According to the former French socialist prime minister Guy Mollet, the Christian democratic movement as a political force “should not exist at all” because of the significant heterogeneity of its social composition: a combination of both employers and workers. However, it is precisely this diversity that is the secret of success and one of the strongest points of Christian democracy, which retains the ability to gain support from all social groups.

When elections to the Bundestag were held in Germany in December 1990 for the first time since the country’s reunification, the CDU/CSU bloc won the support of the electorate, which in sociological terms corresponded to the demographics of all social groups and classes. Such cross-class Christian democracy persists in other countries, including Latin America.

Such values of Christian democracy as responsibility, which implies the priority of the common good, subsidiarity, which implies that the state authorities should not interfere in the affairs of local communities without asking for such assistance, and solidarity based on the principle of “One for all, all for one” are the basis of Christian democratic social policy.

It is complemented by respect for work and its results, social justice, and a social market economy. The latter is an invention of Christian democrats. According to its principles, economic policy should be regulated by the state, not just by the laws of the market. The state should support not only large corporations, but also the middle class and small owners. The redistribution of social resources should be aimed at supporting the most socially vulnerable groups in society. The state should stimulate the disappearance of poverty.

Christian democrats build their social policy on the basis of a welfare state, morality, and respect for human rights, which is perceived as a being created in the likeness of God.

The most important tasks of Christian democratic socio-economic social policy include:

– protecting citizens from poverty and creating conditions for a decent life for all;

– creating groups of solidarity and mutual assistance, as one person cannot cope with social challenges alone;

– maintaining social balance, social peace and support for justice.

The left likes to maintain the myth that they have a monopoly on protecting the rights of workers and the working class, but a significant role in this belonged to Christian trade unions and the Church, which worked quietly to improve the situation of employees, avoiding propaganda of class hatred.

Social policy in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, and other countries where Christian Democrats have been in power demonstrates the creation of high-quality living conditions for human and social development and well-being.

Author: Valeriy Maydanyuk

For a person of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Christian parties with their almost complete infrastructure-their own professional associations, a network of charitable and philanthropic organizations, their own press, and close relations with priests at the parish level-became a kind of substitute for the “lost world” of traditional societies.

Nineteenth-century Europe was changing radically. Industrialization and urbanization were destroying the world of traditional societies. The way of life of a person in the pre-industrial era was radically different from today. All life and social activities were concentrated in relatively small groups, where tradition and religion played an important role.

In traditional societies, paternalistic ties between individuals and their communities, guilds, church parishes, and large landowners created informal institutions of social stability. The connection with these institutions was a guarantee of a stable existence for a person and his or her children. Freedom in these conditions was perceived not as an opportunity but as a threat of separation from social institutions.

The destruction of the traditional world and the weakening of human connection with traditional institutions led to a sense of abandonment, loneliness, and nostalgic longing for the “lost world” for most people.

For most of these people, modern political ideologies were alien or incomprehensible. In fact, the emergence of Christian parties was one of the signs of the crisis of the liberal-conservative paradigm of the nineteenth century. New groups came to politics, not satisfied with the old ideas.

Liberalism, with its appeal to freedom and its call for the rejection of paternalistic institutions, was too radical. The liberal respect for individualism went against Christian conciliarity. Lengthy parliamentary procedures and respect for the law seemed to be just a screen to hide the selfish interests of a few individuals.

Christian parties were separated from socialism by their attitude toward religion-almost all socialist movements became atheistic. The socialists’ call for the creation of a radically new system went against the “existential nostalgia” for the lost traditional world. At the end of the nineteenth century, separate groups of Christian socialists emerged in almost all European countries-from Lisbon and London to St. Petersburg and Bucharest. However, these groups were extremely uninfluential and failed to become the basis of a mass movement.

It seemed that conservatism should be a natural refuge for these people. However, as practice has shown, conservatism was able to absorb these sentiments only in those countries where parliaments played a prominent role. In these countries, conservative parties, trying to broaden their support base, appealed to ordinary citizens and somehow protected their interests. A classic example of this practice is the activities of the Conservative Party of Great Britain.

In most European countries, conservatism crystallized around ruling dynasties and dominant social strata. Conservatism treated the moods of the great masses with aristocratic superiority, perceiving them as plebeian and low. The gradual increase in the rights of parliaments and the expansion of suffrage led to the formation of huge electoral groups that were alien to the liberalism of big capital, “godless cosmopolitan” socialism, and the conservatism of aristocratic circles.

It was on the basis of such sentiments of the great masses that the first Christian parties of the nineteenth century began to emerge.

In Belgium, the Catholic Party was founded in 1869. In 1870, the Anti-Liberal Party was formed in Germany, later renamed the Center Party. In the Netherlands, the Anti-Revolutionary Party was finally formed in 1879. In 1893, the Christian Social Party was founded in Austria.

Appealing to religion proved to be a rather successful practice. Within a short time, Christian parties gained considerable electoral support. The positions of Christian parties were strengthened by the fact that over time, the leaders of these parties began to create Christian trade unions, youth associations, and numerous Christian aid committees. It is the social work of the parties that contributes to the fact that the electorate of Christian parties is the most consolidated and magnetized. Despite their religiosity and spontaneous monarchism, Christian parties’ relations with church institutions and monarchies have not been partnerships.

In the Netherlands, for example, the Anti-Revolutionary Party came into ideological conflict with the liberal leadership of the Calvinist Church and eventually formed their own church structure.

In Austria, a representative of the Christian Social Party won the mayoral elections in Vienna several times, but did not receive a mandate from the emperor, which led to the actual annulment of the municipal elections.

In the newly formed German Empire, Chancellor Otto Bismarck, believing that the inhabitants of the empire should be Germans first and Catholics second, launched the so-called “war for culture” (Kulturkampf). The Kulturkampf was aimed at weakening Catholic communities. However, the Kulturkampf further consolidated the Catholic community in Germany. In particular, the Center Party strengthened its cooperation with Catholic organizations. Of particular importance was the Center’s alliance with parties that were also associated with Catholicism: “The Bavarian People’s Party and the Catholic People’s Party in Baden. The consolidation of Catholic circles in the German Empire actually led to the first political defeat of the “Iron Chancellor.”

The relationship between the church hierarchy and Christian political movements in purely Catholic countries was even more complicated: Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. Although it seemed that there was an opportunity for the formation of powerful popular Christian movements, this did not happen in the nineteenth century. This phenomenon can be explained by the official position of the Catholic Church. For a long time, the Roman throne condemned the participation of Catholics in politics, parliamentary elections, and democracy in general. These phenomena were considered destructive and anti-canonical, and the right to power was recognized only for the “God-given sovereign.”

For example, in Italy, the Roman Curia officially opposed the participation of Catholics in elections until 1913. The activities of many societies that tried to reconcile the interests of the church and political forces also did not find support from the clergy.

It was only during the reign of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) that the Catholic Church began to gradually change its attitude toward politics. In his encyclicals, Leo XIII called on Catholics to engage in active social work to eliminate social distortions and to create Catholic relief committees. The encyclicals of Leo XIII “Rerum Novarum” and “Graves de Communi Re” formed the so-called “social doctrine of the Catholic Church”. Catholics began to actively form relief committees, trade unions, rural banks, cooperatives, youth organizations, and the corporate press. The Catholic Church began to pay considerable attention to the creation of a network of Sunday schools, which was extremely important in the context of limited access to education in the late nineteenth century. Although the papacy continued to oppose the creation of Catholic parties, the participation of Catholics in elections was no longer condemned.

It is precisely because of this position of the Roman Curia that Christian parties began to be created in the most Catholic countries only in the twentieth century. In particular, contrary to the position of church hierarchs, Catholic priest Luigio Sturzo created the Italian People’s Party.

Christian parties were also formed in France, Ireland, Poland, Yugoslavia, Spain, Czechoslovakia, and Portugal, but the late start of their creation and the lack of initiative on the part of their leadership led to the fact that these parties did not develop into powerful organizations. The late creation of Christian parties had the most negative impact on the political development of the Iberian countries. Due to the religious specificity of the political culture, Christian parties could have acted as a stabilizing factor in the political system. However, due to the absence of such parties, both Spain and Portugal have long balanced between radical left and extreme right forces, which led to a long period of political dictatorships.

Author: Konstantin Kanishev

Most ideologies have their own ideal of a “bright future” – a utopia of a perfect society where progress will reign, there will be no destructive forces, and everyone will live in harmony. Only conservatism does not tell adults seductive fairy tales about an ideal world.

Communism seduced by building a society of equality and prosperity, where there would be no money, no power, and no private property. Left-wing liberalism offers a utopia where there will be no discrimination, numerous differences between people will disappear, and everyone will become gender neutral and tolerant. Libertarians propose to build a world without borders and states, to get rid of taxes and give everything to the market, after which the desired freedom should come. Social democracy, anarchism, feminism, and environmentalism with Greta Thunberg offer their own recipes for an ideal system.

Conservatives do not deceive people with stories that an ideal world can be built. They do not call for killing “enemies of progress and the people” by the millions, as the communists did. They do not call on humanity to abandon energy sources, destroy environmentally harmful technologies, and move to an idyll of gathering and harmony with nature, as eco-fascists propose. They do not call for the prohibition and destruction of “inferior” or “wrong” social groups. In building the future, conservatives advise paying attention to the experience of past generations of human civilization. If no one on any continent has yet succeeded in building an ideal society of equality and justice, then there is no need to force people to strive for it and kill everyone on the way to a utopian ideal. Or at least, we should not rape human nature to fit someone else’s illusory ideals, usually armchair theorists who have no idea about real humanity. The USSR, North Korea, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, or modern aggressive movements are clear examples of why utopias are harmful.

But this does not mean that conservatism does not have a single model, if not an ideal, then at least an adequate society whose standards are worth striving for. Such an “ideal” certainly exists in conservatism, though, unlike other ideologies, it is in a more rational and realistic format.

Conservatives advise to build a happy future on the basis of preserving everything good and effective that has proven its usefulness over the decades. Preserving democracy, instead of replacing it with a minority dictatorship; preserving freedom of speech, instead of censorship and silencing those who have their own human rights-guaranteed opinion; preserving public morality and family values, instead of rampant moral relativism; preserving national identity, instead of nations disappearing into the melting pot of modern internationalism. The formula for an ideal conservative future is based on preserving the existing achievements of democracy, civil rights and freedoms, while increasing the economic well-being of the population, strengthening morality, order and stability.

Between the good and the utopian, conservatives choose the good. Conservatives do not believe in the realism of the utopian not because they do not want to build an ideal society, but because they maintain a rational, sober, critical and, most importantly, based on civilizational experience view of society and its development trends. Conservatives simply know that utopias are not possible because human nature remains imperfect, despite the emergence of smartphones and electric cars. Between a good job and an online casino, a conservative chooses a good job. And between populist promises to end the war tomorrow, overcome corruption and join the EU by the evening and thoughtful democratic reforms based on the rule of law, a conservative chooses the latter.

Because a conservative thinks like an adult, does not believe in beautiful promises, and focuses only on real deeds.

Author: Valeriy Maydanyuk