Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen · 1909
Schullern’s brief review of Michels’s Il Proletariato e la Borghesia nel movimento socialista Italiano presents the book as a revised and expanded Italian translation of studies previously published in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. Its central methodological ambition is to establish party history as an empirical sociological field:
Der Verfasser will damit einen neuen wissenschaftlichen Gegenstand, die „analytische Geschichte der politischen Parteien“, als einen Zweig der „angewandten Soziographie“ schaffen, dessen Existenzberechtigung er in der kurzen Vorrede dartut.
English translation: With this the author seeks to create a new scientific subject, the "analytical history of political parties", as a branch of "applied sociography", whose right to exist he sets forth in the short preface.
Because German-speaking specialists already know the substance, Schullern limits his account to the chapter structure and selected points of interest. These move from the Italian section of the International Workingmen’s Association, including Garibaldi’s relations with socialism, to the Italian Socialist Party and its social composition. The review foregrounds the party’s university connections: Michels estimates that roughly sixty Italian university teachers openly belong to it and another eighty sympathize. The shortage of agrarian leaders, alongside the predominance of urban intellectuals in leadership, directs attention to the uneven social representation within the movement.
Von großem Interesse ist auch der Abschnitt über das intellektuelle Proletariat Italiens.
English translation: The section on the intellectual proletariat of Italy is also of great interest.
This emphasis makes the relation between intellectuals and proletarians the review’s most distinctive thematic thread. Subsequent chapters examine the socialist electorate and proletarian voters; the conclusion considers how Italy’s particular social structure shapes the movement and its developmental tendencies. Schullern offers endorsement rather than detailed methodological criticism: the book’s relevance rests on its abundant instructive material and its linkage of party development to social composition.
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