The search for the ideal citizen's model in the British society on the eve of the Second World War

After the Great War it seemed that the democratic idea would have triumphed in Europe forever. But by 1939 the liberal-democratic regimes had survived only in 13 out of 29 countries. Britain was one of those countries. In spite of this, not without the influence of the experience of totalitarian states, in the 1930s, for the first time in British history, the issue of the need for social and political propaganda among the population (especially among youth) was raised. It was the issue of the conveyance of a well-defined "political philosophy". But due to the fact that "propaganda" and "indoctrination" presented a frightening sense, the British preferred to talk about civic or liberal education. The search for the ideal of the citizen-democrat, corresponding with the terms of the twentieth century, became part of the discussion that took place at different levels of the public and state structures. An understanding of "citizenship", formulated by Professor Richard Winn Livingston, came into widespread acceptance: a "good citizen" is like a "good soldier"; he serves as part of the body, and, if necessary, sacrifices his life and carries out his duties to the state on his own free will. Truly, in the "era of totalitarianism" most people preferred to talk about person's duties not to the state but to the fellow citizens, to society. Another image of the citizen-democrat's ideal was introduced by the Council for the Curriculum Reform which treated the democratic way of life as a combination of the Roman feeling for law, the Christian love and brotherhood, the medieval respect for reason, the seventeenth-century pursuit of empiricism and science, and, not the least, the passion for the social justice and social equality which inspired the reformers of the 18th and 19th centuries. In the time of crisis there was a desire to convince people that they were to blame themselves, and therefore they should engage in self-improvement. A well-known European thinker Karl Mannheim, who emigrated from Germany to England in 1933, opposed the reanimation of the liberal theory and its postulates, according to which the purpose of education is a free development of internal qualities of a free person. The sociologist believed that it is impossible to be a good Christian in a society in which the basic laws contradict the spirit of Christianity. Therefore he defended the process of social changes and those virtues and values that can provide it: brotherly love, mutual assistance, honesty, social justice, freedom and respect for the individual. At the same time, in order to survive, democracy must become "militant", and therefore it must produce individuals who are advanced and militant, but not fanatical. The search for the ideal of the citizen and ways for his training, widely spread in British society on the eve of war, eased the preservation of social stability that was so needed in the UK during its more than five-year fight against the Nazi Germany.

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