profound changes worked in the country's social and political system by Franklin Roosevelt's administrations. The problem we have raised appears akin to the old dispute between the advocates of "representative" and "plebiscitary" democracy, and the left-wing party militants generally tend to present it in that light. A modern mass party needs both a capacity for winning a majority and a core of ideological identity a capacity to govern democratically and a democratic responsibility to its followers.