ABSTRACT
Th e most conspicuous change in the Christian Democratic movement as a whole since 1880 has been the rise of the Christian Democratic political parties to a new power and authority. The most fundamental may well turn out to have been the incorporation into the movement of large new Protestant forces. But neither of these developments would have had anything approaching its actual importance if the political parties had not been reinforced by the rise alongside them of a range of social movements. This is above all true of the workers’ movements, which grew first and fastest, and in these two generations changed the whole atmo sphere of Christian Democratic thought and action. The rise of the workers’ youth movement, and especially of the Y.C.W., has been at least as important as that of the adult movements, and very possibly more so. This chapter will however deal only with the adult movements, leaving the youth movements, whether of the working or of other classes, to be dealt with in the chapter which follows.
