346 organization to effect greater operational efficiency, the counseling service was de- signed to promote better organization from the point of view of employee morale. These two points of view were harmonized in the common goal of both management and the workers, productivity, which was important to both for psychological as well as economic reasons. In the research concerning the interaction of the individual and the social situation, carried on through the Counseling Service, industrial society was the frame of reference. While the Counseling Service was developed by the trial and error process, bending to the necessities of each operational situation, certain hypotheses concerning industrial so- AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW ciety and the individual’s adjustment within it emenged a5 framework of the program. These, briefly stated, are as folows: in dustrial society the individual’s basio per- sonality structure is integrated through his productive activity; cultural conditioning in a different sub-culture pattern or in a non- industrial society may block adjustment and prevent adequate social interaction; and the community influences but does not de- termine the worker's adjustment, The re- peated success of the counselors’ analyses and recommendations as judged by indi val adjustment and by the increased efficien- cy of the work units suggests the validity of these hypotheses. OBSERVATIONS ON THE SOCIOLOGY OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS* Ruvotr HEserce Louisiana State University INTRODUCTION HE EXPERIENCE of two world wars, Ts revolutions in Russia and Ger- many thirty years ago, the rise and fall of Mussolini and Hitler, the Civil War in China, the expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence into the very heart of Europe and the ensuing tensions between the par- tisans of capitalism, socialism and com- munism have aroused an intensified interest in the study of those forces and factors which have contributed to the present crisis of Western society. Among these are, of foremost importance, those patterns of con- certed social action and more or less organ- ized groups which are commonly referred to as social and political “movements.” ‘The conventional approach to the study of these phenomena has been a historical and philosophical study of the ideas or *Paper read at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Society held in Chicago, De- cember 28-30, 1048, “theories.” ‘These were interpreted and analyzed as if they were systems of philoso- phy; they were submitted to critical evalua- tion in terms of empirical truth, logical consistency, and ethical standards. Not much attention was paid to the meaning of these ideas to the masses of people who made up the movement or party, or to the social structure of these groups, oF to related prob- lems of sociological relevance. In more recent years, however, these neg- lected aspects have received more atten- tion. This, I believe, is due, apart from the influence of mass and crowd psychology, to the example of the sociology of political parties, which began with the study of the caucus and boss rule and seems to have been stimulated by the discovery of oligarchic tendencies even in parties standing for de- mocracy* and by the observation of simi- larities in structure and in tactics between ‘Robert Michels, Political Porties, new ed. of transl, The Free Press, 1049.‘THE SOCIOLOGY OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS the Communist and the Fascist parties and regimes. ‘The methods which have been used in this field can also be applied in the study of social movements, In doing this we are aim- ing at the development of a comparative, systematic theory of social movements with- in a more comprehensive system of political sociology. ‘The main justification for this undertak- ing is that movements with very different aims and doctrines have many traits in com- mon in regard to organization, structure, and tactics, just as modern political parties, irrespective of their programs, have certain traits in common. Furthermore, it is well recognized that movements which aim at comprehensive and radical changes in the order of a society spring up in certain typical situations, a fact which permits mak- ing certain generalizations concerning their “causation.” It is a difficult field in which little sys- tematic theoretical work has been done? *he present state of sociological literature on this matter in this country may be indicated by the fact that there are, 50 far as T know, only three or four recent books which attempt a more for less comprehensive treatment of social move- ments. About twenty years ago Professor Jerome Davis ‘of Yale wrote what he thought was “the first text- book on modem social movements to be published in America” (Contemporary Social Movements, p. ix, 1930). Tt was and stil is a very useful col- lection of documents, sources and readings on Socialism, Communism, Fascism, the co-operative movement, the British Labor Movement with lances at’the Labor Movement in US.A.; but it begins with six chapters on Utopias and concludes with several chapters on the Peace Movement— & somewhat incongruous selection. There is also an introduction in which the author develops some seneral principles concerning the origin and de- velopment of social movements, leadership and social control, and a great deal of connecting text Detween the readings. In all faimess to the author it must be stid that he does not give a compre- hensive, methodical, comparative sociological analy- sis of social movements, nor was it his intention to do this, Harry W. Laidler’s Social-Economic Movements (1946) {s a useful reference book on Socialism and the Socialist movement, including Syndicalism and Communism, but it contains very little informa- tion on organization, structure, tactics, leadership 347 And yet it is a field in which we can lean not only on a vast literature but also on ‘one of the oldest traditions in our science. In fact, it may be claimed that the study of social movements has been one of the origins of sociology. France has been the classical field for the study of social movements. The Great Revo- lution itself in its various phases and the subsequent revolutions and counter-revolu- tions, each accompanied by a change in the form of government, inevitably gave incen- tive to inquiries into the causes of such changes and therefore led to the develop- ment of general theories on the structure and change of society. But France also had become, by 1830, the breeding ground of Secialistic and Communistic theories, A cen- tury will have passed this year since a Ger- man scholar, Lorenz von Stein, in his and other sociologically relevant aspects, nor does Laidler attempt an analysis of the societal origins and the socio-psychological foundations of those movements, ‘The latter are the central subject in Hadley Cantril’s Psychology of Social Movements, 1041. This, however, is a series of case studies rather than a systematic comparative theory of social movements. The selection of “cases” (the Lynch- ing Mob, the Kingdom of Father Divine—a religious sect—the Oxford group, the Townsend Plan and the Nazi Party), while useful for the author's pur- poses, is inadequate from a sociological point of views there is not enough on the organization and structure of the movements and no methodical con- sideration of their relations to political parties. The fourth book that comes closest to the type ‘of approach I have in mind is Sigmund Neumann's Permanent Revolution, 1o42—an excellent study of Fascism and Nazism with side-glances at Russian Communism and Western democracy. It deals with the institutions of regimes as well as with the dynamics of the political movements. For a survey of American Ph.D. theses on social movements see: Paul Meadows “Theses on Social Movements,” Social Forces, Vol. 24, May 1046, Dp. 408-4125 also references to articles by Meadows, ‘A report on undergraduate studies in this field is given in J. Stewart Burgess, “The Study of ‘Modern Social’ Movements as a Means for Clarify- ing the Process of Social Action” Social Forces, vol. 22, March, 1944. See’also Herbert Blumer, “Social Movements” in Robert E. Park (ed.), An Outline of the Prin- ciples of Sociology, New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc, 1939 and 1946.348 Geschichte der Socialen Bewegung Frank- reichs seit 1789, expressed the idea that these “Social Theories” were no longer of significance, except as “indications and fore- runners of impending greater developments” (edition of 1855, p. vi). What really matters will, from now on, be the actual movements of the proletariat, which Stein calls The Social Movement.’ The purpose of Stein’s work is to analyze the causation and de- velopment of this movement and to show that ways and means of integrating the pro- letariat into society must be found, if a “social” revolution much more catastrophic than the previous “political” revolution of the bourgeoisie is to be forestalled. Reform and revolution are thus presented as alter- native ways of adjusting the form of govern- ment and the legal order to the changing order of society. The social movement, in other words, needs not to culminate in a revolution (p. Ixxii, also p. exxiv ff, Stein was already well known as the author of the first comprehensive work on Socialism and Communism in France, which was published in 1842 and must have had influence upon Karl Marx. In this work Stein had treated those doctrines in the conventional way, analyzing them like sys- tems of philosophy. But already in the second edition, which appeared in the fate- ful year of 1848 Stein made the remarkable statement that the real significance of So- cialism and Communism is to induce in- quiries into the concept and nature of so- ciety.* Consequently, the later work begins with an introduction entitled “The Concept "This is not the place to discuss Stein’s critique of Socialism and Communism or his own program ‘of social reform, although it would be interesting enough in the light of later developments in Ger- ‘many and in regard to the present ion in USA. See Heinz Nitzschke, Die Geschichtsphilosophic Lorens von Steins, Munich Berlin, 1932, and Gott- fried Salomon's “Vorwort” in Lorenz’ von Stein, Geschichte der Socialen Bewegung Frankreichs, ed. by G. Salomon, Munich 1921. “Der Socialismus und Communismus des heuti- gen Fronkreicks, second edition, Leipzig, 1848. About ‘Marn’s relation’ to Stein see: Heinz Nitaschke of. tp. asf AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW of Society and the Law of its Movement” which is a small book in itself. Here we find a theory of revolution, as distinguished from other anti-authoritarian actions, and a distinction between various types of revolu- tion, Here we also find a very realistic analysis of the class structure of modern ‘Western society and the struggle of classes for power. ‘The significance of Stein’s ideas for our discussion lies in two points: (1) he makes a clear conceptual distinction between the theoretical systems or doctrines on the one hand, and the actual social movement on the other hand, and (2) he ascribes to the study of The Social Movement a central place in his system of sociology. Not only is the emer- gence of The Social Movement given as the reason why a science of society is needed, but Stein’s entire system is really built around the analysis of the origin and move- ments of the social classes and their in- fiuence upon the forms of government. In developing these principles, Stein set the pattern which all the outstanding sociological treatises on Socialism and Communism were going to follow, and Karl Marx’s designa- tion of all those systems as “Utopian” which did not relate the ideal of a communistic society to the emancipation of the pro- letariat is very likely also a fruit of Stein’s work. As late as 1919 Werner Sombart, who in the past 50 years has been one of the outstanding authorities in this field, defined Socialism (and Communism) as the intel- lectual-spiritual expressions of the Modern Social Movement, and the latter as the synthesis (Jnbegrif) of all emancipation efforts of the proletariat, as the practical attemps to realize the ideal goal of social- ism? THE CONCEPT: “SOCIAL MOVEMENT” — ‘THE STRUCTURAL ASPECTS From this tradition we can retain the idea that a genuine social movement is an attempt "Ibid, p. cox. ‘Werner Sombart, Sosialismus and Sosiale Bewegung, 1919, pp. 1, 11. See also his later work: Der Proletarische Sosialismus, Jena, 1925.